happy summer

So far, so good!!! We are really enjoying our summer together. although I can't even believe this is that last week of July already! We went out with Kristie and her boys yesterday. First we took the kids to a cool used book exchange called "flipped pages". The kids put so much thought into their books and ended up making great choices; Emy chose the lion the witch and the wardrobe, Tiara chose a new animal ark book (I have been reading a chapter with her every night and these are great!), and Kaiella's is a fun story too with great illustrations; called Trupp. We went with our friends from there to go swimming for the rest of the afternoon. Emilea was a little fish as always, and Kaiella was determined to swim by herself ( life jacket on of course) even though she had the worlds biggest diaper-bum LOL! ( crazy how they expand with water) It took her a little while, but my sweet Tiara was so very proud to have found all of her bravery and decided to join in too! good for her. She even got this mask and a snorkeler out and spent some time with her little head under the water. Such a big big step for her. I spent last week in Chicago for CHA, had TONS of fun! You can see lots of pics from my trip on my CK blog. We are planning a camping trip for the first week in August, good old fashioned tenting and camp fire cooking. Really looking forward to that. I wish summer could last all year, the warm glow in the evening, extra outings with family and friends, the smell of sunscreened little people running around full of chalk and sand. But you know I say that about all of the seasons I guess. I am just happy to be taking it all in and cherishing the day fully. Have a good one.

Emilea

my beautiful girl. I love the way you can just feel her warm peaceful spirit in this photo. She seems to be growing up so fast sometimes I look at her and it takes my breath away. It is so nice having her home with me for the summer she has been reading TONS and enjoying the time with her sisters. I always like watching the way their friendships blossom when they are home all together for the holidays.

I have decided to make myself a flickr gallery of some photos, just learning about how it all works but seems really cool, lots of amazingly talented people out there that are super inspiring. If you want to take a peek a few of my pics are here

OK

we all need a little reminder sometimes!

( photo from toon town in Disneyland...I loved all the fun to be had there!)

gift

I am giving away a free gift with my new column in Creating Keepsakes this month, to help make a simple story book or just use on a page as you like. check it out here :)

life update

I haven't been posting here much lately, I miss this place. Just feeling a little blog identity crisis trying to keep two blogs going and knowing what to post where. I am working on solving that. A great solution is in the works and I am excited to get it figured out once and for all :)

But for now, I thought I would pop in to say hello and happy summer. Ah! just saying that makes me breathe a little deeper, I love summer; the fresh dewy air in the morning, the flowers and birds and grubby hot little kids, and the carefree happy warm days that go with it all! I welcome summer with the openest of arms.

here are a few of my favorite photos from the past little while

need a moustache? Tiara decided that this was the perfect craft-of-the-day and made one for everyone in our family LOL! SO funny.

oh yes, I wore mine proudly to greet Cam as he came home from work, I think he nearly fell off the step. new change to note; this is the new green we painted in our main hall and one dining room wall. SO much happier than the grey that was still lurking there from when we moved in. the other three walls of the dining room are a nice robin's egg blue...so fresh!

soccer season was a blast! Tiara really got the hang of it with the comfort of coach daddy. makes me so happy because she was super nervous about it when they first began

these two pretty butterflies were happy to help celebrate a special birthday for my beautiful MOM in June. We spoiled her as much as possible with dinner, a trip this mineral spa just out of town and a day of pampering

this little attitude really cracks me up! she is not even 3 yet and already is giving looks like this. oh boy. I should add in a big thank-you for all of the prayers and well wishes we have received for Kaiella after she was burned. As you can see here, her arm has healed up really nicely.

Cam's parents got a hot tub put in this spring and everyone has been enjoying some good soaks in there. Especially Emilea, I think. She is a real little fish! It is so nice for the girls to be out in the fresh country air. Spending lots of time outside with their grandparents is a real gift to all of them

our proud preschool graduate

spending lots of time at the park. We love our outdoor time together as a family, so the warmer weather has us outside as much as possible!

went to watch a bit of Emy's field day at the end of June. I love this event every year! the kids do too. this here is the sponge race, a fun drippy wet game. I can't believe Emy is finished grade 2 and heading for grade three, WOW! that feels so big. Her first week of summer holidays has been great she has read at least 20 chapter books already! I LOVE watching her joy in reading unfolding. I think we will have to get her down to the library at this pace though. She will have read every book we have in no time!

everyone was learning to ride bikes this year! Tiara would barely even peddle her own tricycle last year so getting Emy's "big" girl bike and deciding it was OK to go for it was a really big step! she worked with cam for awhile but decided to go with training wheels for this year. whatever feels good! Kaiella is doing her best on the tricycle and Emilea is working as hard as she can to master her two wheeler on her own! I can't wait to get out as a family. That's my little update for now. Have a great sunshiny day!