June is for No Shirts

June IS for no shirts. Or at least exposed belly buttons.

June is when we say good riddance to winter and enjoy a few months of not having to haul big coats and hats and boots around everywhere. (Remember that? Try not to remember that.) 

I am in love with my kids' super white, wintry, translucent skin that never tans. It keeps them looking like babies to me. They are programmed to always wear a shirt with their swim shorts, but I just love it when they run around like centaurs. (Babies included.)

But I guess June is for other stuff too, so here's a little update.

 Josh finished kindergarten honorably. He had the best teacher EVER and it was hard to leave her. He even accidentally called me Mrs. Burks sometimes at home for a while. Here he is at his school's field day celebration.

When it got warm, we started spending Mondays and Tuesdays after school at the playground. It started with one special time, and of course became the expectation for EVERY non-rainy day. I had to take a picture of the crazy fluff that was raining down on us for about a week. I'm still not sure what this is, but it was everywhere!

This is how Adele does park days.

While Josh finished up school, we enjoyed our last few days as a threesome at home. Jude REALLY misses Josh while he's at school. Summer break was very, very welcome here.

We had our first gardening class of the summer during the last week of school. Matt was out of town, so I decided to be an extra fun mom by picking Josh up from school, hanging out at the playground for extra long, taking us all to his favorite pizza place, and then going straight to Dow Gardens to plant our plot. This is where I learned that I need to be less ambitious as a new mom of three. Too many plans and timelines and expectations never go just right, and always end with me overworked and yelling at somebody. For my little ones right now, less is more.

Even though it was a long day, they're pretty cute kids. Those are just pretend grumpy faces.

Here are my hard-working gardeners preparing our plot.

Matt's comment on this little collage: "Does this not capture the nature of my three children? The sleeper, the reader, and the person who may currently be getting arrested." 

Matt and I lucked out one night when our friend offered us free tickets to a foodie event at the Center for the Arts. It was this cool presentation by Chef Steps with modern high-tech ways to cook interesting foods. Lots of science and laboratory-type gear and ingredients, with plenty of samples for the audience. It was delicious! We came home with a new wishlist of kitchen equipment. Here's Matt on stage waiting for a piece of reconstructed, sous vide, deep fried steak, with hollandaise made in a nitrous oxide siphon. Very fancy,

That explains Matt's Father's Day gift from me: a siphon and a box of nitrous oxide cartridges. We made our own vanilla bean whipped cream first thing, and it was delicious.

But I guess if you want Father's Day pictures with him and his CHILDREN, I can give those to you, too. Josh made a cute card, and Jude wrapped up a football toy that he got in a Happy Meal.

Where's Adele in all this action, you ask? She was learning how to talk. She always has a lot to say.

Josh had to have a couple more cavities filled in June because I have terrible tooth genes. Aaaaand I guess we could work on flossing. It was really annoying because they couldn't get him numb enough on the bottom, so we had to come back to fill the second one a few weeks later. We came back to a different  dentist who was NOT good at working with young children, and neither of us was happy with the experience.

So afterward, I picked up the other kids from the sitter's house and took them to have some fun at the library. Faces were painted, and all was forgotten in the magic of pretend play.

There were also some birthdays and vacations in June, but those get their own posts. Stay tuned for more updates. I'm hoping to get caught up here soon, because this little girl is growing like a weed, and I don't want to forget a single minute of her sweetness!