I didn't spend a lot of time on this blog this summer, so there is much to catch up on, so I'll just tidbit everything.
Seth started talking much more, and he's always surprising us with a new word, and with how much he understands and remembers. He keeps trying to get the squirt bottle and one day he pointed it out to Farris and earnestly shook his head "Mom say no, no, no." He can rapid fire out MOMMOMMOMMOMMOM now, but he still says Daddy the most. He loves turtles, and I spent a lot of time on one page of a book about dinosaurs trying to get him to say Dinosaur instead of turtle. Once the cats showed up cat and kittie became two more favorite words. He's starting to get animals straightened out, but he still makes sheep moo and horses growl. Which I think is entertaining. He would be speaking better, except much of it is mumbled behind his binkie (he calls it his dinkie), but I'm ok with that. He's sleeping through the night, he takes three hour nap (can all the moms say hallelujah?) and he settles into his car seat with it much better than without. So I'm good. For now. After all, he won't be two until October. He's also hit his independent streak over the summer, and does not appreciate holding hands when walking across the street, riding in strollers when he's not tired or being carried in crowds. And when I call for him to stop or come back, he flashes his megawatt grin and begins to tippy toe away. Yes, it makes me laugh, but he's still in trouble.
Joseph has had a busy summer. He loved, loved, loved swimming lessons. He's like a wiggly Labrador retriever near water. His little class had him and two sweet, delicate girls that could just barely get their chins wet. The teacher would be encouraging them to go under and Joseph would be climbing on the side of the pool so he could jump back in. Backwards. Six times straight. For his birthday he got a bike, and it's styled to look like a Harvey Davidson which makes me a little nervous. He loves to ride it all over, including over feet, plants, brothers, neighbors, little dogs, small children. OK, that's a little exaggeration, but only by about an inch. Just a warning, watch out when he's making engine noises and is barrelling right toward you. He wins in Chicken.
Caleb also liked his swimming lessons, but he's a little more cautious than Little Knievel. He especially liked camping, as long as we reassured him there would be no bears. He is an outdoor kind of kid, and I do think he'll be some kind of a scientist who studies nature. You can see those wheels turning when he's outside. He is growing up, though, and some days I think "all boys do that...don't they?" I'm not used to all the pretend killing that goes on in boy play. But I better get used to it, I guess, while still training it out of them. He still gives gigantic hugs and is a snuggler, too. I hope he doesn't lose that in all this growing boy stuff. He was so very excited about being in First Grade this fall, he gets to eat lunch there and stay the whole day, and wonder of wonders, he gets more recesses! His reading is coming along well, and he's excited to sit down with books everyday as part of his homework. He usually reads a verse for family scripture study, and he does that pretty well, too. Maybe not Zarahemla yet, but he's getting there.
Felicity has been growing this summer. She's still a little girl in a lot of ways (she gets the excited like a Lab look a lot, too), but she's older. It's interesting to watch this in between time, and she's really doing well adjusting to her changing ideas and thoughts. She's grown out of most of her dancing phase, her artsy side is now into drawing. She still likes her My Little Ponies, but plays with more real looking horses now, too. I think her favorite times this summer have been with people, cousins or friends, but also with our family. She adores having Daddy/Daughter dates, Mommy and me nights, and she even told our neighbor that she wanted a neighbor night. I guess we need to be more social for our busy daughter.
Farris and I have been plenty busy (this is starting to sound like a Christmas letter, isn't it?), he's been adjusting to a new college at BYU. The Health and Human Performance college dissolved this spring, and with most of the students, he moved to the College of Life Science. He's been busy with everything, including his colleague retiring, moving his office to a new building and getting to know the other advisors, how to work with them and such. We've had plenty to do around here, too. We got a lawn. I know I've blogged and talked about it before, but I'm so happy! Grass makes me happy. And I do mean the legal kind. And we've never had a back yard before, if you don't count apartments. So we've been really enjoying it. Our fruit trees are producing yummy stuff, our grapes are vining wonderfully, our raspberries kind of pooped out, our strawberries are going to get ripped out next year (we'll try a new way of planting), and we've learned to never trust a volunteer squash plant, no matter how cute the little leaves are.
They will grow into a monster that will take over your whole garden and stomp on all your other plants. I am not exaggerating. Our cucumbers, watermelon, bell peppers, biker billy peppers (ask my brother) and some of our green beans were all squashed, not even a pun intended. The vines were even growing into the tomato cages. And, they all crossed together so we got yellow, orange and green pumpkins instead of summer squash, pumpkins and whatever those evil volunteers were. Farris summed it up: "I think this was a learning year in our garden." We did get some great tomatoes, my brothers gave me green zebra tomatoes (small, yellow with green zebra stripes), Cherokee Purple (huge lumps of a purplish greenish-redish tomato, but very good. And huge), and these orange ones that I forgot their name (beautiful orange-yellow color and big, too). We planted a Sweet 100 cherry tomato, and it's gone crazy like the squash, we can't even keep the tomato cage from tipping over. Our beans have been doing fairly well, they'd probably do better if we'd pick them more often. And I've found that cats like to chase green beans. As we're snapping them, the cats will dip their paws in, take one out and chase it throughout the house. I keep finding dried up beans in hidden corners. Oh, and in our back yard, we have grass. It's beautiful.
Now we're looking forward to fall, maybe we'll tackle a few projects in the house instead of out.
Well, that wasn't much of a tidbit, it was more like a
chunk. But that was our summer, just like canned pineapple.
It's tough being the oldest. With three little brothers. Three busy, crazy, like-to-get-in-your- stuff little brothers. But Felicity does a great job. She turned eight (yes, EIGHT!) on August 10th, and was unbearably excited. She had her birthday party (Pony party, she loves all things horse right now), started going to Activity Day and will be baptized this week. She's done a lot of growing this year, you can see it in her face and how she does things. She conquered her bike, and is so happy to zoom around the neighborhood, training wheel-less. She spent about a quarter of the last year reading, everything from Nancy Drew to Pony Pals to Misty and Stormy to the Friend magazine. Really, anything she can get her hands on. It's hard to get her to stop most of the time. She's been drawing a lot, too, and is making a House Notebook where she's creating different kinds of houses. She has some made of rainbows, clocks, flowers, crayons, shoes, books, taffy, sun and rain, and even eyeglasses. Animals are favorites, too. Besides horses, she loves rabbits, cats, dogs, hamsters, dolphins, and anything else (almost, anyway, snakes aren't a great favorite). She loves our new cats (more on that later) and has taken over the feeding of them, and let me tell you, they are not going to go hungry. She loves being around people and is always asking to play with friends, and she has some wonderful ones.
Felicity with her cousin Rylee
Silliness coming out while she's helping make cookies
Beautiful princess (my girly-girl!)
She wanted a crown made of balloons at the harvest festival last year, cute!
Our lovely friend, Christy, took baptism pictures of Felicity. Felicity loves being the center of attention and has this "whole head cocked to the side, hip stuck out, fake princess smile" that makes me laugh whenever a camera is pointed at her. But Christy got her to relax and got some adorable shots. Then she worked her phototshop magic and did all the B&W, sepia, color added, washed out, and framed beautiful pictures that I could ever want. She even made some baptism invites that are so...FELICITY! So here's a link to the pictures:
