Happy 3rd Birthday!

 Naomi Irene, you are 3 years old today! Happy Birthday!

- I love your beautiful curly hair so very much! You have lovely ringlets. You're doing a better job at letting me brush your hair after your bath, but you are still definitely not a fan. We usually sing lots of verses of "The Wheels on the Bus" in order to distract you during the process. 

- You love babies! Baby Wren, your baby dolls, the little baby JJ from Cocomelon. You seem to have an affinity for taking care of them. Sometimes when you are playing with your dolls, you'll accidentally sit on one or bump them and say "Oh, sorry, baby!" so sweetly. 

- Whenever we go somewhere new or with a crowd, you stay very close to me, usually asking to be held. After about an hour, you warm up a bit and will start to venture a little farther and say a few words. But you are quite shy and give mostly non-verbal cues to questions such as head nods and thumbs up :) At home, you speak full sentences and communicate clearly and well. It's pretty easy to understand what you need/want at any given time. You have found your place in our family and it's definitely the "baby gets what she wants" role, for better or for worse. 

- Pop-Pop took you and Aunt Teresa out for a birthday dinner at Spin pizza! It's so special that you all get to share the same birthday month! You had a great time and felt pretty special! Plus you received some new soft, pink bear slippers from Pop-Pop, just in time for the cooler weather! 

- All dressed up for your special night out. 

- On Halloween, we attended Restore's Fall fun day up at the Weston Red Barn farm. It was pretty windy, but also nice and warm! You rode a pony, went through the corn maze, ate lunch, listened to "Dangle", went on a hayride, and decorated pumpkins. It was lots of fun! 

- You got your cast off -- hooray! The doctor said your wrist healed up nicely. We will go back for one more follow-up appointment, but otherwise, I believe this hurdle has been crossed. 

- While the boys were up in NE with Mimi, Daddy and I took you and Zoë out to dinner at Red Robin. You love to make faces like these. You have learned how to get a good laugh out of us at the dinner table. And it's apparent you love the attention it gives you. 

- You enjoy playing outside with your brothers and sister. You run around, following them, doing the things they're doing. You've gotten braver around Marshall and have learned to hold your own. He has learned how to give you a little more space and gentleness. You also enjoy petting Dora from time to time, but have a harder time being calm around her. 

- You love to sing and dance! You've got the booty shake down and swinging your hips from side to side. You can count pretty well. You know your ABCs. At the dinner table, you're starting to participate more in our daily gratitude. You can recite several of our Bible verses with us, as well as our daily prayers at lunch and dinner. You like listening to the songs on ABC Mouse and your current love is Cocomelon which you watch every night before Mommy and Daddy's TV time. 

- You have a sunny, cheerful disposition, unless you've just woken up {ha ha! like me!}. You need about 30-45 minutes after your naps especially, to get up and running again. But otherwise, you giggle a lot, love to play, and generally go along with whatever we ask you to do. You enjoy baking with me, dumping in ingredients and turning the mixing bowl on and off. And love to lick the spatula and bowl afterwards. For the most part, you prefer to play with Zoë or I, but just the other day I found you in Levi's room, having special time with him :) And Zeke reads you books and does a great job helping you get to the bathroom on time and making sure you're looked after. You are a well-loved child. 

- You do such a great job on our Wild+Free hikes! You mostly walk on your own, and some of our walks are close to 2 miles. You seem to enjoy exploring nature and try your best to keep up with your brothers and sister on the trail. 

- You still take a nap almost every day! I sing you 2 songs and rock you (and you've still been nursing a bit) and then you sleep from about 230 - 4 pm. At night you sleep from about 1030 pm to 8 am. You still love to snuggle and when I'm holding you through the day you often have your face pressed up next to mine. 

- Your beautiful quilt, made lovingly by Great-Grandma Jeanne. 

- You are NOT a fan of bugs. All summer long, whenever you saw a bug of almost any kind you'd yell "BEE!" if it was flying or "SPIDER!" if it was crawling. When the flies started coming inside this Fall, it was very distracting for you at meal time because you were very concerned about the 'bees' flying around your food; as well as anyone else's food.

- You are a little bit of a picky eater, but still do pretty well with trying most foods. You throw every piece of onion in your food on to my plate during meals. You don't love ground beef or mushrooms or tomatoes or pickles or chili. Sometime last month I made chili and you came up to the table, looked in your bowl, and said "Ewwww!" So that was not a win. But you will eat baked beans and sloppy joes. So maybe it's just certain combos that you're not ready for. At night, with Mommy and Daddy you like snacking on cashews, the kettle cooked potato chips from Costco, drinking peach tea with plenty of honey and milk, and joining in with our occasional cake mugs. 

- You don't seem to love swimming, but if you can play outside of the water, just splash or run through sprinklers, you have a good time. 

- This picture is from June 11, you have grown so much in 5 months! 

Naomi Irene, you do live up to your name, both pleasant and peaceful. You are a joy to spend time with and we love listening to your sweet voice. Hopefully I'll have a few videos from this time in your life because you are so precious. We are having a Cocomelon birthday dinner tonight -- we will be having tacos, refried beans, rice, and corn for supper. I'm making a texas sheet cake with hopefully a small cocomelon design :) Naomi, you are dearly loved and an irreplaceable part of our family. I cannot wait to see what interests you will discover in the coming year and all the ways you will grow! Love, Mommy 

Birthday Interview 11/11/2020

What is your favorite food? *shrugs shoulders* Sausage! And bacon! Ham and turkey and eggs. 
What is your favorite color? Purple and pink! Like the purple on my balloon! 
Favorite movie? Cocomelon!
Favorite drink? Orange {it's actually peach, but it's an orange box} tea. 
Favorite song? *whispers* Cocomelon song. "ABCDEFG...."
What do you like to play with every day? Toys. 

**Then she walked away and I couldn't get any more answers out of her. 

September Fun!

 September has come and gone! Here are a few snapshots from the month :) 

Levi moved up to the next older class in jiu jitsu -- Jr. Grapplers! He was ready!

I earned my first stripe in the Women Empowered program! When I have received 4 stripes, I can prepare to test for my pink belt! 

We had a lot of fun with our Artist study on Whistler! We studies a new picture each week and each child drew their interpretation of the portrait. Then we hung them on the wall by our dining room table to observe and discuss throughout the week. 

We lots of nice weather and spent lots of time outside! Our basil (in the background) grew very well this year! 

Levi works nearly every morning to persuade Dora to love him :) 

We finally made it back to the KC Zoo! 

We had missed our trips to the Zoo! We're very glad it's open and running. 

On Labor Day, we went to visit our family in KS! We had fun playing outside, roasting hot dogs on the bonfire, riding the ATV, and catching up. 

Our troop led the first W+F hike of the season at Line Creek Trail. It was rainy and chilly, but we still had a great time! 

Rain gear was necessary! 

Exploring the creek!

We gave Zeke a Calvin and Hobbes book to read and he took off! Enjoying the story as much as sharing it with his brother and sister! 

We've been exploring the trail over at Amity Woods! 

Nature journaling -- her favorite. 

Her curls are beautiful! 

The boys had fun adventuring at a new trail! 

Zeke made the raspberry puree for another new ice cream recipe we tried. His perseverance has really grown and he stuck with this project for 20 minutes. We had fun trying new recipes and making ice cream nearly every Friday in September. 

Sweet Naomi fell down our stairs on the Frozen truck and fractured her wrist in both bones. We took her to Children's Mercy urgent care. 

We waited for the x-rays. She had a great attitude and was very patient. 

She came home with a splint and I think she was happy to have the support. She had been holding her arm all day 

Zoë finally had her first dance class! She LOVED it! 

Our dancing girl <3 

We did another fun history project! 

We used lots of paint and cardboard. 

Painting is fun! 

Very proud of their Richard the Lionheart shields! 

Naomi even got in on the action :) 

We took a trip to the zoo with Miriam and Aunt Teresa 

Poor Zoë girl got some oak mite bites and developed a terrible allergic reaction/rash. She was up for nearly a week of nights itching her hands and neck, arms and legs, her face became very swollen. We had a tea party with great-Grandma Lila's tea set on this afternoon and she was in good spirits even with all the itching. 

A week after her fall, Daddy took Naomi to get her cast put on. 

For a preschool activity, we read "My Many Colored Days" by Dr. Seuss and practiced demonstrating our different emotions. This one was 'sad'. 

September 28- October 2, we had our first week long school break! We went hiking at Maple Woods Nature Trail. Our family is leading the trail for our Wild+Free group on Oct. 8 and we had never been there before. So we explored and had fun! Afterwards we went to Target and each child was able to pick a prize of their choosing (from the dollar section!) for doing so well in our reading challenge for the first 8 weeks of school. Then we got monster cookies from Eileen's Colossal Cookies (my first visit there) to celebrate a great start to the school year and our awesome kids! 

Levi loved picking up seeds and nuts along the trail. 

Zeke loves to be out in nature, exploring on and off the trail! 

We had a great September! Lots of learning and exploring. Zeke started a kids' CrossFit class for 6 weeks on Monday evenings. Daddy has been busy working. And on it goes! 

To life... full of fall trails!