Moving on

 I sold my family's house and it was so anticlimactic that I'm having a hard time processing it. I have so many feelings wrapped up in this pile of bricks and sticks and yet I'm not finding myself grieving it at all. My parents bought it when they moved to the mountains and were bright-eyed and optimistic and while it held so, so many great memories, it feels symbolic that it always tended to make life harder than was absolutely necessary. The people who bought it are going to flip it and I hope the next people who live there are able to appreciate it for all of it's magic (and that they don't find too many of the animals that we buried over nearly 50 years of country life). 

Barbie Movie

Not only did I buy tickets for the movie theater, but I bought them for opening night. THAT'S how excited I was for the Barbie movie! (Almost) everyone themed out with me and it was so fun to see the sea of pink milling around the shopping center before the show started. 

I thought I was going to love it because it was fun and pink and targeted towards me and my girls. I wasn't prepared to love it so much for the messaging. I nearly cheered out loud during America Ferrara's speech. 

You can't tell, but even the boys loved it

I bought these from a little girl who was selling them at the Farmer's Market, which felt very on-brand. 

 

Cats and carpets

 Lots of bits and pieces. Eli hit a breaking point with trying to keep his kittens in his room (sleep deprivation with kittens is legit) and so now they're out in the house. We're all together and no one has gotten eaten!

And just look at this beautiful, beautiful flooring! The blue carpet is GONE and I knew it was going to make a difference, but I didn't really appreciate just how big of a difference it was going to be. I just love it so much

It was even worth putting everything we own into one room, which did actually make my eye twitch for a few days

Anniversary Trip photo dump

C and I celebrated our TWENTIETH wedding anniversary this year. TWENTY. I was 19 when we started dating. I was 21 when we got engaged. In two more years I'll have had his last name longer than I had my dad's. We have outlasted most marriages I know, and because we got married when we were literal babies, we've managed to witness several friends' second and even third marriages. I think the secret, if I'm honest, is that we got married young and stupid. We figured it out together and now I can't imagine anyone else I'd rather muck through life with. This guy makes me absolutely crazy, but he also 100%, on a cellular level, gets me. Which is how we came to celebrate our anniversary at a wood carving camp in the actual middle of nowhere. It was beautiful and crunchy and exactly how I would design the most perfect weekend away with my person. We learned how to carve spreaders (or shanks, depending on who you asked), he fished, I read and carved some more. We stumbled on the weirdest, most delightful Fourth of July festival, and we had a lovely, lovely low key weekend. The kids are big enough that we stocked the house with frozen food, named explicitly the acceptable house guests (so as not to recreate the shenanigans spearheaded by my mother last time we left them home alone) and didn't check in for two days. We came back to a clean house and happy babies. 

Yup. That's a goat. On a leash. At a concert. 

Future Tinder profile pic, should he choose not to stick around for 21

 

Our cute little lodge in the town with a population of 75

 

Dude. 17.

My teeny tiny little blog baby, the one who started this whole thing on a fated trip east while still in diapers, my dissertation ride or die. My practice pancake who has been an adult in a kid's body since the beginning of time. This kid has literally one more year before he's a legal adult. It somehow feels like both the most bizarre and most natural thing to have this person in my life who is practically grown, who has the biggest feet and the deepest voice but who still gets irrationally frustrated by his little sister and is obsessed with his kittens (who he has emphatically claimed and who he believes no one else can take care of or keep safe). He is wise and brilliant and has the kindest, most loving sense of gratitude but also is ridiculously adolescent and entitled enough to remind us that he is absolutely still a teenager. 

There are very few pictures from his birthday because he's a grown person who threw himself and his best friend/birthday twin a lake party, but one where he made responsible choices and invited his thirteen year old sister to join him. His birthday donuts were NOT from Dunkin because he holds a grudge on his sister's behalf but they were delicious. He was thrilled with his headphones and his shoes, since all he asked for was for us to buy sodas and hotdogs for his friends. I am obsessed with him. I can't believe he's going to be a senior and I desperately want him to have all the amazing things he hopes for. Right now that's to make all the memories, to dual enroll in a fire sciences program, and to wrestle as much as is humanly possible. He's planning on becoming an EMT and pursuing the fire academy and I'm planning on trying to entice him to live with us for at least five more years. 

 

Summer So Far

It feels like all of our friends are on these amazing vacations but our summer has been much more low-key. Eli spent a few days in Utah learning from all of his favorite wrestling all-stars and living his best frat boy lives.

My step-mom and her boyfriend came for a visit and it was so fun! He geeked out with me about spoon carving which was an added bonus

Does anything say "Summer" more than a front yard full of tie-dye? 

Averson is in the middle of a whole identity evolution and dyed her hair purple this week. It is a VIBE and I love it

And the kittens! We are all obsessed. They're wild and so fun. They live most of their lives in Eli's room and he not-so-subtlely doubts our abilities to care for them as well as he can. Introductions to the hellbeasts is going slowly but no ones except me seems too worried about it. 

The rest of summer looks like more of the same. Eli is planning a lake day for his birthday this weekend and we're doing a lot of grilling and swimming in the pool. C and Eli are doing a couple of classes on-line and Eli is trying to get a fast food job but other than that we dropped the ball on camps or any other structured activities so we're partying like it's 1986!

 

Sydney turned 13!

Somehow when I wasn't paying attention, this...

turned into this! 

My teenagers now outnumber my "little" kids (OMG!) 

My headstrong, sassy little mini-me has turned into this amazing, creative, spicy teenager. With this one, it is so clear that her personality came with her from the very start, beginning with stubbornly refusing to be born until she damn well felt like it and not a minute sooner. She continues to be hilarious and witty and thoughtful and to be her own person, a trait that I'm finding exceptionally rare in 13 year old girls. She's sporty and athletic, but only if you don't make direct eye contact or talk about it too much. She watches Dance Moms almost obsessively and says that her goal is to become an NBA wife. 

We celebrated in the most typically Sydney fashion, which was to explicitly state exactly what she wanted and then go about the day pretending it wasn't a big deal. 

Her birthday donuts were hilariously depressing. Not a sprinkle in sight

This is feigned excitement for the donuts but true excitement for Sydney. Her face says it all

She asked for pink converse and a very specific pink Stanley cup that I had to search the interwebs for (because of course). Instead of a party, she asked to go to TopGolf with her two best friends. It was the most perfect Sydney celebration. Fun and ridiculous, without too much fanfare or pressure. Of course she made it just a little Extra though by coordinating matching outfits for the three of them.

Her only other request was to go to Target afterwards for snacks and cake decorations. Seriously. Easiest birthday party EVER. 

Happy Birthday, Sydney Cheyne (aka Sydney Sunshine, aka Sporty Spice)!