While I make dinner, the kids will go out and play while Ka or NayNay do homework and watch them.
This day, Scout scootered and mastered a “Loop de Loop Speeding Bullet” — an exclusive trick he named himself.
He “had” to go in the street, but it was okay because NayNay was watching him.
(But when I checked, she had her pretty little nose stuffed inside her math book.)
Meanwhile, Icka was “watering the plants” as she attempted to go potty like her big brother does. (After this, I had to tell Scout that he can only “water the plants” when he is wet from the swimming pool, or we are on a road trip.)
Then she made a huge mess with all of our roses that she had to clean up.
At first she was pretty cooperative.
And then her M.O. of being dramatic kicked in!
“I Love You”, my sweet boy, and a harbor sunset.
Tristen sent me this picture they took while on a harbor date.
It’s like a little piece of heaven.
With the apple and pear season coming to a close, I decided to take the kids to Julien for some apple/pear picking. The final goal was to make baby food and some good homemade applesauce. Bella and I headed out, and were able to talk Jake –my kid’s idol– into coming with us. Here is our afternoon in pictures:
Icka had to go potty on the way up, and Bella came up with a really good solution for the girl who doesn’t “like to get dirty”.
Isn’t she a weasel!
The kids were loving the apple farm. There were tons on the ground, and I had to teach Icka that we only wanted apples from the trees. Luckily there were still a bunch on the trees, and the kids found it to be a great treasure hunt. I know where they get it, because I totally thought it was like we were hunting for treasure too!
Icka scored with this “beauty”! I kept saying, “Look at this beauty,” and every time the kids found a good one (no worm holes, a little yellow with a little red, firm to the touch), they would holler out, “I have a beauty!”
With Scout’s love of fruit (and Jake claims he is semi-fruitarian), the kids loved the part where they just ate whatever and however much they wanted. Let’s just say that they definitely had their fiber intake for the day — or for that matter…for the week! I estimate that Scout had at least 20 apples while we were there. (They are on the smaller side, but that is still absurd!)
The best sport in the world, Jake, was up for orchard races vs. Scout. According to Scout, he won every time. But seeing as Jake is signed up for a 50 mile run in November, I think he was giving Scout chancies!
It wouldn’t be a complete day if Icka wasn’t doing something to make us laugh. Here she is getting stuck in the ropes between the aisles.
But the real laughs came when she would offer to clean our apples for us. She saw us all cleaning them on our pants to shine them up — but took it as putting the apple down our pants and when they came out the bottom — wallah — they were clean!
After the apple orchard, we headed over to pick pears. Scout loved using the basket to get to the pears. But he wasn’t in love with the fact that they were all hard. (I found out later that pears don’t ripen on trees, but rather wait until they are off the tree to become soft and delicious.)
The princess Icka took a seat and waited for Jake to serve her. She apparently didn’t care if the pears were ripe or not.
As you can tell!
—
Our loot was plentiful, and we did make both applesauce and baby food.
It was all a success
Why would they make bath finger paints for little kids such a royal mess. What I thought would have entertained for many baths, had a one-bath lifetime.
Needless to say, I don’t endorse these big wastes of money!
In anticipation for our new baby….Icka said to me the other morning, “Ooooh…I can’t wait for Sumo to come out of your stomach so I can kiss him on his lips.” Then I said, “Are you going to be the first person to kiss your baby brother?” To which she went on a rant that said, “You tell everybody ‘No No’! Tell Scout ‘No No’. Tell Nonnie ‘No No’.” She was telling me to tell everyone “No No” when they tried to kiss him first, because she was definitely getting in there first!
To my poor kid’s dismay, I absolutely HATE Play-Doh! It isn’t the texture or the mess, it is purely the smell! It makes me nauseous, and has since I was little. Luckily for them, there are some alternatives that satisfy their need to smoosh and create. One being modeling clay we picked up at the bookstore. We pulled out our yellow table, and had an afternoon of smell-good fun.
Scout was mastering worms, and when he found out that a worm turns into many other things, he was thrilled.
Like when he turned this worm into a scarf for his snowman.
This little thing-thing was completely mesmerized with mixing all of the colors — even though I started our afternoon out by telling them not to mix.
Mixing became the name of the game by the end….obviously.
So we just started making as many “Earth’s”/balls as we could.
(Don’t mind the questionable character in the back. He just got back form mining for gold — don’t ask. And his facial monstrosity is so he can be a team player on an upcoming Ragnar.)
Here are many of our Earths.
And just look what they all became in the end — a galaxy!
Lately, I have noticed that if these two are engaged in something together, they sure are sweet to each other.
But I won’t lie — I did ask them to pose for this picture.
The other day, I went to Britni’s for the afternoon. As soon as we got there, I was on an important call and my phone kept beeping through as my Mom was trying to get a hold of me. I kept refusing, but then Brit came out and said my Mom really needed to talk to me. I said I would still have to call her back, because this could have been anything from, I can’t get my T.V. to record my show…. to how do you open an Email attachment — hence the no-worries attitude! So she just took care of business with Brit. My Mom asked Brit to hand the phone to Scout, and then asked him, “Scout….where is the money that was on my counter top?” He immediately said, “It is in my pocket.” So then he was instructed to hand the phone back to Brit, and my mom asked her to see exactly how much he had in his pocket. She totaled it up to be $140.00, and it was the exact amount she had left for the cleaners.
—
Needless to say, I had to have a talk with Scout about not every penny he sees being his, and he always needs to ask in order to take. (I created the monster when I told him to always take my change on my counter and put it in his piggy bank!) So now, about once a day, I hear, “Nonnie….can I have the money that is on your desk?” Or, “Mom, do you think I could put this in my piggy bank?”
—
The saving part I love. I guess I need to be a better enforcer of “working for your money”.
Poor Micah didn’t know what he was getting into when he married me–the girl who LOVES cold! Every hotel room is turned to the minimum, our room at home is adorned with fans and open windows, and I kick the blankets off all night long. When I lived in Utah, I kept the window open all winter long for the fresh air and freezing cold to creep in. I seriously got it from my mom, who is the exact same way. And luckily for me, I have passed this on to my kids. Since they were born, they have been cold lovers. In the winter, they wear light pajamas. And going into spring and summer, they are strictly in undies.
—
But as much as I love the cold, even I will admit that I have gone a bit overboard lately. Keep in mind that I am 9 months pregnant, and have my own personal incubator keeping me warm. So with the glorious fall weather (last night was 50 degrees), I keep the windows open and have the fan running full blast on my face. My kids are still in their undies, and when I try to put a T shirt on them for their protection, they refuse and strip down. But come morning, they are freezing! So we have had to come up with a few quick warm-me-up solutions.
1. They go and grab one of Daddy’s T Shirts and I stick it in the dryer for a few minutes and quickly put it on them.
2. I serve hot cereal.
3. (We really had to go to the extremes this morning) We put on a crackling fire, and make a comfy bed in front of it.
Either they were mesmerized….
or frozen solid!
—
I would like to take this moment to thank my kids for being cold blooded just like their dear old mom. And to my husband for adjusting to our ways.
Scout LOVES school. Whenever I pick him up, he says, “Yep mom, I love it…I love my school!” I am so glad that he loves it so much. Here he is, at his very first preschool performance where he sang some songs for us. I’ll admit that he can get a little tentative about performing, but came out of the gates running. He sang the first song with gusto — and was easily the loudest, which made his mama so proud!
He did shy up a bit in the next few songs, and when he had to actually say his name during “Higgledy Piggledy Bumble Bee.” Overall, he did a really great job. Icka was mesmerized, and said she wanted to go to school with Scout after she saw the little show! Of course she would want to go and perform!
—
Every time I pick him up, I go through the four rules I give him. Not a day has gone by that he didn’t Choose The Right, Follow Directions, and Respect His Teacher. But many days he has come home to tell me that he forgot to “Do Something Nice For Someone Else”. SO I have given him some ideas of what he can do, and that I do expect him to go out of his way each day. So after the preschool performance, and as we were walking out, he was SO excited to tell me, “Mom, I did something nice today!” I was so pleased, and he told me that he found something he liked about someone else and told them. So apparently he told Riley that he “liked his cool shirt”. I was so proud of him going outside his little comfort box and doing something to make someone else feel good. He is such a good boy!
About every time I get to my camera these days, I have a dozen or so pictures on it that feature two little narcissists named Skylar and Scout.
Skylar is usually smiling or making some “surprised” look, and Scout usually goes for the “cool guy”.
I think this on is supposed to be “candid”.
No wonder my camera’s settings are always off! Hence my many blurry pictures. Glad to know that Scout is manhandling my other camera.
I even have proof!
—
Weasels, but I love their quality time together.
| DESIGN BY 