Graceful

 

This little lady has been up to all kinds of shenanigans these past few months.  She's growing up too fast and yet too slow at the same time.  How does that happen?  It's inexplicable, I tell you.  When I'm talking with her face to face, she seems so much older than her almost six years.  She's smart, perceptive, thoughtful, sensitive, and oh, so sassy.

But then I see her from a distance---at a soccer game or a school function or at church.  I still see her chubby, little baby face hiding in there.  I remember those same facial expressions but see them in a much different child---an eight month old, a toddler.  I see and I remember just how young she really is.  I see how innocent, how fresh.  How much further she has to go.  And I remember to try and be more patient.  To stop expecting her to behave with the same maturity with which she speaks.  It's hard.  But we're trying.  All I know is that this little girl is a force to reckoned with.

Crazy hair day at its best.  

                                             I think I actually do hair better when I'm not trying to

                                  make it look conventionally nice. Ha!  

Read: I'm only good at making hair look bad.

Grace doing one of her latest tricks which....creeps me out a little bit.  Which she knows, so she does it all the more.  And Grace with Baby Anna from Frozen.  She is just as crazy about Frozen as every other little girl in the world.  Shocker.  I feel like Tangled has been unfairly forgotten.

Some of Grace's creations.  Grace's favorite pastime is to make things out of paper.  Anything and everything you can think of that can be made with paper, she's made.  And many things you'd never think of.  It seems to be her way to process.  She's made herself a wallet, several purses, a bajillion books, calendars, a planner, laptops, earrings (which she tapes on), a sword (a girl has to defend herself, I guess:), hats, crowns, cards, hair, capes, signs, banners, houses, boxes, etc.  I could go on and on.  It's pretty cute.

Grace LOVED kindergarten.  She loved her class, her teacher, the bus, her new friends, everything.  And they LOVED her.  It was an emotionally trying year for all of us, but definitely a good one.  All day kindergarten made for long, long days and even longer, grumpier afternoons.  But it definitely brought about a lot of progression and growth.  And, much to my own surprise, I am really looking forward to having her home for the summer.  I thought I'd be terrified, but instead I'm looking forward to having unfettered, unrushed time with her. 

 Below she is pictured with a couple of her sweet friends from Cranbrook, Deborah and Kimber.       

 

And then there was soccer.  She spent fall season being a killer goalie.  She spent spring season learning how to be a killer player.  :)  Two goals, baby.  Last game of the season.  We were pretty proud.  Somehow, despite some truly, terribly organized practices from rather lackluster coaches, this little team did quite well.

And can I just mention what a fabulous sister she is?  Sure, she has her moments, but for the most part, she and Luke get along amazingly well.  It is truly one of the great joys of my life to hear them laughing and playing together.  Oh, I just love those squirmy, wormy little kids.

Celebrating 2 Years of Luke

I wish it were possible to truly describe the joy this little guy has brought into my life.

Who could have known that in two years, he would evolve from this sleepy, unpredictable, baby,

to this sweet, hesitant, non-verbal, little baldy,

to this bundle of unbridled, curly, red-headed, enthusiasm?

There's just something magical about this little guy.  I can't even tell you how many people have come up to me and said, "Man, I just really like Luke."  It might be the red hair.  It might be the curls.  But, really, it's mostly just him.  He is fantastic, little boy.

Some things to know about Luke:

He answers almost any question with the cutest little "yeah."  Sometimes I ask him silly yes or no questions just to hear it.  

He is incredibly into the song "Old McDonald" right now.  We sing it every night before naptime and bedtime, no matter how many times I have tried to push my primary song agenda.  

He loves naptime.  He asks for it almost every day.  He'll say "take a nap" or "night-night."         

He is a night time stinker.  He's usually in bed by 7:30 or so, but more often than not, he spends the next couple of hours singing.  What, you ask?  Oh, anything.  "Old McDonald," of course.  "Happy Birthday" every now and again.  Sometimes little songs of his own creation.  It is not uncommon for Luke to be up singing until 9:30 or 10.  Sigh.  Might be the reason he's so enthusiastic about naptime...

He loves to gargle.  Not, like, actual gargling, just the sound.  He makes the sound all day, everyday. Sometimes he will lie on the stairs so his head is tilted back a little and just gargle away.  Oh yeah, sometimes that's how he spends the hours between 7:30 p.m. and whenever the little punk decides to finally fall asleep.  

His favorite book right now is "Red Fish, Blue Fish" by Dr. Suess.  He especially likes the fish that is "very, very, bad."  He enthusiastically reads that part along with me everytime.  He also likes to translate it into everyday life.  If Grace does something he disapproves of, he often yells, "Bad!"  

He loves trains, cars, slides, groundhogs ("groundies"), cats, his cousin Nora, dinosaurs and fish.  His second favorite book is a non-fiction book about fish.  He can now correctly name and identify a twinspot wrasse.  

He always wants our family to be together.  The other day we had to take two cars to Grace's soccer game and Luke was very concerned that Spencer wasn't coming.  Every few minutes he asked, "Daddy coming?" and every time I reassured him that he was.

Luke is a bit of a clepto.  Seriously, though.  I have to pat him down every time we leave someone's house. At least two times, he has still managed to get away with a couple of stolen cars after the pat down.  That kid knows how to utilize a pocket, I tell you what.  Currently, we have a red car that he pilfered from the nursery at church.  Everytime he sees it, he says sheepishly, "Red car.  Nursery."  He knows.  Oh, he knows...    

He's a cautious little guy and not super fond of things he's not familiar with.  Take bugs, for example.  We went to a drive-in movie one night and upon finding an anthill close to where we were sitting, he repeatedly let us know how he felt about it.  "I hate it!  I hate it!"  He also lets us know what he likes.  "I like it!"  Just so we're clear.  :)  

Another bug story: we were sitting outside eating popsicles the other day.  He wanted to sit on the porch step next to me, but was concerned about the ants.  Together, we painstakingly cleared away all the ants (all two of them).  After very careful inspection, he finally sat down. 

He also has a long-standing love/hate relationship with lawn mowers.  Once a week, a lawn crew comes to cut the grass throughout our complex.  Last summer, he would just spend the entire day crying.  Needless to say, we'd always find somewhere else to be.  This year, he's trying to like them.  The first time they came this year, he heard them, crawled up into my lap and proclaimed calmly, "Lukie, scared."  Then he lifted up the train he was carrying around and said, "Train, scared."  He's gotten a little better since then.  All he needed was a chance to express his and his train's feelings.  :)

He's creative and imaginative.  The other day during lunch, he was eating a sandwich.  At one point, he picked up the sandwich, decided it looked fairly canine, and said, "Doggy. (slight pause)  I made it!"  He then proceeded to have it run around on the table and bark.  After taking another bite, it became a train.  He gets very excited about creating things.  The other day he was coloring at the table with Grace.  Once he'd finished, he picked up his picture excitedly and said, "I made it!  Show mommy," and came running over to me.

He's very attuned to other's emotions.  If anyone is crying, he comes right up to me and wants to talk about how they're sad.  In one of his many books, a little girl cries when her boat breaks.   Luke's favorite part is when Handy Manny fixes it with his tools and gives it back to her.  He looks at that part over and over again and talks about how she is sad and then happy. 

He's pretty good at sharing...unless something is taken from him.  Then he freaks out, swipes the air with his hand and yells, "Bad!" a la Red Fish, Blue Fish.  But...if you ask him to share that very same thing two seconds later, he is usually thrilled to do it.  No matter how much he wanted it before.  All you have to do is ask and this little boy would give you the world.  We are constantly having to remind Grace about this trait of his... You take it, World War 3 erupts.  You ask for it, it's yours.  

Sadly, I woke up really sick on this little guy's birthday.  We'd planned a little party with a couple of his buddies, but that got canned and was never rescheduled.  Instead, I spent the day laying on the couch, watching him play with all of the balloons I blew up the night before.  He was thrilled.  Best birthday ever, in his estimation.  

We had a family party with the Warnicks later that week and were able to use the box cars I'd made for his friend party and never used---which were a hit.  Still, 2.5 months later, he wants to sit in one whenever he watches a show.  We had pizza for dinner, and snowman cupcakes for dessert.  I should have already mentioned this, but Luke loves snowmen.  And this was before he even saw "Frozen," so you can only imagine how much his snowman obsession heightened after being introduced to Olaf.  

Two year check up.  A success! 

Modeling his birthday outfit from Aunt Emily.

This little boy is a bright spot in all of my days. 

Too Many Snow Days

Now that the snow is gone (gone!), I can finally look back at it fondly.  If you would have asked winter Anna if she had had any fun with all the snow we got this winter, she would have responded with a resounding, "Are you kidding me?!  Snow is the devil!!"

And then she would have talked and talked about polar vortexes.  Vortici?

But, happy, spring Anna remembers that one time that Spencer built a gigantic snow playground in the front yard.  And that was fun.  And worth memorializing.

Sidenote: While making said snow playground, Spencer had to take a break to push an unknown neighbor's car out of their parking spot.  Typical.

The Warnicks came over on snow day number, oh, at least 7 (sigh), to help utilize Spencer's creation.  It was fabulous.  We played, got really cold, and then came in for some pizza and hot cocoa.

How you had to dress to leave the house on any given day during this past winter.
Ahem.  I mean, to play in the snow.  Grace and Luke pictured with their little
buddy Devin Herman.

He also built a track.  Luke liked that part best.

If I never see snow again, it will be all too soon.

A Witch and her Dragon

Grace and Shreya (a neighbor friend) 

at the ward Trunk or Treat.

It's been a long time since Grace has been willing to consider dressing up as anything other than a princess/queen for Halloween.  Every year, I try to make the case for how awesome dressing up as banana or a giraffe would be, always to no avail.

After a fairly disappointing trick or treating showing last year due to cold weather and a lot of long dress induced tripping, Spencer was convinced that the best costume for Grace would be that of a water buffalo.  Grace wasn't having that either.  Plus, surprisingly, that costume is not super easy to come by. :)

This year, hope sprang eternal and I once again tried to break Grace out of her Disney Princess induced bubble.  After every Princess costume we looked at either didn't fit or wasn't in great shape, I started tentatively pushing the idea of the witch costume.

At first she seemed okay with it, but the closer we got to the cash register, the worse she felt about it.  We were headed to my sister's house for dinner right after, so I convinced her that we'd get it for now so she could show Ellie and the cousins and see what they thought.  Then, if she still really hated it, we could return it.   That went horribly (tears, dramatic exlamations, etc.), so my hopes weren't too high as we headed home that night.

Miraculously (I still can't explain it), I woke up the next morning to a witch costume clad Grace, happily doing tricks with her witch's hat.   And she was happy about it from then on.  It was a Halloween miracle. She did end up accessorizing her witch hat with a purple crown, but hey, progress was made.   Yippee!

When I still felt that a princess costume was inevitable, I thought Luke would have made an awesome jester in Grace's royal court:

Sadly, he hated the court jester costume.  Something about it being way too top heavy, I don't know... :)  I thought it was pretty adorable.  A friend ended up loaning us the below pictured, fabulous dragon costume so it all worked out in the end.  

Sneaking all the food he could at the Trunk or Treat.

On the way to the Trunk of Treat.

Grace's school had a little Fall Festival on Halloween day.  They sent home a letter requesting that the kids dress up as either what they want to be when they grow up, or something representing their favorite letter.  Grace chose the letter P and dressed up as a purple plum.  All I'm saying is that there are a shocking amount of kids who want to be zombies and super heroes when they grow up.  Apparently other parents didn't take the "no Halloween costume" edict as seriously as I did.  :)

We carved pumpkins with some friends. I helped Grace with hers and never got around to carving mine.  It remains faceless to this day.  Spencer did a pretty good job on his, I thought.

The kids on Halloween night.  It went much better than last year,
despite an ominous weather forecast.  We braved the rain and had
a fabulous time going out with the Warnicks.  Luke is a trick or
treating natural.  He is my child after all.  :)  Strangely, he didn't
trust me to hold his bag of candy.  Or help him put the candy in
his bag.  Rats!  He's already on to me.

Cute group of cousins!

Lucky

Oh, Grace.  She's a funny duck.  Five years old,  full day kindergartner, attentive older sister,  and...aspiring shower vocalist.

Lately, she's been fighting every shower she has to take---bargaining to delay, begging for slightly increased dirtiness.  And yet...once she's in there, she never wants to come out.  She runs through every song she knows.  Multiple times.

The other day, I caught her singing, "if you're happy and you know it, scrub your [insert body part]" for a good ten minutes. She got pretty darn clean that day. :)

Never a dull moment with this one.  It's been a little rough adapting to a full day at school, but these things remain constant: Grace is a smart, caring, sensitive girl and I love her.

And little Luke.  20 months worth of pure joy, that one.  Wow.  What's not to love about that little red haired beauty?  He still doesn't talk much, but he makes up for that with some impressively expressive grunting skills.  He's fantastically cuddly and affectionate, he lives to sit in my lap and read stories, and he's obsessed with cars.  Obsessed.

Everytime we walk to the bus stop to pick up Grace, we have to leave with a ten minute cushion so that Luke can touch and examine every car we pass in the parking lot.  He hasn't starting kicking tires yet, but he'll get there.  Here's a snippet of our daily bus stop trip conversation:

    Luke: Uh!
    Me: Yes, that's a blue car.
    Luke: Uuuhhh!
    Me: Yep, it has tires.
    Luke: Uhhh!
    Me: Yeah, that one's a big, cool truck.
    Luke: Uhhh uhh!
    Me: Yeah, I like the shiny radiator, too.

So, I'm reminded of a scene from Toy Story 2.  You know, the part in Woody's Roundup where they show a small group of woodland creatures communicating an intense and fantastically detailed message to Woody by a short series of incomprehensible squeaks and grunts?  Turns out, totally realistic.  Who knew?  :)

So, so lucky to have such wonderful kids.  Life wouldn't be life without them.

Vacation Trifecta

In July, we turned an intended trip to South Dakota
for a family reunion into a trifecta of vacation family fun.
Heck, if you're already driving 20 hours, what difference 
does it make to add an additional eight?  :)

Our first stop was Williston, North Dakota.  Not only
did we get to enjoy the fabulous company of my brother
Sam, his wife Emily, and their little family, we also got to add an extra state
to our list!  And a difficult one at that!  State #32!

We met baby Declan for the first time.  He and
Grace got along well, obviously.  Ha!  Cutest, cuddliest little
guy you'll ever meet.  And Grace got to have all kinds of
fun with Edison and Alex.  Add multiple delicious dinners and
lots of fun game time after the kids were in bed, and a great trip was had
by all.


This time, we decided to try the driving-through-the-night-trick.  Now, I realize it's probably not for everyone, but I LOVED it.  I drove from 8:30 pm to about 8:30 am the next day, only having to stop once for gas.  For one, so much faster.  Almost twelve straight hours of uninterrupted road trip bliss.  I popped in an exciting book, and enjoyed the peace and quiet.

And, really, how often do I get to spend 12 waking hours without anyone asking or requiring anything of me?  And watching the sun come up?  Awesome.  On the way home I drove through the night again.  Loved it just as much.  Sure, I could barely walk and was mostly incoherent the next day, but hey, totally worth it.  And it made the additional ten hours the next day seem like so much less.  Ha.

 Anyway, if nothing else works out in my life, I think I could probably be a pretty awesome truck driver.  Just sayin.'

After North Dakota, we made our way down south to meet up with Spencer's family at Mount Rushmore.  We stayed at Custer State Park and had a fabulous time camping, seeing the sights, eating, playing games, swimming, and hanging out with family that we see far, far too seldom.

Pictured below: Lilly, April's youngest.  Adorable.  And Mom Gwen.  Also adorable.  So glad she was able to take some time off from her mission to be with us!

And then there was Sylvan Lake.  Wow!  So beautiful.  

I think we all would have spent the entire five days here if we'd known how awesome it was going to be.

Max Fairbourne, Luke's fellow redhead.

Below: Whitney, baby Sadie and Landon (left) and sweet Sammy Fairbourne (right).

From back (L to R): Calais Roemer, Olivia Fairbourne, Anthony Bardsley, and Heather Partridge.

Grace had no idea she had so many cousins.  She loved every minute of it.  Especially the minutes she spent hiding in our tent, decompressing.  What can I say, she needs her Grace time.

Anna meets the paddle board.  So fun.

Of course, we went exploring at Mount Rushmore

 and spent the evening back at camp watching "North by Northwest."

How could we not?

Isabella, Grace and Sydney.  So cute together.  The last day, they made a nest together at the campsite complete with all kinds of wildflowers and leaves.  It was pretty awesome.  Any bird (skunk, squirrel, chipmunk...) would be lucky to call it home.

The whole crew of cousins.  Mostly.

The whole crew of Bardsley siblings.  Complete. :) 

Hanging out at the campsite.  Grace made me that bouquet. 

 She took off her shoelace to keep it together and everything.  I am loved.  :)

We also explored the Jewel Cave National Monument.  Very cool.  Very glad Luke didn't come.  Grandma Gwen kindly took him while we went on the hour long version of the tour.  He, reportedly, cried through the entire twenty minute version.  Ouch.
 Somehow Grace got Chrystel to carry her almost the entire time.
She's a saint, I tell you.  

We had so much fun.  Can't wait for the next Bardsley family reunion!  And next time, for sure Luke won't spend the entire time constipated and grumpy.  For sure.  

On our way home, we decided to check out Badlands National Park.  So worth it.  It was really nice to have a just our family portion of the trip, albeit rather short.  

Best family photo bomb ever.

This was the view that awaited us as we drove into our neighborhood on the way home. 

 I think Columbus was happy to have us back.

And, I'll have you all know, we did our part in depleting the bug population this trip. 

 You're welcome.