a blended life

Let's start with a recipe for a bad summer: Ingredients: 6 weeks of observation in a year round school 2 hours a day of commuting to said school 3 hours of homework every night 1 confusing, disorganized, ridiculous professor 1 case of pneumonia -2 weeks of sleep Directions: Mix everything together, preferably all in the same day. Throw in dashes of stress, anxiety, irritability and overeating to taste. Doesn't freeze well. Not recommended to share with others. Since no one would want that kind of summer, here are a few pics and experiences that we've had of a pretty good summer (the term 'summer' is used loosely to refer to the few weeks of break that I've had). Here's a better recipe for summer: Ingredients: 3 hours at Payson Lakes 1 hot dog/marshmallow roast at the campground up the street 1 4th of July in Logan Unlimited amounts of cousin love 2 hours of watching the backhoe in front of the house 1 chance of accidentally finding ...

This post only works if you scroll down slowly and read each line individually. It's okay if you don't want to play that way, but you'll be a boring party pooper. Picture this: I'm trying to do some homework on my bed while the girls play by themselves (something they rarely do). Now picture this: "Mom! We're going to make music for you!" Picture this: "Mom, here's my Halloween costume. Don't laugh at me." Now picture this: Me burying my head in my pillow, shoulders shaking, trying not to laugh. Picture this: I tell the girls to start their bath, but we're not doing bubbles tonight (since Hannah had a skin irritation). Now picture this: That's how Hannah looks with pure joy. It was hard to be mad when they were having so much fun!

My dad takes professional photos, which is a hobby he recently started. Mostly he does bugs and birds, but he agreed to take a few pics of us monkeys this morning before the kids went to school.

June 18th was a super long, exhausting day for us. We had Leah's birthday party here. I rented a gymnastics bus* and invited everyone that we could stand--and few we couldn't--over to play on it and eat some cake. It was a no-frills party: do the bus thing, eat cake and open presents, go home. No decorations, no party favors, no planned games. It was kind of an experiment and I think it was a big success. Here's what a gymnastics bus looks like. It's parked the whole time (I don't know how many times I got asked that question.) There are two instructors on it to play some games, stretch, and move the kids through an obstacle course.   Gasp! A tablecloth! Leah chose an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen, since the momma was totally consumed with summer school.   Hannah was a songbird in her ballet company's production of Sleeping Beauty. She looks so sick in this picture. Poor baby. She was so, so excited for her "pee-foe-mance", as she calls it. We ...

A few weeks ago I took a friend and her daughter to Lagoon with some free passes I had. In case you don't know, Lagoon is Utah's lackluster amusement park. I had gone there for work with the jr high students in May, and the weather was so bad (it topped out at 43 degrees--my toes were numb for hours) they gave us free 'bounceback', meaning we could show our rainy day tickets and get free admission for another day. Anyway, I needed to use up the tickets and the weather wasn't too hot yet. It was good timing! We brought a huge cooler of food and spent nearly 8 hours in the park. The pic of me with the stupid bangs was taken right after we went on Rattlesnake Rapids, a rafting/get-soaked kind of ride. It was fun, even though I spent most of the time sheltering a quivering Hannah and taking the brunt of the soakage. <--that's a new word Leah couldn't get enough of the roller coasters.  She is fearless! This last ride we went on is a HUGE ferris whee...