Goodbye Summer

Our last days of the most wonderful Summer.... 

They started out not so great.  We all got sick.  Blah.  Of course we got sick. 

Brad thinks its funny to take pictures of me when Im sick.  Im not even kidding.  We have way too many floating around.  The best are the morning sickness ones of me when I was pregnant with Jonas and asleep on the bathroom floor.  Yeah..

So I was all worried that we weren't even going to get to enjoy our last little bit of freedom, because we all just wanted to lay on the couch and do nothing for like a week, but luckily, it passed and we all started feeling much better.

Kalvin took the longest to get better, as always.  Stupid asthma!   

Brad had scout camp two weekends in a row.  The last two of the Summer.  Don't even get me started.  He took Clark one weekend and the boy was just in heaven. 

He loved the tomohawk throwing contest and has not stopped talking about it since.  He is obsessed. 

We've been getting tons of good stuff from our garden recently.  

Which means we have been eating tons of vegetables.  Its good though.  Makes up for all the crap we ate so much of traveling all Summer. 

I think the birds got more of our grapes than we did, but thats okay.  I really wasn't wanting to juice all of them anyway.  Maybe next Summer I'll be more on top of that.

Jonas loves it when we take him out to the garden.  He tries to take a bite out of everything he can get his hands on.  I've got a whole basket of tomatoes with tiny teeth marks in each one. 

Hes so sweet with his crazy mohawk hair that will not stay down for anything. 

Brad made us a big batch of garden salsa and its sooooo good.  I cannot stop eating it!! 

Jonas is loving eating lately.  He can pick stuff up and feed himself and he thinks its great.  I do too.  Its so nice to be able to cut a bunch of stuff up and just dump it on his tray and he just goes for it.  Although, he thinks its hilarious to throw food on the floor for Scout, so I have to watch that. 

I got to spend a couple days in the kitchen which was fun.   

Banana bread, cinnamon roll cookies and peach jam.  I can't wait for it to cool off some so that having the oven on doesnt kill me. 

I was going through some things and found this old painting that my Mom did.  She gave it to me when I was a teenager.  I have always loved it, but had it packed away for safe-keeping.  I am so excited that I get to hang it in my cute little house now. 

Jonas loves the wading pool.  Not so much the water, but the climbing in and out of the pool.  He will do it for hours and be so content.   

When I was going through old boxes, I also found all my old doll house stuff.  It was so fun.  I loved my doll house as a child.  My favorite toy ever!  The kids were excited to see it, so I let them play with all of it for the afternoon.  They had fun looking at all the little food and dishes and lamps and flower pots, but then they wanted to actually play and they were all boy about it.  Cars crashing, people fighting and dying.  haha 

My little buddy.  He can fall asleep anywhere. 

Now that Jonas is quite good at crawling, he and scout have become good friends.   

Drinking some lemonade.  In teacups.  On the kitchen floor. 

We always have to do bubbles in the pool at least a few times each summer. 

Jonas is getting so good and standing and walking along the furniture 

He has even started standing without holding onto anything, but I have yet to get a photo of it. 

Our very last day of Summer we went for a long walk down to the park and then to check the mail.  Grandma Merkley sent "back to school" packages to the two older boys and they couldn't handle the excitement.  We stopped at Two Stiffs for some juice and then raced home so they could open them and color in their new color books with their new crayons and markers and stickers.  Later they got all of their cars out, like usual, and lined them up all through the house.  Their favorite thing to do.  We had chicken rolls for dinner, then Brad gave them each a back to school blessing for FHE and then we had icecream sundays. 

The little sweeties fell asleep ready for a new school year to start.  And they always begin the night in their beds, but end up on the floor, so that they can talk to each other easier without us hearing them.  Little monkeys!