Country Kids

 

 

There's no doubt about it: Our children are turning into country kids!  Recently, Leah actually used the words, "I reckon" in a sentence, which caused me to immediately call Mark at work and tell him that we needed to schedule a trip north ASAP!  All joking aside, we absolutely love what I have dubbed the "cute country" that makes up our new town.  Oak Ridge is very quaint and has rural roots, and there are still many working farms in the area.  In fact, this is the view from our house each morning:  Yes, those are cows behind our next door neighbor's back yard:

Can you spy the 3 cows on the right side of the photo?

  Summerfield Farms is a lovely farm near Luke's school that sells grass-fed beef, eggs, fresh cut flowers, and produce.  It's rustic and historic, and the venue for many weddings.  I may have gone momentarily crazy the first time I drove up and saw it decorated for an event, and texted Mark the following:  "I FOUND LEAH'S WEDDING RECEPTION LOCALE!", to which he responded with radio silence.  Maybe it was the ALL CAPS that scared him.  Anyway, the kids love climbing on the tractor when we stop at the market here, and it's one of our favorite local "cute country" places:

 

We've also visited our local Farmer's Market, where we discovered that Leah was fascinated by the live country music that was being played:

 

The musician even let our little country girl strum the guitar, which made her day!: 

 

Another of our favorite places in our town is the old mill, which has been in use since Revolutionary War times and still produces stone ground meal, flour, and corn.  Yep, definitely qualifies as "cute country" in our book:

 

 

Now that we live in the country, Mommy decided that we need a "cute" riding mower to cut our larger lawn (or "piece of land" as we call it out here).  The kids and I picked out the perfect one for Mark for Father's Day:

 

But alas, we decided on a more practical, functional mower instead, and both Luke and Leah have enjoyed helping Daddy use his new gift:

 

 

One of the perks of living in a small rural town is that you may have your own private roller coaster at RidgeFest, Oak Ridge's annual festival.  We arrived early on Friday, and the kids spent the evening riding rides and playing games before the later crowds arrived:

 

Part of RidgeFest included a 5K that went right past our house last weekend.  Mark and I were happy to be spectators (and not participants!) and our family had front row seats to cheer on the runners:

 

 

Here are two last photos of the farm on the road leading to our neighborhood, which makes me happy every time I pass it.  I love that we found this adorable little corner of the world to call home, and to raise our "country kids"!

Moving In

We're settling in and adding our own personal touches to our new house.  Now that we are in Demon Deacon country, we are able to proudly display our Wake Forest flag and feel like locals!     

Our laptop decided that it didn't like its new house and died promptly after moving in, so I haven't been able to update the blog lately.  However, it was the ONLY one in our family who wasn't absolutely overjoyed to be in our home.  The rest of us are thrilled, and after a new battery, our trusty computer is back on track.  We're officially moved in and unpacked.  Every single box has been emptied  and the load was picked up this week (which filled our entire garage).  Phew!  Here's a quick recap of our last couple of weeks: 

Leah decided to add some drama to Moving Day by falling and splitting her chin open.  Mark had just left to pick up the UHaul to transport all of our apartment contents, and instead of helping him that morning, Leah and I ended up in Urgent Care.  On the drive there, I couldn't help but think of the irony that active, wild Luke has not needed stitches yet, but sweet, gentle Leah was going to be my first child with sutures.  I may have even teared up when the doctor confirmed that stitches were needed.  I would have done anything to trade places with Leah and not have her go through this.  However, besides the initial injury, Leah didn't cry at all, and seemed relatively unfazed by the entire experience.  She was very brave as she received her stitches, which she referred to as her "blue whiskers".  Of course she chose blue thread when given a choice, "because that's Bubbie's favorite color, Mommy".  Thank goodness for Doc McStuffins (who sews up her stuffed animals), as Leah kept referring to what "Doc" does when she has a patient. 

A sparkly Band-Aid fixes any boo-boo.

After we (Mark) unloaded our apartment belongings into our empty house that afternoon, we camped out for the rest weekend (until our furniture arrived on Monday from storage).  We ate lots of take-out, had "picnics" on the floor, and camped out in Mommy and Daddy's empty bedroom.  The plan was for the kids to sleep on sleeping bags and for the grown-ups to share the air mattress.  However, this is what we found the first night:

Even Winnie rejected her crate!

 I squeezed in among all three "children", which was very fitting, since it was Mother's Day weekend.  Mark abandoned us and slept in the very manly pink bedroom upstairs.  Leah's new big girl bed was the only real piece of furniture that we had, and Daddy was smart enough to buy a mattress for it that afternoon in anticipation of the above events.  

We've been enjoying our new neighborhood, and have been spending lots of time on our screened porch.  The kids have been so excited to go fishing at the neighborhood lake, and although they didn't catch anything last weekend, they were adorable nonetheless:

Moving into a new house also means furniture shopping, and we were intrigued by Furnitureland South's advertisement that they are the largest furniture store in the world.  After pulling into the parking lot, we admitted that they may just be correct:

We DO live in the furniture capital of the world now!

We're also participating in many activities in our community.  Luke marched in the Founder's Day Parade last weekend (with his tee ball team), which was a perfect small town, family friendly event:   

Luke quickly realized that candy was thrown from many of the floats and trucks, and he took off his hat to collect unclaimed goodies from along the parade route.  Here is he is, marching by us, showing me some of his loot:

Leah was a darling little parade-goer, and waved her American flag at each passing attraction.  It may have been the cutest thing that I have ever seen:

After Luke was done marching, he and Mark joined us and watched the rest of the parade.  We saw marching bands, costumed performers, and many horses, floats, and vehicles: 

We've also had our first official houseguest.  Grandpa came to spend the weekend with us, and we had a great time!  Hooray for visitors and creating fun memories at our new house, now that we are moved in!

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

We attended our first Greensboro Grasshoppers baseball game last weekend and had a blast.  As the kids posed with the statue of "Guilford", the team mascot (we live in Guilford County), we noticed that there were two black lab statues at the other end of the bench.  Little did we know that the Grasshoppers have several very special labs on their team who join the players in the dugout, retrieve bats, and carry buckets of balls onto the field.  We were delighted when we saw these special helpers in action, and concluded that this truly is the perfect baseball team for our lab-loving family!  Don't tell Winnie that she may have missed her calling, but here's a video of "Lu-Lu Gehrig" doing her special job:

Both kids loved the game.  Luke was interested in the speed of each pitch that flashed across the scoreboard, as well as each players' bio and stats.  Leah looked over at her brother and immediately imitated him as he studied his program, and I thought that these two little fans were too cute for words:

 

Leah also shouted, "GO GREENSBORO GRASSHOPPERS!" at the top of her lungs whenever the mood struck her, which is quite a mouthful for a little girl.  The fans around us found this quiet amusing (I hope!).  We had gorgeous weather and great seats for the game, and spent a wonderful afternoon at the ballpark.  Here are few fun pictures of our day:

Luke wanted me to take this photo of him "pushing" the giant baseball!

 

So excited about our new town!

At Last!

 

We did it!  It's ours.  After months of uncertainty, a new job, new school, and new state, we are the proud owners of our new home.  We closed on our house today and signed lots and lots of official documentation and paperwork.  We gave the closing attorney a big check, and Mark and I gave each other even bigger high fives.  We have finally reached the end of this journey, and the last, remaining piece is for the moving truck to arrive on Monday with all of our belongings.  We survived 4.5 months in the apartment without our "stuff" and are overjoyed to be finished with our transition- At last! 

KinderNews

 

There have been lots of fun things happening in kindergarten this month, so I thought I'd share some of the adorable recent KinderNews:

 

I sent Luke to school in a blue striped shirt last Monday and was confused when I couldn't spot my child in carpool line that afternoon.  I realized that Luke had changed outfits and was further disguised by a hat and sunglasses.  It was "Slip, Slop, Slap" day in kindergarten, which is a skin cancer prevention program (and receives applause from this Mama!).  The children were instructed to slip into a shirt, slop on sunscreen, and slap on a hat anytime they were going to be in the sun.  Afterward, Luke (whose nickname in our family is "Captain Literal") was full of educational tidbits, and located every bottle of sunscreen that we own to make sure that the SPF was high enough ("It has to be 30+, Mommy!").  He was also very concerned that we should apply sunscreen EXACTLY 30 minutes before going outdoors, per the instructor's recommendations.  Trying to explain to a 6 year-old that there is a gray area with many things in life (and not solely black and white) is interesting at times.   Captain Literal wore his sun protective gear for the rest of the day, which was very cute (even though I assured him that no UV rays were penetrating the inside of the apartment):

 

The best part was that later that night when I checked on my sleeping son and found this:

Sun-Protected even during slumber! 

 

Luke has also gone on a couple of class field trips lately, and he eagerly anticipated the bus ride as the highlight.  After his first field trip, I asked him how it was, and he replied, "Well, I got kind of bus sick".  I asked for further details, unsure if he had overheard this term from a classmate.  Luke responded, "My tummy felt all swirly... like I was going to throw up."  Oh, boy!  This makes next year's transportation to school very interesting, as we have all been looking forward to Luke riding the bus from our new house to his school in the fall.  We'll see!

 

This picture accurately depicts how we spend every single afternoon lately.  This kindergartener is addicted to Monopoly Junior, which he received for his birthday.  I have YET to beat him, and we've played dozens of games.  Luckily Leah doesn't mind being the banker and it's fun to see how far we've come with board games in the past year:

 

And lastly, the kindergarteners participated in a "Mile Run" today as part of P.E. at school.  We've been "training" for weeks, ever since Luke reported that he was expected to run the mile in under ten minutes.  Mark and I were flabbergasted at this expectation for 5 and 6 year olds!  However, I learned the true story at the mile run today:  The P.E. teacher initially set his stop watch for 10 minutes and has been gradually increasing the amount of time each week to increase the children's endurance.  The goal was for the students to complete as many laps as they could in a 20 minute period by race day, and made me chuckle at the story that Luke told us.  It was a cute event, and we were proud of our little racer: 

Coach Layton (and Leah) giving the kids a pre-race pep talk.

Stretching before the Mile Run.

At the starting line.

Leah cheered for her brother and ran along beside him for some of the race:

Go, Bubba, Go!

 

Here's a cute video of my two little runners: 

 

Congratulations to the entire class of Kindergarteners for completing their Mile Run today!

Leah Lately

 

A few musings on life with Leah lately:

 

I can not state enough how different life is with a three year-old girl vs. a three year-old boy.  Three was Luke's most challenging age, and I was exhausted.  Leah, on the other hand, is incredibly easy at this age, and her default temperament is sunny and happy.  She has tagged along on countless appointments this spring as we looked at houses and then built our new home.  Leah happily came with me to the granite vendor, lighting stores, the cabinet maker, etc. without a complaint, and sat quietly looking at books or coloring.  She has been my helper on many shopping tasks, and the below picture sums it up completely.  I had a very short time period in which to select the mirrors for our house.  I was on the verge of a self-imposed melt-down, and had frantically arranged an entire aisle of mirrors to compare.  Leah was content to sit on the floor, looking through my wallet the entire time:

 

Sweet, sweet, easy girl: Thank you!

 

Leah and I have started a new tradition this spring of going out to a weekly "Ladies' Lunch"- just the two of us.  We try different restaurants in Greensboro and she's a fun date.  Recently during one of our lunch outings she tilted her head and told me, "Mama, I LOVE going out to lunch with you."  Heart = puddle = instantly.

 

She plays independently much of the time in the apartment during the day, and I sometimes forget that I probably should supervise her a little more closely, until we have the rare incident like this:

An entire bottle of Elmer's glue was used for this "craft".

 

Leah participated in a Nature Tots program at the science center this spring, which was a weekly class.  We had a lot of fun learning about different animals and nature themes, and we often explored the science center together after class each week:

Leah petting a goose during her Nature Tots class.

 

Visiting the geese in the Animal Discovery area of the Science Center.

 

Petting Zoo in the Animal Discovery area.

 

My happy little girl!

We also go to a weekly story time at the library, something I attempted with Luke exactly once at this age.  Unlike many of the rambunctious toddler boys, Leah sits still in my lap or on a mat on the floor and listens to each book.  It's lovely... and easy... and a joy to take her each week.  There are no calisthenics to supervise or potential head injuries to avoid, as the chairs are merely for sitting, and not for climbing/jumping/launching ourselves out of at full speed.   

 

She may be wearing pink here, but Leah is not all girly girl.  She adores vehicles largely due to Luke's influence, and was so excited when we joined a new friend on a Mom's Group field trip to the fire station:

 

Leah sat right up front and volunteered many answers, including "Stop, Drop, and Roll!" when the fireman asked the children what they would do if their clothes caught on fire.  She absolutely loved the outing, was the first one on the fire truck, and led the children on the tour of the fire station.  I whispered, "She has an older brother" to the other moms, and they nodded their heads knowingly:

Leah's very favorite time of day is when we pick up Bubbie from school and she gets to play with her brother in the afternoon.  The kids usually do a Quiet Time, and have so much potential to play nicely together (usually this depends on the day and their moods!).  We call Leah "Peeny" (a derivative of Peanut that Luke made up), and she doesn't seem to mind this silly nickname: 

 

Leah is a sweet, old soul in a lot of ways.  She has the cutest phrases for things.  She'll ask me to "please step out" if she wants privacy going potty.  The other day, she exclaimed, "Nature sure is amazing, Mom!", and she often tells me, "You look SO beautiful!" if I am wearing jewelry or anything sparkly.  She says "lellow" for yellow, and in so many ways is still my chubby, yummy baby.  She's a homebody like me, and we love our snuggly pajama days reading together and cuddling:

 

Our little girl certainly keeps us entertained.  She announced after bath time last week that she was going to perform a "Bedtime Boogie".  We caught it on video, as she continued to adapt the name of her dance as well as perfect her moves:

How I adore my Leah Ladybug and all the special time that we spend together right now!