Oh what do you do...

Rustin is gone for the rest of the week.  Scout camp tonight, girls camp tomorrow, high adventure Friday and home on Saturday.  I think this is the bishop's-job highlight of the year.  He loves it.  The Young Women particularly have him wrapped around their cute little fingers!  He will really do anything for them.

So here's what it looks like around here with just me running the show---

Cereal for breakfast.

Cereal for lunch

Nachos for dinner. Awesome.

(not that Rustin makes dinner but if he isn't coming home then I just don't really worry about it...)

Actually we mowed the lawn and vacuumed under the couches and scrubbed the kitchen floor.  We really did.  Tomorrow we have a serious massive clothing sorting party planned.  I have put this off for way too long.

I'm thinking ten shirts per kids for the school year.

Is that too many? too few?  Two weeks worth (about)...

How do the rest of you manage clothing?

I have a hard time because the three big boys wear the same size of everything including socks and underwear.  Actually Austin's pants are shorter but we are in shorts right now so we don't notice...  I can't keep the sizes sorted so I just put everything together which ends up as a massive amount of clothes in a small space sometimes.

Shirts hang up in the closet and pants go in the bins but we never have enough pants (they wear them out  faster than I can get new ones).  Dallin and Landon have their "own" shirts for the most part. Landon is a bit more possessive of his clothes than his brothers.

Landon still tends to wear the blue shirts and Dallin tends to wear the red shirts.  It helps kids and teachers at school call them by the right name.  Poor Austin gets whatever is left.  He doesn't complain though.  Whoever gets dressed first gets good pants and the other two complain that someone stole "my" pants.  I guess we need to go shopping.

Interesting fact:  Rustin does the clothes shopping 90% of the time.  He's just faster and better at it than I am.

I'm thinking of chucking the ENTIRE box of unmatched socks and buying 50 pair of plain white socks that the boys, Rustin and I can all share.

Is sharing socks weird or gross?

I think my perspective is skewed.  After the twins were born I tried to keep pacifiers, bottles and burp cloths separate for about two weeks before I realized it was futile.  I gave up, and it's all been downhill since.

We do have our own tooth brushes though.  Except I steal Rustin's whenever I can't find mine.  I don't think he knows that...

I miss him.

parallel lives

 We had cousins visiting for the last couple of weeks. Juli and I attempted to suggest that they sleep apart or have a day or two separate from each other--what were we thinking!  
Of all the cruel suggestions!  
A day apart from cousins who are a mere, tempting, three miles away?! (Can you hear the kids all crying?...) 

Of course then we remembered our visits to Wilford. We can still both recite our cousins' phone number--which we learned before we learned our own home phone number.  And we remember walking the ENTIRE long hot dusty mile to get to Kristi and Jenni's house becuase we couldn't bear to spend even one more second apart. The hours talking and playing and telling stories...

So of course we gave in and let them spend every single day and night together.  I don't mind having them over and Mom and Dad don't mind either--they are actually a lot of fun. This time we got to learn to play Rugby and use all the cool Aussie slang.  (pretty much just shorten every word and add '-y' to the end--chocolate=chocky etc.)

I don't know how we got so lucky, but I love to have all of my nieces and nephews over from both sides of the family.  They get along so well.  It must be because they all live parallel lives in their separate homes.  We all have the same routines and habits.  Roast beef and mashed potatoes on Sundays, sharing bedrooms with siblings and chores around the house.  All of our houses are very similar so it's pretty easy to mix kids up.  I love it!

4th of July

The 4th of July always brings a tinge of sadness as it marks the mid-point of summer.  I love summer.  I love the smell of sizzling grass as the afternoon rain hits it. I love running out of popsicles half-way through every week.  I love waking up to the sound of sprinklers and lawnmowers.  I love having the kids around.  Really--it's my favorite time of year.  This year we headed out of town for the weekend.

We went to Logan to meet our newest cousin--Collin Wayne Thomas.  He has the squishiest body  (9lbs.3oz!) and most kissable cheeks ever!

We stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Hatch and floated the river.  It is an entirely different experience to do things like this now that the kids are all older.  Way more fun and a lot less work for Rustin and me.  Dallin and Landon blew up about a million inter-tubes and we packed them in Darren's truck.

Jenna and Benson "helped" by dodging the sprinklers.

Don't you wish you could move like that?!

We got to float with Trevor's family which was awesome.  The the river was nice and warm from emptying out of the shallow reservoir.  The water was just low enough to give us a few bumps and bruises in some tender places (in Ashlee's case on her face...) but we had a blast.

I am sad to see my favorite summer holiday go.  One of these days I will have to write a post about my depth of gratitude for those who have gone before us.  Rustin's great...Grandfather fought in the Revolutionary War.  We are truly grateful.  We try to make sure our ancestors are not forgotten by the up-coming generation.  That's the best thanks we have to offer!

Camping--in pictures

I'm pretty sure every single cousin got dumped out of the hammock at least once...

Juli and Snow at the top of the mountain.

Benson wore this knight costume every single day--he smelled great...

but who  needs a shower when you have this...

and an afternoon thunder storm or two!

This photo is straight out of the camera with a  slightly lengthened shutter speed in the late afternoon. 
Isn't it a gorgeous sky?!
We ate a million marshmallows, the kids climbed rocks like mountain goats (thanks uncle Shon--Rustin was conducting a funeral) and  no one complained that they were bored.  Great weekend!

Concerned about oil in the ocean?

Me too.

That's why we ambushed (or just asked?) Shon to explain the whole tragedy in the Gulf to us while they are here visiting.

Shon has been on off-shore oil well  drilling engineer for many years and currently works in Australia and has also lived and worked on off-shore wells in New Orleans, Nova Scotia, Houston and New Mexico.


Take a minute and read his thoughts on the situation HERE.  You will be glad you did!