Chatfield

All of you who live close to real beaches, I am jealous. We settle for the swim beaches of nearby reservoirs, complete with grainy sand and goose poop. The kids don't seem to mind at all, so I won't complain in front of them. They had a great time at Chatfield last week swimming and playing in the sand.

Kitchen Helpers

When strawberries went on sale for $0.88/lb, I kind of bought a lot.



A little help was very much welcomed.



We shouldn't need to buy any jam for awhile.



And this is a frequent scene that is probably familiar to so many people: chairs and kids lining the counter while you try to cook. Sometimes there is even room for me to help.



Today's special? Chocolate chip pancakes.

Passing the time

While Matt was living it up in Costa Rica for 15 days, we were super lucky and got to stay home. Me, alone with 4 kids. It was totally awesome. I tried my darndest to find things to keep us busy, happy and free from fighting. On the other 14 days I just tried to keep us all alive. Here is a small sampling of what we did.

We made monkey cake and got to eat it in the living room while we watched the USA/England World Cup game.



We went to the luau portion of Youth Conference where we ate, danced and used permanent marker on the gym floor.



We got a babysitter for the little ones, dropped Howie of for a sleepover at Kyle's and watched a Rockies game.



We made some pretty nasty doughnuts that nobody wanted to eat.



We ate lots of popsicles to keep cool. That and popsicles need to be eaten outside which means that the kids were outside. Which coincidentally means that it was quiet inside.



We tried to keep our garden from withering away.



We anxiously awaited Matt's arrival at the airport.



Well most of us did.

Everyone's doing it

okay so maybe not everyone is doing it at this very minute, but I bet most people have done it. Myself included, I totally remember doing this when I was a kid.

Post carwash

The kids have been begging to wash my car so I gave in yesterday. It was a way to kill some time, cool off and get my car washed. Once they were done, they turned the hose on each other.

The Poor 4th Child

Yep, Cameron is to be pitied. He fits that mold of a poor, neglected, end of the line child. His parents don't really care that this is what he often looks like in public:








When he cries in the middle of the night, his parents don't come in to hold and comfort him, instead they take a picture:



And when he cries the next night, they ignore him until they realize that he fell back asleep, then they take another picture:



And this is the only picture his parents take of his second birthday:



Let's hope for a bright future for this one.