Toothless

So I was hanging out at the youth dance last night when I got a text from Savannah that said, "Sadie just discovered her first loose tooth!  She's pretty excited."

I wasn't surprised that she was excited.  I mean, ever since her first kindergarten classmate lost a tooth, she has been waiting her turn.  "When will I have a loose tooth?" is a question we've heard dozens of times over the past 9 months.  Today when I got home, I expected very little movement and a long wait for the tooth to come out.  After all, we've been through this plenty of times before with the other kids and it always takes longer than expected.  Well, not for this determined little girl!!  Sadie wiggled away and that tooth just got looser and looser as the day went on.  Finally, tonight, she convinced daddy to pull it out. 

 

Loose tooth one day, gone the next.  This is one happy little girl!

(By the way, Youth Conference was great!  I'll post some of our adventures soon!)

Playin' in the Potty

By the time you read this, I'll be off enjoying a few days at Youth Conference.  In the meantime, I hope you enjoy one of my all-time favorite photo collages of my kids.  I put this together several years ago and it hangs in my half-bath/laundry room.  It always makes me smile!

"Let them be little 'cause they're only that way for a while."

Mmmm, I love these guys!!  {See you on Saturday!}  :)

My Soren

Oh, how I love this boy!!  Soren is 8 years old today (already?) and here are some pretty great reasons why I love this awesome kid:

1.  Soren has the face of an angel and skin like peaches and cream.  I know it sounds funny to say, but he is just so soft!  I love to kiss his perfect little cheeks!
2.  Soren is as smart as a whip.  He totally gets math and is also an excellent reader.  He also writes well.    His teachers go out of their way to tell me what a pleasure it is to have him in class.

3.  Soren is funny.  He has his own little spin on the world around him and I love to see his interpretation of things.  Here is his version of The Sacred Grove (or at least how his imagination gets him through long meetings): 

4.  Soren is a blessing.  You may remember from this post that we were told Soren would likely be born with Down Syndrome.  He obviously wasn't and we are so thankful for him and his health every day.

5.  Soren is tenderhearted.  He knows the right thing to say when someone is down and he tries to help when someone is having an off day.  I'm always impressed by his thoughtfulness.
6.  Soren is genuine.  He's not afraid to express joy or fear.  His enthusiasm is contagious and he can melt the toughest heart with his compassion.

7.  Soren is fun.  He loves to play games and is a good little opponent.  He enjoys inviting friends over to our house and is considerate and fair.  He is a good friend.
8.  Soren loves spending time with me (and vice-versa!).  From tucking him in at night to cuddling during a movie, he is my little buddy and I can't imagine my life without him.

I love you, Soren.  Happy Birthday!  I'm so glad you're mine!
Love,
Mom

Brothers

Look at these handsome guys!  Last week they sweated it out at Cub Scout day camp (over 90º and humid both days).  This was Soren's first experience with Cub Scouts.  He was less than a week from his 8th birthday so he was able to join in on the events and, boy howdy, he was sure happy to have his big brother with him!  Soren could hardly sleep the night before because he was pretty nervous about the whole thing.  Sterling kept him close the whole time and took great care of his little bro.  These two have always been close and I'm glad they love spending time together.  I sure love my little pirates!

My Favorite Bug

By far my favorite bug, fireflies are the only insects I'll willingly let in the house.  We saw our first ones of the year last week and we all look forward to this time of year when we can spend long summer evenings catching them in our yard.  We love to see them sparkling over the corn fields when we're driving through the back roads - our own little fireworks display.

Fireflies are one of my favorite things about living in the Midwest!

Happy Mr. Onion Face

As soon as we got home from church today, I went to the kitchen to check on the roast.  As I lifted the lid off of the crock pot, here is what I found:

 There was Happy Mr. Onion Face smiling up at me.  Seriously.  Isn't that funny?  We thought so!

Here's a close up in case you don't see it... 

In other news, I was sustained today as the new Young Women President in our ward.  It's a big job and I'm a little overwhelmed by the whole thing, but I'm sure it will be a grand adventure.  For starters, I'm off to Youth Conference for three days this week.  Fun stuff!

Lily

Jeff went out to light the grill for dinner tonight and found a little friend clinging to the side of the barbecue.  Spencer immediately dubbed her "Lily" and the kids played with her in the grass until dinner.  We periodically find toads in our yard, but this is the first time we've found a tree frog.  Great plans were made to keep her and she spent the dinner hour in an ice cream bucket on the kitchen counter.  We know frogs, which means we know about live crickets, heat lamps, and spraying down tanks several times a day.  We also know we're going on a 3 week vacation in about 3 weeks and we quickly realized that we aren't ready for a pet right now. 

The kids reluctantly agreed that we needed to let her go and Sadie decided her "garden" was the best place.  Lily clung to a leaf for a minute or two then nestled in under this plant (below) which sure looks like a better place to hang out than an old ice cream bucket! 

Bye, Lily.  Hopefully we'll see you around.

Friday Funny

Strawberry Pits

Sadie:  "Mom, I just smelled my armpits and they smell like strawberries.  Wanna smell?"

Hmmm, tempting...

The Bike Trail

Spencer and I have been getting up early to ride bikes before the heat of the day and before Jeff leaves for work.  We have a sweet bike trail about 3 blocks from our house that goes at least 10 miles in one direction (not that we've ever been that far...).  It's a beautiful ride!  Yesterday I brought the camera along so I could capture some of the things we see.  Sadie was up and wanted to join us so the three of us had a nice ride.  It was pretty stop-and-go because I took so many pictures, but we saw some cool stuff.  If you were to join us, here are some of the things you might see:

 Just before getting on the trail, we pass the grain silos.  In a few months we'll have the big trucks driving down our street to drop off their harvests of corn and soybeans.  This is one of the landmarks we use to help people find our house:

The old, abandoned Brown Shoe Company Building is one of the first things we come to on the trail. We have a lot of old factories up on our side of town.  Life in our little corner of the world sure must have been different back in the day when these factories were up and running.

 
Here are my sidekicks heading off on the trail.  It's paved for maybe the first half mile. 

We always see wildlife.  Yesterday it was a turtle, three bunnies, and way too many cicadas!  At one point we saw something from a distance that resembled an otter or groundhog or something about that size.  He hurried into the brush before we could get a photo.

Check out this moth!  He is at least 4" across.  I wonder if the piece of straw/grass bent because of his size...  He was huge and very cool!

There are always pretty wildflowers and other flora along the way:

And more cicadas...  There were spots where they were pretty thick.  They are the reason Spencer refused to ride this morning.  One landed on Sadie's back which freaked her out until I told her that he was tired and just wanted a ride.  

This part of the trail is a little rough, but I like how it's framed in by the poles.

You can imagine how thrilled I was when, just as we turned around to start back, Sadie hopped off her bike and said she was walking home.  Seriously?  Fortunately she changed her mind about 30 seconds later.  Whew!

What a nice way to start the day!