The carefree days of summer are HERE!!!
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| Paisley, Zeke and next door best pal, Abby. These three spent all day long together from sun-up until calling out to them in the darkness of summer nights to come back in. |
So many hours and hours of playing with friends.
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| Esme and Paisley turning the deck into some sort of play land. |
It's not officially summer until we start up the new chore chart. This one worked great this year. I kept meaning to change it up after a month or so, but the kids had it down so well I kept with it.
A trip to the mall on a lazy summer day. Really, I love hanging out with my kiddos. I love all of us piling into the van and heading off to an adventure together. These are sweet memories.
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| Zeke's precious face. He got all nestled in the cart and was so sweet and chatty while we browsed Hobby Lobby. |
I've been curious to check out the Train Shoppe up on 30th in SLC, and one day proved to be a good time to go. We practically had the place to ourselves and really had a fun time! That place is all right. The kids were all wanting to start a train hobby.
Paisley can get really involved in little projects, always involving lots of paper and cutting and buckets of crayons and little areas all set up around the house. She makes neat and tidy messes. Here she is deep in some sort of creation with that sweet profile.
Devron and I were able to fit in
Casablanca!!! We went down early to get the good room rates and kick off our summer right. I loaded the kids right after church, we said good-bye to Dad and we headed out!
June warmed up so fast, so we knew it would be an extra hot few days. But we'd be right by that pool, so no worries!
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| Our crew! Devron's pal, Allie came along with her kids so we were a big, loud, crazy bunch! |
This pool is really so much fun. And I like that it never seems too crowded. Good thing because....
Really, it was
so hot! I had to keep diving in all day long myself. As soon as you'd step out of the air conditioned hotel that heat would slap you in the face hard.
I don't think the kids even noticed. Or got out of that pool! Every now and then one of us would go up to the room and make oodles of sandwiches and pack a bag full of snacks and drinks and bring it all down to munch pool-side.
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| That's a lot sandwiches, people! |
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| We were grateful for the cooler temps at night.... |
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| Even with three rooms It was a full house! |
It was a super fun get away and the kids had a ball. It was so relaxing to hang out with Dev and Allie. Great trip!
We were excited to see the progress Dad had made on the deck when we returned.
Paisley asked me to take some pics of her in some new clothes from the bag sent by Christine. She gets so dark in the summer!
And, finally~ My soon to be sixth grader and I hanging out and realizing his feet have surpassed mine. Big boy!
I'm looking forward to this summer. The kids are a little older and independent, the headache and hard work of teaching daily chores and accountability and consequences seems to have paid off, they can make and clean up their own snacks, and I can even slip away on a quick errand or two if I need to. They still like piling in the car and going to check out fun places, it seems the perfect combination of the fun of having younger kids but not too young where it's all work and no fun. Happy summer!!!
