This one's for Grandma!

Brielle got this cute dress from her Grandma Linda's trip to Mexico. She adores it and I have to admit that I LOVE how pretty she looks in this color. My favorite thing about it, though, is how she feels when she wears it. Her very first comment about it was, "hey, mom, don't I just look like a beautiful rock star!?" Yeah, nothin says rock star like a Mexican sundress and a cardigan!

I finally painted!

Brielle's room has been torturing me ever since before she was even born. I knew that I wanted to do a brown and pink room, but her room is seriously tiny and painting it brown terrified me. Painting it pink was almost as scary. I finally came up with a plan about a year ago and it's taken me a whole year to get up the guts to do it, but I finally did it and I am completely thrilled with it! Doesn't it make you want to go out and eat some Neapolitan ice cream? Now I just can't seem to make myself put holes in the walls to hang up her decorations. Hopefully that won't take a whole year....

School has been out for nearly a month and yet we have only seen one day that actually reached 80! It's been a windy and rainy and gloomy, and really really busy. I've found myself wondering when we'd be able to get started with all our summertime fun, until I finally downloaded my most recent pictures. Evidence of summer is everywhere!

First night of the summer sleeping out on the tramp --- Brielle actually only made it about an hour, but the rest of the giggled until all ours of the night! It sounded beautiful. This is our first morning of no school. It looks like sheer laziness -- but I like to call it "everyone snuggling on the couch and agreeing on the same show and getting along and letting mom sleep in". Otherwise known as "bliss"!

I believe this is morning number two. Waking up to find your son reading to his smiling little sister is a serious treasure!

We've also done some baking. Like a lot of baking. Maybe I should not have bought that enormous bag of chocolate chips at Costco right before swimsuit season?

The boys even got to have their first fishing day with dad of the season. They FROZE to death and fought the wind more than they fought the fish, but they got their guy time in and even caught a couple of fish in the process.

I can't wait to see what we get to do when summer actually begins!

Breje turned 14, and we got tons of visiters!

It's unbelievably difficult to comprehend that my little girl is actually a 14 year old! Having her party right after Brielle's really emphasizes how much older she is getting. She no longer begs for princess parties and dreams about getting dress-ups and coloring books. Topping her list was a slumber party and, of course, the ipod! (Thanks, Grandma!)

It's a good thing she is such an amazing teenager -- it makes missing her childhood a little bit easier. Breje has an amazing testimony for someone her age and a very firm hold of her values. She's a huge help with her brothers and Brielle and I'm not sure if I'd still be sane (at least partially) if she wasn't so willing to babysit for me. I love that she lets Brielle have "sleepovers" in her room and does her hair and everything else she can think of so that those ten years between them seem so short. I love that she shares my love of reading and that she "gets" Pride and Prejudice. I love that she's even more beautiful on the inside than she is on the outside, even though she grows more lovely every day. Happy Birthday, Breje!

Her birthday was made even more special when Grandma Linda and Aunt Hayley (with the ladies, of course) made the long drive from Utah to come celebrate. We finished up all her birthday shopping and ate some yummy food along the way. My camera happened to be missing at the time and it just kills me because there were many lovely moments. It never ceases to amaze me that Ady and Kutter have still not discovered that they have nothing in common (despite spending EVERY SINGLE WAKING MOMENT TOGETHER) and Brielle and Sienna never seem to stop smiling.

It was literally an hour after this crew left that Jason, Chelsi and kids showed up for their first visit to this lovely town. It was so fun to see how quickly the kids connected, as they don't get to see each other very often.

Spending time with them helped remind us that there are positive aspects to our sleepy little town. We spent most of their time here enjoying all of our wide open spaces in the back yard. The kids braved the motorcycle together....

... and the horse....

... and I seriously wish I had a picture of how much they enjoyed our new kittens (the sentiment was most definitely not reciprocated!)

Thank you so much, everyone, for making our Memorial Day weekend seem a lot less dreary!