Great Universe Simulation.

My girls absolutely love this video! Gives them some perspective. They try to follow exactly where the earth was when it started zooming out so much...

Hannah's Twins.

Hannah, 35 weeks.

My sister Hannah is having twin boys on August 3rd (if not before!). Seems impossible that a small body could house two large babies!

Rachel's flying in from the East Coast, my mom is coming on Monday, everyone is waiting and anxious and worried and excited. Hannah was hoping for a normal delivery but the boys are both sitting straight up breech! She'll have a c-section. The most incredible thing about Hannie is that she just finished nursing school TWO DAYS AGO. She took her last final and could finally breathe a sigh of relief (or not...). 

Our entire family is on the edge of our bleachers dying to see what these boys look like! This is the best summer ever.

Beautiful: People, Place, Experience.

This 7-minute montage might be dull for people that don't know my fantastic extended family... but I love them more than life and our time together is always so sweet. These photos make me all gooey inside and adding music in there is death by emotion!

Miss you all---

Sunday Photos.

And one from Saturday:

Something that I love about the girls right now is they'd rather watch a documentary on archaeology than watch a cartoon. Grace wants to be a paleontologist when she grows up. Far cry from a "rock star". They ask me how dinosaur bones can be saved for so long. I tell them the bones are replaced with minerals. Then they hit me over the head with so many questions that I black out. No, really, I don't, but pretty close...

I wish I was a scientist, they would be way more impressed.

Crushin'.

Grace and our neighbor Noah...

MyMatilda --- NurtureShoot with the Burkman's.

See a few more here.

Hiking...

Me and the satchel. She is 24.5 pounds, give or take. So one time I got tired. And we stopped to rest in a grove of trees. And I took the baby backpack off and it stood on the forest floor like a perfect high chair. Suspending her above the dirt and pine needles and ants while she ate her granola bar. Then she must have pushed her toes into the ground and it tipped forward and she did an uncontrollable face plant. 100% Mommy's fault. Ugh.

A few of my siblings and I went on a hike (walk) around Silver Lake. Isaac and Bethany are my little brother and sister who were visiting before going to EFY this week. Here she is, in all her feminine beauty, my littlest sister who was 3 years old when I moved out of the house:

Sunday Photo.

This is as good as it gets for today... Ruby was concerned that her feet would be eaten by ants, Lillie wanted it to be over so she could go back inside, Tada wanted to run down the driveway in front of a speeding car and Grace was going through whatever motions she had to in order to gain freedom and favor.

But it's them. With their messy summer hair (ok, all-season messy hair), popsicle faces, eyes that squint just at the edges, and freckles on every single one of 'em.

It was a beautiful day, evening and weekend.

Urination.

Anytime my girls want to stop whining and go outside to play in the backyard unsupervised, I make absolutely no move to stop them. Quite the opposite, actually, I give them a nice swift kick as they run out the door.

So in the calm light of the evening, I usually find myself cleaning up the backyard. This time I found an orange bucket with some water in it and a roll of toilet paper beside it. I was understandably confused and my wheels started understandably spinning.

Kayla, my niece who spent a couple days with us this week, was the first on the scene when she noticed my staring. The facts began to spill from her mouth with hardly a breath in between:

"We wanted to make a toilet and Grace peed in it and so did Ruby and I had to really go pee, so I did it too".

You know what? It barely fazed me. I dumped it out and left it upside down to dry while I finished cleaning up the yard.

Such a seasoned mother I am.

Lillie's Birthday Photos.

Lollipop on the beach, 3 years old. Tutu and hair feathers by Aunt Liza.

Cake and a few presents with the ultra-wide angle lens. The distortion is hard to control...

Loves that "Ninna". And the binky she found under Ninna's bed.

The emotion lies deep inside me, at my most cellular level. More than anything else, it's an instinct. Simply a reaction to your strength, your vigor, your burning bonfire. It gets me. When I see your birthday photos, your beautiful face turning three, almost as if in slow motion, I break down. I can't speak. My jaw clenches tight as your beauty possesses the uneven blue of my eyes.

I can't edit photos of my fantastic specimen that is you, on the beach in a yummy swimsuit, with that smile and that hair without completely losing it. My eyes sting as David Gray and Meiko and Ray LaMontagne sing me and you a little closer to one another.

I'll love you forever and ever and ever. 'Til time gets bored and turns into something else entirely.

Tada and me: Ponte Vedra Beach, FL.

We are back from Florida. We miss it so much already. It was amazing. So amazing that I took 1661 photos and narrowed it down to 287 of my favorites. It's a start. 


An amazing thing happens when you go on vacation with extended family. Your children become distracted. Their needs spread out to countless other adults who have conversations with them, get them things, fulfill their many needs if they are able. The kids wear themselves out, swimming for hours each day, with endless supplies of food and drinks and a house with rooms for this and for that. Then it's time to go home. You squish into a very small space for five hours, moving very fast at 38,000 feet. It's just you and your spouse again, with the hoodlums. Packs of candy and a million bottles of juice disappear and finally you're home, brushing teeth, checking the mail and flopping into bed. 


What happens the next day is like a kick to the teeth. The hungry, bored, restless vacationers are in need of entertainment. And the only adult there is you. You and your pathetic worn out body, void of any new tricks or toys. And you live in a shoebox with no pool, no snacks and no Nana.


Tomorrow is a new day. Perhaps a day of serenity and back massages. My fingers are crossed.