A Pile o' Pictures from Lately

School's out and it's just wonderful.

I think this was the last day of school and Claire was reading to the girls.

Kate's just fun.

Sister Alyson birthed a 9 lb 9oz baby Cole.  

And the next day she was like, "I'm going to take my 5 kids to Target." :)

I made my first coconut cream pie, with meringue.  You have to whisk over a flame and I don't have a hand mixer, so I had to capture this feat of speed whisking the egg whites for 7 minutes.  !!

I'm sorry, I'm just proud of this.  It's a prisma color drawing of one of my favorite people ever.  Shannon just sent me a picture of it and I remembered how much I like it. :)

The girls don't play traditional chess.  They play "Kingdom" in which the queen performs executions.

Of course, we've been swimming.

 And the old swing set finally rusted out and a child was flung to the ground, so on Sunday evening Nathan decided to build a swing set.  This thing is so heavy!  I was breaking my back last night, swatting mosquitos, and trying to promise Nathan I wouldn't drop it and break him.

It's still lying on it's side, waiting for another man to help push it upright. 

I kept telling him, "I'm not a man!  I'm a pretty awesome woman, but I'm not a man!"

These girls.  Yesterday I taught them to clean bathrooms and they loved getting 75 cents for the job.  They're both determined to earn $100 over the summer.  So now I've enlisted them in all kinds work, like grating zucchini and squishing the moisture out, and picking the romaine and washing it.  Yay!

Also, I went to my first painting lesson a couple of weeks ago, and I have my next one this week.  My teacher is funny.  She gets around with 2 canes.  She talks to her cat, and me.  She said the firemen took her doors off when she had an episode a while ago, so she goes to the bathroom and I just hide my face behind the easel and she said, "Don't peak.  It's not worth it."  She gave me cash and sent me to the store down the road to get paint thinner, because she can't out to get it herself.  But she's a great painter and I'm just excited to learn all the things I don't know.