Summer, Making Do

Another month begins and blurs right into the last one, with more time at home. We started off June with a trip to the dentist. Things are returning to normal, right? Well, except for the extra masks required, temperature scan, and only 4 chairs in the waiting area, each 6 feet apart...

Our in-house baker extraordinaire was pretty excited when I got out the stand mixer to make some cookies one day. The kids pretty much took over and handled it all by themselves, except for the oven part. They made oatmeal raisin cookies because Hadley found the recipe in the oatmeal container. They were delicious! Before we put the mixer away, she convinced me that we also needed to make some banana bread.

To stave off boredom, we've been trying to learn some new skills. Hadley took an online "Fun with Yarn" class, where the instructor tried to teach 200 kids how to knit, crochet, macrame, and do friendship bracelets via Zoom. It was a little hit or miss, since that sort of thing is better done in person, but at least we learned how to do some basic stitches we can maybe revisit and expand upon some time.

Our immediate neighbors have been so generous with their backyard pools, which has been a lifesaver on these hot summer days! They gave us free rein when they were out of town, so we took full advantage of that, even with a night swim. Our neighborhood pool is remaining shut, so we are pretty bummed about that, but so glad to have awesome neighbors!!

And we've decided to open our circle just a bit during the quarantine to include these friendly neighbors. It really does wonders for the kids to be able to socialize with other kids! It's already been 3 months with pretty much just the four of us, and the kids haven't even been in a store during that time. They've been troopers, for sure, but it definitely helps to have an outlet outside and to vary the faces you are talking to a little!

Beating the Heat

The end of August was mostly about finding our rhythm in a new school year routine. It's been too hot for the kids to go outside for recess at school (heat index above 105F or something like that). I know why! We spent about 10 minutes at the neighborhood playground on Saturday morning, and I was ready to go back to the A/C! We're all ready for it to cool down - even just 10 degrees would be nice.

Speaking of heat, I heard about the Taylor marching band's march-a-thon, so we met up with them at the kids' elementary school cafeteria for a concert. Then we biked and followed them a block down in the neighborhood. These high schoolers march around all day on a Saturday through neighborhoods and schools, playing at various yards and schools that have sponsored them. A fire engine and police car follow them around too. What a hot day!

We lost a lot of teeth in August! Hadley is down 3 teeth currently; Owen is down one with a wiggler. None of the replacement teeth are feeling an urgent need to fill in, so we might have hole-ly smiles for a while.

The end of August also signifies the beginning of college football season in our house. We didn't have the channel for the Longhorns first game, so we met up with a local alumni group to watch it at a local eatery. It was pretty crowded, so we spread out to get our own chairs. I caught this picture of the boys making the same posture during the game!

Hadley is less interested in football, so we ended up on the patio area, where it was probably still in the upper 80s after dark. It was a long game, so we made a trip across the parking lot to a gourmet popsicle place for cool treats. Who even knew that was a thing? For the cost of a couple of boxes of regular popsicles, we got two cookies-n-cream pops that hit the spot.

7 going on 17

Someone turned 7 and kicked it off by kicking out a tooth. Okay, she didn't really kick it out, but the wordplay was worth it, no? And just where are these big teeth planning to fit? Hadley is our moody, independent, questioning artist. She wears her emotions on her sleeve and keeps us either on our toes or banging our heads on the wall. But her smile brightens the room and she loves a hug. Happy birthday, Had!

I think she had a pretty good birthday with gift opening, painting, and Chick-Fil-A (her choice) for dinner. With our leaving the next day on vacation for two weeks, we also had to pack bags and do quite a few things on our checklist.

But we couldn't let it go by with out a celebration, so we had a low key get-together at the neighborhood pool with our neighbor friends.

She really likes hanging out with the (slightly) older girls! How lucky are we to have moved in between two families with kids of similar ages and genders??

It was a hot and sticky day. For some variety from jumping off the diving board and playing Sharks and Minnows, the kids went to the kiddie pool and made their own whirlpool. Pretty clever of them and hilarious to watch, they would all walk in the same direction for a couple of minutes and then sit down and float in the current that they had created.

Hadley's First Loose Tooth

It finally happened! Hadley had been asking about losing her teeth for so long (I think she's one of the last of her grade to lose one). She finally had a loose tooth that was wiggly for weeks. One morning I helped her brush her teeth, and then realized the tooth was gone! Luckily, we found the tooth in the sink before it got washed down the drain. She could hardly go to bed; she was so excited for the tooth fairy to come that night, but I told her that the fairy only comes if you are asleep. Don't tell the tooth fairy, but Hadley was disappointed at the dollar bill under her pillow. (Kids today!) She said she wanted two quarters because that would have been more. I guess we still need to learn about money. (Of course, we had to go look up when Owen lost his first tooth.)

We also wrapped up Owen's flag football season. They ended 6-2, which was pretty great (and surprising, based on their team practices)! Go Screamers!

I had to get a picture of Hadley being a supportive sibling, cheering on her brother on a cold, rainy Saturday morning. Though you have to know that during most of the season we had to bring something to entertain her (homework, coloring, etc) to be able to actually watch the game ourselves.

I said I would post a video if I got a touchdown recorded. Well, I was a little slow on the draw, but Owen got 3 touchdowns in their last game! I did get the last few seconds of a couple of the TDs when he crossed the goal line. He's too fast for me to get the whole play on video. :)

One evening the kids and I discovered this praying mantis on our porch, which was fascinating. I figured he was eating pesky bugs, so we left him alone.

Lastly, this makes a parent happy. Sometimes we have a 'make your own dinner night', and the kids make their own sandwiches! It's great to teach them some self-sufficiency, and I hope grows their appreciation of adults making their food most of the time.

Pumpkins, Stormtroopers, and Leaves. Oh My!

I've been soaking up these guys as much as possible lately. Aren't they cute? Both are loving school and learning so much! Owen can read most of his books by himself now and gets 'List 2' (more difficult) spelling words each week. Hadley is making friends, thriving in music, and I think is nearly ready to read.

I wish he would show you his teeth. The top incisors are coming in and they are HUGE! Don't know where he gets that from...  Haha!

In other news, Owen finally wrapped up his football season; they've been practicing weekly since the first of August. They ended with a couple of weeknight games though, which were cold and ran later than his bed time, so it was a good time to end it. This is the best team picture I got because they didn't do formal ones. I believe their record was 5-3; a great team of sweet, goofy boys. Owen enjoyed learning about the game and even scored a few touchdowns, which was so fun to witness!

The weather has been all over the place, but we have had a few days of sunshine to enjoy the leaves before they were all blown away. We even took a family bike trip to crunch through them! I hung back with my biking unicorn buddy.

It was so nice that day that we also made a trip to the pumpkin patch. Sunday afternoon meant that we had the place pretty much to ourselves...

Our bounty of pumpkins! The little green one was all our garden would produce. The painted orange one (Owen's) and vampire green one (Hadley's) were craft projects. Owen comes up with new ideas and requests to make more decorations for Halloween almost daily. They love this time of year!

We were brainstorming all kinds of races for the kids to do down the sidewalk: skipping, running, jumping, one-footed hopping, galloping...

Finally, one busy Saturday included a morning football game for O, birthday party for O while H went to a free ice skating lesson (she did well, but said she didn't like it),

and a Star Wars day at the bookstore! They are a little obsessed, and Owen will be a Stormtrooper for Halloween, so they had a blast! He was the first to call out the answers to the reader's questions: "Millenium Falcon!", "Death Star!", etc. And they even got to take some SW swag home. Best. Day. Ever.

Summertime Groove

We felt like we got a late start to summer with being gone a week and then sick a week, but now we are in our summer groove. There are the usual suspects like the dairy...

Playgrounds new and old...

Backyard fun...

Bear World (notice the scar! She calls it her "crack" and will tell me that her "crack needs more gasoline!" That's vaseline, which the doc told us to keep applying until it had healed. I think we are nearly there! Just slathering on the sunscreen to prevent darkening now.)...

and baseball.  Owen is doing coach-pitch this year, which is a challenging twist! He has got a hit at nearly every at-bat, so far!

For some extra parent bonus points, we found an awesome car show to take our car-aficionado to. He was in heaven!

And we took a fun family bike trip around the Snake river greenbelt here in town one beautiful afternoon. More of that rock-throwing that we're into! It takes two smalls to drive this old tractor.

The big news, though, is that the tooth fairy has been busy at our house lately. Three teeth in one week! Here's the progression. The middle picture made me laugh all day, because that one upper tooth was so loose that it moved when he talked and sometimes he'd smile at me with that tooth unknowingly twisted sideways. But he didn't want to pull it, and it fell out sometime during the night. However, no teeth were lost and the tooth fairy was able to collect all three! Hadley keeps asking if her teeth are loose yet. :)

And on a side note, our garden is producing again! Lots of arugula, sugar snap peas, radishes, spinach, oregano, parsley, and lettuce so far.  Oh, and we are up to our ears in strawberries, which we love!  So far we've made several batches of strawberry freezer jam, frozen whole berries, strawberry poke cake, strawberry watermelon popsicles, and of course tons of plain ones! I have my eyes on some strawberry lemonade and strawberry muffins next. I feel a little like Forrest Gump...