Brown Busyness of Late

Noah has begun his first flag football season.  Today was his first game.  He was awarded the Defense Star afterwards for pulling flags like a madman apparently. ;) Who knew our little guy would be such a good defender?

Lasa has now attended her first ever movie at a theater. 

It was a regular circus act.  I deserve a medal for seeing it through.  Good thing we were there for a Family Film Festival free movie!  Even better that we went with our friend Becky's suggestion and sat in the Sensory Friendly theater - ha!  Lights stayed on, noisy kids were expected, and no one looked sideways at me as I wandered around keeping an eye on my toddler.  She walked, climbed, rolled, sampled popcorn off the floor and everything!

It's also likely no one looked sideways at her toddler antics because there were only a few other people there.  HA!  Seriously though, the kids enjoyed Free Willy and getting to see it with Jonah and Kiyah. 

Lasa also took in her first ever PDO program this week.  I think it went smoothly.  I didn't hear otherwise. :}  It felt so weird to be on that scene again and to be away from her for so long.

Anna participated in another sewing class last weekend.  She has a sewing machine on her birthday wish list.  And I have some sewing jobs I need taken care of once she gets situated on the machine we did indeed already buy her for her birthday later this month. :)

We are DYING for fall in a bad way.  Last week we had one precious cool day so we picnicked in the backyard to soak it all in. 

We are soldiering on through our homeschool year which has gotten off to a smooth start - not counting our many, many interruptions of the toddler-sort. Sigh.  Such is this season of our lives.  Again.  HA!

We kicked off the new school year with a return to our Community Group gatherings at our house.  For our first week back, we did a cook-out of sorts at our neighborhood park. 

We hung out til after dark and even broke out the guitar.  Was so good to be with our people again.

And the kids started their first week in a Spanish class this week.  We are all excited to have this resource available and the kids are off to an easy start after having done a year of spanish with me already.  :)

Other than that, this princess continues to run the show schedule wise.  All our plans (if we even bother to make them) have to be situated around what time of day it is for her and how we will manage her while out.  She is still a happy heart, but she sure seems to oppose just about everything we expect her to comply with these days. :} Just yesterday I bailed on a field trip to the TN Museum after I felt dread mounting all week long just thinking about managing her in an enclosed space where she would need to keep hands off and stay close.  Wasn't real likely.

She has come into her toddler days with a fiery force.  Anna said it best yesterday in the car when she said, "Mommy, sometimes I just can't smile hard enough at her and other times I just can't frown hard enough at her either!"

We are now a month from the news of our permanent custody and it has finally sunk in.  I have yet to make an online announcement about it, but I have finally eased into finding my comfort zone calling myself Mama to her.  She, just today, started cooperating with our efforts to get her to say it.  It came out Nonna, but I counted it a win.  You take what triumphs you can get when she already says Dada (Deh Deh) and poo-poo and eye (aaaah) with ease.  HA!!!