the preferred method of sleeping in our house...

in a fort!

A Day in the Life

Summer Projects

This is the light fixture that was in our kitchen. The kids loved it because you could pull it up and down. Even though that was kind of fun, it was mostly broken and we wanted a ceiling fan.

Almost every fan has required Nick to crawl into the attic... not his favorite thing to do.

He had a great audience which helped motivate him, I'm sure...

and he definitely needed the encouragement. We ended up with three holes in our ceiling. (by no fault of his own)

But, he patched it up very nicely, as always.

Our summer, so far

I found out that if I do some sort of outside-of-the-house activity with the kids in the morning, then the afternoon is much more pleasant in our home. Luckily in the summer there are lots of free activities for kids. We have been going to free movies, and taking advantage of all the fun library activities. We've seen magic shows, reptile shows, done LOTS of swimming and even played in the park on the 'not so hot' days.

I have unfortunately been leaving my camera at home. I really do love our camera, but I also miss the convenience of a small camera that I can just keep in my purse.

We have also been attempting to retain what we have learned all through the school year! Most days we have "homework time" while Lila and Jon are taking their naps. This is Charlotte's favorite part of the day and Aaron's least favorite.

My Aunt is a school teacher and has given me lots of workbooks throughout the years, which makes my job that much easier!











Aren't they cute?

Total World Domination

My kitchen table was taken over for quite a few hours last Saturday.

Nick was very confident that he would be victorious.



They planned for an eight hour game... but just four and a half later,

Nick had dominated the world.



He was most definitely proud of himself.

(Ali's boyfriend Christian is hidden behind Nick, I'll try to get a full shot of him up here. He is coming on our camping trip next week so I'm sure he will pop up here very soon)

Elsie threw up one evening. When I went in to check on her a little while later, this is what I found. Charlotte is such a thoughtful Big Sister

Jose Solario's Baptism

Nick got to perform his first Baptism last Saturday. Below is his wife Kara and their son Julian. The first time I met Kara (out in the foyer with fussy babies) I knew that I liked her. I also knew that Nick needed to be her home-teacher. Luckily, Nick can make that call, so he quickly started visiting them and became friends with her husband Jose.

They are a very fun family and I am so happy for them. Unfortunately, they just moved about an hour away, but I really hope to be there a year from now when they are sealed to eachother.

(The following pictures really have nothing to do with this post. The girls just wanted to pose for 100+ pictures and some of them turned out cute)

End of the Year Party

Aaron's teacher invited the parents to a party on the last day of school.

First the kids sang a couple of songs for us, and then Mrs. Lee showed a 20 minute slide show that she had made of the whole year. It was very cute, and I was in a lot of the pictures too!

(the classroom looks very bare being the last day of school, but it is usually full of color)

Aaron and Charlotte are going to a different school next year, a school that we are all thrilled about. This will be Aaron's third school in three years. He also went to two different preschools... he adapts to change very well by now. However, I have no plans of changing schools again. So, unless we move out of Fresno, this will be his final school. He can't wait for next year to start. He never really liked his current school... he isn't allowed to play tag at recess and they can't talk during lunch. I have to admit, that Principle did have some strange rules. Saying goodbye was easy, but we will really miss Mrs. Lee.

New Trees

After our old trees were cut down Nick dug out the stumps, then planted these Chinese Pistache trees! They are pretty small, but we planted another one about a year ago and it is already twice the size.

We are currently working on getting ceiling fans into every room (only one more to hang!). Then for the next project... I keep going between the front yard and the closets.