First Day of Home Preschool

This is Leona's Buddy School group.  They are a fun bunch of kids.  Leona has been talking about how I was going to find some buddies to do school with since this time last year, luckily I was able to get a group together once we got here.  From left to right the kids are Hannah Call (Leona's best buddy and partner in crime), James Davis, Leona, Addie Murdoch, Porter Langton (who sadly moved to Idaho Falls, Idaho a month after buddy school started), and Gabe Rice. The first week was at Leona's house but I think Leona prefers the weeks that she gets to go play at other people's houses with other people's toys. :) She is a very good student and enjoys all of the activities.

What a doofy smile!

Visit from Great Grandma Smith

We had a brief visit from Great Grandma Smith, Great Uncle Curtis, and Great Aunt Becky at the end of September.  Great Gma Smith had always wanted to go on an Alaskan cruise and decided to seize the day and do it.  Luckily for us Alaskan cruises leave from Seattle so we snagged a visit with them on their way home.  They arrived in time to catch the second half of Eliza's soccer game, on a beautiful sunny day. Then we visited at the house for a while before going to get fish and chips at the Ivar's down the street from us.  It was fun to get to visit with them.  The girls and I had never met Aunt Becky and this was only the second time that Clara and Leona had been with Great Gma Smith- Eliza has one more visit as she was on the fateful visit where the rental car keys got lost. I think that Clara looks so much like Great Gma Smith.  It'll be interesting to see if the resemblance sticks.  Great Gma Smith brought souvenirs from Alaska for the girls.  Eliza and Clara both got pretty necklaces with stones that change colors in the sun and Leona got hair clips that change colors in the sun.  Somehow she even managed to get everybody their favorite colors without even asking beforehand.

Fun in Early September

Leona had to give up both of her sisters in September when they both went off to school all day, everyday (or so it seemed to Leona).  After having them around for 3 1/2 months it was a harsh reality.  Then Leona realized that she could play with everybody's toys and nobody would stop her and she recovered somewhat.

Plus we took some fun field trips, like riding the bus downtown to eat lunch with dad in the park.  Luckily we moved to the back of the bus right before a crazy guy got on and started yelling expletives for the next 6 stops. 

Leona also got to play with some friends, this is her "reading stories" to our neighbor "Baby Brooklyn".  Leona also began taking a ballet class on Fridays with her BFF Hannah.

These photos are just for fun.  They were taken at an art installation on the bike trail near our house.

What I am enjoying about Leona Elise right now, today, January 7th, 2018.

I feel like I am perpetually behind in writing on the girls blogs and therefore miss things that happen more in the moment.  I know that I'm in August in the posts but I just want to take a minute to mention some things that I'm enjoying about Leona right now.

* Constant singing.  Leona has turned into a little radio.  She sings all. the. time. about everything.  Often her songs are about Heavenly Father and Jesus and how they love her and everybody.  I love knowing that she thinks about that and is developing her own testimony of it at this young age.

* Snake in her mouth. For as long as she's been talking Leona has referred to a hair in her mouth as a snake in her mouth.  Because there are so many girls in this house it is not an infrequent occurrence.  I'm amused that she has stuck with this expression for so long.  I thought it would be short lived.

* Leona is very gregarious.  She talks to EVERYBODY.  I don't even know how many strangers Leona has told about her "doggy birthday".  She is very enthusiastic about sharing her birthday with Frida and Sasha the dogs. She says hi to everyone, invites kids over for playdates all the time, and is a general chatterbox with anyone who will stand still and listen.

* Leona is very enthusiastic about everything.  She uses the words "lovely, wonderful, and cool" constantly.  Christmas morning with her was a delight because everything she opened was the next wonder of the world. We were driving on the highway and in an effort to divert attention for inappropriate pictures Collin said, "Look at that tree!" pointing to one of many identical pine trees.  Leona's response, "That's a wonderful tree!"

*She is genuinely appreciative. She thanks for for many small and large acts that I do for her everyday without being prompted. It is wonderful and lovely and cool. :)

One Last Hurrah for Summer

"Why does dad always have to pick hikes when he gets to choose what we do?" -Eliza

To celebrate Collin's birthday he chose a challenging hike. Twin Falls hike was three miles long.  On the way out they did really well. The way back we plied them with original stories and marching songs that Gma Cole used to chant with us when we were kids. (Left, left, I left my wife and 42 kids on the verge of starvation, did I do Right? Right, my right for my country by golly I had a good job but I Left, Left...) We managed to stave off most of the moaning with those two tricks.  The photo of the girls in the tree is a great "before" picture.  Before the bees attacked that is.  It was such a pretty hollowed out tree and the girls wanted to hide out in it like a treehouse/cave.  As we got closer though we saw some bees and Eliza was like, No way, not going near it.  Bees love Eliza.  We aren't sure if it's the color of her hair or what but they are attracted to her as if she were a fragrant flower. The other two girls were still game though so they got in.  Then we realized there was a beehive above them in that hollow part.  We got them out as quick as we could and nobody got stung but Leona was close because there was a bee right by her eye and she smacked it on her own eyelid. I saw it fall to the ground stunned but luckily it didn't get a sting in before it fell.  It was a close call and we were more careful after that. 

We also spent the last day before school started at the girls' favorite beach, Golden Gardens.  Clara dabbed to celebrate the occasion.  I'm sure that fad will have passed long before the girls read this but there were a couple of years when dabbing was super cool, at least among the elementary cohort.  Let it be known that y'all were very much into that fad.

The Dykes Come to Visit

Our buddies from Houston, the Dykes, came to Washington.  (Digression: Shawna's parents have a summer home on Vashon Island and spend about 3-4 months of the year here.  This year because of Hurricane Harvey they ended up spending 5-6 months there because their neighborhood was under mandatory evacuation and then Shawna and fam were living at their house over the weekend while their house was being reconstructed after flooding.) They were here to visit with family but we snuck some visits in while they were here.  They took the ferry over one day and met us at Lincoln park.  We played on the park for a while and then migrated down to the beach to play.  The kids picked right up where they left off as if they played together all the time.  They started off on the beach and then they made it into the water, floating and rowing on driftwood.  Since Leona wasn't really seaworthy she played on the beach with her new BFF a dead jellyfish that looked like a giant booger.  She carried it around for about an hour while the big girls played with their friends.  It would've been sad if she weren't so entertained.  

The next time we hung out we took the ferry out to Vashon Island.  We went to a small cove that had tide pools with these amazing bright purple starfish.  One of the star fish was struggling flipped over out of the water.  We all took turns touching it before putting it back safely in the water.  It was amazing to see something like that in the "wild".  Clara and Leona were clearly more hesitant about touching it than Eliza. :) It was really fun to get to see our friends.

Fun in August

Continuing our carpe summer diem plan August was a fun month.  The girls will probably never again have such a long summer vacation (probably a good thing 😁) so we lived it up with lots of fun weekday activities as well as fun time with dad on the weekends.  We felt really blessed to land in an area with so many kind people who were willing to include us in their fun.  We spent a good part of the summer just riding bikes in the court in front of our house.  When we got here there were two 5 year olds and an 8 year old already on the court which was fantastic. Ready made friends! By the end of the summer a 4 year old had moved in next door.  We spent so many fun hours riding bikes and drawing with chalk.  Another set of neighbors doesn't have kids but they do have a big, friendly chocolate lab named Buttercup who quickly became a fan favorite.  Multiple people in the court have told us how it's so nice to have kids in the neighborhood.  The funny thing is that there already were kids before we came but since we have all the ages when we go outside it brings all the other kids out to play so we brought the party to the court.  

We went to the Salmon ladder at the Ballard locks which was cool. We only saw one salmon leaping out of the water up above, but down below in the viewing area we saw them resting and changing from being saltwater to freshwater fish, which was fascinating. We also saw the eclipse which was exciting.  We toyed with the idea of making the drive down to the Greens to see the total eclipse but ultimately decided that we'd just stay here and see a 96% eclipse. In order to insure safety the girls had to wait in the garage and I bought them out one at a time, while holding on their eclipse glasses. Leona kept yelling, "The moon is a banana!" It was pretty funny. 

The summer reading program at the library offered free tickets to a Seattle Storm (WNBA team) game if you completed a certain number of hours of reading.  The girls did that no problem and earned us tickets to a fun night.  We met up with some friends from the ward, the Langtons. (They jokingly refer to our family as Ishmael's family to their Lehi's family. They have 4 boys.) It was a really fun night. Lastly we went on the "Rice's Rainy Campout" and broke the curse. It didn't rain at all. The Rices are in our ward and since the ward didn't host a campout they have taken it upon themselves to host a campout for the past several years.  This is the first year that it didn't rain.  We had a great time roasting marshmallows, getting to know our ward better, taking little walks, and Eliza's favorite part sliding down the giant slipnslide. The campgrounds are owned by the church and there was a big hill dividing the upper from lower camp with an enormous, permanent tarp slipnslide built into the hill.  The kids were undaunted but their blue lips and shivering bodies.  They kept sliding down even after the sun went down and the temperatures dipped into the upper 50's.  They were then back at it again right after breakfast the next morning.  Leona couldn't be convinced to try it but Clara did go down a couple of times.  They had a good time running around with buddies while the sliders did their thing.