All the things have happened since the last time I posted! School is now officially over, Fay finished up dance after having a 3-week bout of sickness, Bianca is two months old, we went to church last week (!!!), and things are really getting summery around here. Since it has been so long, I’m going to skip an actual “story” and instead just post pictures with explicatory captions.
Home Life
Fay LOVES being a big sister to a happy baby sister. She isn’t quite so certain about when the baby sister isn’t so happy. 🙂 
Portia and Bianca in matching jammies! 
The girls all got princess aprons from Grandma for their birthdays. Portia got Elsa, Helen got Anna, Fay got Pocahontas. Here are my princesses helping in the kitchen! 
Helen’s curls!!!!! I love them! 
Carter decided he wanted to see what it was like to open everything. He was pleased with the outcome. 
Fay got a cookie-decorating kit for her birthday and here are the unicorn cookies she made! 
I just want to remember this forever! We love our Portia-Roo! 
Bianca working hard at tummy time. She loves it! 
This is Helen. In her personally-selected attire. Running amok in the living room. We adore her! 
Carter built this “slide.” I caught myself saying “sometimes I hate the kids’ creativity” and knew I needed to document it. I truly do love the crazy things they come up with to entertain themselves! 
Yup. That’s Portia.
Summer Time
For Memorial Day we had a hotdog cookout at the park. This was how we did our hotdogs. 
Carter chose a family water party for family party! Water-balloons, sprinklers, etc. So much fun! 
Josh’s family party was a slip n’ slide! It was a huge hit! 
The kids working on a summer-time craft: Paper Popsicles 
The cuties and their popsicles. Carter also made a crown. 
Fay, miraculously, got to be in her COVID-ized dance recital! After being sick for 3 weeks, and having a diabetes scare, she was well enough to join her class for their taped recital. We will get the recording in the next few weeks and share it.
The Pool
This one actually gets some commentary.
Because of COVID and a newborn, we are feeling pretty grounded these days. We don’t have the usual museums and library to go to, and we’re not planning any vacations. Josh and I were trying to think of something we could do to make the summer still fun for the kids. They love playing in water, so we thought about getting another large wading pool, like we have had in the past. Josh looked at approximately 5 different stores in-person, and countless places on-line and couldn’t find one available anywhere. (Apparently, we’re not the only ones in quarantine right now.) We talked about trying to make something out of wood and tarps, and we just couldn’t figure out a way to get it to actually work. We found some above-ground pools on Amazon and we decided that since we weren’t doing a vacation this summer, we could splurge.
About 47 seconds after we clicked the button to place our order, I started panicking. We have little kids! I could totally just imagine Helen investigating that pool when I was inside working on dinner or something and falling in and drowning!! I told Josh we should cancel the order. But, as always, Josh had a plan to save the day. He proposed a fence with a locked gate to go around the pool so that the kids couldn’t get in! And, of course, he was able to build it for us!
After many considerations of where to place the pool we picked a spot, and Josh set about making it level enough for the pool (basically none of our yard is level on its own). We also decided to take advantage of fence that was already there, so we only had to build two sides of the one for the pool.
This is what our backyard used to look like.
Josh also hacked away at the rosebush in the corner (NOT the first time we have done that) to make space. He also had the fun idea of the kids making concrete stepping stones to go around the pool.
Carter working on his stepping stone for the pool area.
Josh spent about a week leveling the corner, and about 3 hours building the fence. He is so awesome! None of it is perfect or fabulously beautiful; but it is a fenced-in pool and we are loving it!
The pool in all its glory!
Since it arrived last Tuesday, we have played in it every afternoon except Saturday (because it was chilly, and we had somewhere to be). I was nervous that the kids would just want to poke around it all day while they play outside; but I guess with playing in it for at LEAST an hour every day, they get their fill and really just ignore it most of the time it isn’t officially pool time. Even so, I still pray basically every day that nobody will drown in the pool.
Conclusion
It just felt fun to have another heading. 🙂
Summer is definitely underway around here, and it is, so far, turning out to be better than I had feared, considering the restrictions of COVID. I am hopeful that it will be a good one for us!
This canopy is so there is some shade by the pool. We tried it out today and had primary and lunch under it. It was delightful and pleasant!
Your little cuties are too adorable for this world! Also, props to Josh for all the prep he did for the pool!
I want Portia to be my personal stylist. Her hair is 👌🏻