June was a very good month for our family.
Dane and I started out by celebrating our 10th anniversary.
We went to a fancy restaurant and had a great time. Incidentally, I decided Lucy was ready to weaned (she is our longest child to nurse, so far!) so I ate all the butter and dairy that I wanted. It was heavenly.
Dane knows me very well. He wrote me the sweetest letter. It's my love language, not his, so I always really appreciate it. I made Dane a card and a video to mark the event:
Later that week my dear friend from the mission, Laura Vave, came with her adorable family. They drove straight to Vegas from the D.C. area! They were tired but we still headed downtown to the Bellagio to try out one of the famous Vegas buffets. It did not disappoint!
Our kids got along great. They were only here for 24 hours or so but Atticus had so much fun and was yelling so much that he lost his voice!
It was such a fun visit. Please come back soon, Vave family! 
Our next big event was Father's Day. We sure lucked out with the men in our lives.
These are the cards the boys made for "Bobba."
At the beginning of the summer the boys helped me put together a summer "bucket list" and we've slowly been marking things off. Early in the month we were able to go to the YMCA and I was so proud of Atticus. He passed the swim test, easily, and then went down both slides without having anyone else go with him (I had two littles to watch.) As you can imagine, he loved it and proudly marked off "go on a water slide" when we got home.
His piano playing continues to improve. He has played some of my favorites, like "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and "Amazing Grace." It is a joy to listen.
He ended the month with a bang. He and Hinckley had a lemonade stand (and made $80 in less than two hours!) and a couple days later he lost his first front tooth!
We weren't sure if the tooth fairy would come because he's starting to have doubts about who she really is... but she pulled through, after all. Oh, how I love his gappy smile.
It's almost not worth mentioning but Atticus did go to a few jiu jitzu classes at our local recreation center. Unfortunately, we decided as a family they weren't very safe. Still, I could tell that Atticus was in love with it and he did very well. Hopefully when we get back from our next trip he can try it out.
The last thing I should document is that he has run away at least twice this month. The last time was today and it made me chuckle. He was insisting on having s'mores "right now" but he hasn't been feeling very well so I kept telling him we would wait until tomorrow. It was just too much. As he packed Hinckley good-naturedly joined him while still trying to not hurt my feelings. After taking time to pack their nerf guns and their blankets, they came down for some food and I told them that when they got back we could make a healthy treat. Atticus told me, "We're never coming back." I told them sorrowfully that I would miss them but that I would love them wherever they lived. He almost immediately said, "Well... this will be just camping. We'll come back tomorrow."
After about a half an hour Hinckley came back in for more water. I went with him to grab his bike and backpack and Atticus was ready to come, too. Vegas summers are brutal on runaways. We swam for a little while and then I read some stories to them in the bathtub. The s'mores didn't come up again and they enjoyed their bedtime snack without complaint. I'm not sure what the moral of the story is but the whole experience just makes me chuckle.
I'm sure this isn't the last time they'll be packing their bags. I am a horrible mom, after all!
Atticusisms:
("Are you just going to sit there and watch him eat that [ice cream]?") "Yep! And I get the scraps!"
("Stop yelling!") "I'm yelling so I can get my voice back!"
Both Hinckley and Atticus have been doing swim lessons. I love watching them progress and Hinckley is making big strides. What I really love watching him do, however, is gymnastics. He has been going once a week at the rec center and he loves it. He runs around beaming and you can totally tell that he's imagining himself as Spider-man as he runs from exercise to exercise. Even his cartwheels look like he's punching someone as he flips.
His imagination never ceases to amaze us. He has taken such a liking to the scriptures and their language that he will sit and "read" to us. This past Sunday he sat for probably a half hour with Dane, reading stories about Moses (and making up some parts), all the while sprinkling in plenty of "Thou's" "Thee's" and "Upon's." It's hilarious but also so well-intentioned. We never want it to stop.
We continued going to the community garden this month and we had such a fun experience. Hinckley picked several onions and insisted on cutting them up and cooking them right when we got home. I tried to warn him that they aren't usually a food that children enoy but he and Atticus sprinkled salt on them and... to my great surprise they loved them! I was shocked. I didn't enjoy onions until I was 19!
Hinckley Speaks:
- ("Where have you been?") "Brushing my bear's hair." (Sure enough, the teddy bear had a very distinct comb-over.)
- "What if I don't find the right girl? How will I know how to find her? What if _____ goes the wrong way and leaves the path? Then who will I marry?"
- "Don't worry, Atticus. Dr. Hinckley will take care of you. Here's your medicine."
- "Mom! Are you okay? Here. I'll give you a tummy massage."
- "God is talking to me, Mom. He says that if I stay in this room I might get sick. I need to sleep in the other [guest] room." (We were dying when he said this but we tried to explain to him that Atticus wasn't going to get him sick. Hinckley was the one who got Atticus sick!)
- "That's okay. I'm going to make my own dinner." (this occurred two nights in a row where he made some cute salads. The second night got a little too messy so we had to nix this... but I love his intent!)
Oh, Lucy. We are all so in love with our little mophead. She is just the perfect blend of independence and girliness. She wants to do everything that her brothers, mom or dad are doing and can be shockingly good at imitating.
Her language development is really coming along now- she still isn't very clear but she will try to repeat just about anything you ask her to say in her own way.
Speaking of whch, I was taking a marco polo of her saying "waffle" and saw this stillframe and started laughing my head off. Lucy always has an audience while she eats. Can you spot her biggest fan? I'm not positive but I'm pretty sure he's gained some weight ever since she started eating solid foods...
Her nursery leader took this picture at church. She loves both of them so much. We have been around them outside of church and she will ask Sister Billadeau to pick her up and hold her. It warms my heart so much that she is so happy because Sundays are crazy and I feel like I hardly get to see her on those days, aside from dressing her and feeding her.
Speaking of Sundays, here she is in a dress that my sisters and I wore when we were her age.
This month I am very happy to report that she is finally taking baths again. For months and months she hated them. She would cry when we put her in, she would cry harder if we tried to help her sit down... I just started having her shower with me. Thankfully, this onth she has come to enjoy the bathtub so much that we now have the opposite problem. She wants to take baths all the time and if we don't keep the bathroom door closed she very often sneaks in their and turns on the water and tosses all the toys in.
Listen to Lucy:
- "Shoes-on" (she says this much more often than "shoes.")
- "Su-suit!" (she LOVES swimming and gets so upset if a she sees a brother in a swimsuit and she isn't allowed to get in hers.)
- "Love oh." (Her version of "Love you," which she still stays with a scrunched up face. It's so dang cute.)
- "Mimi! Bobba! Nana!" (She recognizes them all on video calls now.)
While we officially ended school, we are still learning at home. This month we focused on Germany and Austria. We watched the Sound of Music, ate apple strudel (it was a huge hit!) and made walnut babies.
My favorite part of it all was learning about some of the German and Austrian composers that have made such a huge contribution to music as we know it. Mozart, Beethoven, Handel and Bach were the ones we learned most about. It's amazing how much more meaning and depth their music has when you get to know the composer more.
The timing of this couldn't be more perfect because Atticus has been flying through the Simply Piano app and was just getting to songs by Beethoven, Handel and Bach. He has most recently fallen in love with Beethoven's "Fur Elise" and has been practicing (and yelling and fuming, alternatively!) I love the feeling these songs bring into our home and you can tell that the younger children are falling in love with them, too.
Here's to more summer adventures!
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