A place for little feet...You buy a 20 pound box of peaches to can them for winter….and you don’t can them immediately and all the sudden they are almost gone, in 2 days. Kyler kept opening the front door today to ask me for another ‘ball, no peel, please’. Four times over, this happened in the course of just a few hours:
Peach eating, serious business. He never cracked a smile. Just focused on loving the peach and smashing his face into it.
I was in the driveway and heard the kids screaming, at the top of their little lungs-“It’s amazing, it’s amazing mom, come look!” They came running towards me, to show me the amazing thing.
Caleb ‘caught’ this bee in our lavender in the front yard. He was so proud. It was amazing how beautiful this little creature was and that Caleb held it on his finger for 15 minutes.
He won’t look up at me for the picture, too engaged with the bee!
Super fun, giant fort built from driftwood
Audrey and her cousin Isaac-they are just 6 weeks apart in age!
A lot of love…
Kyler in the fort
When in doubt, grab the hood (and mind the newborn baby in the front pack too)!
Dress up fun
Any guess at what we are so intently watching?
In the undeveloped lot next door to the house we stayed at there was a deer grazing in the morning. We watched her with delight as she nibbled on leaves right outside the kitchen window. We squealed when we discovered her baby was nestled in the grass nearby. They spent all morning sleeping, eating and licking each other while we enjoyed every minute of watching them.
Well, anyone with suggestions about how to keep Kyler out of my room BESIDES using the doorknob covers that are supposed to keep kids out, let me know. Audrey sleeps in our room and was napping this morning, I went to get something out of the car, came back to find my door open. This time Kyler wasn’t busy emptying baby bath products, but laying all snuggled up in Audrey’s co-sleeper with his arm around her. This time, this is what I saw…
Yes I know, our room is a little less than clean…but in the words of a darling sign I saw on our vacation last week “Happiness is spending time with your kids instead of worrying about a clean house”.
On another note, Rylee and Kyler enjoyed the Monster Truck Show on Friday with their Dad.
What are they all looking at so intently you wonder? Their beloved Uncle Buzz and his kite (long story, yes he has a name but to them, he has ALWAYS been Buzz) of course. He busted out his kite during our overcast day at Deception Pass and the kids were mesmerized by it. Apparently kite skills are a learned thing….when Christopher took the reigns for his first time, we all had to duck and cover!
Before we share the loads of fun from our trip to Anacortes this week, here are highlights from the past few weeks…
My thrift store find of the summer, almost new Keen’s in a neutral green color, in my precise size for just $7-I’ve wanted Keen’s for two summers now but the $80 price tag was out of the question!
A rare moment of playing together and liking it-hopefully we can have more of these.
Audrey has a new best friend, her thumb-we’ve never had a thumb-sucker and so far since finding it she has slept from 9 pm until 8 am 6 nights in a row…three cheers for thumbs!
Kyler trying to catch a breeze on the fence during our 90 degree summer sunday in the park with church.
Christopher went climbing again, this time to an elusive peak in the Cascade mountains called Keyes Peak. He had a great time with 2 other pastors from church.
Yes, that’s Rylee holding Audrey with one hand and eating her eggs with the other, talk about a multi-talented 5 year old. She insisted on holding her sister and we thought after one second she’d give her back but she proceeded to eat her whole meal just like this.
Christopher and I (with Audrey) got to go on a dinner cruise for an event my parents (with b2g) hosted last week. Doesn’t my mom look gorgeous? It was really nice to have a grown up evening, we were so glad to get to be a part of it.
Beauty is the sound of Rylee’s shrieking voice echoing through the coffee shop tonight while on a date with me as she held up her finished page-covered with pictures of her and her sister. She has her very own ‘sister’ photo album/scrapbook and she is incredibly proud of it.
Beauty is watching Caleb do “this-little-piggy” with Audrey’s toes and hearing his new version, which tells that piggy #3 goes to Lowe’s (home improvement store).
Beauty is the fervor that Kyler has as he tries to pick up Audrey by her shirt nearly every time he is near her-“Hold Audie me” he explains in fluent two-year-old speak.
Beauty is the tears streaming down my face as Rylee shows her Daddy the page in her scrapbook that holds a picture of him. He reads the words out loud (the words she dictated carefully to me to write). I know someday she might not think he hung the moon, but today she does.
Beauty is the sweet, hard working young adult from Chris’ Young Adult group at church who heard about our rancid bathroom odor problem, was willing to come take a look and now has spent hours ripping up wet, nasty smelling flooring, taking out our mold-filled toilet all the while very patiently answering the questions of my ever-so-curious children and being able to work with a 4 year old in only superman underwear staring at his every move.
Caleb: “Mom, can I look up your nose?”
Me: “Sure.”
Caleb: “Ewww Mom, there’s a booger way up there, use your finger to get it out!”
Me: “No, I like to use kleenex.”
Caleb: “I love to get boogers with my fingers and wipe them all over the wall.”
Lovely. Boys. A kind of their own.
So Caleb and I were watching a bit of the Olympics tonight and after watching some of the Chinese gymnasts on the uneven bars, Caleb says “Dad, can you do that?” Of course I said, “no way.” Then he says “wow, I think you have to be superman to do that!” Immediately following that routine, NBC goes to commerical break and there is this interesting Bud Light commercial involving a woman drinking a Bud Light that now comes with “x-ray vision”. WIth this ability she is able to see the muscular construction worker as if he was not wearing a shirt. Then a rotund fella walks in front of the muscular guy and of course the woman sees more of him than she bargained for. Caleb says “Dad, why are those guys not wearing clothes? They’re not being respectable” As I was happy to see the commercial come to a close, we were then greeted with an ad involving hundreds of sumo wrestlers. Thinking I was going to get a similar comment from Caleb he said nothing until they all left the ground and gracefully began to fly. “How are those guys flying Daddy?” By the way, watching hundreds of sumo wrestlers (in your typical sumo garb) taking flight is quite entertaining. Two more reasons to limit our kiddos TV watching to shows like Curious George.
-Chris
Here are some pics of the girls in matching dresses (thanks Robyn!) in our yard!
It is a tad bit sad but when Rylee complained of back pain yesterday I realized that the days of her walking around and holding Audrey are coming to a close. At almost 13 pounds, Audrey is no lightweight for her still only 5 year old sister. I have tried hard to say yes nearly every time Rylee has asked to hold Audrey, knowing all to well how fast it goes and how quickly Audrey will be running all over the house after her siblings. These early, ‘newborn’ days are almost over and it has been a treasure beyond my imagination to watch Rylee love her baby sister.