Last week Jared was out of the country and I was having a solo parenting extravaganza! Hence the missed post, sorry. The timing worked out well--my brother was visiting from Idaho with his kids, and so the kids and I played hard with cousins to stay distracted. It was our busiest and most exhausting summer week yet, but it was a lot of fun. I don't have pictures from Jack going on the annual overnight backpacking trip with grandpa+cousins (I stayed back with Alice, so my brother Jordan took Jack on because he is a real one). But I have pictures from a lot of the other stuff. Too many pictures, probably. Let's get to it:
^^Our weekly Jurassic Jungle meal planning + ice cream bribe survival date.
^^Playing around with a pedestal and urn planter moment. We are not formal people but I think it's going to stay, other than I'll get a smaller, less formal planter eventually. This is an avocado tree that was in Jared's parents' new home when they bought it. They gave it to us and now I am trying to rescue it, even though I'm pretty sure it went without water for several months. If it perks back up then I will prune the leaves a bit to give it less of of a bushy look and more of a tree look. Adventures in mid-30s!
^^Cousin time!! These pictures make me so happy.
^^Cousins watching our fence get put in. Every step of our backyard is painfully slow (this picture was taken nearly two weeks ago and our fence is barely halfway completed now😅), but we are pretty sure our landscape company is losing money on us with how low they quoted us for this project, so we're letting a lot of things slide that we otherwise wouldn't (including the painfully slow pace). On days when they don't show up to work we do our best to make the most of it and get our there and play hard. Now that the grass is taking root and the patio is sealed, it's becoming a really fun, functional space to play.
^^This girl is a ham. She also left several crayons out on our patio and then they turned to liquid in the 100-degree heat. Our patio hadn't been sealed yet, so now the crayons are permanent memories in our patio. Very cute.
^^First annual Pioneer Day fireworks over Utah Lake! I'm really glad I got to see them from our house this year. Next year there will be homes across the street from us blocking the view. It was an impressive display. I believe we also went swimming with cousins this day.
^^Our hydrangea plants are in! They are beautiful and ridiculous. The flowers are enormous and beautiful, but the stems really aren't big enough to support them yet, so I've been doing some deadheading as they start drooping down toward the dirt. They are getting plenty of water and mostly looking pretty good. I'm excited to see them take root and flourish in the next few years. Also anxious for the landscapers to get mulch in immediately to protect them from the heat, and just because it will look nice.
^^I love finding pictures like this on my camera roll. Alice's BFF, Lovey Bovey.
^^Jared got the kids each a present. Then he went to sleep for several hours to fight the jetlag and I had to weather a 3-hour rager meltdown because Jack felt that he should have been allowed to keep both presents for himself🫠 Next time they are getting identical presents or nothing!! I think we ended with a good conversation about jealousy, but who knows if it got through to him. Parenting, man. Woof.
^^Some daddy-daughter time under our baby trees. I love catching moments like this.
^^More summer fun! We often end up at a splash pad around 5 p.m, when they are usually uncrowded because kids are heading home for dinner and to see their parent(s) getting home from work. But this is the time of day for us when we know we likely still have 1.5-2 hours til Jared gets home, so it's good to get out of the house so we aren't watching the clock. I just love these two best frienemies😍 Long live summer.