Warm rainy days

Warm rainy days are the best! Getting my boys together to take a picture together though is as hard as trying to put opposite ends of magnets together. 

Mommy moment

This never happens. Since she was a baby she's always liked her own space to sleep. Plus she's a mover, rolling from one side to the other. But this morning she fell back asleep in my arms. Now it's 10 am and although I should be getting up, I refuse to get out of bed. I'm just going to lay here soaking in this mommy moment. 

Tall king

"Mom, I have to sleep in your bed again tonight because I did last night and I grew while I was sleeping. I think your bed makes me get taller."  He thinks my king size bed will make him a king. I'm just happy that I get to have him as my little prince for now. 

Living Red Dirt

Why is it that red dirt never gets old? We could sense the electricity in the air as we watched the lightening in the distance and hiked around the rocky red Sedona desert on a breezy, cloudy day. The new environmental signs told us to please not step on the dirt because we might break the crust and it would take decades to rebuild. Wait....don't step on the dirt?!? Next it will say don't breathe the air because we may inhale living bacteria that are beneficial to the atmosphere! Thank goodness we have a rebel grandma to lead us off the trails and through the dirt. Gasp! As my kids ran through the red dirt and up the rosy boulders they laughed and played and enjoyed the beautiful earth that was created for us. We were smashing all those little creatures on the ground and we didn't feel bad about it. We appreciated it! We were fulfilling our purpose and those microbes in the dirt were fulfilling theirs. 

Easter Sunday in June

Oops!  How could I have forgotten to get our annual Easter party at Uncle Heath's on here, especially because it was Stella's first Easter Egg Hunt.  Can you tell?  She loved it!

 

Mommy daughter night

As I was taking pictures off of my phone I realized I hadn't posted some of our fun times lately.  Papi took the boys for Father Sons Campout. The boys were super excited.  It was the first time he had been here to take them.  So while the cats are away the mice will play, except we aren't mice and the boys definitely aren't cats.  But we did all the girly stuff. 

 

Homemade masks for our faces using oats, strawberries and honey.

 

Painting our nails

Even little Stella got a pedicure.

I'm grateful for my girls and the fun time we have together.  Love you little ladies!

New talents

We have had a very loud house this summer.  The boys are working on learning new instruments.  They've got Mary Had a Little Lamb down and are working on concert pieces for the end of summer band.  The blue room has become the music room and it's always busy.

 

 

Then we have our beautiful ballerina.  Isabel is gorgeous on stage and she dances with so much excitement that you have to applaud.  Way to go chica!

Late Night Home Run

 

Or was it early morning? If we can't be there in Taiwan in person watching Papi hit a home run live online is the next best thing even if it was at 1 in the morning.  Time differences, so confusing!

Little Swimmer

 

I don't think I need anymore words than these cute pics of Stella.  She is my little swimmer!  I can not keep her out of the water.  If everyone else is swimming she wants in.

 

 

So it made it hard when I took Alexandria stand up paddle boarding at the river.  I had to watch Alexandria's exploration of the Salt at sunset from the riverbank with a very unhappy Stella who kept wanting to climb in that dirty water.  Silly baby! 

Two Sunburns

Papi still calls her his baby.  She will always be his baby.  But the past few days have been more "babyish" than normal.  These tears were on two different occasions.  First leaving her teacher, Mrs. Rother was hard for her.  She gets so attached to people and Mrs. Rother won't be at Franklin anymore.  Honestly, I may have cried a little for her on that one.  But the other one, I had no sympathy for.  After swimming for six hours in Grandma's pool she began complaining about her cheeks stinging and hurting when she moved her mouth.  I soon realized that her natural SPF 500 had run out and she had a sunburn on those cute cheeks!  Once I told her there were even more tears.  At least DJ tried to help.  "What's wrong Isabel?" He asked.  "I'm crying because I have TWO sunburns!" Yup, this girl needed some sun experience.