Randomness

Two cute and quick stories:

I laid out clothes for Lash to wear and then I left his bedroom. A minute or so later he comes running out of his room carrying the green shirt I had picked out for him and exclaims "Mom...thank you for cleaning this!" I said, "You're welcome. I knew you liked it." He then runs over to me and gave me a hug. The entire exchange was very dramatic but he was being serious and so sincere.

Lash wanted to watch a movie the other morning. While I was getting the VCR plugged in and the movie going Henley was getting into things and I said "Henley go sit in your chair and watch the movie with Lash." She immediately crawled over to her chair, climbed in and waited for the movie to start. If only she was that obedient all the time!

Lesson Learned

It was Thursday, which meant the kids were headed to Oma's house and I was going to the office. I typically  take Lash and the diaper bag (or anything else that needs loaded) out to the car first so that I can get Lash strapped into his car seat before needing to strap in Henley. After everything has been loaded I go back in to set the alarm and get Henley. This particular day I decided to take both kids out first...

After I got Lash in the Tahoe and gave him instructions to get into his car seat and I got Henley strapped in (there is no car seat base in the Tahoe so I have to use the seat belt to secure her car seat) I headed back inside to finish loading our things. When I got to the door it was LOCKED! I could not believe it! Lash had turned the lock on the doorknob and locked us out of the house. At that moment I was very glad that I hadn't left Henley in the house while I loaded Lash and the diaper bag because that would have made things much worse!

I felt completely helpless...I had no phone and no keys! I'd been meaning to get a spare key made and hidden, but that task was still on the to do list. I decided I would go to the neighbor's house and use their phone to call Clint. I left the kids in the Tahoe that was still parked in the garage and I started walking. I realized half way up the driveway that I should have changed shoes (side note: I was wearing a business suit and nice black dress shoes) but at that point I was not going to turn around. I walked to our neighbor's house, which happened to be over a 1/2 mile away (on a gravel road) and prayed that someone would be home. Nope..I even tried the doors thinking I could go in and use the phone and apologize later for intruding.

On my walk/jog back to the house I was praying for wisdom and help. I was hopeful that I would meet a car on the gravel road and borrow a cell phone. Well, I made it almost back home when I heard a car coming so I ran back up the driveway waving my arms, but I got there 5 seconds too late and the driver did not see me.

When I got back to the house the kids were both fine and no one was crying (I would pay money to see a video of what he did for the nearly 30 minutes unsupervised). There were some random keys in the console that I tried and none worked. I grabbed a putty knife and thought maybe I could break into the house...no luck. 

I had no idea what time it was but I was thinking that Oma and/or Clint might start to get concerned soon and maybe come looking for us. I thought that I could walk to other neighbors' homes, but at 8:45 on a weekday morning I wasn't too hopeful of anyone being home. I changed shoes, put Henley in the stroller, and off we went. I told Lash we were walking to Oma's house, but as we walked I was really just praying that someone would drive by. 

We made it a little over a 1/4 mile from our house when a truck drove by. After some persistent waving I was able to get the man to stop and he let me borrow his cell phone. I called Clint and he called the locksmith who showed up at our house right after we got back from our walk. It took Mr. Wilson less than 5 seconds to slide his drivers license down the door jam to pop the door open. 

I was so thankful and I made sure to have Mr. Wilson make a copy of our house key so that this will NEVER happen again! Lesson learned.

Facebook status updates

For the sake of time, a lot of the cute things Lash says or does gets posted as Facebook status updates. I decided to compile and post some of the funnier ones:

Clint:

10/16/2012: I need a physicist... Toddler spills approximately 1/2 cup of milk on the floor. Milk splashes behind the toddler to nearly 6'6" up the wall AND stretches roughly 8 feet across the floor opposite the wall. A simultaneous "WOW" escaped our mouths as we sat shocked in complete amazement... Everything was fine until toddler defiantly shouts, "I'm not happy with YOU right now - dad!"

10/5/2012: Nose to nose with his stuffed giraffe and both hands clutched around the limp giraffes throat, "HAVE YOU SEEN MY PLUG?!?!!?!?? DO YOU KNOW WHERE IT IS?!!! Is it in the closet?!!!" ("Plug" = "pacifier" and Lash got unplugged a few weeks ago.)

9/26/2012: Spoken at 7:00 A.M., "Dad, tell me about your day."

9/21/2012: "NO DAD!!! I am NOT going to 'Spank City' on my birthday!!!"

8/29/2012: It's bedtime. You are stalling. You know the drill. Bathroom. Brush your teeth. Let's go! Ok, let me help you... "DAAAAAAAAAAAD!!! Be kind to one another and build eachother up! That means you be nice to me!" Mark? "No!!!" First Thessalonians? "Five Eleven!!! Be kind to one another and build eachother up! That means you be nice to me Dad!!!" (He's not even 3 and already he is preparing to outwit me...)

7/19/2012: You know it's gonna be good when your 2 year old starts out a story with, "Back when I was a little boy..."

Sarah:

10/16/2012: This morning I told Lash to go potty (because that is what he does first thing every morning or else I end up cleaning up a whole lot of pee off the bathroom floor) and he responded with "I don't have to..." (serious face....pause) "...I went yesterday."

10/12/2012: Today at lunch I asked Lash what his favorite fruit was and he responded with "Maybe fruit salad."...what a smart guy!

9/25/2012: In case anyone is needing Christmas ideas for Lash he wants "pears, oranges, apples, bananas, blueberries, strawberries....and...umm...toys...and...umm...Kohl's Cash."

CIRCLES!

This is a game that Lash named CIRCLES! He loves it and so does Henley Jane:

Cowboy Lash

If you asked Lash what he was going to do when he turned 3 his automatic answer was "Ride a horse!"

So, that is what we did. A good friend of our's has a couple of horses and she was kind enough to give Lash a ride. We were nervous that he would change his mind once he saw the size of the horse, but he hopped right on and rode for almost 45 minutes.

Here are some pictures documenting the memorable ride and there is a video after the last picture.

Lash is very intense.

Lash, Cowboy and Georgia posing for a picture.

Ride 'em Cowboy!

Cowboy is a big horse.

But not as big as these two Clydesdales!

 

After this Lash kept trying to convince us that Henley did NOT want to ride the horse again!

Cowboy and his friend Jack eating a snack.

Lash having so much fun getting to ride a horse on his 3rd birthday.

Happy Birthday Lash!

Happy birthday kiddo! You are growing up so fast! Your vocabulary is incredible and you always want to be included in every conversation.

You can be sweet with Henley Jane, but more often you are a bully (self-proclaimed). You love to run around pretending to be either a dog or a horse.

You love dinosaurs and cars and could play with them both for hours. You will stop whatever you are doing if I offer to read you a book.

You are a rock star who plays the drums and guitar and you sing the "Oh My Soul" song all day every day (at least that is how it seems). You have so much energy!! You love to be outside and you enjoy golf, baseball, basketball and football. It is hard to watch a KU football game with you because you always want to play catch.

You are quick to say you will pray for someone if they get hurt or are sick and you are working on memorizing Bible verses (you know 4 so far). You are becoming a little more of a risk taker, but you are still pretty conservative.

I will never grow tired of your hugs, kisses or hearing you say "I love you too, Mom."

I love you too, Lash!

Story time with Uncle Chet

Uncle Chet has his hands full! Keep a look out for Henley's double wink.

"Daddy is here!!"

Both of the kids always almost always run and/or crawl to the back door when Daddy gets home from work. Lash always wants to tell Daddy what he is doing or invite him to play and Henley just wants picked up.

Applesauce

If you have never tried homemade applesauce you definitely should! It is super easy to make and very yummy!

After realizing that we (myself and a very good friend of mine) would not be able to pick our own apples this year, we went to the Lawrence Farmers Market and bought a bushel of apples from a very nice man who happens to live just down the road from us. He struck me a deal and Clint carried our 40-45 lbs of apples to the Tahoe and off we went to get to work.

It took us (myself, Amy, my mom, and occasionally little helpers) approximately 2 hours to get all of the apples peeled, cored and sliced.

Here is part of the mess that we made:

After adding a little sugar and cooking the apples on very low heat for several hours we were able to mash into a sauce easily with a potato masher. In the end we got 40 cups of applesauce, 16 cups of sliced apples to use for apple pie, and we each kept a dozen or so apples to eat fresh.

That was fun!

As the unofficial end of summer has come and gone...here are pictures that highlight the highlights of our summer: