THREE, Tres, TRIO

Three of them.

Y'all.  I have THREE kids. 

Still.  Sinking.  In.

Lasa Lately

I don't intend to keep a monthly log of Lasa bits now that we are past a year old, but it does just so happen that I have a few things to unload in a post at the same time that she also just so happened to turn 13 months.  :)  So here I am again. 

Things like  ... how fun this full closet is to see!  This is the first time I have bought a season-full of baby wardrobe for her.  Before now it has all been Jonah's Journey supplied or I have picked up a piece or two of clothing thinking she would be returning to momma before the next season came.  This fall, however, I know for the first time since we brought her home ... that she is staying in our home!  What an enjoyable milestone.  Also, for the last year, we have kept her clothes in a bag in our living room behind the couch.  :/  Now that she is our permanent baby, she finally gets some permanent storage. I still can't believe we did the bag thing that long.

Look who has her own class in our homeschool!  Baby Sign Language.  Which I have never done before! Our favorites are eat, hungry, all done, sleep, cup, change, down, more, book, and dirty. Speaking of dirty, she now says the word poo-poo.  And it's adorable.  Like a little coo bird sound.  Only Lasa could make poop adorable.  I am choosing to not take it personally that she will say poo-poo, but not mama. :}

This is Lasa being a really cute distraction in our homeschool day.

We are so ready for fall so Lasa can enjoy the great outdoors more.  Especially now that she is such a good walker.  

She's the cutest.

She is such a girly girl ... snuggling and loving on her babies.

She is a ham.  Loves to see herself on the camera.

Kisses overload! 

This is a precious season of toddler-hood.  I love these moments and snapshots.

Annnnnnd, guess who just met her first PDO teacher and classroom?!  Lasa is all ready for a one-day-a-week "school" at the nearest church to our house, Freedom Church.  I am not gonna lie ... I am still on the fence about how badly I want her enrolled in a program at all.  But we are gonna give it a try.

I have no idea what Anna is doing in this picture.  

Her little name and hook in the classroom. Awwwwww.

This will be an interesting endeavor.  Especially the part about napping at noon there.  Which won't go over with Lasa.  At all.  But who knows?  She might be exhausted by all the newness of a class and other kiddos around for several hours.  We shall see!

Simple Saturday Fun

We made a day trip to see Emily and the kids yesterday.  Time FLEW by and before we knew it, it was time to head home again.  Love these peeps!  Love having them so within reach!

 

After a couple hours of Minecraft play, we forced the kids to choose other activities together.  Naturally, they headed outside and soon discovered a pair of fledglings that had fallen out of their nest.  A quick Google search about how to care for them said "Leave them the heck alone," and, sure enough, we enjoyed an afternoon of watching MommaBird take care of her babies on the ground - watching them, feeding them, and, at times, sitting right on top of them when weather got gusty and wet. So neat to observe!

When that was over, trains got played, as well as American Girl dolls, sword-fighting, moon sand, and Legos, of course.  Later, Noah picked up Natalie's bow and arrow and thoroughly enjoyed that!  

He was a natural.

Look at all those hits!  He now has a bow and arrow on his Santa list. ;)

Anna wanted to try, too, which was a relief because we have already bought her one for her birthday.  HA!

Then, there were grasshoppers to hunt. 

And grasshoppers to throw on each other.  Poor Natalie! 

Another fun surprise of the day was Emily catching Evie's very first giggles on video ... brought on by Yours Truly making piggie grunt noises!  I would post the video but it is too long for Blogspot.  Boo!

I failed to mention that this trip was made by just the kids and me.  Josh stayed home with Lasa because Lee was at a conference anyway and I kinda wanted to enjoy a day Lasa-free.  Josh entitled their day together, "Daddy and Lasa's Day of Fun." And man, did they ever have fun.  I got picture texts all day of all the activities.  Here are some highlights from the OpryMills portion of their day - the play area, Build-a-Bear Factory, and carousel ride (first ever!) ...

Was a jam-packed, really great Saturday!

Field Trip/Pity Party

We made our first Nashville run of the school year for a field trip to Cheekwood Botanical Gardens yesterday for their Homeschool Day event.  

You hear Homeschool Day and you think it will be a quaint affair.  

Not so, my friends.  Not so.  Apparently homeschooling is all the rage because Cheekwood was SLAMMED.  It was flipping crowded - there were lines just to get into the park and then lines for the bathroom and then lines for checking in and lines for the food trucks and lines for the tours.  And of course each homeschool family in line had approximately 16 children in their tribe, thus making the lines feel never-ending.  

And it was dang hot.

Y'all.  Kimmie was not in her happy place.  Getting to Nashville at all, driving downtown, takes me out of my comfort zone and requires concentrated effort on my part to breathe and keep my blood pressure down.  But then we get there and there were crowds LIKE WE ARE AT A THEME PARK or something.  And the heat and the sun and the sweat.  And I was pushing a stroller.  Offroading. On a mulched hike.  Uphill both ways, I swear.  

Well.  Let's just say, I survived.  The kids survived.  Lasa was actually a dream baby the whole time, not counting her poopy diaper and the fact that I forgot to put shoes on the poor girl. If it wasn't for the fact that we had friends, Gloria and her crew, to distract us from all of said heat and people, this whole trip would have been a flop.  We went, we wandered, we saw, we got the heck out of there with our sweaty selves and promised we'd stick to cooler climes from now on.  We are such wimps.  I kid you not, I whined to Josh that we need to move further north.  Stat.  Anna is totally on board, too.

Still, this wimp put on her big girl pants long enough to snap at least a few pics in representation of our day.

It's a comfort to know that our other upcoming fieldtrips to a zoo class, the symphony, the children's theater, and the TN Museum of History ... all have AC. :} 

And this concludes my sweaty Kimmie pity-party.

Football of the Flag Variety

I bought football cleats today instead of baseball cleats.  It hurt me.  But that boy of mine insists on trying the sport with his buddy Colman this season.  I tried to sway him back to baseball, I really did, but he would not be swayed.  Sooooo, flag football, it is!  In addition to football cleats, we have picked up a junior-size football (not to be confused with pee-wee football or youth football - sheesh), and several mouth guards to protect those teeth and their metal-work!

Today was his first practice.  He is on the 4th/5th grade team.  They are the Buccaneers.  

It was dang hot. Good thing every single one of his games is at 8:30 in the morning. :} Not counting the first thing in the morning on a Saturday part. : /

Noah, ever my least loquacious child, had only this to say afterword when I badgered him for a response to his first foray into flag football.  "It was fun.  I liked throwing the ball.  I'm glad I didn't hurt my finger." (He jammed his finger practicing with Colman a couple weeks ago. First of many football injuries, I fear. I miss baseball.)

Oh well.  Go, Buccaneers!

Wilson County Fair

We haven't been to the fair for a few years now ... usually because it's so dang hot around this time of August and it's so dang expensive to go.  But this year? This year, the weather dipped beautifully for one day, yesterday, and Josh was given free tickets at work, and we just so happened to have a free babysitting voucher from a friend's daughter.  Since all the stars aligned, we skedaddled our way to Lebanon to take in the fun that Wilson County Fair had to offer.  Also, it was a fun follow-up to a book we read this summer that involved some county fair activity.  Felt like we were talking right into the story ourselves! :)

It was a delightful evening!

The kids rode all three ferris wheels, this being the first.  How cute is that Noah head popping over to spot us?!  He is pretty cautious and nervous about rides at first, but he overcame.

Anna cracks me up in this one ... trying to work with that centrifugal force.

The only ride Josh and I were committed to - the giant ferris wheel.  I just wish we would have ridden it at the end of the evening instead of the beginning.  The lights would have been fun to see from above.  Also, the sun would have been outta my face. :}

Anna was SO nervous about this one, but enjoyed it after all.

Noah did not enjoy this.  Hurt his back, he said.  Also, his dumb car stopped working halfway through so he just sat there waiting to be bumped.

Noah wouldn't ride this one ... at first.  Anna was alllllll about it.

After some sub-par and overpriced fair food.  Ready for more action!

Noah was iffy, but decided to give in to our coaxing and ride the Cliff Hanger after all.  He was intense and relaxed all at the same time.

He even asked to ride it again! Hooray for me pushing the boy to try something I knew he would like if he'd just give it a go.

Third ferris wheel.  This one was cool.  It went the fastest.  

Those are my babies waaaaaaaay up there looking down at us.

This swing ride ... was freaking tall.  My people passed on it on the way in.  But the lights and the rides and cool air pumped Noah up and he ASKED to ride it.  Anna didn't want any piece of this action, so Noah got in line to ride it himself.  Anna did a fun house and came back and we sort-of made her go with him after all.  That's them in that middle seat.

That's Anna's after the super high swing ride, still not sure if she's cool with having been forced to ride.  HA!  For the record, she did say on the way out that she was glad we made her ride it. Mommy-Nudging for the win AGAIN!

A couple of game booths before we left - Anna did darts at balloons and Noah chose a fishing for sharks booth. 

We were sad to leave at 8:45.  We could have easily spent another hour or two wandering and playing and trying fried desserts, but we didn't want our poor sitter to have to wait any longer on us and we still had to return to Josh's office to get his car and then a 30 minute drive home.  We consoled ourselves with the hope that these stars might align again next year!  We'll take Lasa (who'll be TWO BY THEN) next time and put her on all the little kiddie rides.  And we'll stay til closing just cuz we can!  Can't wait!