Eleanor story: I told her that she had to stay in the backyard to play and stop trying to run up to the front and she said she didn't have to listen to me because Jesus had set her free.
We then had a three minute debate on the role of boundaries within that freedom and the responsibility of honoring your parent who Eleanor was pretty sure shouldn't ask her to do anything anymore.
Bradley's fort game has remained strong this summer.
Sometimes you don't want to take apart the whole fort so that you can eat dinner in regular chairs and it's hugely exciting to get to eat on the bar stools instead (causing minimal damage to the fort and adding a lot of cool points to dinner).
Eleanor sang to an admiring audience. And it was beautiful.
We did this for a couple meals while Nathan was gone on a work trip. Here is the conversation we had when he returned.
Nathan: I just got back from Seattle.
Bradley: I was born in Seattle!
Eleanor: I was in Mommy's tummy there!
Patrick: I was in Daddy's tummy!
Eleanor. No! Only girls have babies. Daddies just help make the babies.
Bradley: And that's why boys die first!
Bradley was also desperate to play his Pokemon game after Nathan got home from this trip and was asking about it basically every two minutes while we were at the pool. So I told him to stop asking if he wanted to play it or he wouldn't get to play it at all. He was desperate though, and when we pulled into the garage from the pool he shoved a Pokemon fruit snack wrapper in front of my face and said "I want to play this." I guess it counted as not asking about playing if he didn't actually say the word Pokemon. He got his game time in shortly after this.
There have been a number of school playground play dates in anticipation of school starting. I don't know that Eleanor has really made any new friends but she's good at climbing all the things.
Cute kids with Bradley's friend Charlie who was excited to hop into a family picture. Good thing we like her bunches!
These play dates have been ridiculously hot for the most part so hiding in the shade is a frequent part of playground time.
And here is our three year old doing the monkey bars. It's terrifying to watch, but he somehow makes it across.
Bradley got a blister while doing monkey bars and then it popped right before he was supposed to go to taekwondo. He was worried about his hand hurting while making fists so we set him up with a cool bandage, which of course required a matching bandage on his other hand. We got to taekwondo and the instructors made a fuss over him, especially when he told them he had bandages because he had gotten a big owie on one of his hands. Their "ooohs" of concern turned to chuckles when I said it was actually a blister that had popped. It's a big owie for a 6 year old I guess!
He's so ridiculously cute. My parents put the kids to bed while we went to a friend's house for a game night and we came home to find that Bradley had read himself to sleep.
He also can use the microwave on his own now! I was bustling around getting breakfast ready one morning when I realized Bradley could jolly well microwave his own breakfast sausage. He was delighted and very proud of himself and has been helping all of his family members have a hearty and delicious breakfast every day. Our consumption of breakfast sausage has gone up considerably but there have been no fires or explosions so we're calling it a great success!
We've had a fair number of swim birthday parties to attend this summer, which has been a lot of fun. All three kids have become swimming champs this summer, we're very proud of all three of them. Eleanor went from using a floatie at the beginning of the summer to diving for toys in the bottom of the pool and doing cannon balls to jump in.
And Patrick ... my 3 year old swims. And also dives down to retrieve objects at the bottom of the pool. It's impressive what a little determination will do for you.
We went with my parents to Dinosaurs Revealed at Union Station. I think we had fun, although we made it through the entire exhibit in 28 minutes (this includes the 3 minute video they show you before entering). Grandpa had some sort of strange desire to read some of the info they had posted by exhibits. This was not tolerated by the children.
We could barely get the kids out of the gift shop where someone had placed in a very touchable location a giant geode with a $3,000 price tag. Ah museums, we're awesome at them.
The roaring boys were adorable. Strangely, Eleanor was not interested in being involved in any roaring pictures.
But she's game for playing Pokemon while getting ready to wash hands for dinner ...
Nathan got hip resurfacing surgery a couple weeks ago which was a rather big deal. Luckily, he got some good visitors to make him feel better soon after his surgery.
The surgery went well and Nathan really wanted me to include a picture of his hip post surgery and the 30 staples he got but I refused because gross. I like cuddly hospital pictures much better.
There was a tv in his room and the kids watched Mulan. Are they cuddly enough? Hard to tell.
His recovery went really well once he got over a nasty case of thrush in his throat (another picture I choose not to post) and couldn't eat for about 5 days straight. It was rough but he was a champ. Now he is doing well and just has a cane to get around. The kids are big fans of his temporary handicapped parking pass.
Eleanor: Of all the people you are the slowest poke ... because you don't have as many cards.
Later -
Eleanor: It was embarrassing because I almost finished with a mountain of cards.
Bradley and Patrick are adorable together. Patrick is not going to be happy when Bradley and Eleanor start school next week. I don't holler "I want to play Pokemon ballerina!" like Bradley and then jump off the couch.
Sometimes the kids compete for Bradley's leftover desserts by doing ballet.
I was expected to split a life saver candy in half after this.
Eleanor's roller skating gear has added another level to ballet as well.
I don't know what to call this exactly but I like it!
We've been trying to make the most of our last bit of summer and went to Deanna Rose with our friends the Rutherfords last week. This is our best try at a group photo of the kids. As always, Bradley is obsessed with cute baby Charlie.
Patrick managed to lose his snack holder near the beginning of our time there and realized it towards the end of our time and flipped out and yelled repeatedly that it was at "the up high place." Magically, he actually remembered where it was and we got to hike back to the fence he had climbed and then placed his snack on the fence post before leaving it for a solid 45 minutes. He's lucky he's cute.
Eleanor hauled a yowling Meg into her room for quiet time the other day and when I came in to check on them Meg was blissed out purring as Eleanor rubbed her belly.
I have a fancy art museum picture of my younger two on our way out of the Nerman Museum after dropping Bradley and a friend off for an art class. Can you tell my children are art aficionados? We're just happy we didn't break anything.
This is how Bradley reads in the morning. Fan club must drape themselves over him. Lucky for everyone he is the cuddliest of them all!
Bradley had his belt assessment at taekwondo last weekend and was a champ!
He remembered his complicated and long sequence perfectly! (This is from a class prior to the actual assessment. Other children got in the way of my video at the belt assessment.)
And he broke his board on the first try.
It now has a volcano drawn on it. I even let him use sharpie. He was very excited.
He did point out things other children were doing wrong during the belt assessment and at one point got bored while watching another belt class and hollered that he was ready to break a board. Oh well.
And we discovered during the group photo that we had somehow missed the giant sparkly heart ring he had borrowed from Eleanor that morning and that he had worn it for the entire assessment.
If you look closely in the photo below you can see it on his right hand. Oops. Maybe it was his good luck ring.
We're very proud of sweet Bradley and it was a lot of fun to see him demonstrate his taekwondo skills!
And Nathan and I even got a lunch and ice cream date in after the belt assessment! Having grandparents nearby has had quite the positive effect on the frequency of our date nights and afternoons!
Eleanor was gifted free roller skates from our cute neighbor - which then necessitated me going out and purchasing pads and a helmet. She loves all of it and has been rollerskating frequently, so it was all well worth it!
And have you ever seen a cuter roller skater? Good thing there's enough pink in this picture.
She has some cool new clothes as well, we went back to school shopping at Target together. She called me "Mother" out of nowhere for our entire shopping trip, which was rather unexpected. At one point she hollered "Mother, I want to show you something!" and I hollered back "Daughter, I want to see it!" and a woman I hadn't noticed who was standing nearby starting laughing at us.
We ordered Bradley a pair of new glasses and while we were at the shop I talked Eleanor into trying on a pink pair. She looks rather adorable, although she was surprisingly embarrassed about the whole idea of her wearing glasses.
Princess butterfly fairy ballerinas though - that she's cool with. Costco has Halloween costumes already and Eleanor assured me she would still love this in two months. I can see why - what is not to love?
Bradley got to try out a big kid class at the Museum of Prairiefire and it was a moderate success. It was great that Nathan got to be there with him but the kids basically just made pinwheels and Bradley cared far more about a tiny Pokemon creation that he made out of scraps than the actual pinwheel project once he got home.
Oh well. At least he had a good time with his cute daddy.
Patrick is cute but naughty. Can you believe it? We're trying to get rid of Eleanor's old dresser so I took all the clothes out of it and most of them ended up in Patrick's room. This is the face you make when you find your sister's heart tights and quite impressively manage to get them on by yourself (over shorts!) and then try to wear them barefoot outside on a 90 degree day. Sighhhh.
Patrick is also quite the champ with band aids these days! He's been doing a lot of stall tactics at bedtime and his favorite one is demanding all new band aids on owies real or imagined after we've put him to bed. The only assistance I provide is taking off the old bandaids (usually there are four) and then he gets the band aid box, selects the band aids he wants, and opens them up and applies them all on his own. One of his "owies" is on a pointer finger and he manages even that band aid with no problem. So I mean, he's still naughty for getting out of bed. But such band aid skill at a young age! Neither of the older two do this yet, although they probably could, they just don't make up fake owies at the same rate as Patrick.
We went to a new donut place on our way to dropping Nathan off at work in celebration of him feeling better and in celebration of new baby news (Nathan brings donuts to coworkers whenever we're pregnant. I guess it's only been two times, we don't need to make it much more of a tradition than that!)
And at the end of the day my dad and Bradley picked Nathan up and they all went to the boy scout store together and got Bradley his gear for this year. He's just a bit excited and tried to wear his cub scout hat to taekwondo today.
And this is the picture we used to share pregnancy news with the world at large (aka Facebook). Comparing babies: baby baby vs food baby. Mine is due in February, Patrick's is ever present and he reeeeally likes to talk about it.
I said I was fine with having either gender for this baby but Patrick was pretending to shoot me with a fossil at the museum the other day and then that same evening he discovered he could throw his Pluto stuffed toy against the master bedroom door in order to close it so he did it on repeat and then he started to throw himself against the wall and the bed in order to fall over (all while laughing hysterically) and I think I want a girl now. Or I need to do a better job of running the child. There was rain that morning and he was cooped up all morning instead of getting his rampaging in.
Okay, I guess this face is pretty darn cute. I'll take either, both genders are rather adorable around here.
But I really don't understand boys sometimes.
