Storms

A few weeks ago I had an unusually busy week. Lots of visitors, lots of socializing. Not to mention work. But, I knew it'd be like that. Nothing was a surprise and busy doesn't mean bad. Especially when it involves socializing with some of my favorite people. The tiring week made laying in bed with Jason watching the lightning and thunder storm all the more enjoyable. After taking hundreds of pictures, I finally caught a flash of lightning.

Since then, we've had a few more awesome storms. That weekend, we got tons of rain. Our yard looked like it had been irrigated. 

The next weekend, we had an awesome haboob roll in, followed by another rain storm. The dust came really, really fast. It was awesome.

4:56pm

4:58pm

4:59pm

 5:01pm

5:01pm

5:02pm

5:03pm

5:04pm

5:06pm

5:07pm

Don't worry, I took 123 pictures of the whole ordeal, so if you want to see my version of the time lapse, you can. Lucky you. And lucky me for being able to enjoy the neat storms over the last few weeks.

Later, Blacky

A few weeks ago my mom and Clara caught this giant beetle. Clara named it Blacky. Clever, right? After a few days we decided it had a better chance of surviving by living somewhere other than a mason jar. It was easy to convince Clara that he needed more room to run and roam so she said her goodbyes, hugged the jar with all her might, gave him a few good stares

 then let him go to be free.

Although a little silly, this was further evidence of how deeply Clara loves. It's reflective of her overall personality: all or nothing. I wonder where she gets that from...

Visitors=Food

A few weeks ago we had lots of visitors in town. Justin and Alexis were here for 8 days visiting from California. Before they left, Jen and her family came to town from Utah and my friend Donna was also here from Idaho. I laughed when I went to gather pictures to post and I realized when people come to town, we eat out. A lot. And when we don't go out, we still socialize around food. Here are most of our dining experiences...

LoLo's with Alexis and Justin

Ice cream social at our casa with high school friends

LGO with Noble family (look at that giant cookie! and Jason ordered a salad for the first time EVER! and oh my word, that pizza never gets old!)

Charleston's with my family

Chineese Buffet (This was the first time Clara had been to a buffet and it was hilarious. She was amazed that you could just help yourself to whatever you wanted and didn't have to pay for it. I was horrified that I went to my mom's in my swim suit and ended up going to eat looking like that.)

BJ's with friends from old ward

Mmmm

So many reasons to smile

This makes me laugh every time I see it. I wish she'd take more random pictures of herself without my knowledge. It sure was a fun surprise.

Hazel's last Sunday before Nursery (6.24)

Hazel's first Sunday in Nursery (7.1)

Hazel dressed up in these wings by herself and ran all over the house. I just sat and watched and smiled.

We've been swimming a lot this summer

The note Clara made for her "club" (it hung on the front door for several weeks):
clara's club come
if you want
it's free
it's nature

One of my favorite faces...

I love this picture of these two

My new shirt. It was $2.79 which makes it even cuter.

Emily was in town and invited Beka and I over to swim. I like friends that I can talk with forever even if we only get to hang out once or twice a year.

Girl power. My parents only three grandsons live out of state. And 7 of their granddaughters live here (Margo wasn't present for the photo).

What in the world entertained me and made me laugh my head off every day before I had Clara?

We went to Serrano's a few weeks ago and Hazel loooooved the bean dip. I'm pretty sure she ate an entire bowl of it on her own.

Oh, Hazel. Little Hazel Basil.

I picked Clara up from my mom's to find her decked out with a candy necklace and make up on (see her rosy little cheek?) She's got quite the personality in that little body of hers.

I feel wasteful when my kids take baths with tons of water. Usually they just get a few inches. But sometimes, we will the tub full and use lots of bubbles.

Food

I like food. I like to make it. I like to eat it. And I like to blog about it. I want to see how the food I make/eat now compares to what I'll make/eat in 10 years. Recently I found my journal from when we were first married and we ate shells and cheese.

For Father's Day breakfast, I made biscuits and gravy. We had blueberries and orange juice with it. It was good, but let's be honest, Clara's card is way cooler than breakfast.

I did not plant a garden this summer. Luckily I've enjoyed other's extra produce. Once night I sauteed zucchini (from R&K), corn, green onions (from my neighbors) and green chilis (from my neighbors). We ate it with chicken enchiladas topped with tomatoes and green onions (both from my neighbors).

One morning after I had been up super late working, Jason brought me breakfast in bed and said, "Happy un-mother's day."

I can't remember the last time I bought mac 'n cheese, but Clara wanted some. I made it and it was actually better than most homemade mac 'n cheese I've had. We ate it with sauteed zucchini (from R&K) and sauteed mushrooms. I'm pretty sure I could eat a pound of sauteed mushrooms by myself.

I've started making my green smoothies with just four things. Spinach (around 4 cups? I just shove and shove), about 1/4 cup of nut butter (usually almond, but peanut is good too), a frozen banana and rice milk. I make it thin so I can drink it fast. My kids love it and there's something about getting greens in my system during breakfast that makes me happy. Oh and this keeps me nice and full.

I really enjoy putting together meals for my girls. The miniature portions look so cute.

More zucchini from Ryan and Kathryn. I sprayed it with olive oil, seasoned it and threw it on the grill. Jason loved it and he doesn't usually love zucchini.

We ate it with pasta that was in a garlic cream sauce, peas and topped with tomatoes.

Too bad Costco made our dinner tonight...

One of these days

I thought summer would be slower and more relaxed than the school year. Instead, I feel like life has been jammed pack. In between hanging out with my girls, enjoying time with out of town friends and family and working, there hasn't been much time for blogging. I'll get to it. Eventually.

For now, here's what's on my mind...

School starts in 3 weeks. I am not looking forward to it. I hope that once we get into the swing of it, it won't seem so bad. I need someone to reassure me it won't seem like Clara is always gone. Afternoons and evenings, weekends, holidays and summers will still give me adequate time with her, right? So far, this has been the hardest thing for me to accept as I watch my pretty girl grow up.

I secretly love whipping up dinner and speed cleaning the kitchen at 5:30pm. I just think I'm so sneaky that I had no plans for dinner until then and the kitchen was a disaster until then, yet Jason smells dinner and sees a clean kitchen when he gets home. Showering often falls into this boat as well. I like to trick him into thinking I'm super organized. 

Just because I secretly love that^ doesn't mean I do it all the time. Tonight the kitchen looks like it did last night and the only reason we didn't eat Taco Bell is because my sweet friend called and asked if she could bring me food because she made way too much.

I love music. I don't really take the time to find and listen to new music, which is unfortunate. There are so many talented musicians out there. Sometimes I remember to turn on Pandora and listen to my "Lenka radio". I love Lenka. I also love Ingrid Michaelson. And Yael Naim. Their songs make me want to dance and sing and work and clean and play and relax and blog and be happy and create things. All at once! And what about Sara Bareilles? I just heard of her for the first time tonight. She seems awesome too. Watch this video of her song Gonna Get Over You. I laughed out loud when I read the first comment for the video: i wish my grocery store exploded with confetti. Ha ha. Maybe this is why I haven't taken the time to explore new music. It's addicting. And time consuming. But so fun!

We went on a walk last night since it was only 97*. One of the neighbors compared us to her daughter that lives in Minnesota and thinks 40* is warm.

Clara doesn't really "get" the emotional part of step-parents. She's decided she has a step-mom and a step-dad. She explained to me that the man I was married to took the girl that Jason was married to so we just got married. Oh, and her step parents come and stay with us for 14 weeks every year. 

I have a love-hate relationship with our flooring. The carpet is white and the tile is light peach/tan (depending on what it's near). Mostly, I hate it. It's ugly and shows everything. However, I love it because in addition to showing dirt really well, it also shows scorpions really well. I feel safer with it.

Speaking of scorpions, we've thankfully only had a few in our house this year and Jason hasn't found too many outside. We think it's our family of wild cats that come and go in the backyard. The one I found in the house was less than half an inch long. I bent down to pick up a block and saw it a few inches away. Things like that make me so grateful that I randomly decided to pick up the blocks that evening. 

The Little Things

I get made fun of a lot for how many pictures I take. The thing is, pictures help me remember so much more. It's like when I snap a picture on my camera, my brain takes a picture of the moment. It's easy to take pictures on big trips, but I also try to take pictures of the little things. The little things are the things that are so easily forgotten with the passing of time, yet these seemingly little things are what make up life. Things like...

Waking up to find Clara's animals all in a line on the ottoman

Seeing Clara share food with Hazel

Clara wearing her cowgirl hat for breakfast

Hazel taking a bite of Jason's pasta and turning to me super fast with her chin sticking out, her bottom lip over her top lip and pasta hanging from her mouth. Then of course, she laughed at herself. Over and over and over.

Jason getting a "mini" dessert.

The grill catching on fire when Jason was grilling for my family on Father's Day (don't worry, I did everything else :)).

Clara's Marvelous Medicine: I've been reading a lot to Clara. We have read several Road Dahl books, including "Grandma's Marvelous Medicine". After reading it,  Clara made her own marvelous medicine for the ants. It had pickles, onions and soap.

Cookies for breakfast

 Hazel eating every single M&M off her cookie

Clara pretending she's a cake, putting three tubes on and going down the slide. Over and over and over. (I don't think I've mentioned how nice this summer has been now that she's swimming on her own so well, but now I have, it's nice).

We went to a lua and attempted to dress accordingly. Hazel had flowers on her pants. Clara had a lei. Never mind she was wearing red velvet pants and a mismatched outfit, she had a lei! I didn't start out with a lei, just a dress with flowers. Obviously our lua party attires is lagging.

Hazel wears her shoes all around the house.

Just being with Clara and Hazel, of course. 

PS Dad - try to print this last picture out. I didn't resize it as small as my other ones.