All in August

So, naturally, August has been taken up with back-to-schoolness.  Public school, homeschool, co-ops, youth, church. The new bedtimes, the new wake up times, the new routines, the adjustment.  Its gone pretty ok, not counting the mega stress still bearing down on Josh at work.  Covid interruptions and virtual school and hybrid school and online classrooms and parents and teachers and students and admins and alll of it! have just done a number on the tech guy who works 10-12 hour days and still comes home thinking about and doing extra work.  Hard.  

I already posted Lasa's first day feature.  The big kids did half days their first week, which, interestingly enough made the week feel longer.  Go figure?  Maybe because we dropped our weekday video game hours.  Probably that.

First day breakfast out tradition. This year we hit up a new spot - Main St. Bistro - and then stopped by the library on the way home, our first time there since FEBRUARY. SO crazy.

Anna is now in the youth group and is loving that life.  The middle school girl leaders had a tie-dye night for the girls.  Another night their youth pastor had all youth come for a game of kickball though I got no pics of that.

Our children's ministry leader had this year's crop of Kinder moms meet up one Saturday for a BooHoo/WooHoo Breakfast.  It was the sweetest morning complete with gab, brunch, gifts, prayer, and encouragement.

Lasa thoroughly enjoyed the church's Back-To-School picnic on a gorgeous Sunday evening, complete with the Pelican's Snowball truck there on site.  It was so good to see so many people in person again!

 

Our Summer Bucket List at summer's end ... only missed one item.

New super simple silicon band I am wearing these days.

Other new thing ... how Josh and I get up before the sun to walk in the mornings.  Along the way, we are listening to Scripture together, a quick marriage podcast (Small Things Often), and read and chat about a devo on the Bible app.  It hurts the Kimmie to get up so early, but I am adjusting ... and going to bed earlier.

Anna had her best buds over for only last summer hoorah.  They are the sweetest.  Only missing Kate who was already back in school that day.

A Saturday picnic on a random property Josh spotted.

Josh cracking up at me freaking out about him off-roading on the property. I was just so sure we were gonna get stuck. Or break his truck. Or something.

Red Beans and Rice recipe I finally wrangled from my sister that was so stinking delicious. New favorite! Will have to post recipe later!

Lasa's first ever cavity and filling. Stinky way to spend $240.

Bunny.

After school milkshake ... which was the bribery I used on day 4 of drop off to ensure the child would get out of the car without tears and fear.  Milkshake reward for choosing confidence and self-control worked like a charm!

An Anna original craft.  She worked all these branches together to make a toy for the bunnies.  Color me impressed!

Another Saturday picnic, this time at the greenway for some creek play to boot.

 

 

You know me and leaves and skies.

Howard PTO cheerful welcome on the first full week of school for Lasa.

I fall in love with her lunches every day.

Now we have TWO bunnies who use the doggie door and come on the porch at all times of the day.  This day, in particular, they hopped up in a chair together. Delightful.

On a cool, sorta rainy night, we soldiered on with a fire out back and it was delightful.  Josh and the kids spent the night in the hot tub watching it burn.  Combined with cool breeze and the steady light patter of rain, it was so relaxing!

More skies.  The clouds this month have been so fantastic.  Sunsets and sunrises, too!

 I swiped this from our local National Weather Service station's lead forecaster took one morning. Amazing!

 

We finally got a super-sized curtain up in the track by the Anna's bed from our summer bucket list. And let me tell ya, that girl is ga-ga for the final effect.  She calls it her retreat/cave/escape. She has since strung up fairy lights and signs and a llama mood lamp and she skips to bed when it's time because she is so pleased to pull that curtain up and be able to read without waking Lasa with her light at night.

Eventually, Lasa will have one, too.

Anna and her faves at Naomi's birthday party.

 

The Great Lego Sort of 2020 finally wrapped up this month.  Noah has done hours upon hours upon hours working through a big tote of legos that needed to be organized back to their places since the move from Noah's room back in April.  Josh and Anna sometimes get in there to help out.

And lastly, somehow, this month has ended on a poorer, lower note than I saw coming and my heart is broken again.  This hard thing I/we have wrestled with for the last year (almost two years honestly) has only yielded more new and surprising hard just now than I think I can endure.  I am not sure I will have any more blogging left in me after this last post, which is another sad fact.  I am trying really hard to keep my head above water... begging the Lord for relief. Pray for his irresistible movement in this with me if you will.

Lasa, When She Turned FIVE

Lasalove turned a whole hand old July 26th and we just can't believe it's been 5 years!  Happy birthday to the littlest Brown, our much beloved baby of the family! 

Besides general quarantine life still going on, her extreme shyness in front of others is what helped us decide NOT to throw her a birthday party with friends for her 5th (which was when Noah and Anna got their first friend birthday parties).  Maybe next year?  I just knew she would act rude in her shyness while opening gifts, leaving the room, hiding behind us, covering her ears when people sang the birthday song and I just wasn't having it.  That proved to be the right decision.  Thankfully, Lasa didn't miss a thing.  She felt special all weekend while we celebrated her.  She acted bashfully rude a couple times, too, which Josh caught on camera, the little stinker. 

While Josh assembled one last gift outside, I took Lasa to spend some birthday money she got from my parents.

The biggest birthday surprise greeting us upon returning home - a basketball goal.

Another year of an Anna-crafted cake - a unicorn head.  Forgive the drooping icing.  It was a frosting kit gone wrong, lesson learned!

What a year of growth this girl has seen!  I have been list making about her for QUITE a while.  Here goes!

• She says such grown up things!  And yet, with her l's and r's and th's all wrong.  It's entirely precious.  Things like, "I am literwy (literally) shaking!", "honestwy", "Don't mess wif my discount!", "I am NOT gonna be you best fwend" (when she's mad at us), "I am ready to wiv (live) by myself now!", "commashas" (commercials), "Anna is waffing (laughing) at my madness!", "cowonaviwus", "back and thoth" (forth), "I think I am getting awohgic (allergic) to somefing", "wohk (work)", "Come into my wohd (world) on Minecwaft", "ackshawy (actually)", "uhbaywassing (embarrassing)", "You missed you ex! (exit)", "I am starverating! (starving), "Cwashey (crochet)," "Grilliant (her made up cross between great and brilliant)", "I need your existence (assistance) pwease!"
  
• She says such funny things!  "Don't be a tootbus!", "Did you know my tippie toes are like a step stool?", "I am gonna make a wist (list) and put an X on you name!" (when she's mad at us), leading Josh in some yoga moves she told him to be "gracely and movely," "mashed motatoes,""Is Mom actshwy gonna explode?", "dat's my toot from my mouf (mouth)" right after she burped, "I love you 150 miles!", another time she was mad she said, "When I gwow up I am NOT gonna visit you at you house!", "you are gonna have to do my hair until you are old old old cuz my hair is twicky," "you are not my favwit, favwit, favwit mommy!", after a milkshake she said she was "shiver melting," "Siri gives me nightmares.  And crosses do, too.", when I asked where she learned a big word she used (anxious), she said "I just knew it up," when I asked if she wanted to do the Zoom with her preK class, she said "No. I have too many meetings." "Do you know what I said to Dad? I double love him. I double love you, too!", "That sounds like a personal song," when I asked what's a personal song, she said, "A slow one that's not fast." When she wasn't in the mood for us joking around with her, she declared, "I lost my sense of human! (humor)", "Can a dog pregnant our bunnies?", "horazy" (a word she uses as a cross for crazy and great, I think from a tv show??), "I can't be a singer because I am too hushful,"
• She still has a pretty strong tag habit, meaning she finds any and all tags inside clothes and self-soothes by rubbing between her fingers.  Sometimes she carries around a jacket because she particularly favors the tag in that one.  Ha!
• She has a very clear nursing battle plan for how she will take care of Josh when he is old and she will tell you all about it - clipping his toenails, blowing his nose, feeding him, cutting his hair, trimming his nose hairs, etc.
• She is a rambunctious, playful, loves-to-laugh little thing!
• Listening to her play dialogue with her toys and dolls is the best.thing.ever. But don't let her know you are listening. She hates that.
  
• More funny quips and comebacks from this smart one - when I told her I wouldn't worry about something, she said, "Well, I would." She objects to bedtime because she is "missing all the funness," she asked for a bed with layers and a roof (translation - bunk bed with a canopy), "everytime I burp it smells like cucumbers," she calls any and all meat, chicken, "meat burgers", when her nose was running she said "I have diawhea in my nose," "if you don't wash you hands you get pollen and bad fings and they give you cowonaviwus," after she heard me get on to Noah and assign an apt consequence, she piped up from the backseat saying, "Dat's a good approach, Mom," When she wants Josh to drive faster she tells him to go a "happy speed," "Daddy, do you need a helper?", "I made up a whyme (rhyme) on the toilet! I know you, I know poo.", when she pitched a particularly remarkably melted down fit in the car one day, she screamed at Josh and me her new terms for how her life was gonna, "I made a deal - no more sandwiches, so more meat, no more chicken, no more bedtimes! (read this in the angriest, tear-filled, tragedy voice you can)", "I guess I am just imaginating somefing," "When will I be able to count to a million? (I said it would be some years) Ok, what about 180 then?", "Yep, you wite (right), Mommy.  I need to go poo poo." "A hundred Cheerios???? Yes, yes, yes, and yes!", "I do it every sometimes," "Do you fink butterflies and rainbows are friends?" After jumping into the pool by herself she said, "I feel so special!", when Noah went into a store without a mask, she muttered, "Wellll, SOMEONE'S about to get Covid", she calls raisinettes "raisin beans"
  
• She is constantly throwing letters together and asking us what they spell.  "Do you know what Y-E-W-N spells?  Dat spells tomato."  "What does N-Y-D spell?"
• She is kinda particular about making sure all drawers, doors, and cabinets are closed when she sees they are open or cracked. I like that about her!
  
• Though she can't tell time or know what the times mean, she is constantly asking what time it is.  When I ask why she asks the time all the time, she says, "So I can be clever and know all the times."
  
• She asked me one day, "Why won't God do dat miracle?" I told her because he does miracles not according to information we have but according to purposes and information HE has.  She processed that and said, 'Wellllll, Siri has information, too."
• She loves to play video game with the big kids, usually Minecraft.  The video game speak sometimes works its way into normal life.  Like when I asked how that semi got in front of us in the road, Lasa posited, "Do you fink he hacked?"
• For a child who has been ahead and almost every milestone, she is still lagging on the nighttime potty training.  If we don't get her up to go potty in the night, she wets her pull-up about half the time still.
• As already blogged, she lost FOUR TEETH this summer ... BEFORE TURNING FIVE.  I am still shocked by this.  She says she has loose teeth on top now, too.  Speaking of teeth milestones, she just got her first cavity and filling.
  
• Some of her faves in life are Dora and Friends, Lion Guard, and Peppa Pig, checking the mail, all the honey mustard for dipping, cereal with milk, following Josh around, wrestling with Noah, anything and everything Anna will do with her (art, dolls, swim, playdoh, dress up, makeup), dessert, when we let her stay up past bedtime, cucumbers, Saturday morning hot chocolate, the color yellow and the whole rainbow with stars and sparkles, mac n cheese for dinner, her iPad, the story of Jesus dying on the "cwoss", the Croods movie, sleeping with her giant stuffed horse NayNay, wearing dresses with ruffles but NOT with straps, and proudly using a shoe horn to put on her tennis shoes.
  
• She's grown a TON this year, jumping up from 39 lbs to just over 50 lbs these days, 52 to be exact (94th %ile), and jumping from 42.5 inches to now 46 inches tall (96th %ile), in size 12 shoes, in size 6ish clothes, and wearing so many of Anna's handmedowns now.  Except she is wearing them at 5 when Anna wore them at 8/9 and it always always makes us go bug eyed and remark on it when we pull out a new saved stash.
• Bday gifts this year suited her to a T.  They included the basketball goal, glitter tattoos, a bed tent, frisbee, light up shoes, body spray, some books she sneered at, Mermaid board game, some Frozen pjs (her favorite gift/she wears day in and day out), and an electric toothbrush just like Noah's/Anna's
• Like I have said before, she is so, so, so shy around other people.  Cripplingly shy. It blows my mind because she is an assertive little fireball at home. 
• She asks for swimming lessons, to join a soccer team, and to take dance.  Here's hoping Covid will chill the heck out this year so she can do one or two of these activities.
  
• She hasn't seen Angelique in over half her life now.  She doesn't seem to be bothered by it much yet. We texted her again in July to see about meeting up, but got no response.  I am afraid she has a new number altogether now, so we have to wait for her to contact us if she ever will.  We do talk about her off and on so Lasa doesn't forget or feel like Angelique is an out-of-bounds topic. 
• Bedtime is 7ish and she gets up at 6:30ish now for school.  Otherwise, she seems to get up at 7:30ish herself and just watches TV on her iPad til someone gets up.  This summer we started letting Noah and Anna take turns putting her to bed and that has a been a fun twist.
  
• She started learning the chatechism at bedtime towards the end of summer and really enjoys the songs.  We seem to have waited a bit longer to start training her in these things than was done with Noah and Anna.  Sorry, third child! Trying to catch up now!
  
• She is an empathetic one.  It touches my heart.
• Her favorite friends this year included church friends -Amelia, Caylee Lou, pre-K friend she misses - Felicia, and new kinder friends, Melina, Melanie, and Clare. 
• She loves, loves, loves to be chased and she loves, loves, loves to speak in this really creepy trolly gravelly monster voice.
  
• At present, her future goals include becoming a princess, doing art, writing stories and songs and shows. 

Lasa, my sweet, you delight and surprise us every day with the witty, precocious things you say, with how quick and smart you are, and with how entirely adorable you look in all your outfits and accessories.  We love you to pieces and are so proud to celebrate another year of you!  Praying you grow up much this year in your knowledge of the Lord as you move into elementary life.  I can tell we have much fun ahead walking the school days road with you and watching you bloom in that life.  Happy birthday, Lasalove!  You're the best!

 

All the smooches and tickles from me,

Mommy