On Saturday Sherry called and told me that I had to meet her at a yard sale near our house. Forty-three dollars later I lugged two big bags of really cute little girl clothing and shoes to the car. Cate immediately fell in love with one pair of shoes and calls them her tap shoes. Lots of manic dancing since. Here is one example. She had me take like 10 videos of her dancing but I am sparing you 9 of them. In one of the videos she calls herself Catie (Katie?) completely out of the blue. I reacted a little which she picked up on and has been calling herself Catie ever since. Sigh.

Jane had a high fever a couple of days last week. She is such a sweet, easy kid even when she's sick. She really didn't sleep well however. Poor Jane and poor me. We are also getting started on this:  

She seems sort of ready. I put the potty chair in the bathroom and Cate and I have been talking to her about it. So far though, the potty chair has been turned into a bed (I know.) for puppy and kitty. The bathroom door is always closed because it's always bedtime. I have been chastisted more than once for opening the door. The main problem I see with potty training Jane is I do not know how her pants are going to stay up without a diaper.

What else? I am reading Wild by Cheryl Strayed along with the rest of the country and it's completely gripping and worth my time. Also reading her collection of Dear Sugar columns. Love. One last Nora Ephron remembrance from Lena Dunham for The New Yorker blog. Sweet and true and funny.

Note: Somehow I have managed to write this with all three Duerre kids and my own two kids playing around me. I now feel smug enough to take all five kids on the bus downtown. Good idea? Bad idea? I am not sure if we are acutally going to get off the bus. We might just do a loop.

This is Jane at our 4th of July BBQ. She did not want Daddy to supervise her sparkler experience. Go Jane, go. It felt like summer. Uncle Austin and Telfer lit off fireworks in our driveway and the girls loved it. Telfer made the best-ever barbeque ribs from the cover of this month's Bon Appetit. I must say, they were really the best I have ever had. And easy! We had lots of fruit and berries, some of which ended up in our wine. Sangria!

Cate did much better with the fireworks this year. Jane slept through the late-night fireworks but we took Cate down to the street to watch our neighbors shoot off their fireworks. She plugged her ears for awhile but then got really, really into it. She was in fine form and I truthfully enjoyed watching her way more than the fireworks. 

Our new front gate and fence are finally done. It looks like it's been here forever which I think is highest praise. It's so nice for the girls to play in the yard without worry of a car coming up our driveway or one of them racing down the driveway after a ball. Telfer and I have enjoyed sitting outside in the evenings talking or reading. It feels peaceful. 

Why is that I feel less guilty about reading thrillers and "lighter" fiction in the summer? I do though. I have read so many fabulous books the last few weeks.

I read Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. Pretty great thriller for those of you in the market. Also liked Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan. These are perfect iPAD or Kindle reads. I also bought Harry Potter for my iPAD. It feels right. I usually reread Harry in the winter but this time summer seems better. On Order of the Phoenix. Teared up last night when Mrs. Weasley gives Harry a hug at the end of the hellacious Triwizard tournament in Goblet of Fire. For the twentieth time. 

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter – please read this. It's kind of everywhere right now. Costco even has it. It's beautifully written, I actually reread whole paragraphs because they were so beautiful and true, and the author lives in Spokane. And funny too. I feel like many male novelists lead with their ego but not Jess Walter.  

I read the best motherhood book I can possibly imagine – Making Babies: Stumbling Into Motherhood by the Irish novelist Anne Enright. I have read a couple of her novels (dark, beautiful, lots of drinking, dark) but I was unprepared for her nonfiction book on motherhood. I kind of cried/laughed through the whole thing. It's one of those books where I wondered where it's been the last few years because I needed it a long time ago and it's finally here and now I can reread it whenever I need to. Note: If you do pick this up, you might skip the first essay. It's doesn't really fit.

One quote: 
And on the plus side – a family, a marriage, this deliberate happiness. I sit in my garden and am profoundly grateful. And I never underestimate how hard people work at being ordinary. 

Coming up: Another Jess Walter – The Financial Lives of the Poets. And then maybe The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker. It came to my doorstep from the very magical Powell's Indiespensable subscription.

And one last thing. I, like so many others, are so very saddened by the death of Nora Ephron. I loved her. Her essays and her movies and her novel Heartburn. Telfer and I had been in a Nora Ephron movie-watching kick right before her death – we just have to rewatch When Harry Met Sally. I think this was the best article I read after her death.

Good morning Jane! Jane likes to climb in little containers or boxes and just sit a bit. Apparently I did this too. Telfer is on his third day in a row of second call but somehow is home doing  yard work during naptime. He's been pretty busy but I think it's slowing down due to the holiday tomorrow. Now, if he was taking a nap or relaxing he would totally be called in. Keep working Telfer!

We are hosting 4th of July celebrations at our house. Austin is in town for a couple of days to visit his family. I haven't really said much about this but Austin & Adrielle & children are in the process of moving back to Olympia. Adrielle and the kids have been here for a few months already but Austin is still extricating himself from the Marines and selling their house in California. Needless to say, his visit is a blessed event. So Telfer and I are making lots of food to celebrate his visit and the 4th. We will see how Cate does with the fireworks. She still doesn't like loud noises but I think we have talked it up enough that the screaming at least will decrease from last year.

Mom and Dad visited most of last week and I am still in the recovery process. We stayed up really late two nights in a row (one of those nights we went to see Les Mis in Seattle) and suddenly I am too old to stay up so late. We had such a good time with them and Mom made the doll bedding for the girls. I picked out the fabric and found the little bed a couple of weeks ago at an estate sale (is anyone else so depressed by estate sales?) and Mom whipped up a sheet and a pillow and a mattress cover. Cate loves it.  

This is Cate and Gresham at the farmer's market. They greet one another like it's been months rather than two days apart. They hug and kiss and then dance to the folk band at the farmer's market. Both have separate fits over the timing of a cupcake. I kind of shudder to think of an actual romance between the two of them. It could be epic.

For someone who cares very little for holidays in general, Father's Day in particular, Telfer had the perhaps the manliest Father's Day on record. Earlier in the week, I asked him what he wanted to do and he answered truthfully, "absolutely nothing." Ok! So we really weren't planning to do much besides go to church and then to Home Depot to pick out his present – a new lawn mower. He has been using an ancient lawn-mower we bought from our ancient neighbor in California. We were wondering how we were going to get the lawn mower from Home Depot to our house. So Telfer bought a truck to get it home. Seriously. Our upholsterer, who is also a neighbor, was selling his 1969 Chevy truck and Telfer bought it on Father's Day to get his lawn mower home. Awesome. 

In other news, the girls and I have had a good week. It went by very fast – a good jumble of swim lessons and walks and trips to the gym and to Grammy's house. Telfer has had a busy week and now a busy weekend. I managed to get in a rainy walk with Henry down to the lake before Telfer was called in to give relief to laboring women. Cate is watching Bambi and Jane is curled up in my lap. She is down to just one nap (finally) but has a major mid-morning dip in energy. If we are out and about, she falls asleep in her car seat. At home she just snuggles. Actually wait, she is literally asleep. Poor baby.