Well, I've been totally lazy lately. I've enjoyed reading everyone else's blogs, but haven't even attempted to contribute to my own. I'm such a bum. Anyway, here's a few of the things that we've been up to.

Emma's 2nd week of preschool. What a doll! She's out of bed even earlier than normal lately- usually about 5:45 am or so. Luckily she's been pretty good about being quiet to let everyone except Mommy sleep. She has this compulsive desire to come in and kiss me as soon as she gets up, and no matter what I do, I can't convince her to wait until my alarm goes off at 6:30. Adorable? Usually. Annoying? Sometimes. Convenient? Always. I NEVER thought that I'd ever be grateful that she wakes up so early. But the fact that I'm not having to drag her out of bed to get ready for school really makes the mornings easier to bear. (Mommy is NOT a morning person.)

The 24th of July Celebration in Thatcher. We missed most all of the festivities for the 4th, so I wanted to let them see the parade & fireworks this time around. I can remember the Pioneer Day hoopla from the time I was very small, and I want my kids to have the same memories. This year it literally poured for about an hour, but who cares? It's not like it's cold, and the kids adore playing in the rain, so I figure it's no big deal if they're dirty & soaking wet. That's what memories are made of, right? Somehow I forgot my camera, so thanks for these pics, Mom.

Gotta sport the cowboy hats at the cowboy parade!

If it's so wet outside, how is his face still so dirty?

Somehow I don't think this umbrella is keeping anyone dry!

Monsoon season! This is my favorite time of year. How can it not be? After all, I was raised by a man who built a 4-car canopy at our house just so that we could all sit outside & watch the storms in the summer. So I guess it runs in my blood. We've had a couple of HUGE storms lately, and the roads around our house are eternally about a foot deep in mud. That's what happens when you live in a rural area, I guess. We even had some dufus drive through a wash about a mile from my house that runs at least 60 feet wide and 3-4 feet deep. Needless to say, he didn't make it across, and his brand new Honda got washed off down the river. After about 3 hours, the fire department rescued him, but I think they should've let him get out on his own! As an Arizona girl, I don't have a lot of sympathy for people that refuse to respect the power of the weather we get here. Case in point:

This is the wash that runs adjacent to my driveway. It's running at LEAST 2 feet deep at this point.

This is the idiot that is intending to drive through it until he saw me on the bank with my kids & camera, taking pictures. He sat there for almost 20 minutes glaring at me until he finally decided that I wasn't going anywhere, and turned around and left. I was standing out there teaching my kids about how dangerous the water was, and I was determined to get a picture of this idiot getting stuck. It think it would've made a nice addition to the evening news, don't you? But alas, he got smart and left. A good teaching moment for the kids!

On the way back up the driveway, Emma & I were trying very hard not to get wet. But Frank had other ideas. Like I said, he's all boy.

FHE on DVD. This is Andrew's find, and I admit that I was very skeptical at first. However, my kids LOVE them, and they really do learn a lot from them. Like the package says, all you need is a snack! There's 4 songs to choose from on each lesson, and there's time for prayers, scripture discussions, and lesson review. You just hit the Continue button at the end of each segment to move on to the next section, so you can take all the time you want to discuss the different points of the lesson. There's even a whole segment for Testimony Time. A few weeks ago we did Happy Helpers, and last week we did Tithing. So we made little homemade banks for the kids and they've run around the house for the past week finding money and putting it in their Tithing, Fun, and Savings banks. This FHE on DVD idea is not an every week sort of thing, but if you don't have time to do a lesson, it's awesome to just pop in the DVD & have FHE be done. As Jamie Kennington would say- Brilliant!

And to top it all off, we just got back today from Mt. Graham. The Larsons are having a camping trip, and we went over so that the kids could spend at least 1 night on the mountain with the cousins. This time I remembered to take the camera, but forgot to bring it home! So when we get it back I'll post some pics. (I even got a few of Emma with a caterpillar, definitely a first.)