Summah time.

So, here we are: four weeks into Adam's first round of clinicals. Honestly, I've no idea how this happened...our lives keep speeding up without asking my permission and, most days, I'm amazed that it's already  4pm when I look at the clock! So, I'm playing catch-up. I had excellent intentions of catching up on blogging and 84,000 other things while we were on our 3-week vacation in Colorado; instead, I took naps almost every day and spent time with the people I love most. It was much needed, and very very fun....but not actually restful at all, in hindsight.
     We started out with a great little camping trip, just the five of us, up at Woods Canyon Lake. Our day and night were full of capture the flag in the woods, playing in the lake (and mama almost falling asleep by the lake..due to Dramamine), and reading around the campfire at night (after s'mores, of course). The next day we headed down the mountains mid-morning, on our way to Durango...and our car blew up about 40 miles outside of Gallup, NM. Seriously, what is it about our cars and driving to Durango?? The cool part? We ended up right in front of a home belonging to a neat little old couple-who happened to be Christians. The little old man brought us water, and they ended up taking the littles and I into town when the tow-truck driver (whom dispatch assured us would have space for all of us)-well-didn't. Instead, Pax got to ride up front with Adam in the front of the tow-truck and had an absolutely marvelous time!
           To make a long story short, 3 tow-trucks, a McDonald's, a rental car, over 300 miles and many many hours later; we made it to Durango.

 A few days after that, we made it to Ft. Collins in my mother-in-law's car, actually on schedule (we skipped the 2nd mini-camping trip we'd planned) while the van stayed in Durango to have a new engine put in. The kids were fine with missing the 2nd camping trip because it just so happened that they got to go to an awesome water day event at our old church with all their friends and cousins. B was double thrilled because she just made the age-limit!   
       Our days in Colorado were almost all on the cool side; rainy in the afternoons or evenings, and sometimes all day- we loved it! Although, my usually-crazy-brave littlest did discover that he's not at all a fan of thunder.

Blaise, my mom (Grammy), and niece Evie (1 1/2) playing in the little-kid sprinklers while the Bigs were at a park with Adam one morning...they had a marvelous time!

We spent as much time in the beautiful Colorado outdoors as we could. One day, we took my nephew Ayden (11) and our 3 on a hike up to Horsetooth Falls. We left early, to avoid the thunderstorms, and the kids all had a great time-our kiddos have missed hiking these past few months! Another evening, we took him along with our kids to City Park Pool, where  he and Pax took on the giant slides without even blinking. Most evenings were spent playing "kickball" in the backyard until it was dusk, and one rainy afternoon while the littles napped we even got to go see Planes 2 with almost the whole crew-a bit hit!

Intermission: A word about our youngest son.

This little guy...he's seriously brave. And seriously fierce. And seriously smart, as in he watches EVERYTHING and is pretty sure he can do it all just as well as anyone else-if not better. Which is great- but also gives this mama wrinkles because-let's face it-at 2, that's a combination for disaster!! And so this kid has had more than his fair share of crazy almost-catastrophes since he learned to walk a year and a half ago, let me tell you. Thankfully this wasn't one of them. This rock was much higher than it looks in the picture; he kept telling his daddy, "Don't worry, Daddy-I can do it!" yeah...but we'll hold on anyway, at least for another year or two, littlest buddy!

After 5 days, we headed back down to Durango and spent the rest of our time there. Durango is glorious in July, especially if you're coming from Phoenix...we soaked up every second, once again spending our time outside as much as we could. One wonderful evening was spent eating a picnic dinner at a park with our friends the Danquahs, who recently moved back to Durango. We watched a storm roll in...and then watched the kids-all 6 of them- glory in the rain. We had dinner in the back room (read:the wine room) at my in-laws' bakery with my in-laws several times, as well as my brother-and sister-in law and our nieces; another harrowing experience for the mama of a 2-year old. All those bottles! and the ladder! But-worth it for the delicious treats everyone devoured at the end. (Perks of being the grandchild of a French baker: getting to go behind the counter and pick your own as-big-as-your-face pastry.)
       Add to that the wonderful time we got to spend with the Palmers, the Danquahs, and many more old friends at more parks than I can count; tons of cousin time, Blythe's first sleepover (at Aunt Tiff and Uncle YayYay's house-Pax got to go, too. They had some serious fun! And we felt strangely childless with only one...) friends and family, and, well....it was hard to come back to the hot August desert. Blythe was upset for days; so I taught her the fine art of letter-writing. She then proceeded to write letters to all her Colorado friends and family....and was overjoyed to get an answer from her Grammy and Grandaddy and Evie, just the other day.

(See? Giant!! These are 2 of our nieces-Madi (8) and Violet (6).)

This photo just screams summer in Durango to me!

This was a fun Saturday morning spent at Tiff and Jerome's with cousins and the Palmer kids-Kale (10), Pax (6), Jack (5), and Madi (8). I had the chance to do a few photoshoots again while in town, so I had dropped Adam and the kids off at 7 am on my way to a shoot.

    This is how Blaise spent 75% of the time we were at the bakery. He woke up to the sound of beeping trucks backing up, and ran out the door to watch them dig and grade and lift until it was time to leave for that day's adventure.  They're adding a parking lot across the street for the new pediatric center built in the last year; and therefore there's lots and lots of construction vehicles and workers, too. We spent more than one evening exploring the empty work site, mush to his delight...








...These are the Danquah girls. One of the perks of having my MIL's Seqoia is that it fits 8; so one morning, while Megan did some last-minute packing and cleaning for the move into their new home, I took all the girls with us to meet the other mamas at their Tuesday park day. Loud, crazy, giggling fun! Pax says they were telling ghost stories in the back...I don't really know where any of them have ever heard a ghost story, but, there you go.

Pax (6), Lily (7), Sadie (5), Blythe (4), Ollie (3), and Blaise (2). The stair-step kids. Sadie is convinced that they're all "real cousins", despite Lily's attempts to convince her otherwise; and considering that half the people we know and love in Durango ARE "real cousins" and their mama is my birthday "twin"....I can understand her confusion! It's just allllll part of the family.
       And then there's these two. Pax and Ayden. This summer they had SO much fun together! Here you see evidence of their sand/ water days in my parents' backyard, something I have vivid childhood memories of doing. It's so much fun seeing your kiddos enjoy the same summer thrills you did!
     The end of this story: our van is still in Durango, not quite fixed yet. Thankfully, we had the generostiy of my mother-in-law's Sequoia to get us back home and around until it's done. We had a deadline-Adam started Clinicals on the 6th of August, so we didn't have a lot of wiggle room. But that's another story.....
       let's just say- Summer in Colorado was great!

Shaving cream and food coloring. (Because I can't think of anything more creative than that.)

         I'm editing a photo session from last night, and I took a little break to upload and look through 54,000 photos I've taken since March which, in the craziness that has happened since then, got abandoned. Sad. But I found these! And since I told my friend I'd post this, oh, 2 months ago or so, I'd doing it now. Plus they're fun, and I think a little fun is needed around here...

This is my friend Beth. She's great-creative, funny, and waaaay more organized than I am! So when she showed up at my house the day before we left on our grand adventure with a kiddie pool, shaving cream, and food coloring; I just grinned and said "Oh, yeah!!" 

We stripped the kids down, and kid bliss commenced. Except for Blaise, who stayed as far away as he could...Beth put some on his walker and he freaked out. (Seriously, the kid wants to climb the rock wall of the fireplace, but shaving cream? Too scary, people. I love toddlers.)

 The big kids all looked like Easter eggs by the time they were done; it was a great lesson in color-mixing, too. (Science class!) Pax and Charissa (Beth's oldest girl and Pax's buddy) decided to jump in the pool after we'd hosed them off; and swim season was officially opened-in March. Yes, the pool was about 65 degrees. Nope, Pax wasn't about to come out!

  This was SO fun to watch, so easy to set up, and-best of all-a wonderful brain break from packing for both the kids and I!

Beth, you can bring your organized creative-ness to my backyard anytime ;)

Just a Bunch....

Just a bunch of little buddies

                                                                      on the steps

                                                                    at the splash pad

                                                                    sharing snacks.
                                                       

30 days of Pinterest.

Who doesn't know about Pinterest at this point? hands? if you don't, go check it out...it's the solution to the never-ending ohh-I-really-liked-that-idea-now-where-did-I-see-it?? that is my creative but not always so organized brain. I love it. I don't even remember who or when or why I found it; I just know it started about the same time as our move to the Valley and I've been pinning ever since. I've actually tried/made a lot of the things I've pinned, with varied degrees of success-but as I looked at my "kiddos" board today, I realized 2 things: a) I have close to 200 fun, easy-ish, or educational things pinned on that board alone and b) if we did  one of those things every day this summer I would be Super Fun Mom, for sure. And guess what? I'm gonna do it. Maybe not every day, but at least 3 or so days a week. And I'm gonna blog about it, so in 5 years from now I remember the fun-ness I had with my big kids our first long, hot summer in Phoenix while my brain was still in the newborn fog. I'm going for 30 days of Pinterest activities to start...don't think it'll be too hard. Most of the stuff I've pinned requires minimal investment, although there are some biggies in there, too.
Today?
We started off with a (super easy) bang:
Moon Sand!!
I'd post to the original pin, but the original pin didn't go anywhere...it just gave the recipe:
8 cups flour
1 cup baby oil

 mixin' it up...this is when everyone was still happy, before I ran upstairs to look for more oil and Pax tried to play with it (I'd told him to wait) and Blythe told him not to and hit him with a cup (she's pretty sure she's his boss) and Pax, well, didn't like that (he's the big brother, after all) and bit her instead. Yeah, this picture was before all that. Once we took it outside to play, however, they were loving each other again. And the Moon Sand.

 they really, really loved the Moon Sand. It's soft and sticks together kinda like regular sand when wet-the more they played, the more it stuck together. And it's cleaner than the mud they usually play with, although Adam recommends not using water to clean it up. Keeping that in mind for next time...because there will be a next time. Pinterest WIN!

....and I didn't see my son inside for at least an hour, which is always good on a beautiful day! I just ignored it when the pool got filled up and the clothes got stripped off and the Moon Sand got turned to Moon Mud. Gotta pick your battles, people.