Summer in the slow lane.

Legen...wait for it....dary

 Check out the pile of rocks that came out of Luke's backpack. The kid lugs rocks home from school almost daily. He informed me that he collects them at recess to bring them home for Papa John to take a look at. His hopes are high that there are cool ones that can be added to his rock and mineral collection hanging on his wall. School is not the only place these awesome rocks can be found, our driveway is also a great place to find real crystals. And so....Jeremy and I have decided to take our little rock hound out this summer for some true rock hunting. We are planning to go Geode hunting on an up coming weekend...if anyone wants to join us, they are welcome to come along. Camping at Topaz mountain is also a must this year.
Emptying heavy rocks out of backpacks has got me thinking a lot about lightening my own load (and no I'm not just talking about my actual weight, but that too.) It's more about unloading the things/excuses that are weighing me down and eating up my time...time I owe with my kids. Good ol', old fashioned lets play outside and get good and dirty time. There is one week left of school for Luke and then there is nothing to pull us here or there, so.... I am feeling like making up some of that lost time with the kids from last summer (when I felt crappy and sick and pregnant-I will never ever take for granted feeling good, having energy, and something as stupid as being able to bend over!) We are going to get out and have some fun. There are no excuses this year and it's going to be legen...wait for it....dary! (Name that show) Okay maybe it's not going to be legendary but it's going to be us outside having fun. Simple as that.

 

 Ruth's first time on a horse. She loved it or maybe she loved playing with the saddle horn. Either way it plum tuckered her out.:)

These are the snake gourds we planted last year. They were pretty cool, the kids loved them! This year I am going to try to make them curl  and coil more.

A neighbor of Karen hooked us up with some awesome hybrid tomatoes I'm excited to see how they do and I got my pots all planted. Oh it feels so good!!!!

 

 

We took a drive down by the lake yesterday after church and caught a quick glimpse of the lunar/solar eclipse through the clouds. We had the windows down enjoying the heavenly aroma of the Russian Olive trees and the sounds of the frogs. We must have looked pretty funny when we suddenly all make a mad dash for the windows when the mosquitoes swarmed into the truck and then we flailed around squishing and swatting anything that flew. (Maybe not quite as funny as the time I wasn't going to pull the key out but did and almost rolled into the car parked in front of me and then slammed on the breaks just in time and we all screamed...remember how funny that was...or not.)

 

The 5k. This was all the kids talked about for weeks maybe months. The 5k this and the 5k that. It was pretty serious stuff. The new running shoes Grandma got each of them couldn't be worn until the race so as not to be ruined. :) The kids did the mile run with Grandma (yes Grandma Barker ran!) and they all won awesome major awards, which were worn the entire day and most of the following day. I would have to say the best part was the breakfast burritos after and the swimming.:) Thanks Em and Grandma and Rice.

 

Pictures from my birthday dinner with the Barkers.

This sweet little face just brightens my day.

We just watched the movie Return to Me.  Remember the part when the friend's spastic date tells everyone she is going to go put on more lipstick and the guy says,"Is that possible?"  I feel that way about pictures of Ruth...I'm going to post some more pictures of her....and I bet  you are all thinking,"Is that possible?!" :)

The Kitchen

A while back I took a few pictures to show my mom the new bar stools I got for my birthday (found them on KSL) and I realized I never took any pictures of the kitchen after Jeremy finished the floor. So here it is...minus the old hideous brown kitchen carpet, brown linoleum, brown bar stools... let's just say there was a lot of brown in this house. I need to find the before pictures, so you can get the full effect.:) It's still a work in progress (new patio door and counter tops) but I just love how clean and bright it feels now.

This made me laugh...

I feel like this some days about my house.:)

It's pretty much all about her around here...

Somebody is very bored with getting her picture taken. Ruth enjoys trying new foods like limes and licorice :) yummy. She looked like she had just killed and eaten a small animal after the licorice. We went in to the doctor to get Ava's Kindergarten shots a few weeks ago. (Ava was so brave because Aunt Em came with us and held her. Thanks Em!) We weighed Ruth again while we were there and she was still holding strong at 15 lbs. I'm pretty sure 5 lbs of that is just cheeks...I guess if you were to count both sets of checks it would be more like 10 lbs.;)

If you stand her up by something she will hold on and just stand there. She's pretty happy just sitting and playing and grabbing anything she can get her hands on. But I do think she wants to be on the move, she tries crawling by doing this funny little butt scrunchy move, which doesn't get her anywhere. If you hold her hands she will take little drunken steps. She is a busy little thing.  She likes to chatter and squeak and squawk. She now says, dada, mama, and baba. She also does this funny little fake cough. Sometimes she will wave bye-bye and clap and put her little hands together above her head to "be the big girl". Usually she does all of these one right after another to show off. One day Grandma Barker brought over Em's new baby bunnies for the kids to hold and we were all oohing and awing about how cute the bunnies were and Ruthy suddenly began doing her tricks over and over again, as if to say: Guys look at me! I'm cute too!... She's a funny girl. If you tell her to dance and dance, she will jump and jump. Her favorite thing right now is being scared by Luke and Ava.  They will stomp around a corner and growl and it makes her about jump out of her skin and she squeals and giggles. Oh and I am happy to report that she is happy to be held by anyone now! Grandma Patsy flew in for a visit and she was worried that Ruth wouldn't want to go to her. But when she picked her up she just laid her head on grandma's shoulder and smiled and grabbed at her face, it was really sweet.