A Few Snapshots

Family photo from another banquet. Mitch recieved the Ketchum Award for being the top civil engineering student:

Coloring:

Ballet shows in the livingroom:








Anna's fancy hair, rag curlers:


Water play:

Naps by Daddy. Does that look relaxing to you?

Enjoy your own moments today.

Fall Treasure Walk

With treasure bags in hand we set out today looking for fall treasures. We headed first towards a new picnic spot the girls wanted to eat at that we had seen on our walk yesterday, a large rock 'table' of sorts. We passed under a raucous flock of crows by the creek, tromped through as many crunchy leaves as we could find, ran down a slope of colorful leaves, found sticks, acorns, rocks and lots of beautiful leaves, threw things in the creek, saw some trout in the creek close to the surface of the water and watched their strange behavior for a while (one kept 'attacking' another one', Anna said they must be friends), touched, hugged and smelled almost as many trees as we passed under, crawled into a culvert, saw our swimming hole-now much deeper with all the rain and snow we've had- listened to the wind in the tops of the trees, felt the warm sunshine on our skin, made Ruthie laugh, and generally had a good time. We spread out our treasures on the grass once we got home so we could look at what we had found:

Then we went inside, some to nap and some to craft with their treasures.

Anna's Nap

This is how Anna fell asleep on the living room floor at 6 p.m. last night:
She never took a nap yesterday. Not that she didn't lie down and rest for the whole time I asked her too, she just never fell asleep. What can you do? So by 6 she crashed on the living room floor after a whole day of playing hard, including time playing in the creek on this hot afternoon. Would you be comfortable napping like that?

Rainbow Lakes

-Nights under incredible stars. As Rich Mullins says: "They're the same ones Abraham saw!"

-A creek for the girls to play in. Anna was in her bathing suit playing in the creek by 7:30 the first morning before the sun was up high enough to warm anything.

-Mitch's guitar music around the campfire with the girls playing along on whatever instrument suited their fancy.

-My brother joined us for a night! I've never seen more perfectly melted, toasted marshmallows than the ones he was doing! So nice to have an extra set of free hands to take care of all the logistics of camping with three girls, although those hands will soon be filled with his own little one due at the end of next month. Anna, Josie and Ruthie had a wonderful time with their uncle and I enjoyed getting to spend time with my brother. Thanks for your kind, playful, servants spirit, Michael.

-Anna and Josie hanging out a ton with Nora and Sam, off to who knows where. Josie told Sam while they were playing one day "I like hanging out wiff you, Sam."

-Dirt play! Away from all the plastic props of normal life in our culture the girls enjoyed just playing in the dirt, literally, and built their own 'campfires' out of wood they found and 'cooked'.

-Spontaneous little girl hugs.

-Hammock time! Mitch, Anna and Josie even took their afternoon nap in it one day.

-Kind, servant-hearted friends who did the dishes almost every meal for us. Thanks, Michelle and Rob!

-Sun screening up a little Josie, or at least rubbing in what she puts on. She loves her part in the sunscreen process, that tactile little one.

-Whittling. The ultimate 'I have time to spare and can just stand here and whittle' pasttime. Most people would sit, but it was Ruthie's nap time, so I didn't sit.

-Morning coffee!

And oh so much more relaxing fun outdoors with friends filling our time.

Father's Day

We had a wonderful Father's Day celebrating Mitch. Thanks, Mitch, for being such an amazing Father to our three girls.
I hope your Father's Day was as blessed as ours, a day dedicated to showing the Fathers in your life how much you love them and value them in as many ways possible. We had a full but relaxing day filled with all the things Mitch loves most:


-6 a.m. bike ride up to the top of Flagstaff Mt. by Mitch


-Sprinkler time for two girls and their Dad.


-Time spent in the garden both as a family and Mitch by himself so he could actually work in peace. Can you think of anything Mitch would rather do with a day?


-Red wine and dark chocolate while the girls napped (does that count as a real date?!):

-A nap for Daddy'O! Now that's what I call one relaxing day:



-fresh blueberries for a snack:

-A 'potluck' for dinner (the words potluck and picnic are interchangeable in our house these days). Mitch said he wanted beans or lentils for dinner, so I made Huevos Rancheros. You can't beat freshly harvested lettuce, green onions and cilantro topping it all off! And a family picture to boot:



-Tandem triking (did you know such a thing existed?):


-And cheesecake topped with fresh strawberries for dessert shared with all our neighborhood friends that were outside playing with us in the evening:


-But the best surprise of all was what Anna and Josie wanted to give Daddy as a present for Father's Day: a Didgeridoo. He can actually get sound out of the thing! He has yet to master circular breathing which would allow you to play continually, but that will come with practice. If you've never heard an actual Didgeridoo played, now you can! But note that it was just received today and future videos of Didgeridoo playing will have many more hours of practice behind them:


Happy Father's Day, Mitch. We love you.

Berry Smoothie

What happens when you have a very tactile two year old eating a smoothie at the table and a six month old who must be put down for a nap right now? You come back to this:

She sure knows how to have fun. With anything. Josie has been experimenting with various forms of sunscreen lately. Her favorite is SPF yogurt, but today berry smoothie sufficed. I was quite proud of my smoothie. The girls loved it! I put blueberries, raspberries, peanut butter and kale in it. Does that sound yummy to you? I wasn't sure, but they went for it.

In case you have been wondering, yes, I did cut Josie's mullet off finally. But if you talk to Josie about it I just "took some hair away with scissors and put it in a bag."

I don't usually put all three girls down for naps in the same room. But today after Josie had 'mamas' she wanted to snuggle with Anna to go to sleep, not Mommy. Anna came in and 'read' her a story, they tucked in their baby dolls and after quite a few giggles and 'sssshhhs' from Mommy they drifted off to sleep. When I rolled over after nursing Ruthie and finally getting her to sleep this is how I found them:
Chad, cookie monster is often Josie's baby of choice. It cracks me up to see her taking such sweet care of a monster.

Spontaneous Music Making

I love it when Anna and Josie spontaneously make their own music. Two pencils can become rhythm instruments and they sing whatever comes out in the moment and let their little bodies move to the music they make without any of the social inhibitions that stop us older folk. They are full of kid creativity. I was able to capture this little moment on video before it was over. Enjoy!

You can tell by Josie's perkiness that she is feeling much better today. Still not 100% and she hasn't eaten much, but I did get her to drink quite a bit by having a tea party!

Anna didn't take a nap today, but then she fell asleep on the couch listening to a tape of Beatrice Potter stories at 5 pm. (Why do they call it tape, Mommy?)

At dinner Josie insisted we put Pooh Bear inside her shirt on her back because she wanted to carry him that way and keep him close to her. Interesting that just lately I have started carrying Ruthie on my back in the backpack, too, instead of just in front. Monkey see, monkey do. How much of what we learn in life is actually formally taught to us and how much is picked up by watching the people around us? Tonight as I was in putting Josie to sleep we could hear Ruthie start crying out in the living room. Josie told me "Ruthie wants Mommy, I think you need to go get her, Mommy. She wants to lie right here with us, too." So I did, and two girls fell asleep at the same time, content with their mommy. Anna and Josie are learning so much about mothering right now as they watch me mother little Ruthie (and them). They are sensitive to their sister's cries and understand her nonverbal cues about what she wants and needs and mimic those same things in their play. They make my heart happy:)