at the amazon family picnic

a couple weekends ago we spent the day at centurylink field with face painting and glitter stamps and balloon animals and free gifts and free food and live music and 30,000 of our closest friends.

thanks, amazon team! you may be monopolizing all of my husband's time (like, *all* of it) with your relentless hard work, but twice a year, you throw a good party.

(psst - remember how much fun we had at the post-holiday party?)

school supplies

this. is. happening.

september 9th, people. 

on september 9th, i'll put that little girl on a bus and wave goodbye. i'll go inside, close the door, slowly sink down onto the floor, and then i'll cry like a baby because i'm just not old enough for this. because i remember being that little girl and now i'm that little girl's mama and where did all the time go and where will all the time go, and are the pencils sharpened and are her shoes tied and who will sit with her at lunch and who will play with her at recess and will she listen to her teacher, and golly, i could really use a ben folds song right about now.

ps - who else is totally bummed that we don't get to label school supplies anymore? what gives?

all-alaskan pig race

at the evergreen state fair, waiting with baited breath for the race to begin:

laziest summer ever

i totally give myself two thumbs down for the blog-umentation of this summer.

so here's a quick peek into our lives:

summer and afton occupy most of their time by good old fashioned playing all day (a philosophy brought to you by the letter "L" for lazy mom and the letter "S" for simplicity parenting). i see them at meal times and before bed, but otherwise, they are busy delving deeper and deeper into their fantastic and creative imaginary worlds or setting up all the little tiny toys they can get their little tiny hands on in some elaborate and delicate scheme. they have also been muy entertained by the many extended family folks who have been coming and going throughout the past several months.

caleb spends the majority of his days keeping the rest of us on our toes. i'm pretty sure a week doesn't go by that i don't amazon prime some new kind of baby-proofing device or door lock (keep in mind, we have had children before...). always in search of a good time and a big mess, caleb's little legs have spent almost every second of this summer in motion. he's also been showing very little interest in using words and instead, finds his current modes of communication -- yelling, yelling louder, and various demanding gestures -- effective enough.

there have, of course, been zoos and play dates and trips and lakes and kids camps and outings and adventures and what nots, but mostly, if you ever find yourself thinking, "huh, i wonder what the wheelers are up to right now?" you can probably just stop on by 'cause there's a pretty good chance we'll simply be hanging out at home.

(only, don't "just stop on by," 'cause there's *also* a pretty good chance i'll simply be still in my pajamas...)

rattlelake snake

our family has grown up quite a bit since our last trip to rattlesnake lake.

here are the cherubs at this past weekend's outdoor excursion with grandma and grandpa wheeler:

broom broom pow

that's right, caleb: it's about time you earned your keep.

return to alta lake

last weekend we returned to alta lake for our family's second overnight camping excursion (that would mean camping twice in three years! i think we're on a roll!) this time, we were also joined by uncle schmatto, anna, and danton.

summer's first kite fly. don't let her apparent calm demeanor fool you: she spent the entire time crying and screaming, "make it STOP! make it STOP!" in her defense, it was quite windy.

meet caleb.  he thinks camping is the best. thing. ever. he spent the entire campout (including those hours he should have been sleeping), grinning from ear to ear and basking in pure wild and free outdoorsy-ness. in fact, when we arrived back home and caleb learned that we had not *permanently*  relocated to a tent in the wilderness near a lake, well, let's just say he handled the news quite poorly.

on the boat. afton even tried her daredevil hand at tubing.

come to think of it, caleb didn't spend the entire campout grinning. he was not a big fan of the boat.

goodbye, alta lake! and thanks to mike et al. for organizing another great BCT (big camping trip)!