It's been a Juliet and Stella love fest at the end of summer vacation. We're very lucky she lives just three houses away!
I don't know why it was so funny but it was. Bradley is pretty awesome.
A rare moment when Meg and Sookie were hanging out by each other on the scratch pad. I wish they were better buddies. They'll cuddle for warmth upon occasion in the winter but they don't particularly love each other.
At least my cute children like each other
Back to school shopping! Juliet talked me into some cute matching gear for the school year.
I scouted out a tennis coach for Patrick after he and I were playing one morning and we saw a nice guy giving a lesson to a couple of girls on a nearby court. We talked to him and got an intro lesson set up and it went really well. Patrick ended up getting in about four lessons before he broke his collarbone - more on that fun event later! But Cooper was awesome, he just graduated from college where he played D3 tennis and he used to play at Elite Tennis so he was able to give us some tips about the classes and coaches there.
Juliet helped the middle schoolers get set up on the locker day. Eleanor enjoyed having someone to carry all of her stuff.
Cuddles for our 8th grader!
Austin had a sleepover and I made the kids pancakes. Juliet has been very fancy with a margarita glass lately.
The Boston cousins visited. I pretty much didn't see Bradley for a week.
We went to the Bluhawk arcades much to Eleanor's chagrin but on the way I saw a new cafe had opened so we left and went to Paris Baguette and took Auntie Laura with us.
Running around the weird fake grass maze thing on the way out.
Swim time in the pool with kids who actually like swimming. It was a bit of an issue, actually, because both Riley and Finn would happily swim for hours and my kids would half heartedly get in for maybe an hour and then they were very done.
Sister time hanging out on the side!
Aunt Diana made some sad t-rex comment about Eleanor about a picture I sent her from our visit the previous month so Eleanor decided to show her what a sad t-rex actually looked like.
And then she read in a ridiculous position with a very happy kitty.
Nathan likes sending me pics whenever he works from home and gets Meg cuddles.
Nathan and Eleanor decided to do another one of the puzzles Aunt Diana sent us.
It took a while - it was Bradley's puzzle and he didn't really want to do it, he just wanted to watch at the end.
So proud!
Extra proud!
Laura and I took Riley rock climbing with Eleanor, Patrick, and Juliet. The other three boys stayed behind with Nathan to watch the movie Death of a Unicorn. I sold the boys on it by telling them it was ridiculously violent and the unicorns were more like velociraptors. They were all so excited. Nathan said they chatted through all of the commercial breaks with different theories about what was going on in the movie. It was very cute.
Then he did a swim test at Goldfish Swim with his friend Chandler. Chandler is exceptionally sweet, we really like this buddy. There was great joy when Patrick found out that he qualified for the swim team. Chandler is in the highest class and should make it onto the swim team in another month or so.
He came over a few days later for a swim hangout with Patrick at our pool.
More Callie cuddles for a tired Eleanor. Fun story - my parents invited her to come over for a sleepover on a Friday night about a week and a half after school started and Eleanor said no thanks, she was very tired and just wanted to sleep in her own bed. She even said no to a friend hangout that I was setting up for her that Sunday. It turns out she was indeed quite tired, she slept 15 hours Friday night. Getting used to waking up 3 hours earlier than she's used to has taken a bit of a toll it seems. In the summer she was getting up at 9:30, now it's 6:30 for school.
I made a loaf of bread with Paige Darnall that turned out despite me doing my best to murder it through sheer incompetence. It looked thoroughly unimpressive coming out of the oven but it tasted amazing. Now Paige and I have an exchange going where I trade her loaves of banana bread in exchange for loaves of her sourdough bread. We're both very happy about the swap.
Nathan and I play a reasonable amount of cribbage together and I got a 24 point hand, which was extremely exciting. My next two hands were impressive as well and Nathan narrowly avoided being double skunked.
More puzzles with Juliet!
Patrick gave Juliet a tennis lesson prior to his lesson with Cooper one day.
And Juliet and Stella got to have a sleepover together! It was their first sleepover not with a family member. The girls had a lovely time and Juliet is desperate for it to happen again.
Hanging out at the summer book club church event at my parents' church. My parents were quite pleased to get to show off the cute granddaughter running around being adorable. She rather enjoyed eating ice cream at 10 in the morning.
Juliet came back a little early because she needed more Stella play time.
And then, when I thought we had made it through the month with flying colors, Patrick broke his collarbone! He was playing two-hand touch football with friends at his buddy Luke's birthday party and it seems he got two-hand touched a little hard by a boy who was much larger than him. But Patrick wants to make sure everyone knows he got the interception and he was "cooking" before the injury occurred.
It was a bad break. The bone almost broke through the skin. We were lucky he didn't need surgery. What's truly incredible to me is that you don't have any sort of medical intervention for this. He is just supposed to wear a shoulder immobilizer for the next 8 weeks so his arm is in the correct position and the bone will heal itself. It's pretty incredible.
We kept him home from school for a few days and I read him a book with the assistance of a sweet puppy.
Sookie has been rather delighted that he's injured and has to sit around and pet her.
And Luke came by with a ton of Pokemon cards for Patrick and a giant Eevee plush that Patrick has been taking around with him everywhere.
Nathan worked from home. Meg was pleased.
More happy Sookie.
Patrick insisted on taking this picture of me holding Meg with no hands. She just balances on my waist and hangs on.
Nathan grew some cat grass for Meg so she doesn't have to go outside anymore in order to eat grass. She has been very pleased about it.
And more Luke! He's such a good friend, he's come by a few times to hang out with Patrick. It was pretty fun the first day I took Patrick back to school, he was a bit of a celebrity and his friends cheered when they saw him walk up. There were about 20 boys from his class at the party and I think they were all pretty worried about Patrick when he had to leave with a broken bone.
And sweet Juliet mostly does just fine but she had a rough time the other day when all boys were terrible and she just wanted her mommy. Nathan walked in and got pictures of us.
She ended up insisting on going to Eleanor's rock climbing class with me and we had a lovely time together. I got my run in and she watched shows on her tablet, then we went to the cafe and she got a scone and we played a few games of Sleeping Queens. Meanwhile, Nathan and the boys watched a movie together. I love these ages for the kids, we get to do so many fun things together.
Eleanor's friend Charlie came over for a sleepover and was thrilled to discover we had a pool and insisted on getting in for an evening swim with Eleanor. It's about the end of warm pool weather and between my skin cancer spot I had removed which means I can't swim for 3 weeks and Patrick's broken clavicle, we're down much of our swimming crew.
And it turns out that Eleanor was aghast that I agreed to add chocolate chips for one of the banana loaves for the Darnall family because I have always refused to do so for our own banana bread. She brought it up at Sunday School at church. Poor traumatized child. I mean, I make her lemon poppyseed loaves, blueberry loaves with a crumble top, lemon raspberry loaves, cinnamon swirl loaves, pumpkin loaves - but this all means nothing it seems. Luckily, Paige made her a chocolate chip sourdough loaf and Eleanor was thrilled that it was special for her.
I allowed entirely too much screen time one Saturday because I felt bad for poor injured Patrick and it was so sweet that he and Eleanor were having a good time playing games with each other and listening to the K-Pop Demon Hunters soundtrack and singing along.
And Juliet has had a blast at various birthday parties lately. She and a buddy Avery got a hold of super soakers at a boy birthday party this past weekend and reigned down some terror. Atta kid!
Meanwhile, the arcade was great fun.
Rock climbing was also great fun. I got a little run in and had a view of Eleanor climbing something ridiculous. She's gotten really good and is being promoted against her will to the advanced climbing class.
Juliet finally climbed an entire route and used the belay! She loves it now, I'm quite thrilled to have another climber kid. Just another few years before she can join the climbing team.
We ate dinner there and it was very typical Patrick around food. Grabbing for more pizza when he's still half done with his first slice.
Then we went to a tennis back to school event at Elite Tennis and I talked to some of the coaches about Patrick and there was great enthusiasm about his size and the forehands they were watching when he was hitting around with some of the other hands. I'm so happy he's finally interested in tennis.
Meanwhile Eleanor was at a birthday party with one of her rock climbing friends.
Nathan did some summer movie nights with Bradley which Meg also enjoyed.
Juliet adores Emmett
Then she did some magic tricks with Finn.
Big game of Dixit
Lucky Grandpa!
Everyone wanted in on the picture
Eleanor was perhaps a week bit tired after staying up late for the birthday party and getting up "early" for church the next day. We've discovered that she probably needs between 11-12 hours of sleep in order to be a happy kid, which is tricky when you refuse to go to bed early on school nights.
And thanks to my mom we tried out a cool trendy place that just opened, called Activate. It had a bunch of rooms with various mini games for the kids to play. It was so much fun.
Eleanor first started with me and Juliet but I convinced her to ditch us to hang out with boys because Juliet is cute but not super competitive at all of the games. So she actually hung out with some boys cousins, who seemed appropriately honored to have her spend time with them.
And a picture of our team - it was mostly me and Laura and Juliet at the end running around together. I had a lot of fun too. They were very active games, Eleanor was trying to figure out why she was sore the next day and it was funny when we got to tell her it was probably the games at Activate.
They had a Photo Booth area so we could do a group picture with the crazy cousin crew.
And our friend Larry from Seattle came through town, along with his two cute kids.
Bradley is so tall. He also has some exciting fashion sense.
We took Patrick's buddy Luke with us to a baseball game along with Larry and his crew.
Group picture! Juliet loved Larry's daughter Kennedy so much, they had a great time together.
In line for some very important ice cream.
Cool boys!
Luke talked us into some mini golf for him and Patrick.
Carousel for the younger kids!
And the boys ran into their friend Grayson for school. Sometimes Kansas City feels like a small town.
Another group picture or two!
It was sort of cute when Bradley talked Eleanor into helping him with his extra credit math homework that he had all summer to do and yet he waited until the night before to do it. He stayed up until midnight. Then he found out that it wasn't due for another couple days once he went back to school. He remains cheerfully unrepentant.
Meanwhile I got some lovely and rare Callie cuddles.
First day of school photo for Eleanor and her friend Evie! This is 7th grade for Eleanor.
Bradley is off to 8th grade.
5th grade Patrick.
Patrick with 1st grade Juliet.
So cute and ready to go!
I talked Eleanor into giving Juliet a scooter ride home from school on the first day of school. Juliet was thrilled. However, I tried it again on the second day and apparently Juliet leaned wrong on the scooter and slowly fell off but it was enough to make her refuse to ride the scooter anymore and she and Eleanor had to walk home in 96 degree heat. Both were very annoyed and we're not doing any more scooter rides for Juliet for the foreseeable future.
I've been feeding a lot of extra kids lately. It's a good thing we do a lot of homemade pizza.
I got a new chair for living room hangouts and it's been very popular with 6 year old girls.
Because of Eleanor and her rock climbing friends we've been on a huge K-Pop Demon Hunters kick. It's a very sweet show and as Eleanor says, "all the songs are bangers."
Lucky Eleanor getting more Meg cuddles
Nathan and Callie got a nice nap in together the other day
And look at me running into cool kids at ROKC one day! They found me because they spotted Eleanor at her climbing club. I was busy eating pizza in the cafe but came up and found some Monahans.
Callie cuddles when I got home. It's rare to get these, she generally likes to be nearby but not touching.
More tennis for Patrick!
Patrick and Juliet did another Diana puzzle together. Generally my kids aren't that into puzzles, it's been fun having them working on them this last month or so.
And in a bit of grandparent extravagance, my parents decided to take the kids to the indoor sky diving place that Eleanor has been desperate to go to for about two years now.
They took Eleanor and Patrick and two of their friends and Nathan. Bradley and Juliet could have gone but they very much did not want to.
There were huge smiles in all of the pictures. Patrick and Eleanor loved it and so did their friends Luke and Evie Isham. Granted, the parents were a bit confused about the occasion for doing this because usually it's for a birthday or something. Nope! Just fancy grandparents.
Group shot afterwards.
Oh sweet Callie. She really is the nicest little dog.
We got to go Chicken n Pickle with the Darnalls after church one Sunday. Bradley was thrilled because it turns out Stella has started playing Grow a Garden, which is a stupid tablet game that I hate but all children seem to love. It's nice, he and Stella run in different groups at school but they're basically sort of extended family and treat each other like cousins because our families hang out a bit and go to church together. It's very nice.
Then we had them come over to swim later that afternoon, which was good because it seems I had written in Dax's yearbook that he should come swim in our pool during the summer. That was when I didn't realize children would expect me to sign their yearbooks when I showed up on the last day of school in May. Random children had me sign their yearbooks, at least I knew Dax. He's adorable and he and Juliet had a blast playing Connect 4 together.
Patrick was supposed to bring in some pictures from home for his classroom and he really only wanted to take in pictures of him and Callie.
Sister picture at the end!
And some fun racing games
Stella and Juliet are happy to do dancing sing-a-longs
School has been going pretty well for Patrick although he tested into 6th grade math and it seems the idea of homework has been an adjustment for him. Here's a story courtesy of Nathan:
After Chandler finished hanging out Patrick was sent up to his room to write an apology note to his mother for not doing what she asked him to do when heading over to a friend's house and not staying outside. He went upstairs in a bit of a snit and slammed his door in the process. He then proceeded to take a very long time to write the note and when he finally came down he was still in a snit and complained about KPOP Demon Hunters music being the only thing played and he wanted it turned off. His father told him that as soon as he was doing his chore he could pick the music that was playing. His father then sent him back up to his room to write an apology letter for slamming the door. He went up in a snit and luckily didn’t slam the door this time but did take a while to write the apology note to his father. While he was up there the music was changed to general hits. When Patrick came down again he handed the note to his father and it was pretty good, so the apology was accepted. He then asked for the music to be completely turned off, and although it wasn’t turned off, the speaker was taken to a different room and turned super low so he couldn’t hear it over running water.
When he was done doing the dishes it was 7:53 and he asked if he could go play Fortnite before bed. The answer was a no from his Father, it was too late to start playing video games. He stated that he needed to go play so that he could relieve some stress and that video games was the best way for him to do so. When his father asked him what was stressing him out his answer was that he had a homework assignment that was due the next day that he hadn’t started yet and it was due the next day and it was stressing him out a lot.
For some crazy reason his father said no to the video games and that perhaps instead Patrick should go get ready for bed and do his homework and that would realize the stress.
Patrick got upset at this and started crying as he slowly made his way upstairs. His father asked him to hurry up so he didn’t have to hear him crying for so long. Patrick then went upstairs and got in the shower and proceeded to ‘wail cry’ in the shower. His father asked to to cry quieter as it was too loud.
After finishing his shower Patrick came out and was still sad so his dad gave him a hug and said that he could finish getting ready for bed and then come do his homework on the floor of Juliet’s room so he could ask questions if he didn’t know what to do.
Once he started on the homework it took about 5 minutes to do. 5 minutes total.
Patrick may have been a bit tired.
He was very lucky that I let his friend Yuel come over a couple days later because apparently they had made big plans together. Patrick was determined to beat him in a race, even though Yuel complained that he didn't have his correct racing swim trunks.
I got invited to a ladies' afternoon out at Serendipity Wine and I made a joke about wearing caftans in the group chat. People got very excited about the idea and so I bought a $20 caftan off of Amazon and we all rolled up in the comfiest attire ever. It was delightful.
I've also been on a snickerdoodle cookie kick, which all the kids have appreciated but none more than Bradley. Three cookies at once is a special kind of classy.
And Juliet has a lose tooth and is pretty sure she knows things. Wish us luck!
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