A Little Bit of our Lives Lately

For those keeping track, this is the THIRD time
I've blogged this month! I'm doing better! 

Still catching up:

Places We're Going and People We're Seeing:

The other day, the kids and I headed to downtown Little Rock. First, we ate lunch at The River Market. We hadn't been to the Museum of Discovery since it was newly remodeled. We decided to purchase a membership since it equals about 3 visits. My sister Tracy came over and visited us there for awhile.

I like these pictures because Tornado was being very serious (Well, serious by saying things like, "Today, it is going to be cloudy with a chance of meatballs.") about delivering the weather forecast on this fun video monitor. The other two were just in and out, making it very difficult for him, but he never broke character.

Since our sum total of swimming events this summer equaled about 1 1/2, I declared Sunday afternoon that we WERE going to the pool in Maumelle, by golly. The kids were excited, we loaded up, arrived, and about one minute after they hit the water, the announcement of "adult swim only" was delivered. Then, before that was up, there was an announcement that the pool would be closed for 30 minutes due to inclement weather possibility. The kids were devastated. We decided to wait it out...and then wait another 30 minutes for another announcement, but we finally got to get back into the water an hour before closing.

They were nice enough to give us a raincheck, though, which we were able to use later that week.

The kids got to play at Jump Zone one night while Dash was attending the birthday party of one of his soccer friends. We got to visit with our friend who built our house and his adorable wife and son, who also were at the party.

One of the kids' favorite places to go? THE GAS STATIONS. Like, convenient stores. I can't begin to describe the amount of longing they contain to enter any of these. It's like that on trips. And it's like that in our town. If their dad is going inside, it's: "Pleeeeease can I go?! Pleeeeease!!!!" Well, we live in walking distance (maybe a mile?) to one, so it's a big treat to go on a walk there and buy a juice and maybe a little bag of peanuts. This is a picture of a recent walk in which we took up quite a portion of the road with two adults, 2 dogs on leashes, a baby in a stroller, and 3 kids on E-Z Rollers.

As we were sitting outside the gas station, (YES, we were sitting outside the gas station on a bench. For fun. Watching people come and go.) I wondered why I bother trying to take the kids around the country and provide them with cultural opportunities. All they want to do is go to the gas station.

What We're Cooking

vegan biscuits

My blog friend, whose biscuit recipe we used, is having a giveaway for vegan things; all you have to do is leave a comment.

Family Movie Night:
The Neverending Story, smoothies, and popcorn! I remembered loving it as a child, and you know, it made me feel very emotional all over again. I had forgotten what the great theme/moral of the story was. (At some point, people stop using their imaginations; they stop creating and imagining and believing. People lose hope and lose their dreams, and we should fight against this.) I remembered how beautiful I thought the child empress was when she spoke.

So...a little way into the movie, Ryan and I were like, "Uh-oh, why did we not remember this horrifying part?" My 7 year old son is ultra sensitive just like me, but he reacts to these sensitivities with an angry temper. (Spoiler alert!) Atreyu's horse, Artax, drowns in the Swamp of Sadness. My son was soooo upset. He threw his food tray down and stormed off, "I can't believe you made me watch this! I hate this movie!" We had to cajole him back with, "No, no - the horse isn't dead; he just sank. He's going to be okay!" We were totally lying...BUT!...at the end of the movie when the world is returned to its previous state, it shows Atreyu riding Artax again. Ryan and I looked at each other, the way you look at your spouse after riding a storm...and breathed sighs of relief.

What They're Playing

This is a glimpse of our new backyard, which is an awesome new play spot for the kids. I looked out the window the other day and smiled at the middle kids just sitting out there talking on their Ezy Rollers.

Sweetness

The kids are always making me sweet things. Here is a concoction created by Dash recently. He used a small glass bottle, covered it with a light switch from their lamp and topped it with Sissy's jeweled pins stuck on with tape.

 

That kid just has sweetness oozing out of him. He's always writing me little notes. This is one of his signature moves, drawing two stick figures holding hands - me and him - with a heart and a "I love you."

It makes these moments a little more bearable.

What My Kids Are Saying:
I love my daughter. She's smart and sweet and 100 other very precious things. She can also be a ding-dong. And despite the fact I'm trying to create in my children an understanding of the world, she's only 5 and hasn't grasped it all yet. Including the fact that we speak English. We have talked plenty of times about adoption, including international adoption. This is what she said one day:

"If we got another girl from England, she would speak English, and we would not know what she's saying."

AND THEN another day we were talking about the fact that their father tends to tan easily. He's just a naturally darker person, and our boys tan easily, as well. (Apparently, his great-grandfather was half Cherokee, and his great-grandmother was full Italian, so I guess that's why?) I get comments all of the time about Baby Brother's skin complexion, which is not as pale as typical caucasian baby skin. Sis looked at me with the most sincere, puzzled face and asked this about her dad:

"Is he English? Cuz he's, like, darkish."

So, apparently, if you are from England, you have dark skin.
Just like her father.
Who is from Illinois.