I find your lack of cookies disturbing.

Making Music

Although sitting down with him takes the most amount of discipline, teaching Adam is my favorite part about being a piano teacher. 

And he is good!  I am always impressed with his ability to play a song by ear, and his note reading skills are quite impressive as well.  

Since he always tells me that I'm his piano teacher of choice- and because there is a general lack of piano teachers around here- we're diving into another year together, and I think it's going to be great!

Lucky Girl

A butterfly landed on Emma, which is definitely a sign of good luck!

 

 A few days ago we finally got to have our one-on-one date with Emma for her birthday.  In lieu of a dinner date she chose some painting time!

I love these quick facts that Emma shared on the first day of school. 

I think we're the lucky ones to have her in our family!

Kids L.A.N.E.

Kids L.A.N.E. is a closed club with just four members.  It includes endless inside jokes, limitless ideas for entertainment, unquestioning acceptance, infinite loyalty and an eternal love for each other.

I'm not a member of the club but I sure am grateful that I get to be a witness to it.

Sleep

He says he isn't tired... 

   

but we still nap nearly every day. 

Because naptime is the best time!

Ending Summer Strong

Slowly but surely we checked every item off our summer bucket list.  

A few more visits to the library- check!

Back to school shopping (at the mall! with all the kids! wasn't that bad!)- check!

One more day at the beach- check!

And a bunch more days at the pool- check!

Somewhere in the middle of the summer Emma hit the slides height requirement, which triples the pool fun!

It took two trips, but we got the Rocket Ship park and splashpad and carousel checked off the list!

And we managed to squeeze in our annual summer play day with our best neighbor friends.

There were some lazy days at home

mostly filled with forts and reading.

We took a trip to the zoo, 

where I earned "Best Mommy Ever" award for letting the kids mine for rocks and gems.  

And we took a day trip to Omaha, where we visited the temple and the children's museum.

On a rainy day we visited the Science Center

and checked out a new cupcake shop.

And we made sure to go to the "Crazy Duck Pond" park one last time to gather up feathers.

 We grabbed a free breakfast at chick-fil-a a time or two, 

stopped by TAKE a time or two, and enjoyed a the free lunch place a time or two.  One random day we ended up at Goodwill while hunting for grubby shoes for our upcoming camping and caving trip and found all kinds of treasures for everyone.  You just can't plan that kind of adventure. :) 

 All in all, we just had a whole lot of fun.  I kind of can't believe we didn't spend a single night away from home summer long, and yet it still flew by and left everyone wishing for just a few more lazy and fun days before the back to school bell started ringing. 

 It was a great summer!

Growing Up

 

We had some friends over last week that closely resemble what our family looked like about 4 years ago- lots of diapers, crumbs, dirty faces and tears.  

While all of that was once the norm in our house, it's just not like that anymore.

After they left I asked the kids if they remember that our family used to be like that. (Because I think they were all slightly annoyed by the noise level, destruction and overall chaos of the little ones.) 

Leah said, "Yeah, how are you still.... alive??"

(She of all of the kids has the very least interest in ever adding more babies to our family ever, most likely because she best remembers what life was like when her siblings were babies.

"Well," I said. "Eventually we stopped having babies and you all grew up."

And I know they're not all the the way UP yet, but these four buddies of mine sure have grown up a whole lot.  They are capable and helpful and interesting and kind and creative and thoughtful and more patient and even more clean than I once realized babies and toddlers and preschoolers could grow up to become.  

And just like the ones before it, I'm so grateful for this stage of life that we're in.  Where we can leave at any time without packing a diaper bag, changing a diaper, or searching for missing shoes or considering naptime (usually).  We can tell jokes and have conversations and play games together.  We can take votes about what we want to do and have conversations about important things like what really happened to the planet Pluto or what family vacation we want to take next.  

And thankfully I still get lots of hugs and snuggles, which I hope never changes.

No more babies here, but still a whole lot of growing and learning and fun. 

Just, less crumby fun.

Usually.

I loved this moment last week when I was reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory out loud to Emma and Noah and then Leah and Adam put down their books and came over to read with us.  Because some things, like a classic read-aloud and a still moment on the couch together never grow old.