Summertime commentary from Noelle - June 13th

Bruce is so cute. The other night as we were getting ready for bed, he went to go check on Bryson and Luke in their rooms. He came back and said, "Hey, I checked on the kids. Woah! Did you hear that? Kids! That's plural!" Then a minute later, "Do you realize that we are a four-person family?" Keep in mind that Luke is now almost six months old.

So the summers here are brutal. We don't go outside unless there's water involved, or we are simply running from one air-conditioned building to the next. We have our summer routine down pat now. We pack up our lunches, head to the gym, then straight to the pool where we slather on the sunscreen and just sit in the water. I know what you're thinking, Papa. "And what time of day are you out there?" But I'm telling you. It's the only way we'll make it through. Then we all come home to take naps and sleep the rest of the hot day away.

Luke has abandoned his attempts at crawling and submitted to rolling around everywhere. I guess he figures it's the fastest way for him to get anywhere right now. I had put him on the floor in the living room and by the time I finished making Bryson a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, he had rolled into the next room and got stuck under a bed. It is for this specific reason that I had opted for a one-story home without stairs.

Bryson loves to sing, which I am, of course, excited about. Sure, I'll put him in soccer, but my secret dream is that he will love to sing! He's been singing everywhere... at the grocery store, while he's lining up his cars, even when he's supposed to be napping. It must be the age, especially now that he really knows the words to songs and is beginning to figure out the concept of melody in his own voice. I can hear him belting "The Wheels of the Bus" behind the door of his bedroom. Although, his two favorites right now are the Church primary song "Follow the Prophet" and the song "Popular" from the Wicked musical. He had a friend over the other day, another two-year-old boy named Nick from across the street, and I found them jamming to the song "Un-adulterated Loathing" (also from the Wicked soundtrack). Sounds appropriate for toddlers, I know. But they were having the best time.

My projects for the summer include painting the boys' rooms, updating our 72-hour emergency preparedness kits to include Luke, learning to play the guitar, and working on our food storage. The emergency preparedness and food storage stuff were added as major priorities in light of an Enrichment Night at church with a lesson on hurricane preparedness that nearly had me breaking out in stress-related hives. One might question whether I really care about my boys' rooms being painted or knowing how to play the guitar when a hurricane is headed our way, but I've included them in my summer to-do list anyway as a way of balancing the universe.

Hope all is well on your end of the spectrum.

Love always,

Noelle