Lovely Summer

Summer moves slowly along. Delicious summer! My very favorite time of the year. 

(Olivia, currently reading over my shoulder, said that she thought my favorite season was spring. NOPE! Summer. Summer all the way.)

Here's a summer haiku to emphasise the seriousness of my feelings:

Summer is the best.

The true, sweet, absolute best!

I love you, Summer.

Moving right along.

The kids and I found this little treasure for 75% off at "Lobby Lobby" and have decided to put a new quote on it every week. Liv takes her duties as my assistant very seriously, and she and KJ chose our first quote. Katelyn patiently poked out about a million letters from their case, so she also did her part!

We changed it today to celebrate our 16th anniversary coming up on Friday. Every person gets to choose a love quote and today was KJ's. He chose "As you wish." Pretty clever, I thought. Parenting pat on the back, Marie. Any day that your children are quoting 'The Princess Bride,' you win. 

Olivia has successfully gotten Benson to sit through a story book! This is a major accomplishment, he's not a big story guy. 'Pinkalicious,' and he has wanted her to read it about fifty times since! I've said it before and I'll say it again, that kid is one lucky dude to have YaYa and Katelyn as his big sisters.

 She's a great storyteller, too. Kate also loves to have Liv read to her. And Kate loves to try to read to Benson, but that's been a little tricky... like I said, he's not into being read to (yet, but hopefully he'll grow into it!). So I really loved this sweet little moment.

KJ is going to his game group tomorrow and Liv is going with Hadley to work at the book warehouse, so Kate the Great, Benson and I will have to think of something fun to do.

I have finished all of Brene Brown's books and just hurried through '11/22/63' by Stephen King again. I enjoyed it even more the second time.

Now for your "Family B Quotes" portion of the program:

Today on the way home from the library Benson was singing along like a wildman to 'The Greatest Showman.' He was on key, but it was pretty loud and interpretive! Katelyn goes "Sheesh. He has bag pipes just like that kid in my class." (She does have a boy in her primary class that sings louder then any small human I've encountered yet.) Bag pipes. Nice!

The other morning Benson was cuddling in our bed when Katelyn walked in. He sat up, reached out to her and said "There's our Gorgeous!" 

How sweet is that.

A little later he said he wanted a "piggy ride" and climbed up on my back. He just kind of melted into me and sighs "Ahhhh.... feels nice."

We are going to Disneyland NEXT WEEK! We are all so excited and the kids want to talk about it non stop. I told them that not only have I seen Tinkerbell fly over the castle, I once saw Dumbo fly over it! The Double B doesn't remember that, so I asked "Don't you remember, I had a canary?" His reply: "I have a hard time remembering, because you've had a lot of canaries." 😂😭

The Double B was holding Benny and tickling him. Benson's response: "Put me down, you naughty pickle sandwich!"

Benson's unfortunate quote of the day: "Momma, I kissed Katelyn's butt!"

I really don't like that word on little people, but he sure finds ways to use it. He did kiss her bum, too, I saw it. I don't know why.

This kid keeps me on my toes.

The missionaries came over on Saturday to give Katelyn a lesson on baptism, since her big day is coming up on August 4th. When they asked her what she was most excited about, she said "I'm excited because I know that I don't have to be perfect, I just get to try my best every day."

Her mother promptly melted into a puddle of blissful butter.

I was talking to my sister-in-law Megan on the phone today and she reminded me of a Benson funny from our reunion. I was helping him change out of his swimming shorts into dry clothes, and he had a little cup of nuts and chocolate he was eating. Everyone was looking away to give him privacy, and at this EXACT MOMENT of nudity, Katelyn approached him. Naturally suspicious of his sister stealing his food, he holds his cup of treats closer and yells at the top of his lungs "DON'T TOUCH MY NUTS!" Sheesh. I mean. 🙈

Everyone got a big chuckle, but I tell ya. That was perfectly imperfect timing, that's for sure!

The kids are watching 'The Little Mermaid' tonight in preparation for our upcoming adventure. Popcorn and Disney, what more do you need.

 Ariel is Olivia's favorite princess. When I mentioned that I thought Ariel was kind of a dum dum for going with those scary eels to see Ursula, Olivia instantly came to her defense: "Well it was at a bad time!" Ha ha. 

Enjoy the beautiful summer! Signing off for tonight. 😙