first day of summer!

Friday was the last day of school, and thus the first day of summer vacation. I have to say I was a bit verklempt when I realized that we will never again be part of this particular brand of kindergarten chaos and excitement.

Eva's teacher hugging her and her good friend, Riley.

Eva tells me that "Riley always understands." A very good quality in a friend.

Mrs. Graham was a great teacher for Eva this year. So good, in fact, that Eva is not so sure about moving on to first grade.

I find it so sad that Eva only got one year of school with her big brother. It must be so nice knowing you have a protector of sorts. Now none of my kids will be in the same school again.

I am having a hard time believing that I will have one in high school, one in junior high, and one in elementary school next year. (I have a friend who is just one year older than me, and her youngest just graduated! I have 12 more years of having kids in school...)

Thinking we should do something celebratory, I originally thought maybe we would go to Seven Peaks, but since it was only 64 degrees, I had to nix that idea (much to their distress). It took some serious convincing for them to accept that they wouldn't have much fun if they were shivering at the pool. (So instead, we went to 7Peaks today, and although it was supposed to be 84 degrees, they ended up cold and shivering at the pool. Huh.)


I'm not a fun mom, so I opted for Creative Friday with Jill. That way, Lucas could play with Landon and Eva could play with Whitney (Marc took Max to the movies).

Maybe next year I'll take a cue from Patsy and invite friends over for pizza, root beer, and chocolate cake. That sounds like a celebration I can handle.

five for Friday

1. Glitter glue is Eva's favorite thing right now. She dug up a box of about 50 different colors that we had given to the boys for Christmas years ago, and most of them were still unopened. They have all been used up now!

I don't know whether it's the bright colors, the sparkles, or the 3D texture that appeals to her most, but in any case it's all good. You never know if glitter glue will inspire a butterfly or a brontosaurus. Now if only it could last a little longer...

2. Marc's sister Lisa's family is in town again from California. She called around 6:45 on Tuesday night and invited us to join them at Sweet Tomatoes in Sandy. It was Sam's 10th birthday and he'd been riding in the car all day -- all he wanted was to eat dinner at Sweet Tomatoes. We hadn't eaten yet and Marc was out for the night, so we jumped in the car and drove to Sandy. The cousins had a great time running wild (!). We got home at 9:30 and the kids went right to bed (Lucas even had a sleepover with Eva, to her everlasting delight).

And this, my friends, is my version of being spontaneous. I'm not even kidding.

3. I finally decided to order some e.l.f. cosmetics when I got an email coupon from them for 5 free items. I'm loving everything I got! The mineral foundation and powder are great, ditto the facial whip and all-over color stick. I am loving the lip glosses, and I'm usually a lipliner/lipstick kind of girl. They just look so natural, they don't feel too sticky, and they just feel right for summer. I even got compliments on my makeup at book club the other night, what in the world? (haven't tried the nail polish yet)

4. Max spotted this ladybug on the bushes in front of our house. I love it! And I love it when these bushes are in bloom, they are so cheerful and bright.

5. It definitely started feeling like summer this week. It's been hot! Our neighbors got out their shave ice machine and I gave the kids some quarters to go buy some.

I loved the way Lucas and Eva were sitting and enjoying it, and I even caught them sharing! Moments like this make me love being their mother. (Oh, and Lucas got his hair cut this morning -- that's another one of those moments!)

waiting for flowers

Eva has been wanting to plant pink flowers for ages. She even mentioned it in her prayers a few times. I put a packet of seeds in her Easter basket, because I thought she would enjoy watching them grow from tiny seedlings to flowers.

We had to wait a long time, but finally in late May, our planting day arrived. She was so amazed by the dimunitive seeds, and wanted to hold them herself, even though she dropped some.

She had definite ideas about the seed placement.

And now we are waiting. Our recent unusual bout of rain has relieved us of watering duties.

last day of school!

I'm having quite a hard time grasping that the school year is really over -- this was definitely the fastest one yet! And since we'll be going on Study Abroad again in the fall, my kids won't be going back to school until January. You can bet there is much celebrating going on around here.


Thanks to Shauna's great idea, I was able to quickly pull out a personalized gift for Lucas's teacher (which was very fortunate since I forgot to pursue the ideas last night!). Lucas helped me to come up with the words, and it only took me about half an hour to make it. I already had a frame on hand, so it was free! Lucas was very pleased, and I hope his teacher liked it.

I took the kids to a matinée of Up, which opened today. Eva has been wanting to see it since she first saw a preview a couple of months ago, but yesterday she said she didn't want to go, since she doesn't like movies about people. Huh. Marc informed her that it has a funny dog with a collar that allows it to speak (kind of like Martha Speaks, but different...), and so she deigned to see it after all. And then she spent the first 1/4 of the movie asking when the dog with the collar was going to make an appearance.

I liked it more than I expected I would, and it was a fun way to start off summer vacation.

I wasn't feeling well this afternoon, so I went to lie down on my bed for a little while. I could hear Eva playing with her dinosaurs on Max's bed while he was doing some programming on his computer. Later, she colored at the table while Lucas was doing something else nearby. She is never content to do things in tandem like that with me! I think it bodes well for our joint summer happiness.

I am loving having them home already.

spt -- grass

Last week I took the kids to the library. After we found our books and played our traditional I Spy game with the stained-glass windows, we went down to the courtyard where they love to run around and play their own brand of chess on the paving stones.

I love stones with grass growing in-between! Maybe someday, when I have a backyard again...

I sat on a bench watching them and reading the introduction to one of the books I checked out (Body for Life). I was in a nice shady spot and I was really loving the grass underneath my feet. I soon shed my shoes so I could enjoy it better.

Eventually I gave up the bench altogether and stretched out on the grass. It was really nice, soft grass. No weeds in sight. Cool. I was loving summer that day.

spt -- Sun

I know I've said it before, but seriously. I'm 37 years old, for heaven's sake! Why can't I figure out how to avoid getting sunburned??

I wore a new suit to 7Peaks yesterday and got a wacky burn -- splotchy all over my body, which shows that I did apply sunscreen, I just did it poorly and unevenly. My shins even got baked, and I don't think that's happened since high school!

But the most embarrassing thing is my face:

Apparently I had a strip of sun protection right across the middle of my forehead, and the rest got burned. Good grief.

on the upswing?

So, I'm feeling like things may be on the upswing here. (Jill, was it you that said you didn't like that idiom because it implies a downswing to come? I'm blissfully unaware of any downswing at the current time...)

I knew this day was coming. It's been on my calendar for weeks, possibly months. I've had nothing but enthusiasm for summer vacation. Yet somehow, I felt a bit blindsided yesterday. Maybe it's because I'm not a fun mom and I didn't have anything special planned. (I read about Tasha's neighborhood water fight and pizza party and had to hang my head in shame.)

But here's the thing: I knew that Jill was coming over for Creative Friday and bringing Landon & Whitney along, so I was thinking -- hey, that sounds like a celebration to me! And I made mint brownies. Does that count for anything? At any rate, I quickly felt overwhelmed by the noise, the chaos, the sheer presence of them all. That came out of nowhere. And it better skedaddle just as fast, because we have a lot more summer days to spend together and hopefully fill with fun.


Luckily, I had Jill here to commiserate with, and I'm convinced there's not much better than that (especially if you throw mint brownies into the mix).


I'm not sure why, but I kind of like this picture Jill took of me cutting up my magazine tear sheets. (It could be that I'm headless.)

Marc's parents came in the afternoon to take the boys to Salt Lake for a grandparent sleepover. So they did get to celebrate! Thank heavens for grandparents. Mim brought me an article she had cut out of a magazine, a follow-up, if you will, from a conversation we had on Memorial Day.

I love that Jill took this picture. That's just funny. And true.

Incidentally, my new visiting teacher came on Friday morning and we spent the whole time talking about how to be fun and involved grandparents. She's pretty new at it, so I told her she had definitely come to the right place. I told her all the fun things that Marc's parents do with their grandchildren and she was hanging on every word. My kids are so lucky to have these relationships!

It was so liberating to only have one child to put to bed, and since it was the youngest child, we were free by 8:00! Have mercy! Marc put Eva to bed and I went out for Chinese food for a little at-home date.

Be prepared to receive something special. Now that's a fortune. And here's my other one: Don't give up. Your problem gets better next month. Sweet!

We watched a great movie -- The Lives of Others. It's a German film that won the Oscar for best foreign film. It takes place in East Berlin in 1984 and shows how artists/writers/etc. were under constant surveillance by the secret police. One of those things that blows me away by how difficult some governments make things on their citizens -- and so recent, too! It is really well done and has a touching ending.

This morning Eva and I did some errands together. She's my go-with girl. We did have to go to Costco, though -- why can't I seem to make an across the board policy to never go there on a Saturday??

As soon as I got the Costco items put away, I had to leave for a hair appointment. 2 months overdue, yikes! I got 3 inches cut off and some blonde put back in for the summer, not to mention attempt to cover my increasingly numerous grays. I feel like a new woman.

Here's what Eva said when I got home: (oohing and aahing)

E: Mom, why did you get your hair cut? Because it was crazy?

M: Well, yeah, I guess it was getting pretty crazy.

E: Yeah. Why is it cute now?

Huh. I have no response to that, but I'm pretty sure it'll never look like this again, not on my watch anyway. Marc said, "That looks like a style." (I'm always complaining that I never have a style.) Now if only I could make myself spend 40 minutes every day keeping that style...

Sharolyn (my stylist, recommended by Jill) is really a delight to converse with for 2 1/2 - 3 hours. Quite often, I come away from an appointment feeling like my soul has been fed, and how often does that happen? Today she told me about a book she read where 3 women are given the opportunity to go back in time to any 3-week period of their lives, and they can then choose to return to their current lives or lose all memory of their current lives. For the life of me, I can't imagine when I would want to revisit, but it makes for interesting ponderings. What would I change if I could?

Bottom line: I'm feeling much better than I was a few days ago, and I'm holding onto it for all it's worth.