a few weeks in

With how early Nick got out of school this year (kindergarten is awesome,)
we're a few weeks into summer by now, and we've got a good chunk of these bucket list items crossed off so far,
with lots more fun to come.

And we've had our fair share of working through the "kinks" of having both the big kids home together all day every day (I'll never understand why, with over 3000 square feet of space in this home, my kids want to spend their time fighting over whose foot gets to be in one square inch of carpet...)
but overall, it's been awesome.

 We visited my parents while Kent went to California over Memorial Day weekend.
The weather---to die for. So green and perfect outside. I think we officially spent more time outside playing on their lawn than in, 
which was perfect for us since our backyard is still a pile of rocks and dirt and our front grass still looks like this:

But 0ur city's main water supply well broke last week,
and they've asked us to stop watering for the next five weeks.
We tried to figure out a way to keep this brand-new grass seed alive, and now they're letting us water once every five days,
but it's probably not going to survive this summer heat. Such a bummer in timing--if only we'd waited until fall to plant our grass!  

Last weekend Kent's dad and uncle came to help us get the drywall put up in our basement. 
What a gift of service! Their help was invaluable, and now we have walls in our playroom and movie room! 
We were also so happy to have Grammer and Papa here to stay with us for a few days while the guys were working. 

 (Christian does not like to be held in one place....he's a crazy man and always on the go.)

 We're seriously dying for a real yard. 


The house across the street from us is in the Utah Valley Parade of Homes this year, and as a sort of sorry-about-the-craziness gift, our builder gave us a couple of tickets,
so we traded babysitting with our darling neighbors, and 
Kent and I got to go see some houses.

Most of them are ridiculous (awesome, but ridiculous,)
like this one with a full-size bowling alley:

 But I found the house of my dreams, guys.

 This is the laundry room. I think I would spend my whole day in there.  

 Also, speaking of dreams, I found the desk of my dreams. 
I love it. Just not the $1300 price tag (eek!)

Kent and I have been pretty busy,
he's got a big deadline at work and has been staying long days,
and our ward was split four weeks ago so we have a brand new ward and
brand new callings--Kent is the Assistant Ward Membership 
Clerk, and I'm now the Primary Secretary.
And our dishwasher broke. And is still broken.  
To all of you who live without a dishwasher, I applaud you. This is not an easy thing.
But in between I was able to find a little time to switch out some things to freshen up the house for summer.

 I love looking at these beach prints (St. John on the left and San Diego on the right) and remembering the sand and the sun.

And speaking of being busy,
our littlest one lately has been 
a handful.
Or maybe an armful. Maybe. 

He's our first climber in the family and
holy exhausting!

And yes, those chairs are on the floor because otherwise he'd be on top of the table.
It's gotten to the point where, when I see him up on top of something that isn't exactly a place you typically find babies,
I have to evaluate the surroundings and determine, 
if he falls from there, will he get really hurt? Or just a little bumped? 
And if the answer is just a little bumped? I let him be. 
I tried following him around at first and getting him off of everything, but who has that kind of time?
So for now, we'll keep things soft and padded and always always remember to lay all the chairs down.

If you need us you can find us slurping popsicles, finding places with real grass to play on, climbing, and reading lots and lots of books.

Happy summer!