2017 :: week 38

September 17

Singing time is my favorite part of nursery. We get a little break from entertaining the kids and only have to keep them from hurting themselves and others. Also, I never realized how many blonde boys we have in nursery until looking at this picture.

September 18

One of our favorite things to do in the summer is grill burgers and top them with fresh tomatoes from our garden. As the summer draws to a close our garden's productivity is way down so we are taking advantage of these delicious tomatoes while we can. I made a tomato-based gazpacho for me to eat at lunchtime this week too. We believe that a near perfect burger can be constructed using the following template: Pepperidge Farm Sweet & Soft Slider Bun  + burger salted with Red Robin seasoning + cheese + tomato + red onion + chipotle Mayo. Yum!

September 19

Lauren had her first Daisy Girl Scout meeting Tuesday evening. She had a fabulous time with friends from her class and the other kindergarten classes at her school. There are about 17 girls in the troop and so there are lots of opportunities for making new friends.

September 20

We met up with cousins Tyler and Micey at the Lenexa Gym-for-Me. Elliott loves getting together with his cousins. Now that the Lenexa Rec Center has opened the Lenexa Community Center is much less crowded.

September 21

The Lego situation in Will and Lauren's room got out of control this summer. As they have acquired more Legos the storage system we had set up was not up to par. This week we bought and put together an IKEA TROFAST. The kids spent hours taking apart their creations and organizing them by type/color. I love walking into their room now.

September 22

Now that they are in school for seven hours a day I am really cherishing the time I have with Will and Lauren in the morning before school and in the afternoon and evening. I really like Will. He's such a good boy. This week he was selected to be a peer model based on his good attitude and positive example in the classroom. We are so blessed to have him in our family.

September 23

One of our favorite fall traditions in going to the parade at the Overland Park Fall Festival. This year it didn't feel much like fall (it was almost 90 degrees?!) but we still had fun. We spent the afternoon running various errands, taking naps, and grilling and eating burgers. That evening Anthony took the kids to the park where Lauren successfully went across the monkey bars by herself and Will got in some quality pumping practice (we recently realized Will hasn't done much swinging since he started kindergarten) because he prefers playing kickball and climbing). I went to the church and watched the LDS Women's Conference.

2017 :: week 37

September 10

Tony had the YM and YW over for a BYD Sunday evening. They talked about agency and the kids seemed to have a pretty good time. Will, Elliott and I went for a walk during the discussion, but Lauren chose to stay and participate. The kids really like it when "the youth" come over.

September 11

Our Monday got off to a great start. I went for a walk with Will before we got ready for school, went to the gym, did three loads of laundry and attended the Lackman Library toddler story time all before lunch. We planned to meet Stephanie and Kendall and Emily, Tyler and Mikey at the library, but ran into some other friends too. That afternoon we made some cookies to share with friends for FHE and then went and had a really fun time at the park together. I feel like having a productive Monday is the key to a productive week. I'm not always this productive, and it felt good to get the week off to a great start. Especially since I went to bed with a headache that night.

September 12

I woke up with an even worse headache Tuesday morning. Anthony walked the kids to school for me and Elliott and I lounged around the house all morning. I took some migraine medicine that enabled me to meet my friend Elena for lunch, but then I laid down again while Elliott napped in the afternoon.

September 13

I pretty much had a headache for the rest of the week. I started taking a decongestant late Tuesday that made a difference Wednesday. Elliott and I visited Anthony at work and talked with the health insurance representative. I spent some time going through piles of papers, filing things that need to be filed, taking care of unfinished business and getting rid of things that need to be thrown away. I often take pictures of the kids drawings and this BYU-themed drawing Will drew this week made me smile. I especially like the way he drew himself with spiky hair and headphones and the random salt shaker on the top left.

September 14

 Elliott and I met Tyler and company at the park before his 2 year check-up Thursday. Elliott has a lot of fun playing with Ty Guy. Elliott weighed in at 22 pounds which puts him in the 2 percentile for weight. We are going to work on getting him "quality calories" this month.

September 15

Will walks from his classroom to Lauren's to pick her up each day. It makes me smile when I see them walking down the hill together. They stay up late and talk about what's happening at school. Mutual friends, the troublemakers at recess, library drama, etc. I'm glad they have each other and love their growing friendship.

September 16

Our ward organized a service project at an independent living facility in Lenexa. Anthony, Will and I got to help a couple pick up the apples that had fallen in their yard, clean of their patio and get their garden and flowerbeds ready for fall. The highlight for Will was riding on the back of the golf cart to take the debris to the dumpster.

2017 :: week 36

September 3

Lauren and I read some books together on my bed Sunday evening. It is amazing how much Lauren's literacy has improved since she started school!

September 4

Happy Labor Day! We spent the day doing summery things. We went to the ward picnic in the morning, hit up the T-Bones game in the afternoon (Bill Murray was there and lead the 7th inning stretch!), and then ended the day with pizza at the pool. One last quintessential summer day to end a pretty awesome summer.

September 5

The temperature dropped about ten degrees overnight and now it feels like fall! Anthony started his new job and we are loving the ten minute commute! We took a family walk after dinner and ended up at the neighborhood park. August was a busy month with lots of traveling and family visitors. I am hoping to finally get into a routine!

September 6

Another pretty day, another after dinner walk. Mutual is Wednesday nights now so we took our walk without Anthony. Will is a tiny speck in the distance.

September 7

Will and some of his buddies went exploring at Shawnee Mission Park during the Labor Day picnic. It turns out they may have gotten into some poison ivy. Will had complained about how itchy he felt for a few days before I gave in and realized he had something more than chiggers. What was so interesting about Will's case is that the rash traveled up his trunk. It started out on his pubic bone below his belly button, then gradually worked its way up his belly. Over the weekend his chest was completely clear but he had rashes down his arms!
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September 8

We watched the movie Boss Bay for our movie night Friday. In the movie the parents sing the Beatles "Blackbird," and after it was over Anthony and Elliott rocked out singing and playing "Blackbird" on the piano.

September 9

Elliott has turned into a little Picasso lately. Unfortunately this was not the first time he has colored on our couch.

2017 :: week 35

August 27

Sunday was my parents' 35th wedding anniversary. We're pretty glad they got married. It was fun to have all the sisters in town on the big day, even though everyone flew in for different reasons. This Sunday marks my first "official" day as a nursery worker. I come home from church more tired than usual!

August 28

We took the kids out of school an hour early Monday afternoon and flew to Washington DC for Tony's last trip as a federal employee.  He recently accepted a job offer at a local company and we are excited for the new opportunity! In the meantime, we wanted to take advantage one last partially subsidized visit to DC. The kids were very good on the flight, especially considering our flight was delayed about an hour and by the time we landed it was WAY past dinnertime. The kids were pretty excited to ride in a taxi to our hotel and to be one step closer to dinner.

August 29

I had been watching the forecast for the week before we arrived and was nervous about the weather Tuesday. It ended up raining all day. Luckily there are a lot of great things to do indoors in DC. Anthony helped me call my first uber and we got dropped off at the Smithsonian Museums. We visited the Air & Space, Natural History and American History Museums. It stopped raining enough that the Nationals' game was only delayed about twenty minutes. There was a pretty steady mist throughout the night and we were grateful that our seats were covered.

August 30

The sun was shining Wednesday and we took the metro to the zoo after breakfast. I really wanted to see the pandas and had read online that they were most active and easiest to see before 10 am. We made it and were able to watch a panda play with a crate and caught a peek of another taking a nap up in a tree. The National Zoo is pretty cool and we were able to see some of our favorite animals. After a few hours at the zoo we headed back to the hotel for naps. Ha! What was I thinking? I was the only one who tried to sleep. That afternoon we had ticket to visit the new Museum of African American History. Because it is so new (it opened in September 2016) you have to have a ticket to get in and I was able to secure us tickets for the last 90 minutes of the day. It was so cool and I could have spent all day reading and listening the the vignettes. We left at closing time, grabbed a bite to eat, then walked the monuments. My feet were very sore that night! 

August 31

The kids and I walked to the north side of the White House (the night before we started on the south side). There were several groups protesting. I saw signs in support of DACA and something to do with Korea. There are additional barriers set up around the WH so we were unable to get as close as we had in times past. Our next stop was to buy a few souvenirs and a return trip to Museum of American History. There is a play area and Spark!Lab that they kids really enjoyed. We met Anthony when he finished with his training and grabbed a bite to eat at Shake Shack, then headed to the airport. We had a great time, but were absolutely exhausted by the time we got home.

September 1

It was a rainy week while we were gone (it seemed like it rained everywhere while we were gone!) and our garden was very productive. Cherry tomatoes are my favorite!

September 2

A few second grade moms organized a potluck lunch at the Roe Park spray ground . It was fun visiting with other second grade families we don't see very often.