Happy Official Beginning of Summer! I have thoroughly enjoyed how long we got actual spring weather this year!
The first three weeks of June have been busy for us. I could go into all sorts of detail; but it would take me forever. So I won’t. But I do want to remember some things, so I have some pictures I’ll comment on, and we’ll call it good!
First, we’ll mention Father’s Day. Josh always asks for the same thing for Father’s Day (and I try really hard to give it to him; but it doesn’t happen every year): an updated picture of the kids and me for his desk at work. Here is this year’s picture! Thank goodness for picnic tables and camera timers!
Josh also has his birthday in June! He is now 31 years old! He is lucky because now he’s officially “in his 30s.” One day, when I’m “in my 30s” people will take me seriously and stop telling me I look like a teenager!
Anyway, Josh’s birthday turned out to be a little bit of a bummer. He was recovering from a stomach bug and had zero appetite for his whole birthday! 🙁 3/4ths of the fun of birthdays is that you get to eat all the delicious things you want, and he missed out! Fortunately, we went out for dinner the next day and we’ll get him his birthday dessert sometime soon. Happy Birthday, the Hon!
On June 21, courtesy of the Lydes, we celebrated Swedish midsummer with family and friends! We had a Maypole, traditional Swedish style foods, a raffle for those who picked weeds, and a flower-crown craft! It was beyond delightful! I’m so glad we did it!
The kids doing the Maypole 
Fay wearing the flower crown she designed
Last weekend I went to California with Christina for Paige Muhlestein’s wedding. It was so fun to spend some time with Steemer and get to see Paige and Peter so happy together at the start of their eternity. Plus, I got to meet some really fun, cool people.
But while I was gone, Josh made sure the kids didn’t miss me! He took them to two different decor stores and let them pick out stuff to redecorate their rooms (way more and way cooler stuff than I ever would have done, because he’s the fun parent)!
The rooms have been: Fay and Carter in the cream colored room with the brown bed, and Portia and Helen in the gray room with the white bed and the crib. But Josh did tons of work and moved the white bed into the cream room along with every girly thing we had, plus all the girly things they got and made it Fay and Portia’s girl room. It is really cute and fun and girly!
Carter and Helen are now sharing the gray bedroom with the dark wood bed and crib. He also got “boy-themed” stuff to decorate it as well as all the blue and green stuff we already had. Helen probably has at least another 2 years before she will care anything about the decor of her room, and Carter is thrilled to finally have a space not curated by Fay. His favorite thing about his new decor is the clock he chose himself.
The girls’ pink and purple room 
Carter and Helen’s “boy-themed” room
So those are the major events that are recent enough for me to recall and have the mental capacity to write about. 🙂 Now, I’ll just share some every-day sort of stuff.
Helen made sure to make the most of her new room situation…
Helen, looking busted
The other day, I had put the kids down for a nap while I took some (much needed) time for myself to read scriptures and other books. I was so enjoying my last few chapters of Emma that I didn’t pay much attention to the fact that Helen never went to sleep. The reason turned out to be that she had a stinky diaper; but the problem was what she did to entertain herself while unable to fall asleep.
What she did was reach over to the changing table (which is now next to her crib because of the room-change), manage to open the giant tub of petroleum jelly, and smear it all. over. everything. Look again at the picture and notice everywhere she got it. Her shirt was SATURATED! I am still trying to decide which of the affected items are worth enough to me to really work to get the stuff out. Only time will tell.
Our ward Elders quorum had a cook-off where everyone was supposed to make their own food. There was all kinds of talk about it being a grilling/smoking sort of experience because “men don’t use kitchens” (etc, etc). Hearing that sort of garbage made Josh and I both want to show everybody what a real man can do in the kitchen. Josh made these Oreo-truffles and has now become a legend… again (see Halloween/Ugly Sweater Contests). I’m so proud of my real man!
I had absolutely NOTHING to do with this, except that I ate some.
Today we had a crisis. Carter took Helen’s swing while she was unawares because she was eating ice-cream. It was … the worst thing that could’ve happened.
Also, there’s Portia. This girl has all the opinions and all the imagination.
This is “Suki”, age 7 about to turn 6, right after she went to the “salon” where the “salon-boy, Billy B. McKessen” did her hair (Josh did those pig-tails!!! I told you he was a real man!) Her mother (me) is named “Jamanda” and her little brother (Helen) is named Jackson and is in Joy School. Her dog (Charlotte) is a boy dog named “Noodle.” Her first dad died. 🙁 Her second dad was about to be born and his name was “Phil.” She insisted that everybody stay in character with her. We indulged her for quite a while. But it turned out good: because I called her “Suki” she put up no fuss about saying her prayer tonight.
If everything about our life seems ridiculous: it totally is! But it is also totally fun and wonderful!
