Two Going on Twelve

So here we are in the middle of June, bright sunshine and 93 degrees outside, and we're huddled inside watching Disney movies as the kids hack out coughs from their three-week-long cold. To be fair, it's actually been two colds with only one day of intermission (luckily on Stella's birthday) between. In spite of the unseasonable illness, however, we've found time to participate in some great summer activities.
We chased geese at the Wheeler Farm library day, an event at which literally seventy-five percent of the cars were either Odysseys or Siennas. Then we enjoyed Emerson's end-of-year preschool party at the park. It's so fun to see all of the preschool kids running wild and all of the teachers truly basking in it. Each year there's a water balloon fight to cap it off and one older sister of a girl in Emerson's class decided to exclusively target Tad who was in tie and all. It was great!
As previously mentioned, we've also spent lots of time in our back yard. A few weeks ago, Tad climbed up into a couple of our trees out there and hacked off some giant dead limbs with a hand saw. Then he chopped up the pieces and built a tee pee for the kids, which they loved for about one day. The tee pee was soon superseded by two natural pest control items -- a fake owl to keep birds out of our strawberry patch and a bag of ladybugs to eat the pests off of our garden and apple tree. After scattering the bugs, the kids (especially Emerson) monitored their presence each day, fearlessly picking them up and seeing how long they would crawl up an arm before flying away. Owlie (creative name, I know) the owl now multitasks as a bird scarer and a garden friend.
Last week we were also lucky enough to head down to Family Art Days at the BYU Museum of Art. There were SO many fun things for the kids -- water color painting, face painting, medieval dancing, story telling, and especially Grandma May. And Lisa got to see some friendly faces she hadn't seen in years and just enjoy the experience of being in that wonderful building. She actually felt the need to reconnect with the art museum community and is now searching for a way to do so.
Last Saturday we celebrated Stella's second (though by her attitude, you'd guess about twelfth) birthday with a back yard water party. Several of Stella's little friends (and, for Emerson's enjoyment, their older brothers) gathered in swimming suits on an absolutely perfect day to enjoy our little splash pool, the crazy sprinkler, bubble blowing, a water balloon toss/fight, a barbecue, and cake. The birthday girl spent ninety percent of her party splashing in the pool. Cousin Elle and Stella shrieked with Stella's friend, Emma as they jumped up and down and twirled around. Our cute friend, Olive (who's moving to Portland and no longer hanging out with us twice a week, sniffle sniffle), enjoyed her very first meat at the party -- and entire Costco hot dog! And Stella has not voluntarily taken off the princess dress-ups she received since the party. It's almost disturbing to see the degree to which she takes to this whole prissy princess role. Her new play stove/oven from her grandparents is now the home for Emerson's toy snakes. Thank you to all who came to help us celebrate out little girl.