Here's the Thing: I am going to blog more.

The latest:

June had her "first round" of braces removed. She will have a second round of braces once she has lost all of her baby teeth. I don't know when this multiple-rounds-of-braces-thing started, but now it seems like what everyone does. June broke several brackets during the last several months of braces-wearing, but overall she handled it well. Also, she became more independent because I never wanted to take all of the kids into her appointments. So, we would wait in the car, and she would check herself in. I know my June, and I know she probably talked the ears off random strangers in the waiting room, but decided that the whole world doesn't need my hovering, so she can just figure it out.

We wrapped up our school year fairly strong. It was an amazing school year, but I am pretty darn thrilled that children's choir, two co-ops, horseback riding, t-ball, soccer, dance and school are over for the next bit. Here is one of the last days we worked on spelling.

June wrote her own version of "Julius Caesar" which is the Shakespeare play we studied this year. It went along perfectly with our history study this year, which was all about Ancient era. The second half of the year really hit hard on Greece and Rome, so Julius Caesar was fun. The girls even memorized Marc Antony's famous speech "Friends! Romans! Countrymen! Lend me your ears . . ." This was especially tender for me because my dad oft recited it to me growing up in order to get my attention.

More spelling. Spelling is hard for my girls! I always excelled in spelling, so I struggle that they struggle. But also my girls are excellent in science, and I don't understand science AT ALL and just tell myself that the world around me works because of magic and fairies or something. So I guess I can accept their weak spots if they can accept mine.

We went to our favorite Mennonite petting zoo and dairy right after the spring goats were born. My kids spent hours there. Some of the kids we went with were scared of the goats, but not these loons. They wouldn't leave those poor goats alone. There were a couple of buckets of water set out for the goats to drink, and Beck would pick one up and plop it right into the bucket and exclaim, "That goat needed a BATH!" Much to my chagrin. June still lives up to what she told me when she was 4. "I want to be a goater when I grow up." In case you are wondering, a goater is one who raises goats.

Harris got new glasses. He had worn his other glasses for 3 years, and it turns out that the prescription had gone bad and was actually too strong for him. He was hesitant about his new pair of glasses four about 3 solid, difficult minutes. But has been doing great ever since. He has two pairs because his doctor said that he can't go without glasses even for a short period of time if one pair were to break. His mother and father have passed along amazingly bad eye genes.

That hat Harris is wearing there is from his t-ball season. It was a RUFFFFFF start. He screamed and cried at practices, threw fits, and wouldn't play. He finally calmed down, but then had a royal meltdown at his first game. He hated the hat, hated the shirt and hated everything. Dan had taken him to that game as I was at horseback riding with June. I received a text from Dan at that moment that simply said, "I can't do this anymore." No reference to t-ball or even Harris. Just "I can't do this anymore." This made me wonder--is he talking about our marriage? Our mortgage? Oatmeal for breakfast? I was a little perplexed. Later, he detailed for me his horrendous morning of Harris screaming through team photos and refusing to go on the field. Dan said it wasn't worth it, and I supported his letting Harris quit.

But then suddenly Harris loved it. He loved his uniform and hat and loved playing. He wasn't fast, couldn't catch, and couldn't hit. He didn't pay attention. But somehow he loved it. It was fun.

And then they started actually counting outs. And then Harris got out . . . a lot. And then he cried a bunch and kinda hated aspects of it again. But the season ended, and he says he wants to play again next year.

By the way, Harris is like this about a lot of things. He HATES Sundays, because Sunday is when we put on church clothes (hates church clothes!) and going to church (hates church!). Every morning when I help Harris climb down from the top bunk, he asks me in a panic, "WHAT DAY IS IT?" If the answer is anything besides Sunday, he is alright. But the "Sunday" answer sends him in a tailspin fast. Sometimes the "Saturday" answer puts him into a tizzy too because he knows he's only! one! day! away! from button-up shirt, stay-in-your-seat MISERY.

Because of this, we have started calling Primary (our church's children's organization) "Cry-mary". Luckily, we have a wonderful primary president, and she has become best buds with Harris, and he goes, albeit reluctantly, and always has a great time. And then always comes home and starts the dreaded countdown for the dreaded next week of church and Cry-mary.

I should mention that I have tried to help Harris through this. Even today, I had him sit up with my while I played the organ so that he could feel like I was close. This totally backfired when he played a pedal (loudly) while our bishop gave some closing remarks.

Another part of the end-of-the-school-year-wrap-up, we fulfilled Pennsylvania's fire safety requirement by visiting a firehouse and talking to the volunteer firefighters.

Gwen had her dance recital. She was in two numbers, one for her jazz class and one for her ballet. The whole dance recital was nerve-wracking for me. There was a 20-page packet about all of the required practices and preparations, including hair, tights, make-up, costume maintenance, etc. There were also multiple opportunities to spend an exorbitant amount of money on things I had never even thought about. I am no dance mom and was so worried about messing up that I reread the packet more often than I care to admit. I a The show was in the old Hershey Theater, and it was beautiful. However, the preparation experience combined with all of the extra fees had Dan chanting "No! More! Dance! No! More! Dance" while marching around the house. Gwen still wants to do it next year, so here's hoping that the summer will cause Dan to feel some of his strong feelings on this topic.

(Ballet outfit)

(Jazz outfit)

The kids have gotten REAALLY into digging for roly polies and have even included some neighbors in this latest venture. I like to think that I am a laidback mom about this and let the girls have multiple jars in their room of the various critters they have found. Right now, June has the following things in jars, all that she has caught herself: a spider (which she catches live flies for daily), a butterfly, a grasshopper, and a huge container of roly polies. Or I guess I should say that she did have roly polies, but decided to release entire colony in my houes about an hour before I hosted a group of ladies for brunch. And then we couldn't find any of them, and we just vacuumed up a whole bunch and hoped for the best. That same morning, Beck dug up a ton of mulch from the yard and covered the porch with it. What a nice walkway for my special guests.

All of this critter-collecting stems from June's great desire to own a pet. I just don't feel ready for a dog in my life. But June needs a dog. The girl was designed for farm life. She loves animals more than she loves humans. One of her favorite classes at her co-op this past year was "Feathered Friends on the Farm", taught by my friend Lisa, who is an Amish-Mennonite farmer. The class has many visitors, like chickens and emus, They ate hard-boiled quail eggs. And one day they were able to take home chicks that they had hatched if they wanted to start raising chickens on their own. Dan and I decided we would agree to this because June was SO excited. We looked into buying a chicken coop. But then our township let us know that it was against their rules to have chicks unless you have an acre of land. June was crushed.

June would love to have chicks. And goats. And horses. More than anything, she wants a dog.

So we bought her four tadpoles. Three of them died, but one of them is still going strong. But she is already lamenting that she will have to release it into the wild when it is a frog. I also took her to a friend's house to feed her chicks and collect her eggs. Instead of being excited, she cried the whole time because she doesn't have a "real pet" of her very own.

S.O.S. I do not want a dog.

(Searching for roly polies.)

We attended the Washington, D.C. temple open house with friends. It was absolutely wonderful. Beck screamed through the Celestial Room, which was less than celestial-feeling. But besides that, it was awesome.