weekly picture post

We ate dinner with at my parent's house Sunday night, and after we finished eating Will requested feeding the birds. "Feeding the birds" entails: (1) taking a piece of bread (2) standing on the walkway and  (3) tearing the bread into pieces that he (4) alternates between throwing in the grass and (5) eating himself. By the way, this is a post-church outfit he chose himself. He's so fashion forward mixing prints like that.

Monday we had a musical FHE. We all have our respective rolls when we do anything "musical" together (I use the term musical very loosely). Will plays the recorder or drums. Lauren plays or chews on the cymbols. TJ plays the piano and sings. I lead the music and also sing, per Will's request.

This photo was taken at the beginning of a very long and trying walk. Will decided that he was going to push the stroller. At first I was optimistic because usually he gets distracted by sticks, rocks, pinecones, etc. when we go walking. Unfortunately the old umbrella stroller isn't all-terrain and he kept veering of the sidewalk, and either overcorrecting or getting stuck. This wouldn't have been such a big deal except he didn't want my help getting back on track, so not only did it take forever, but every time I tried to help he would get frustrated with me which made things take even longer. It was really humid outside too and after about 5 minutes I just wanted to go home. I have found that when I am hot it is a lot harder for me to be patient.

The same kid that still doesn't like to go down slides at the park is now climbing up the narrow part of our stairs. The first few times I noticed it he only went up two or three stairs. Now he is routinely going up about five, and I have seen him go as high as seven!

For some reason my computer won't let me suspend the holds I have at the library. I usually try to space them out a bit. Thursday afternoon when we went to the library I was surprised to see that half my holds list had arrived at the library. With the new fall shows starting, I'm not very optimistic that I will be able to finish all of these in the next 3 weeks, but I'll do my best.

Friday evening we spent some time together as a family at the park. Both Anthony and I got on the swing for a bit, but neither of us lasted very long. Will and Lauren can swing for what feels like hours and I remember loving to swing when I was a kid, but these days I get lightheaded and dizzy if I'm on for long.

Saturday was a full, fun day. We started the day off by taking in the parade at the Overland Park Fall Festival. I was looking forward to this for quite awhile because of Will's love for marching bands, and this parade had four (plus some strolling strings!). Unfortunately, there were also a few large mascots. Apparently the disdain and fear he has for mascots really put a damper on his enthusiasm. He enjoyed the most of the parade, but did spend several minutes in my arms when the offending floats passed by. On a side note, Lauren had her first lollypop courtesy of a local girl scout troop. Instead of throwing candy, they handed pieces of candy directly to the kids. One of the girls gave Lauren a dum-dum, and I figured it wouldn't hurt to let her hold it. While I was comforting Will I kind of forgot about it, and the next thing I know Lauren has chewed through the wrapper and was working on the candy. I concluded it wasn't worth fighting over, not to mention I was intimidated by her death grip, so she got to eat the whole thing.