Movie Night.

In an effort to squeeze in an idyllic summer evening before the start of school, Todd and I invited our sisters and their families, and our neighbor-family one street over, to an outdoor movie. We played Despicable Me on a projector that lit up a giant white sheet hung on the back of our house, and eight little kids (Jackson was home getting some sensible one-year-old sleep) watched through the dusk and into the dark while swinging, sliding, and munching on popcorn. They were resting in sleeping bags and blankets and drawing by the light of a camping lantern. They cuddled on their mommies' and daddies' laps, and they raced onto the patio-under-construction for impromptu dance parties in their nightgowns and pajamas. It was an unqualified success, and we will repeat the tradition at least once next summer, especially since we've got a completed back patio now, with furniture, and with an almost-finished deck leading onto it.

On a related note, my girls love to skip and run and scream around whenever I play "The Unicorn Song" for them. Thank you, Pharrell, for this.