growing up - and more picture overload

Somehow Laine the Hurricane has turned 6. (I know, I know. I can hear the audible gasp out there from all of you that thought she was at least 13 but she is not. She is only 6 but don't you try and tell her that or ELSE!)
I think we are good parents. We really try, but no matter what we say to her she keeps growing. It is really frustrating. If you have a solution please let us know.

Tonight in Lainey's bed time prayer she said, "please bless me that I will not have bad dreams. Please bless me to dream about butterflies, flowers, corn on the cob, Hello Dolly, and The Secret Garden." I love knowing what constitutes a happy dream to her. (I actually wrote this a few days ago and since then she has just made this one of those repetitious things she says every night.)

We marked Laine's vanishing youth at the cabin again this year. This is really a great way to go. It is like a present for the parents and for her. For the parents, they don't have to throw a party where she would insist on everything being covered with pink feather boas and would probably also involve a lot of rhinestones. Instead, we as parents, can get a way with just hauling a pinata up to the cabin to hit with a stick.

For Lainey, she gets to be in one of the most beautiful places in the world, go to the beach everyday, take a ride on a boat, and wear her swimsuit pretty much 24/7. What could be better?

This year there were some great additions as well. It was a killer season for huckleberries so we spent a little time each morning enduring the mosquitoes and filling our buckets with yummy plump berries. We also had to make a lot of noise just to be sure we didn't run into any grizzly bears who thought that we looked plump and yummy. We did come across some VERY fresh bear scat. Rom and I dissected it to see what the bear had been eating. It was very fun but it was obvious the bear liked berries too so we had to be careful - lucky thing for bear bells and noisy kids. (my bro and sis-in-law saw three griz one night not too far from the cabin and on a main road! crazy!)

Lainey also agreed to some new things this year. Now that she is six and everything and so OLD she thought she would be willing to try water skiing with Marie. We have some cousins that have the kids sit on the adult's lap so we finally talked Lainey into trying it. Lainey didn't really sit on her lap so it looked to me a lot more like one of those water skiing shows you would see in Florida or something. They were a pretty good act I thought. (My two absolute favorite pictures of the summer are the one of them skiing together and the one of the victory muscle flex below.) We also talked Lainey into trying wake boarding but the cold lake water got the best of her on that one so after 2 tries and a face plant she was done done done. We were proud of her for trying though and that night when I was putting Romney to bed I asked him what his favorite part of the day was. He answered immediately that it was "when my big sister tried wake boarding. I want to try wake boarding when I am six." It was really cute.

We celebrated on Saturday and had a big fiesta. Lainey had also requested a very specific birthday cake. She said "Mom, I want my cake to have a beach, and the lake and maybe a boat in the lake pulling a water skier." At first this was a little distressing to Marie but she totally came through. Along with a little help from her super stylish sister they made an awesome cake. It included the cabin, a bear, a moose, a boat and skier, a sail boat, fish, a lake, and a beach. It was pretty impressive. They made it all out of tootsie rolls, taffies, and dots.

(tangential note - does anyone out there actually like dots? they are terrible. Our theory is that they stopped making dots sometime in the 60s but they have not been able to sell them so they continue to disperse them in mixed bags of candy just to get rid of them. I can only recommend dots for people with no teeth. If you have teeth you will not be able to taste them because they will always be stuck to your teeth but if you don't have teeth I can imagine that they would be okay to just gum away at for an hour or two.)

As always leaving the cabin is a travesty that comes complete with tears and tantrums. Why would anyone want to leave?



(credit to most of the pictures to Cath! thanks Cath - see some more here)