Farewell summer!

As I begin this post, there's two hours and nine minutes left of summer 2011, wahoo! I figure that's plenty of time to write about some of our adventures over the last few months that have yet to be featured on the blog:

Starting with cousin time in June! Sam and Terri's visit for Quinn's wedding meant that all of the [current] Braden side grandkids were together - granted, not a rare happening but we still attempted to get a cute picture of the trio.

Naturally, we deemed this one to be the best.

These pictures are also from June, but represent two oft-repeated activities at our house: one) post-quiet time Otter Pops in the front yard and two) Will attempting to carry all of his 'favorite of the day' toys at one time. This particular day it was a dinosaur, his penguin, and Unky Quinn's old Clifford dog. I think it's a pretty decent glimpse into the future of how I'll look juggling three kids . . .

We celebrated the beginning of July with some Daniels (and Nicole's mom!), some s'mores, and some glowsticks.

We celebrated the Fourth of July with the ward pancake breakfast, matching shirts, and jello.

Ohhh, and some fireworks with the Daniels. This was the evening Duke learned that it's every man for himself when a police officer drives by . . .

You have to love when you can date pictures/events by Chuck's facial hair - this water fun in the backyard was clearly post-Scout Camp but pre-appendectomy. Oh, 'stache, you are missed . . . (by Chuck and seemingly every other male who ever laid eyes upon you).

Towards the end of July, we had to take Will in to St. Luke's for a blood draw (his developmental pediatrician wanted to do some genetic testing) and I was once again astounded by this child's ability to roll with the punches. Chuck kept him entertained in the waiting room beforehand and was in charge of holding him still for the phlebotomist. Will did not care for the actual blood draw ("Oh no! Arm! Stuck! Help! Oh no!" followed by sad, sad tears) but he bounced back so quickly afterwards. Clyde is his mother's child and milks every injury/incident for all its worth but luckily Will is much more like Chuck :).

Also at the end of July, Duke and Nicole blessed their sweet new baby Beckam and we went to their house after church that day for a late luncheon. Nicole and I asked Chuck to take a quick picture of us, not realizing that the dreadful combination of the lighting, the heat, and our silliness would result in such . . . awesome . . . shots :).

Emily was in town at the beginning of August, hooray! I was in desperate need of some of her infectious laughter and fun. We made an afternoon of it, having lunch with Aubrey (sadly no picture), shoe shopping (I got my blue and orange sneakers!), and then visiting Allen and his awesome new condo. I love Emily and Allen so so so much; we always have the most hilarious/ridiculous/straightforward conversations ever and I cherish them - both the conversations and the people :).

The Elder's Quorum had a 'date night' in early August and it was soo much fun. The food was delicious and impressively all-encompassing considering it was a 'no-assignments' potluck. The games were hilarious; I got out on the first round every time I played 'Vroom, vroom, errrch' due to inability to stop laughing :). The pictures are from a jumping/footsie game, the name of which escapes me but it was super fun to watch!

Grandma Pam had a birthday in mid-August! As part of her present, she got to watch the little boys that afternoon while I went to a baby shower :).

The Saturn was in a sorry state after our trip to Utah, so Chuck and I put the little boys to work washing it one August evening. They both took the task very seriously :).

Clyde and I got ambitious one Sunday afternoon in mid August and built a 'contraption' - aka a marble run made of recyclable materials, which kept he and Will pretty busy for the next week or so until I reclaimed my dining room table.

Boise State football kicked off at the beginning of this month, yaaay! We had our traditional 'Macho Nachos' party and donned our favorite blue and orange attire. And don't you love how Will is already squishing his younger brother?

My dad gave this awesome blow-up pool to Clyde for his birthday, so we tested it out (with Brinley's help!) on Labor Day. It was definitely a hit.

An evening at the park - something I wish we'd done more of this summer, but I'm lazy and pregnant and it's hot outside. Hopefully we make it over there more this fall.

Will needed to decorate a little paper to share with his preschool class so we had an arts and crafts evening at the table. I was stunned at how intent Will was on applying the glue himself; I'm so proud of my sensory issue kid for not being phased (well, not too phased) by getting glue on his hands.

We went over to the church orchard with our ward last week to help finish up the peach picking, and Will was super into it; he loved finding the peaches up in the branches and then carrying them to the bin. Cute little helper!

And finally, here are some random shots from a walk the little boys and I took last week. I sure love these boys, even when it's getting hotter by the second and we've covered about a tenth of a mile in fifteen minutes because we're heading up some sort of 'Leave No Rock Unthrown' initiative.

But I digress. And now it's forty-two minutes until fall and I can welcome the new season guilt-free - happy autumn everyone!!