All right. I just have to say it. Being a missionary mom is the 

BEST. 

Never thought I would say that!

That's all. Signing off to go sing 3 part harmonies right now. 

Hubby almost home. He has to hug me before he hugs Kate. Or pets Rudy. 

Swallowing 1/4th of a milkshake. 

Changing out of my workout clothes that never saw a workout!!!

Won't forget scripture study and family prayer. No way.

erin

Funny moment of the day:

A little guy named Cole is 2 1/2. Just barely older than Kate. His mom was at the RS activity with me. His dad was watching 3 kids at home, ages 5, 2 1/2 (Cole) and 8 month-old baby. Cole decides he reeeally wants to play fruit ninja on his dad's ipad. His dad decides that he would rather take all of the kids outside. Cole sneaks back inside and locks all of the doors. His dad pounds on the sliding glass door which Cole is just inside of. Cole looks up as he madly plays fruit ninja. Daddy screams "Let us in right now!" Cole stares at his wild eyed dad who is holding a crying baby. Slice watermelon. Slice two cantaloupe. Slice slice slice. 20 minutes later, Cole decides his family can come in now. He probably had sliced too many bombs or perhaps he got the high score. Dad is furious. Mom tells me her husband wants her to come home right now, because he is "done." I smiled and said, "Seriously, that is so dang cute. You will always remember the night Cole did that. What spunk and how smart. Cherish that moment." She thought I was crazy! These young parents are just so TIRED. They can't quite appreciate it yet.

It reminds me of the time that 3-yr-old Sydney was giving me quite the stand off. Now she always gave me standoffs. Every day, guaranteed, we would have at least 1 or sometimes 2 screaming fits where I was on the outside of the door calmly telling her that I would let her out when she stopped and she was on the inside of the door kicking and writhing in agony. One time, I was firmly holding her as she was kicking and crying. I had her on my bed and just kept saying, "I'll let you down when you stop. Stop Sydney." Just then, she got an idea. I know this because she stopped crying and just looked at me intensely. I thought--what are you doing? As she looked right in my eyes, she peed on me. A lot. All over my lap and my bed. Oh! You little...!! That is one of my favorite parenting moments. How smart. What spunk.

Two Days Late but Still

Happy Father's Day Brett. 

We had a great weekend stacation in L.A. We saw Brett every day for a minute or two (one of those shown above) and best part --got to sleep all together at night. During the day, we walked outside and Elmo Live happened to be right next door at the Nokia theatre. Sweet! We walked in and this was Kate's face pretty much the whole show.

Next came the Grammy Museum. The Lennon exhibit was too small but there was a floor that Roland sponsored where you played all of their instruments and could mix your own song or record different stuff. My favorite was the electronic conga drum. I want one now!

Ok, look how skinny my leg looks in this picture. Ha ha, where's the rest of it?! I know for a fact that's about half my leg. aaahhhh!

Mixing a song. I'm at the conga station right next to her.

yeah probably not too sanitary, drumsticks in the mouth, bare feet. 

Breakfast at The Farm

She wants to wear this darn dress every day. That's a bad picture of her best friend Sally next to her. Oh shoot no it isn't. It's a statue. 

Great Father's Day weekend. Great father and husband. Your girls love you! I am thankful for my husband and best friend! And I like that restaurant's paint color. e

-Summer is finally here. Today. We are madly making double-sided fleece blankets for the senior boys who are leaving TOMORROW for BYU! They graduate tonight, leave tomorrow. We have two done, two to go. They are a big reason my girls made it through the year! We will really miss them.

-Sydney is going to two after school parties until 9 p.m. These are parties that about a month ago she wouldn't have even known about. She would have come home and we would have gone to get an ice cream or something :) My loss, their gain. She's excited.

-Brett's yearly convention is downtown for the next three days. I remember coming a year ago, before we had moved and bringing my mom to house hunt. Remember mom? Wow, it's been a year. In some ways, it feels like it's been 5 years and in others, well no, it feels like it's been about 5. Syd, Kate and I are going to stay in his sweet suite at the Ritz!! Wohoo!! tonight. Tomorrow I think we'll explore the city while he's in meetings. Kind of like a mini vacation right in L.A. I want to go to the Grammy museum, that one pancake restaurant that always has that line around the block. I want to go to Olvera Street and maybe Union Station. Yeah, Union Station for sure. I want to go explore Disney Hall. I love the architecture! So that should be good.

-I have a month left before France. Is it too late to get in complete shape in one month? See, I just don't do it. I'm in the middle of 2 reeeeaaaally good books right now. I figure that now that it's officially summer, I can spin or bike every single stinking day and lose 8 pounds in 4 weeks and become a fitness animal. The France part is good to go. I've studied the route, the places we're eating, staying, exploring. I am so excited. But the biking part....the part where I get used to that seat, my thighs get used to pedaling up hills....eeeeh. Tomorrow training begins. Tomorrow I say! Speaking of France, there is this french gentleman who has a booth at the Farmers' Market that has the best and I mean the best French croissants and brioche. I just discovered him last Saturday. I am counting the days until this Saturday. Now, I know that eating a chocolate croissant doesn't "technically" get me ready for France in a "practical" way, but really it "does" get me ready in an emotional way. It makes me appreciate the culture, which I will need to do in order to leave my children for 9 days. Not looking forward to that. No seriously, I'm really not. Even for France. So-these croissaints..I will invest in this emotional bonding with France. How many calories does one of those babies have anyway?

-Life is sweet. I think this each time I have enough money to buy Rainier cherries at the farmers' market and eat them one by one. I think this each time I buy fresh light pink daisies to put in a vase, and I think this each time I pull Kate out of the bath or the pool and wrap her in a big warm towel. I know life is good when I drop off Sydney at school and then I get to come home and choose what to do with my day. I know it is good each time I get a letter from my son. I know it is good each time I stand up and take a stretch or play a song on my piano. I know it is good every time my cute husband comes home from work and Kate yells "DAAAADDDYYYYY!" As my friend Melinda always says...I am blessed.

Summer is here!

"she discovered with great delight that one does not love one's children just because they are one's children but because of the friendship formed while raising them."

-- gabriel garcia marquez

Hello World~

My kids only have 1 1/2 weeks left of school! My how time is flying on by. Next week is Finals week no less. Ali's last final is on the last day of school. No yearbook day here! Ok I'll stop.

Kate and I are enjoying the quiet house each day and I need to gear up for the "summer" house. You know, the one where kids are always hungry and stuff is always happening. It will be noisier, but great! No schedules!  We are doing a lot this summer. Lots of trips to Utah, 3 to be exact. A tennis camp for Syd and a little day camp at our friend's house with horse riding. She's going to love it!

Another recording session last night with the Moon Drops. So enjoyable. We did two bluegrass numbers, one of which I'm singing lead on! It's Alison Krauss's Down to the River to Pray from O Brother Where Art Thou and it's really fun to do.

Brett got home last night! This trip has been 5 days over the weekend and it has seemed longer than usual, probably because so much is going on this time of year. I know he is exhausted and I love him for how hard he works both at work and then the second he gets home. He just goes, helps, doesn't complain. I am grateful for his optimism!

Photos of what we've been up to. This first one was taken by Whitney Kofford at Lauren's wedding. I love whatever she did to it! Kate was home with Grandma. Darn.

Disney before the summer rush..

A cool flowering tree at our stake center..

Best friends ever on most recent Utah trip..

Yes, it really got this high..

Cutest face ever...I could kiss it all day long.

 Beauty..

On whale watching trip with Syd and dad. Everyone on the boat got sick. Kate threw up all over Brett 3 times. That pink coat was covered with throw up when they got home. Syd cried, then the lady next to her cried. The boat was in 30 ft. swells. People falling, moaning. Yikes!! But hey, they saw a hundred dolphins..

Got a letter from my Spence yesterday. Happy days Wednesdays are :) I sent him some cinnamon rolls through Dear Elder to reward him and share with his district. Kate makes me sing her the mission song every night in the rocking chair before bed. We changed the second verse to say:

Spencer went on a mission

He went to Russia too

He's teaching the people about Jesus
And we miss him, and love him but know he'll come home real soon. (that's when I say under my breath, NOT). But see-- come home in a long time doesn't really rhyme you see. So it is what it is. Every night she asks me for the mission song. It's cute and breaks my heart at the same time.

The Leishman family is coming today. It will be great to see them! I am afraid to go check the girls' rooms out in the second house. They told me they were clean as they darted to school. We'll see!

The girls both made Chamber call backs. Happy for them! They got a hard piece this morning at 7 a.m. and they have to learn it and sing it at 3. I am meeting them at lunch and reviewing/teaching it to them. That way, they aren't in a practice room with 20 kids who may or may not be doing it right. But I'll teach it right! I love being able to at least help them in ONE subject. Too bad it's not stats or geometry :(

It is not end of school here. There I said it. It is not summer. I just want to put that out there.

Wouldn't it be cool if you were taking a hard math class and your parent was a teacher in that same subject?

I recorded a song this week. I was just the back up oohs and aahhs and harmony, but it was fun to see how it worked. We all wore headphones and he could up my level, or take the background music out so we could concentrate on fitting his voice more closely. We laughed through the whole session, because it's harder than you think to sing back up in the exact timing and nuance that the lead singer does. I have a major hang up with my voice. I'm a keyboard/piano player first and I'll sing back up all day long when it's live, but record my voice and I'm afraid people will really hear how average it is. BUT he did all of this magic stuff and when I listened back, it sounded fine! I was so relieved.

I'm also learning this small Regaletto Italian accordion and it is so awesome! I've learned the harmonica solo to Neil Young's Harvest Moon on it too, because it also can sound very similar to a harmonica when you play one note at a time. It's like a puzzle..trying to figure out which buttons to put my fingers on, made more complicated by the fact that if I pull out, a button is one note and if I push in, that same button is a completely different note.  I am playing it every spare second, which isn't very much, but it's now a decision between working out, reading a book, or playing the accordion. Right now, the workout is losing. Dang. Story of my life.  It's fun!

Ali rocked it as a wolf, napkin, townsperson, and dancer in Beauty and the Beast last night! Wohoo! I was so proud of her smiley self up there dancing away. This Gaston is Broadway bound. He was incredible. The sets, the costumes..there wasn't a weak lead among the bunch. It was really really great.

Syd just joined a girl scout troop. She might get some friends now who actually want to play with her after school. Really, I'm happy for her. I found out, now that we're in this troop that practically every girl in her class is in it and they do things all of the time and perhaps that is why Sydney has felt like such a loner this year. She is camping out tonight on our elementary school's lawn in a tent. She's excited.

I want some new clothes. But I don't want them to cost any money. So we'll see how that works out. Oh they have to look nice, not cheap either. Unique pieces with accessories. I'm going to have to figure out where to get those for free.

Baby's asleep...got to go play the accordion. oh and one more time, School Is Not Out Here.  e

Kate's life, chronicled by photo booth..