the zoo-redeemed

most of my memories of the kansas city zoo end with me saying i will never go back-i remember the trip with the my mom, becky and all 5 kids where we walked all the way to africa and maybe saw one 'african hunting dog'. the kids were hot and unimpressed and we still had to walk ALL the way back. the kids were fighting over the ice pack we had in the cooler-holding to there faces. it was bad.

however, last fall on a day bobby was going to working on the house all day, i took the kids and we had a blast. i bought a membership-since it was going to be equal in price to us going to the zoo 2-3 times. and the platinum membership included unlimited rides on the sky safari that would open the summer of 2011. i thought we would go back again soon. well-it took us awhile-but we did go back. last week when the forecast said 80 degrees and sunny for 3 days straight-i knew we needed to get it in gear. once a month the zoo is open in the evening (only africa). they have meal specials, african drumming and the sky safari would be open this time. it was meant to be. however, on the way back from lawrence with all 3 kids bobby had a flat tire in the prius. he called and i thought the zoo trip would be scrapped. but he is bobby-and he fixed that flat and we met up and drove to the zoo on the donut. it was worth it. beautiful weather, the quiet and ingenious sky safari, the bat eared fox was awake as was the bush baby. it was all the kids could do to contain their enthusiasm.

summer-

it felt like summer would never get here-but it was worth the wait. 

emily's shoes finally arrived-they were worth the wait too!

grant is on 2 ball teams-the t-bones have been playing together for 3 seasons-they are all kids who go to sunflower. but since grant is transferring to piper this fall-we decided a ball team would be a great place to meet some of the new kids. it is busy...but he seems to enjoy it. bobby is a coach on each of the teams.

the girls are really loving having grant home to play-

for father's day bobby decided he wanted to go to lunch at T-Rex ("because the kids are a pretty big part of me being a dad"he said)

this is the famous-turtle face

the garden is growing like crazy-we have about 50 tomato plants-but i'm still not sure if we will have enough to can. the way the kids eat them off the vine-i'm not even sure we will have enough to bring inside :) the other pictures are of the new club. "snobigumbe" it is in the dog pen. they go out there and work. grant's job is to dig holes and the girls make nests. they created it all on their own-sign and all.

we finally added some swings to the sycamore tree-

we took a trip down to muskogee to see amanda and her 3 kids. it was so good to spend time with old friends and see how much the twins have grown.

i love this picture-classic summer...

rebecca invited us over to swim-and now whenever we get together we love talking photography. she has started to take pictures professionally as well-and we could spend hours talking about all things related to photography business. thanks becca for taking pictures that have me in them-i love getting to prove that i actually do play-not just take pictures :)

 and then there is becky-i rave about her all the time-but she deserves it-
everyone needs an aunt becky!

i love this-
happy father's day to greg-3 kids under 3-now that is a big job-and he and amanda are doing a Beautiful job :)

 this one cracks me up-

 ryan told roy that if learned how to play 'waltz across texas' and sing it-that he would buy him a cow. i made roy a country cd for his birthday that included willie's version of the song-and then bobby set out to teach him how to play it.

 everyone needs a dad that can throw them so high in the air that their head gets cut off in the picture :)

 this was part of bobby's father day gift-

 this was at a neighbor's house on memorial day-they have a full size court in their driveway-
loved getting to watch them play-soon grant will be able to join the big boys game :)

cuteness

emily had her last day at IDC on wednesday. it concluded with a parent's day celebration-
one of my favorite things is watching my kids proud faces as they perform. they all have the same kind of expression and it is just priceless. this has been a long standing IDC song-i remember teaching it to roy on a car ride in north carolina. he sang it to his plants-another wonderful moment. i don't have that one on video-but i did get emily's performance of it here

night to remember

tonight was a night we will talk about for awhile-in the same way grant and i talk about the time i had to take all the toys out of his room. not a good kind of memory but one that hopefully sticks with them long enough to help make better decisions.
it started because i found some cute shoes at a little boutique in prairie village. they were 40% off and See Kai Run has been a favorite of mine for awhile. unfortunately, the only go up to a size 9. great for anneliese, but no luck for emily and grant. i bought them anyway and let her wear them yesterday. grant and emily didn't react to much (we try and emphasize that we get shoes when we need them-and that's not always at the same time). however, grant's torn up tennis shoes did need updating and he was itching to go find some today. i REALLY didn't want to take all 3 kids to the shoe store-but after lots of tears from the girls about how they would be REALLY good and they wouldn't ask for anything, wouldn't grab boxes off the shelves and beg me for new shoes i caved. this was the beginning of the end.
i will try to be brief-
they were really doing great-and then those big piles of toys at kohl's caught emily's eye. she started asking if she could have a toy. "can i please get a toy" "i want a toy" "i really want a toy" "i really do want a toy" i told her if she asked again about a toy i would take her back home and return to the store with grant to get shoes. she did it-it was like she couldn't stop herself and then it was gushing and i had already given the ultimatum-ugh! so i drove all the kids back home and had bobby help emily out of the car.
anneliese, grant and i proceed back to the store wear he tries on every pair of tennis shoes in his size. anneliese did very well although she kept saying "you know that kiddy toy at that store where grant tried on shoes but they didn't have his size? can i get that for my birfday? when is my birfday again?"
we return home and i'm feeling kind of bad-and then bobby tells me that emily told him she had to come home because she had a 'hurt finger" OH NO! she lied. she lied repeatedly. bobby has always told the kids that if they don't tell the truth they will be sent to bed for the rest of the night. luckily by then it was already 600. so we did it-we stuck it out-i brought her dinner to her bed and she had to read books by herself. i did cry a little-and it hurt to watch grant and emily outside playing without her-but honesty is important to us. parenting is hard. really hard.

she is so big now-and i just love her so much-my little sweet pea.

time

the passage of time has changed-used to be the evenings felt really long-like bedtime would never really arrive and we would be cycling around in the 4-6pm craziness forever. now i look up and it's 8 o'clock-oh-i guess i should maybe call the kids in so we can start getting ready for bed.
it just feels like the time passes so quickly now-and i find myself thinking i wish we had more time before bed-i could watch them play outside with bits of cloth and string for hours.
and i'm not one to try and freeze a stage-i like change and welcome new adventures-but sometimes i find myself wishing i could always look out the window and see them running and laughing, jumping over ditches and waving pieces of fabric like butterfly wings. this 3, 5, and 7 is feeling lovely right now-life is good on days like this...

 the honeysuckle is blooming-and it smells amazing-

 during editing-i couldn't decide between bright green energy or soft and dreamy-so i just have some of each...

 the frogs are out again-and emily has already made friends with several of them-this one needed to be coaxed back to the wild-
and i love anneliese's little hip stuck out stance-and makes me wonder if someday i'll have a picture of her when she is 12 or 20 or 31 with this same stance-

dale's birthday weekend

the rush of going out of town feels wonderful-so great that on thursday morning before we were supposed to leave on friday-i had this fiery energy that made it possible to get both the puppy and a cat to the vet and make appointments to get the girls' hair cut (that day-my kind of appointment :) and as i was rushing around the idea formed "why not just leave today"

 and then i couldn't get that idea to go away. so i called all my wonderful assistants for my friday toddler class-got that all taken care of and began to frantically pack-trying to remember all the blankets and jammies and rainboots. 

we left to pick up grant and got to tell him we weren't going home-we were driving to nana and papa's RIGHT NOW-car is packed and we are headed out of town!

the prius won some awards-

first place for getting the girls to sleep (about 30 minutes at the SAME TIME)

first place for cost of getting down to OK (around 15$ each way)

first place for crazy dance party in the backseat

i was so glad we left early-because friday was a beautiful day in many ways. becky took the boys out of school-so all the cousins played together all day in the amazing weather. and yes-roy is now driving :)

 they were so excited to pull out the big water slide-but although the weather was great-the water was COLD-as they were all wrapped up in towels-roy suggested they reenact the trail of tears-fun weekend with history-what could be better :) grant is not as up on his native american history-so he was left wondering what he could do to be a part of the game. emily didn't let her lack of understanding hold her back at all...

as the kids were laying around on the magic quilt-i had the idea to take a picture of them laying down with their feet all touching the bottom of the quilt-to make a cute record of their nice stair step heights. this was the attempt-i was standing on a tall step ladder-holding the camera above my head-trying to get them all in the shot-it didn't work out quite as planned

so we moved to the walk out slab of the basement-with me up above on the deck-this was perfect-

and i'm so happy with the shot we finally got-altough it took becky's amazingness and some marshmellows thrown down at them randomly.. 

the alfalfa was lush and green-and very good at hiding kids-we only lost one croc-which may end up in a bale later-

saturday we celebrated dale's birthday-can't believe it has been 6 years since we flew out to north carolina to meet him for the first time. he is such a joy-so compassionate, thoughtful and tough!

until next time...