Into the void

Here are more shots of our summer:

June 22. Samuel. One of my ongoing goals for the summer is to have more consistent piano lessons. Eh, we still need some work!

June 23. James has developed an interest in indexing, which is typing in the information from photographs of records so they can be searched in family history databases.

June 25. My dad and his horse shoes.

June 26. Cousin Zooey, age 1, hand-fed Elise crumbs -- and the grapevine!

June 27. Emma, Elise, Grandma Shirley at the St. George Temple. I really enjoyed doing baptisms with the girls.

June 27. Taking the plunge. Elise, cousin Greenliee, Emma. Aunt Madison is in the background. We had the best time visiting them.

June 30. James purees apricots for jam.

July 2.  Samuel at a Lego event at the library.

July 3. Logan fireworks.

July 4. This was a fun day of watching my children play together on the lawn at Grandma's and Grandpa's. Ultimate Frisbee, then Pace bars. Trust me, the happy camaraderie doesn't happen very often anymore ... but is it any wonder why I don't have any decent pictures of all five at once?

July 7. Uh-oh. Samuel gets fillings.

July 8. Tom Sawyer knew what he was doing -- if you pitch it just right, (and you're not picky about the results), painting is a true adventure. I got the grand idea to paint the girls' room while they were at camp, and their brothers were excited to help.

July 9. The overwhelming response to our ward RS humanitarian project for babies. We held a fun baby shower activity to pack it all. My ward is great!

July 18. (Yes, I'm a slacker on this photo-a-day project.) When Kyle was about 4 and looked at the blossoms of herbs in our yard he exclaimed, "Wow! A firecracker plant!"

July 19. Preparing to open root beer cans for the guzzling contest at our great family reunion. James is in the front, third from the right.

July 22. Sixteen candles!!! We love you, Emma!

 July 23. Looks like Elise wants to go places with music.

July 24. Kyle traced a star with a glow stick.

July 25. Elise's sparkler signature. 

 James

Elise's dance

Sometimes I want to put my hand on Elise's head and push down, willing her to become a tiny kindergartener again. "Stop growing! You're my baby girl, don't you know?" I wonder, do I feel like I didn't soak up enough of her childlike funshine (real Elise word) when I had the chance, and that's why I wish she could be little again? She was the most exuberant, joyous child. She's added a few more emotions since then (just a fiery few!), but I love it the most when I see these inherent ones play across her expressive face.

Elise's staging rehearsal, June 20. Age 12.

Instruction from her teacher, Julie. 

Ah, yes, the moment she realized her bun fell out. I love this picture! This dance's rehearsal was marked by several stops and restarts and helpful pointers from the artistic director over the microphone. I could read in Elise's face, below,  that she was worried about a PA bun announcement! Thankfully, all was well.

Emma's dance

I look at Emma and I marvel at the woman she is becoming. How did she get so poised, so striking, so gorgeous? These pictures are from her staging rehearsal on June 19.  She is 15. Aside from a few I cropped,  they are straight out of the camera. (No flash, manual exposure, manual focus  -- yee haw!) The dancers didn't get their beautiful red and black Spanish-style costumes until later.

This makes me laugh a little, to have the other dancer's face blocked by Emma's arm.

Emma is second from right. Other shots show such intense concentration on her face, that I really like her hint of a smile here.