Summer, don't leave!

It has been too long. And I now have two birthdays to report and it seems that birthdays is all I do on this blog. At least we have a birthday break and I can hopefully be more artistic or sentimental or something.

Lily turned eleven. Gasp. This year for her birthday she wanted her own room. She and Canyon have been sharing a room since he was born and I guess she decided that the man cave, which was creeping out from below the bunk bed into the bedroom proper, was getting a leetle to manly (read: gross boy stuff). So we gave her the guest room, which is a bonus because now we can’t have guests. Sorry. (Ok, she said she’d go back to Canyon’s room for very special people). The rest of you can sleep in the barn.

So I spent the few months before her birthday making a quilt and gathering ‘stuff’ to make a perfect girl room. Those things included quilt, pillows, new dresser, clean closet, and her books. Then I sent the two of them away for the weekend and we flurried about and switched rooms. They came home to new rooms and big grins.

A view of Lily's new room.

For her actual birthday we had homemade angel food cake again, which is becoming quite popular here.

Lily’s pretty independent. She still loves to read, she’ll ride her bike all over town to get to her friend’s houses, swim practice or the library. She plays with her sisters and helps me whenever she can. She still doesn’t like to practice piano though. What’s up with that? Seriously, any tricks—cause I’m about to give up. And, we love her. This year she’s starting middle school and so everyone, and I do mean everyone, please cross your fingers that we can have a smooth transition into the teen years? Please?

Lily and her angel food cake.

Now Alice.

Alice’s obsession from space and Star Wars has turned to the ocean and mermaids. She and Jane spend their waking hours doing mermaid swims at the pool and the lake. For her birthday she wanted a mermaid party. So…as you can see from the cake, we kinda copped out with the clip art. But hey, we hung paper circles from the ceiling and told her they were bubbles. I know, I should be on Martha Stewart.

The 'mermaid' cake and cupcakes.

Alice with her cake.

Alice is my best helper. She keeps track of all her things and loves to tidy her room. Seriously. It’s going to be tricky the next few years because we’re starting to learn that Jane doesn’t have the same ‘neat’ tendencies and they’ll be sharing a room for a long time. Yikes! She is very sweet to her sister, to a fault, as Jane is growing up believing that everyone should treat her as well as Alice does. She loves to do her homework and read books about Princess Leia and mermaids.

She did swim team this year and was amazing. She’s a real trooper and never complained and really improved her swimming abilities. We’re really proud of her.

Even though Jane & Alice's quilt isn't finished, we still cleaned up their room.

Alice almost cried when she saw how organized it was. My little OCD, love that!

We are doing other things this summer too, besides celebrating birthdays which include, but aren’t limited to: swim team, riding bikes, hiking, swimming at Bear Lake with cousins, swimming at Del Valle (our lake), reading, cleaning out bedrooms, going to camps, going camping, sleeping on the trampoline, eating at In-N-Out, and trying to survive the ginormous squash that are taking over the garden.

In short, summer is very busy and I’m not ready to see it go. We’re stretching it out as long as possible!

Happy Summer!