Consumed

Oh, hello there...Remember me? I used to write on this blog. But thanks to Kyle Lemmon - who, on our last trip up to Hooper, convinced me that I needed to finish a book series - I have been consumed with reading for the last while.

No, really. Since I last published a blog post I have read 3,293 pages; otherwise known as the last three books in the never ending Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. And it has sucked up every spare second I could muster, and quite a few that I couldn't. When I was in about 5th grade my dad started reading this series out loud to me, and we read about the first six books together (all that were published at the time). Then when I was pregnant with Lincoln, and stuck in an apartment in AZ by myself all day, I reread the first six and then up through book eleven (all that had been published at the time). Then Robert Jordan, the author, died. And I figured that was it. But a few years later they announced that Brandon Sanderson was going to take over and finish the series. But still, I waited to finish. The last three books came out, and I never got around to reading them...until now.

What a ride. Have you ever spent 15 years wondering how a book was going to end? I'm not generally a big fantasy reader...I tend to lean towards historical fiction, but this series has a sentimental aspect to it, because I can remember reading and discussing it with my dad over the years, speculating how it was going to end. My dad is gone, but it's been fun to pick up that speculation with my brother Kyle. And as I've been reading these books, he and I have been texting back and forth about the parts we liked and didn't like, or the funny/awesome things that happen. The characters themselves are like old friends from my childhood. And although I loved the ending, I'm a bit sad to be finished.

So what else have we been up to? Well, Lincoln and Ivan had two weeks worth of swimming lessons. Lincoln passed level 3. The funniest thing he learned to do was jump off the platform into the 12 feet deep water and swim to the side without help. And Ivan passed level 1. The coolest thing he learned how to do was do six bobs in a row, and put his head all the way under the water. Ollie and Del got to learn the beauty of being spectators. Ollie passed his time mostly by being cranky, and Del passed hers trying to see how many times she could convince me to take her potty in the "swimming potty" (the bathroom at the pool), before I got fed up with her and told her to hold it.

I've been working hard trying to remember to water our garden. I think it's coming a long ok. I found this little yellow bell pepper growing. About half of our bean seeds sprouted, and about half of our pea seeds too. Lincoln and I went back a couple days ago and planted more bean seeds where the others hadn't grown in yet. We also planted some cucumbers, zucchini, radishes, carrots, watermelon, and cantaloupe seeds. Some of those have sprouted but not many. Aaron's mom gave us some zucchini starts, and I haven't killed them yet. And we have about 10 tomato plants of various kinds, and they are doing well. If I think about it, and get around to it, I'd like to find a pumpkin start and plant it in our last little patch of garden. Oh! And our grapes have come back from the dead, and are actually doing really well. Hooray!

We had the patio poured, and we love it! The kids thought the cement truck was about the coolest thing there ever was. And it just about killed them to have to wait 48 hours to walk on the patio. I think it's the perfect size for our needs, and I can't wait until we can afford some patio furniture to go on it!

We also planted two more trees, Red Maples. One on either side of the Linden. We'll be getting another Linden one of these days to put on the left to block out the neighbor's giant shed. The maples will turn a pretty bright red color in the fall. And the Lindens sprout these pretty yellow flowers in the summer time that smell like heaven. Our back yard is going to be awesome! And it's kind of cool because I'm starting to be able to see it all coming together, with the patio and the trees, and the garden and fire pit. All we need now is some grass...and a fence...and... :)

This is the view I have when I sit on our patio and look out at the back yard. The trees are kind of hard to see with the neighbor's house in the background. 

Ollie and Linc hangin' out in the family room.

Oliver has spent some time growing like a weed. I swear I just barely got out the 3 month size stuff, and now I'm scrambling to find my 6 month sized summer stuff. He's started grabbing at toys. AND, the little stink is rolling over! Not for me though. I put him down on his tummy and he waits until I'm not looking to do it. But if Daddy is around, not only will he do it for him first try, but he does it a second time so that Aaron take a freakin' video as well. So, I have yet to see this development with my own eyes, but Aaron's got me covered.

More pictures of the cuteness:

Somewhere in there we celebrated Father's Day. I tried to make it a special day for Aaron, even though he's not my father. I got up early (that right there should be enough to let you know how much I love this person...I don't get up early for just anybody) and made whole wheat waffles from scratch, with bacon and orange juice to boot. The kids made cards and helped me put together a candy bar poster. After church, we had Aaron's dad over for dinner. Aaron chose to have Cafe Rio chicken burritos with tomatillo dressing (thank goodness it's an easy crock pot meal) with apple crisp for dessert. Aaron's dad is always telling me how much he likes my homemade bread, so for Father's Day I made him four loaves of his very own, plus I threw in a jar of homemade strawberry jam. :) Hopefully he was happy with it.

Here's my five loves on Father's Day 2013:

Ivan, Adelia, Aaron, Oliver, Lincoln

And  a shout out to my own Dad. I couldn't find a picture of he and I together, but this one of he and Jackson is really cute. Sure do miss you Stew Lemmon. Don't worry, I read some Wheel of Time in your honor: 

Also, Lincoln and Ivan have been playing kickball a couple nights a week, through the Springville Rec department. They are loving it! Technically, Lincoln was old enough to play T-ball, but I thought it would be easier to keep him and Ivan on the same team this year, so that we were only going to one place every week instead of two. And it's probably a good thing. There are a lot of rules that I'm realizing I haven't taught Linc yet. So I'm thinking kickball will be a good foundation for T-ball next year. Lincoln is #2 and Ivan is #9

Adelia had been on a pirate-princess kick. Every day during quiet time she strips down, and puts on her sparkly red Christmas dress (backwards, because she can't zip up the zipper unless it's in the front). Then she put on a pirate hat. She completes the ensemble by carrying around a wand made of K'Nex. She calls herself pirate princess, and claims that her wand makes rainbows and changes the color of things all around the house. I suppose this is preferable to just a regular princess, right?

We've done a couple of letters for our alphabet train. T and U. For letter T we did trees, and read Be a Friend to Trees by Patricia Lauber, and A Tree is a Plant by Clyde Robert Bulla. The first book talked about all the things humans use trees for. How they grow food, make wood and paper, and the different kinds of things we can make from tree sap. It was pretty cool. The second book was all about how trees work. What the roots, bark, and leaves are for, and how they use sunlight, soil and water to grow. We took the opportunity to observe our own trees, especially our apple and peach trees, because they have fruit on them this year! And we each took turns taking care of the trees by watering them and pulling out the weeds that had grown around their trunks.

 Lincoln and Ivan's T trees, with roots. 

Our apple tree

We also did letter U, and talked about things that are under the ground. For this, we read the Usborne book called Under the Ground by Anna Millbourne. It was a really cool book. It started off with the obvious things that are under ground like roots, and ants, and animals; then, it talked about water pipes and electric wires. Then subway systems and sewers. Then it went even deeper and talked about fossils, and mines, and lava and the center of the earth. My kids were fascinated. We made letter U's underground. Then one day during quiet time, Ivan used his Trios to make a model of underground water pipes. I was pretty impressed when he brought it out to show to me.

Ivan has actually been really into building lately. He's been building all sorts of little vehicles out of legos. He and Lincoln have been using the K'Nex to make ball ramps, and the other day, he brought down this robot to show me. I think it's the coolest thing he's ever built to date.

And of course we've been spending a lot of time outside. The boys have been on a bike riding kick. Sometimes they pretend that their bikes are get-away cars for their super hero selves. It's pretty amusing.

We've also visited the splash pad plenty of times. Mostly Springville's, but today a friend invited us to come up and try out the new Provo one. It's nice. My kids had fun.

Of course I had to bribe them with a Sonic Slush to get them to stand together for a picture. It was worth it though.