Project B.S.E. Week One

It's the first full week of summer, and it started with a bang. The most foolproof way I know to get the kids to be unable to say "I'm bored" is by renting a gigantic inflatable bounce house. That way, when the magic summer words come out of their mouths, you can point out the window and go, "Oh yeah? Really? You're bored?" and they sheepishly slink off to jump. My kids spent two solid days on this thing and loved every minute of it. The only downside is that I can only rent these once or twice a year--any more frequently and they would get bored of it. Too much of a good thing, I guess.

Anyhow, here's how our week went. We started with two of the best. birthday parties. ever.

 Zack played the role of bouncer for the bouncer. He had a list of Darcey's invitees and would make sure you were on the list before you were allowed in.

 Darcey's girly friends were super cute...and super squealy. There was more screaming than your standard roller coaster. All in good fun, mind you, but still.

 Zack's party was on Tuesday. His party was also loud but more on the potentially-violent side.

Noah wasn't interested in bouncing; he was too busy shredding the bottom of his skateboard. He's taking skateboard lessons from a former pro-skater.

Brad and his friends making toffee. I overheard one of them mocking the 10-lb. bag of chocolate chips in my pantry until he realized that they had used most of it on batch after batch of delicious toffee.

The girls on our street play with Darcey, even though she's so much younger than they are. It was like 95 degrees this day.

Zack wanted to play baseball so we signed him up for the Lindon Giants. It's machine pitch and he's not bad...when he's not playing in the dirt.

 On a super hot day, Darcey set up her camp in the front yard under the shade of our massive tree, with my ipad. She made it look so comfy I almost joined her.

On Friday, Darcey had the photo shoot for her dance class. We tried curlers but her hair was too short to make it work. So I blow-dried it with a round brush and it turned out so super adorable! Finally, she's got cute hair again!

And since I waited so long to post this blog entry, you get to see the final results!

 This one (above) is Ryan's favorite. That's a pose from one of her dances.

This one is my favorite.

 Or maybe this one.

 Here's where her smile starts to look a little forced.

Still cute, even if the smile is pretty fake here.