She chose her very favorite dinner, sausage potato casserole and homemade rolls. She never wavers! Although, she has been expanding her culinary palate lately...I wouldn't be surprised if she breaks her streak in the coming years.
Such a cutie patootie!
Megan asked for cosplay items for her birthday. She loves Pidge!
The girls got in a fight and Mark sent them off to their rooms to "work it out". He wasn't specific and we imagined they'd come back and say that they had apologized and maybe even give an obligatory hug or two to make it convincing.
Instead, they came up with this:
Sometimes, they parent themselves better than we do.
The shaved ice hut is like a watering hole. While we stand there and decide on our two flavors (to share), you truly wonder which is hotter...the blazing sun or the ripples of heat rising off the asphalt. It's probably a tie. And we're in the middle.
The umbrellas haven't be put out yet, so we find sweet refuge in the shade of the hut. We learned last year that sharing two large cups is more than enough. They are big! We always get a rootbeer float (real cream on top!) and the other is a wild card....I believe we went tropical this time.
When you have lots of siblings, you learn to share or you'll be mad ALL the time. It's just easier to accept it.
The Young Women presidency planned a Mother Daughter campout....which I think is so fun and well overdue. I may or may not have guilted them into including all the girls, not just those over 12. I was glad they allowed siblings because camping in the summer (in the Midwest) is only done a) once b) as early as humanly possible c) with as much gear as we can stuff in the car. So, let's bring everybody and put it up on our bucket list!
We got there about 4 pm and picked out a spot right in the shade of the only big tree. Regina and her girls beat us by 30 minutes and had already scoped out the cleanest bathrooms in the loop. I trust her judgement. Megan and I put up the tent pretty quickly considering that half our tent poles are splintered and needed to be duct taped. In the end, it wasn't gorgeous, or straight, but it was in the shade.
And shade is everything.
We fashioned a front porch out of extra tarp and our picnic blankets and camp chairs. Soon other mothers and daughters were coming over for a chat :)
We ventured down to the "lake" to find shells. It was a bit gross. Lots of mud and swarms of gnats. But the waterline was low and the girls found loads of little muscle shells. We kept our collection safe under the washing station.
We spent the next 18 hours, swinging in the hammock,
trying to keep a fire going off of wet wood and gathered seed pods....
and offering free therapy to each other while our girls ran free in the night!
We had such a fun time, even with the humidity and the mosquitoes and the plentiful itty-bitty ticks that haunted our dreams. If only they had been satisfied with that and not sent several of their friends home with us.
As last days go, this one should go in the record books.
WE DID IT ALL.
Anna and her ukulele played for the big crowd at the talent show.
She nailed it. I heard multiple "awwww"s from the crowd. I knew exactly how they felt. It doesn't get much sweeter than a 1st grader singing 'You are my Sunshine". No sir.
I also took the liberty of recording Mrs. Knox leading the kids in the Sunnyside school song. I still remember every word of my Barnett Bulldogs. This is the stuff our legacies are made of!
This talent show was LOOOONG. It rivaled church. Anna was 4th. I stuck around to listen to the children of all the people I care about, and finally Everly and I snuck out to go make a picnic and pick up the the big kids.
When we walked in the house, there was a swallowtail butterfly on the kitchen floor. He was calmly drying his wings. I thought to myself "oh! one of the butterflies hatched out of its chrysalis! Wait, we don't have any caterpillars or chrysliseseses." The only thing I can think is that one of our caterpillars must escaped the jar months ago and attached itself to the back of the fridge or something.
We took him out and put him in the flower pot. I hope the birdies don't snatch him up before he can dry his wings!
We put together a picnic and ran to pick up Ethan. Mat is with Mark at the Crossfit Central Regional Games in Nashville. Megan rode her bike to school. We dropped Ethan home and went to go pick up the girls from Sunnyside. The girls used up their silly string on each other. Why waste it on someone you don't love?
We had a fun picnic at the park with lots of good friends. Mostly its mom therapy while we tell our kids to go push each other on the swings. Meg snagged my phone and got this cute shot of Evelyn on the swings.
We stopped at the downtown library on the way home to pick up 30 books and 2 barbie movies along with Summer Reading Logs. NOW it feels like summer.
And I'm already feeling anxiety over losing those books.
I feel like it's about time that I accept the fact that my sweet children are always and forever going to sign up for the Sunnyside Talent show. Sure, it stresses me out. Sure, I still have nightmares about sitting down to play my viola in front of the people I love and care about most only to realize that I don't actually know how to play the viola.
But that isn't stopping these girls! They are trying out for the talent show and they're playing ukuleles!
Unfortunately, Laney forgot she was going to do that until the morning of the audition. Which did not serve to sooth my worried momma heart. I suggested we just let this one go and she work up a performance for the sweet, appreciative, non-judgemental souls at the old folks home!
No thank you, mother.
She practiced it through a couple times, popped that ukulele on her back and headed off to school.
Oh, did I forget to mention that she signed up with a buddy and they sang this together for the first time while they waited in line to audition?
Where do they get this moxie from? (It's from Mark. All from Mark)
Here they are singing their "Lava" song!:
Feeling nervous and excited, up next to play for the judges:
And they did it! Way to pull it off, ladies!
Then we have Anna!
Her auditions were the very next day. She had practiced and prepared for this since she got her ukulele in November. This her song. THE song. (Those eyes!)
She's done all she can do, she's up after the kid who is singing a Coldplay song sporting glow sticks and a black light. She's doing a little motivational self-talk in her mind, I can tell.
This kind of bravery amazes me.
And she did it!!
Both girls made it through. They are performing on the last two days of school and they are going walk away knowing that they are brave and talented and seriously thankful for their dad's genes.
My friend, Regina, organized a farewell party for our other friend, Natalie, who is a seriously talented artist (I am not being generous, she's amazing) and who is moving in a couple weeks.
So Regina chose a Bob Ross video on YouTube and set up two easels and two palettes with the right paints. She divided us into two teams and then started the video, giving us 3 minutes to follow along with Bob the best we could. It was hilarious and terrifying!
I was the first one to go, so that blue in the far right canvas is my handiwork, thank you.
He I am a few rounds in. I ended up smearing a mountainside with red on accident. It looked like nature was bleeding.
Mark loves Crossfit. It's his "thing". He really would live and work at the gym if there were any possible way for him to make a living at it. Which, so far, we can't see a way to do that. So...the next best thing is to convert our garage into a mini gym and invite interested friends and fellow cfitters to come do a workout on Saturday mornings.
I wasn't entirely excited about this plan until we had our first one...the second it was over, all I could think was: "we need more flooring! and a tech bar, and some abmats some wallballs...and ....and... " I was officially on board.
Mark even made some boxes!
He plans the workouts each week and we usually have between 6-12 folks join us to do some fitnessing.
We are now on our 13th week and its going pretty good.
A year and a half ago, we lost our favorite band teacher, Mr Hepford. His wife got a great new job in another state and so off they went, half way through the year. The school hired Mr. Goodlock to fill in the interum. He turned out to be quite the disciplinarian and although the kids sounded better than ever....they hated band. Megan essentially quit at the end of the year.
Fortunately, she had a change of heart over the summer and gave it another go. The school hired Mr. Owen Evans as the new full time band teacher. It's taken me an entire year to remember that it's Owen Evens, not Evan Owens.
Either way...this guy LOVES band. His emails ooze with excitement for band stuff. He divided the kids into Harry Potter houses and decorated his room with a fireplace and chandeliers. He had Megan loving band in no time.
The final concert of the year was held at Heritage Park and it was so fun! We had a yummy potluck bbq, had good friends to sit by (McCauleys, Flynns, Wagners, Sniths and Jensens), and best of all, we could wander around back and see Megan up close! She showed those goofy boys a thing or two!
Mathew and Aidan setting up a gaming spot EVERY. WHERE. WE. GO.
There was a lady doing face painting and she was good! Almost as good as Aunt Amanda.
My favorite part of the concert was the special number done by the percussionists. I think it was called "Popcorn". And Megan was front and center! She tried hard to keep it professional, but every once in awhile she'd look up and see me grinning at her and give her a super uncool thumbs up. It made her smile for a half a second and then she'd suck in her cheeks and get back to business.
