Father's Day

Father's day was not as photographed as I would have liked, however I did get the following pictures of the dad and the little girl so we should be sufficient. 

We started out with a church devotional and followed that with our own church meeting, after which we had Father's Day festivities. 

We struggled on what to get the dad this year. We struggle every year. Usually we ask him what he would like and he says, "nothing..." and then we get him something anyway. So this year I suggested he think really hard before we go spend his money on something he doesn't really want. 

He came back with pajamas. Rebekah wasn't quite as enthusiastic about that, however she was quite concerned that her daddy was recklessly riding a bike without a helmet and so we picked one out for him. There wasn't enough bling on the helmet though so Rebekah put a heart sticker right on the front of said helmet. And now he's not only safe but safe with style. 

Next came the PJ's. Again, I let the Bee take the reins and after I had three suitable pairs, pick him out a winner.  

But we couldn't let the event go without something fun, so we picked out our traditional Father's Day kite. 

We sure love that dad. 

The day was somewhat stormy so we ended up not flying the kite. We planned for a nice steak / salmon / hamburger dinner on a new bbq Don picked out for our 10th anniversary (early - it's July 1st). I mentioned to him that it was going to rain around 2 so we planned to cook around 12:30. Good news was that both Kayla and Paul called to wish him a happy Father's Day; bad news was it put back the cook time and it ended up pouring down rain. So we brought the food in and cooked it on the Forman. It was still good and fun to have Don cook. I think he should cook all our meals. We spent the rest of the day relaxing and playing as a family. 

First Part of June Part II

We'll start out with this extremely cute picture of the grand kids. How I wish we lived closer. But I remember the day we had to send pictures through the mail.... How blessed we are to have technology at this time.

The tooth fairy made an impromptu visit to our house. I didn't even know Rebekah had a loose tooth until we're eating tacos - and it just happened to be on a Tuesday for all you Taco Tuesday participants - when Rebekah's face went white and she pulled a tooth out of her mouth and started to cry. "It's one of my real teeth!" she explained. I assured her in my most calm voice that it was in fact a baby tooth and pulled her in for a hug. Then I nodded my head as my husband mouthed the words, "ARE YOU SURE....?" 

While we cleaned up dinner Rebekah wrote this note for the tooth fairy. 

Dear Tooth Fairy 

Hi I am Rebekah. This tooth is special. 

I lost it when I was eating a taco. 

Love (Heart) Rebekah

That night I had to get my tooth fairy thinking cap on. While I was thinking about how the fairy would respond, Rebekah said, "I know you're the Easter Bunny, but I don't think you're the tooth fairy...." She then went to dad and asked him. She said she knew Kayla was the Christmas Elf and mama was the Easter Bunny... She wasn't sure about Santa...." Then that night she asked me directly, "Mama, are you the tooth fairy?" I replied, "What do you think...?" Because I can't just say yes, but I can't say no.... All this childhood dreams stuff. Ugh. We ended up leaving it open. 

While getting Rebekah to dream land I pondered on how the tooth fairy should reply, finally sending a text to Uncle Michael (maybe he's the tooth fairy consultant....?) and we came up with the following:

With the "fairy dust" and chocolate money: 

We've been working on cursive this summer. Here's some of her favorite people with her name. 

Inspired by our neighbor Miss Judith, Rebekah wanted to do a cross stitch. This was as beginning as I could find. I then passed it over to grammy and let her loose. At first Rebekah said it was too hard but she kept at it and....: 

Rebekah's been texting me from the iPad lately. With all the bells and whistles too. How does she even know how to do that spotlight thing? 

Our first cherry tomato. It was delicious. 

Love our view.

Her cross stitch completed: 

More view:

Rebekah's wild flowers are a thing of beauty.

Rebekah loves the neighbors dogs. Good thing we have sweet / kind neighbors. 

Summer play time with dad:

Home made pizza with grammy. Rebekah's showing her the pepperoni face she made. 

First Part of June Part 1

I started the new month with a new toy. 

Rebekah was quite unhappy at the possibilities. 

The first time I used the device I made curly fries figuring that would be benign enough for my little family. We had fun with the left over mushroom looking potato bits.

I've had projects in store for summer break, one of which was Rebekah's room. While we were doing the project we found the glow in the dark space stickers Rebekah got for Christmas. We were going to put them on the wall but the paint on the wall is very fragile (accidentally bump into the wall and paint is gone). So I tested a small section and sure enough both the sticker and the wall was damaged. After much discussion we decided to leave the back on the stickers and just use tape, that way the stickers can be used again. Here's the final product: 

The night view is pretty cool:

One of our summer projects is learning cursive. Here's Rebekah's first time writing her name. 

Rebekah's been my little helper with all the watering. 

And we're getting good results. 

She is also watering our neighbor's flowers. They live up in New Hampshire half the time. I volunteered Rebekah's services. She's been very good about watering and maintaining the plants. 

One day one of Miss Judith's plants were missing. Rebekah was sad. She made Miss Judith this video which almost made me cry at the end. Such a tender hearted girl!

Don't have a whole lot of options this summer but sprinklers are always a possibility. 

And... my 30 days were finally up! I made it! The heart monitor equipment is officially wrapped up and on its way back to Texas. But before I did that, my last night I took a picture so I can remember this always. My frown portrays the extreme frustration I had during these 30 days. 

And after I got it off the next morning - YAY! And speaking of my monitor, I got the results via email. It said, "There were a few extra beats noted in the upper chambers of your heart. No changes are being made to your therapies at this time based on these results. We recommend keeping your next office visit for further discussion." So, I am not doing any therapy and I don't have another office visit. I tried to call my cardiologist (crazy that I have a cardiologist) and although I was able to leave a message they have not called me back. It's been several days. I'm guessing I'll just assume my heart is overachieving and leave it at that for a while. 

Rebekah saw me helping a little worm back to soft wet ground the other day. Now it has become her mission to help little worms everywhere. I have to admit I kind of love her new found respect for life. 

Nothing like a beautiful back yard sunset. 

Back yard snuggles are pretty priceless too. 

Found this while cleaning up Rebekah's school pick up bag, I found this. 

Main idea: being an astronomer.

Reason 1: Astronomers study space.

Reason 2: They are great.

Reason 3 (your strongest reason): They get to stay up real late.

What the reader should do: Be an astronomer when they grow up.

I feel like I need to be an astronomer when I grow up. Being an astronomer is fun. Astronomers study space. They are great. They get to stay up. 

Also found this. Kool-aid aka food coloring and sugar water is not my friend. Came with a cool straw though! 

Chocolate waffles with ice cream. Who could ask for anything more. 

Every time we head up to mom's we pass this sign. It reminds me of Sweeny Todd. Just sayin.

Rebekah wanted to work on a tapestry like Miss Judith (next door neighbor) is doing. Grammy helped her get it started. 

One late afternoon we decided to use my new spiraslicer on a potato. That's one long noodle. 

Our geese family continues to grow. No more puff, just beautiful working feathers. It was so fun to watch the mom goose teach her children: watched her keep them in line until they stayed in line without the mom reminding them, then gradually they could go a little further; finally the mom showed them how to flap their wings - which was incredible to watch, and they were off! 

Since Don and Rebekah are both on realtor.com all the time these days, I decided to look up the roots from whence the Stirland family sprang. I was born in a little town called Shelley, and we lived on Shelly Avenue. 

And there it is - behind all those trees. I'm trying to fathom my mom, daddy, and 5 kids, all in a 2 bed 2 bath 831 square foot house. It's amazing my mom sane. 

I passed that picture along to my brothers and Michael sent this one back with a much better view. He always knows how to improve things. 

Since that went well I looked up that Kearns house. This one was somewhat horrifying. It was a beautiful house when we left it. My mother had the front fence covered with rose bushes and green plants, grass was green, there was a pond under the front window, and that tree looked alive and healthy. 

Also somewhat horrifying was the price. I may never be able to afford to live in Utah again. 

Abby Marie

I'm connected to my niece on Instagram and the other day these pictures came through. 

I spent a lot of time with Abby growing up. Daniel and Shelly were both working and since I was single and a teacher I would often babysit in the summer. Changed a lot of diapers, played a lot of blanket monsters, spent a lot of playground time. 

I remember walking her to kindergarten; we had to leave early to look at every plant growing out of sidewalks and every bug in in our path. Then when we got there Abby informed me that I could leave now and she would take it from here. 

Spent a lot of time with her and her brother Sam. Loved watching the sibling interaction. I was so honored to get to be a part of their childhood. I feel like I missed so much of Abby and Sam's lives; after I was married, right before it was time to head east with Don, I remember looking in the back yard watching Abby and Sam play and asking how can I possibly say goodbye to them? It broke my heart. I still cry thinking of that moment. But I am so grateful for the technology that allows us to fly, video call, see pictures instantly, and so forth. 

And what a mom! Shelly is so beautifully tender hearted. Both she and Daniel are amazing parents. 

And now here she is, graduating as part of the class of 2020. And on her way to BYU. 

Congratulations Abby! Way to represent the family and set the pace and direction we should follow.