Sunflowers

  

The longer I stay in Kansas the more sunflowers are becoming a part of my soul. On of my favorite kick offs to fall is going to the sunflower field for pictures. This year I even made E and I matching dresses.

 Everyone else hates the sunflower field. But every year they dress up and come along (some more unwillingly that others) and I'm grateful. I think these are our best pictures yet! And as such here are a couple hundred pictures. :)

E would be the one to dislikes the field the most. It has everything to do with her fear of bees and any other bug with wings.

 Last year I wanted to make us a set of matching dresses for pictures. I went online and found these beauties on Amazon for $6 a piece. There was no way I could buy the fabric for that. I ordered two XL dresses and then I ripped the apart and remade them. E's probably won't fit her next year but I loved that we got to be twins! 

 Duke didn't need me to take a 100 pictures of him. This boy had got it down to an art. First shot, boom done!

Sprout was so cute in his gingham shirt. It took a couple hundred shots but when he smiles this boy is perfection!

 

And then there was Roo and his first trip to the field and I couldn't help but snap about a hundred pictures of him on purpose. He was SO. DANG. CUTE!!!

 

 Jakob captured this beauty and it may be one of my favorite pictures ever! 

 

 

 The Elders came with us to get some pictures of their own, and so Jakob and I got to have a few couple pictures toegtehr. I really like this one! 

 This dress was perfect and yes, I wore heels in a field and they were perfect too!

Another one of my favorite things is finding these sunflowers that stand above all of the others. I once used one of these pictures I took in a YW lesson. I told them that the sunflowers were all following the Sun (our Savior), but that we could each reach higher and become more like him if we choose to stretch and to grow. I don't know why some of these beautiful flowers grow taller, but I love the reminder that I need to stretch to become more like my Savior and improve my relationship with him. It was the perfect way (for me) to kick off fall and I am so thankful that my crew comes along with me every year!

TFSC - Week 13 - Back to School Week

 

And here we are, the end of summer and summer camp and I am having all of the emotions about it! I honestly can't think of anything that would have been better for me or my kids during this whacky summer home with all of the COVID restrictions.  ! 

This week we went through old clothes, sorted old school supplies and bought a few essentials. We reflected back over all 12 weeks of summer camp and oh my goodness I am so glad I did it. When I started summer camp I wanted to make sure that it didn't turn into a money pit. I wanted to use things I had on hand and show the kids that you can be creative using anything. I also wanted to be more intentional with my parenting. Setting aside an hour or two a day five days a week worked for me. It gave me a scheduled time to focus and we all really looked forward to it. We had such an amazing time bonding together, laughing and making memories that are precious to me. We have already started planning out next year and I am so excited. It's back to reality tomorrow. ✌🏻 Out summer.

Labour Day on the Lake

 

I large portion of my summer memories are built on days spent at the lake with my family. G-pa would race us around on the lake foe hours on the back of the tube and we would still be begging him for more at the end of the day. I had asked some friends about the possibility of renting a boat together and they said, "Well I don't know about renting, but I have some friends I could call."

As our final goodbye to summer we went out the the lake with the Dyches family and spent the day on the boat with some of their friends. It made my so nostalgic. It had been awhile since I felt that at "home." The outdoors are my happy place.

They had all the fun toy and the kids had a blast! 

Roo was THE CUTEST in the itty bitty life jacket!

The kids were pretty excited to go on the tube albeit, rather nervous. 

 

Sprout couldn't wait to have his turn! The others were pretty content to just sit and watch. 

Sean & Paula (she stayed home with Callie) are the most generous and genuine people you will ever meet. We've had a lot of fun getting to know them better with year! 

 

I'm obsessed!

 Personally, Sprout and I could have stayed on the boat forever, but the vote was to come back to the dock and swim which was awesome too! 

This boy loves the water like his Mama.

E did a great job paddle boarding.... until she got stuck. Being the great parents we are, we chuckled to ourselves and tried to take her down from the dock. Another friend of ours just jumped into the water without a second thought and swam to her rescue. She was very grateful. 

 

Joe being the cool dad making everyone laugh in the water!

 

Duke, Casen, Zach, Josh, Sprout & E. It was the perfect farewell to summer and I was riding a lake time high all afternoon! This is my happy place.

10 Months

 

 

-changing his bum is the worst!!!! He rolls like a crocodile 🐊. 

He's always grabbing his penis and fights when you put on his clothes. 

Don't get me wrong, he's happy just fighting the entire time and it usually

 results in Jakob and I playing rock, paper, scissors when it comes time for bum changes.

-This baby can EAT. No even joking or exaggerating he eats as much as Duke 

and E. He loves ALL food. Meat, veggies, fruit, bread, crackers. You name 

he'll eat it. His favorites are Pot pie soup, noodles and strawberries. If he 

see something he likes more than what is in his mouth on his tray, he will 

spit out what's in his mouth for an upgrade. 

- he lives for tub time. Redd loves the water and to splash around. He gets 

all sorts of giddy and will play long after the water gets cold.

- You guessed it, Redd still loves Dory. He has now branched out to Finding 

Nemo as well which is nice for Mama. I tried Big Hero 6, Cars and Coco this 

month and they were all no goes. I might have to look into getting him an 

aquarium for his birthday 😅

 

- Redd is FINALLY sleeping better! His routine is pretty solid too. He's usually up

 between 7;30/8:00. He eats and plays and goes down for his first nap at 10/10:30.

 He wakes up around 12/12:30 and we have lunch play and usually watch a bit of Dory. 

We have a snack and he goes down for second nap from 3-5. Sometimes this one 

gets a little short with loud siblings. We play, and have dinner between 6/7 and then

 it's tub, nurse and bed by 8. He usually wakes up at 4:30 to nurse and goes back to 

sleep until 7:30/8. It's awesome.

-we are unintentionally weening.  Not exactly ready either. He usually nurses between 

3-4 times a day and 1-2 times at night. I'm making hardly any milk now and I have

 some in the freezer so I'm not worried. This is my last baby though and while I'm excited

 to get body officially back, I do adore the snuggles. The only time Redd is still is when

 he nurses. This will be bitter sweet for SURE!

- Redd is a busy baby. I feel like all of my boys have been GO GO GO from the

 moment they crawled so I'm essentially used to it now but he keeps me on my toes. 

He has an instinct and knows when the gate isn't on the stairs, or the bathroom door

 is open. He loves to suck on the caps to the nuts on the toilet. GAG! 

 

- Redd adores his Daddy. If Jakob walks by and doesn't pick him up, Redd loses his 

mind!!! Those two are best buddies.

- Roo is starting to sign. He can say all done (hands up) and more (hand clap).

 He doesn't do it all the time but he's capable.

- He loves to clap his hands. It is sooooo gosh darn cute too!!! 

- Too now has two teeth and they are sharp. He hasn't bitten Mama yet, but I'm

 sure that will end our nursing journey really quick. 

- His nicknames are Roo and Roo Roo. That's mostly what he goes by.

 

- He's not the biggest fan of "toys". He just crawls around making messes. He's 

also the MESSIEST eater In the world!!!

- Redd doesn't have 'stanger danger's but he definitely prefers Mama and Daddy. 

- He's usually fine with Daddy, and the second he see Mama, he becomes VERY

 whiney,. Not sure why but it isn't my favorite.

- he's becoming attached to his Fox blanket. Verdict bus still out about favorite stuffy.

 

-He takes a Sue now and LOVES it. Mama and Daddy are pretty big fans.

- Still hates the car seat. He's fine if we are moving up to 30 minutes. If we stop or

 go past that, game over. 

- He adores his siblings and they adore him. They are always together and it makes 

my heart so dang happy! 

- he loves music and throws his body to dance. It's resulted is a few head bonks but

 it's really cute up until then.

 

- He can say Papa (first word), Dada and Mama. He usually screams them. He's a 

very vocal and loud baby. He can also put his hand over his mouth and make "indian" 

noises (I'm sure that's racist now) it's so dang cute.

August Phone Favorites

 August wasn't exactly what we expected with school not starting but it was amazing. Can you say lazy summer days forever! Here's a round up of how we wrapped up summer with this month favorites. 

Lunches on the club house were always a hit!

I came into the room to find Duke and E just reading scriptures for fun. 

Our Opossum baby. Roo loves to be upside down. 

I love that smiling face when I get him up from nap time!

I taught the kids how to play solitaire and it was a big hit. 

Love my sunflower toes. 

I got a bike on the curb and I took the kids on our first bike ride. Looking forward to many more of these in the future! 

Sunday lessons about testimonies and firm foundations. 

 On the fourth of July someone set of a firework that had a little flag in it. It got stuck in Papa and Grama tree. It was taunting me every time we went to swim so I decided to go for a climb.

I got it! 

Mama of boys.

this is how Bear wears his goggles.... every.... single.... time. How is that comfortable I don't know. 

Roo loves lemons. 

I miss wearing heels every Sunday and my heels miss me....

SO I did some chores in my babies and it felt so good! 

We tried to go to IKEA. It was out first store outing with the kids. We arrived and the line to get in was at the very least a hour long. I'm talking Dinseyland long. All I wanted to do was let them run a bit so we loaded right back up. They were pretty upset. We love IKEA!

 While for the most part COVID hasn't been that big of a deal fro our family. We have been very very lucky. I have loved havingthe kids home for the Spring Break that never ended and having Jakob home. The only part I feel I missed out on was Roo. As my last baby and with all of the kids home all the time, Roo has been put on the back burner a bit and I miss him. Time is going so fast. 

 

Every time I paint my nails you better believe that Sprout is right there wanting to paint his nails pink. It is the cutest thing. 

Mama did the other hand but I was really impressed with how well he did! 

 

And that's a wrap on Summer 2020 and what a wonderful one it was. We didn't go on any trip but we baptized E, Grammy and Pa finally got to come, we laughed, we made a club house and got a trampoline and we had fun in Summer Camp. WE made memories that I will always cherish. It was a good summer!