Keeping up with the "K"lubines

I am doing a "three things" update again on the kids.  It is a nice way to go back and see what they were up to at a certain point in time (the last one I did was sometime in the Spring).

Hannah

ONE- Hannah is in third grade now and is having a good school year so far.  She has a wonderful teacher and several of her old friends in class.  Her favorite part about her new classroom is that her teacher doesn't have assigned seating and has different sitting options such as balls ect.  She really enjoys reading now (that was the one thing she struggled with a little bit in Kindergarten).  

TWO- Hannah still enjoys a lot of after school activities.  She is playing Fall Softball twice a week, goes to gymnastics once a week (and she spends half her life upside down at home.....always doing a handstand, cartwheel or backbend) and Girls Scouts.  She also really likes having a friend over to play even though she doesn't like it when her little brother and sister want to play with them.  

THREE- Hannah likes to have her quiet time sometimes and just read or listen to music or braid her dolls hair.  She is a wonderful big sister to Evan and Nora despite the fighting.  Hannah and Evan are very competitive when it comes to playing any type of game, whether it is a board game or a round of soccer.  She is not a very good loser and will not let Evan win.  

Evan

ONE- Evan is in his last year of preschool and he goes three days a week now.  He is having a really hard time adjusting to school again.  It is so heartbreaking to see him cry and get sad.  He already  starts to get sad the night before school.  He says that he just misses us so much.  We sent a family picture with him to school now, so when he gets sad he can look at it.  I am hoping that he will just need a few more weeks to get adjusted.  It is so though to see him sad!

TWO- Evan loves to play games.  Any kind of game.  Board games, card games, soccer, football, basketball, races, obstacle courses, made up games and the list goes on and on.  He wants to be doing something every minute of the day and he has lots of ideas.  He always says that we are playing the "championship game".  He likes to win, but he is also a very good loser (especially in comparison to Hannah).  

THREE- Evan is a very sweet boy with a tender heart.  He tells us "I love you" all of the time.  He likes to make everybody happy and is always the first one to come up with a compromise.  He always says "How about we do this....." and tries to come up with a fair way of doing things.  

The other day he told me that he likes Christmas better than his birthday.  I asked him why and he said that at Christmas you get presents and no shots and on your birthday you get presents, but then you have to go in to the doctor to get shots.    

Nora

ONE- Nora is a little firecracker.  It is Nora's world and we all live in it.  She doesn't lack any personality.  She is super funny, talks a lot and doesn't have time to snuggle, sit or read.  She is always on the go.  She seems so much older than 2 (I know she is getting close to 3, but for right now she is still 2......I am in denial that she will be 3 soon), she does everything the other kids do.

She recently started saying "I love you super much and bigger much", so now that is something we all say to her too.

TWO- Nora is going to preschool three days a week as well and she loves it.  She said this morning she is going to check on Evan, because he was sad at drop off.  She said she would bring her friends to go check on him.  She asks me every morning if she has school today.  

THREE- She loves to play with her baby dolls and is a great little mother.  She packs them up and they have to come with us a lot of the times.  She can't just pick one, there are always at least 3 dolls. 

Nora is very close to Evan and they have been sleeping in the same bed for the last few weeks.  Since then she has finally been staying in her bed all night.  I still have a monitor in her room and it is funny to hear them talk in the morning right after they wake up.  Evan was teaching Nora how to play "rock, paper scissors", so now that's what they do every morning.  Nora pretty much does paper every time and Evan continues to try and teach her.....

We had a wonderful busy weekend.  

Friday morning I attended Hannah's Bash at school, because she won an award.  She won the Literary Luminary award.  Hannah really enjoys reading now.  She struggled a little bit early on with reading and then it finally clicked and she has been an awesome reader.  

Friday night Scott and I went to the Cobblestone Harvest Party.  Scott has been on the Board for the Cobblestone Project and this is their big annual fundraiser.  The Cobblestone Project Farm is a local non for profit that grows produce and donates it to local food banks. 

We had a few tables at the event, so Scott rented a bus to drive us out to the Morter Barn venue.  The barn is beautiful and was a perfect venue  for the Harvest Party.

Here are a few pictures of the ladies


And the entire crew


A lot of the ingredients for the meal came from the farm (potatoes, arugula, peppers, onions, squash, radishes, mint ect).




The drinks and music was good, so everybody had a fun evening.

The next morning we headed to Evan's soccer game and then got ready for a family camping trip with Hannah's Girls Scout troop.  This was our first night in a tent with the kids.

We had a great afternoon playing in the creek, running around and playing soccer, doing a scavenger hunt, exploring some caves, going for a little hike, building a solar oven, roasting hot dogs and s'mores.







By the end of the evening Scott and Evan decided to head home, but the girls and I stayed and spent the night in the tent. Hannah had so much fun with her friends and they stayed up late playing card games.

Both girls slept pretty good in the tent.  I woke up a lot, but overall I did get some sleep.
We made breakfast the next morning and then started to pack up before the rain hit.  Scott brought me a Starbucks to the campsite, which was a welcomed surprise.
 We did feel the effects of a long and fun and exhausting day on Sunday and everybody was in bed early.
I think our family might be ready for a few camping adventures.

Last week we had a couple of sick days in our house.  Scott was traveling, so I set up pallets on the floor for the kids to sleep on in my room.

Evan had the stomach bug one night and the next day Hannah had a stomach ache, so I kept her home from school just in case (thankfully she never got the bug, just a stomach ache).  Evan told Hannah "I am still beating you at throwing up.  I am winning".  Everything is a competition at our house, even the throwing up.

This little firecracker makes us laugh all of the time.


We were still able to enjoy some swimming days last week.  We should be able to squeeze in a few more swims and hopefully a boat ride before temperatures cool down too much.

Evan and Nora still like to play "beer pong".  We still have the table set up in our driveway and we just bounce ping pong balls into empty cups.  Last week Evan wanted to add water to the cups to play the game.  Nora said "I need to drink all the beer too".

This will be a short and sweet update with a little bit of this and that.  We have finally settled into our back to school and activities routine.  We are staying busy between softball and Girls Scouts for Hannah, soccer for Evan and gymnastics for all three.

We are also trying to soak up every last bit of summer.  I do enjoy Fall, but I am not looking forward to winter.  I do not like to be cold and my kids do not like to wear a lot of clothes or shoes for that matter and they do much better when they can just run around outside.  For now we have beautiful weather and are soaking it up.

A little Kona Ice at First Friday a few weeks ago

We had a wonderful Labor Day weekend and did a lot of swimming, went for a boat ride and hung out with friends.

The kids wanted to sun bathe and had a picnic after church......

I took the kids to the Neighborhood Market to get a few things and Evan grabbed a big pack of Hot Dogs.  Hannah walked over to tell him we can't have those and while she was there she saw a package that said Wieners on it and read it out loud.  Evan just kept repeating Wieners, Wieners and was cracking himself up.  Then Nora started jumping up and down and chanting Wieners.  There was an older lady in the aisle watching all of this and she told me that we should have our own TV show.  Haha!

That same morning at the Farmers Market they had a little spinning wheel and depending on the number you landed on you had to answer a question about your family.  Nora's question was how many siblings she has and she got it right and won a sucker.  Evan's question was what do you like most about your mom and he just stood there and didn't answer.  He finally said that she is nice.  As soon as we walked away he said "What if I would have said she wipes my butt?" and started cracking himself up again.  I am glad he did not give that answer.

Hannah has been practicing her French braid on me.  

A little after school picnic in the driveway

Hannah had school pictures last week and she wanted her hair straightened.  She looks so grown up with her straight hair.

It was perfect ice cream weather 

And while we were eating ice cream and enjoying the sun the city was working on this......

putting up Christmas lights.  What??????

After eating some ice cream we went for a little swim, but Hannah didn't want to get her straightened hair wet, so she found a shower cap.

Then a few minutes later she changed her mind and went all in.  Nora found the shower cap and put it on.

And her bathing suit was on backwards, but she wouldn't let me help her

Nora and Evan were fighting over a scooter yesterday.  Nora wanted to ride it, but Evan had it, so she just started stomping her feet and saying "It's mine,  I got it for my birthday".  We have no idea where she got that from.  That scooter was definitely not a birthday present.

Evan finally had his first soccer game last weekend.  He has been so excited to play.  He has asked us to bring a piece of paper and a pen to keep score (since they don't keep score at his age).  Hannah took her job pretty serious and made a score board

She kept track of the teams scores, Evan's goals, out of bounces and "hurts".

He looked so cute in his uniform and played great.   He scored 9 goals.  He is really into soccer right now.

Scott and I went to the Razorbacks game on Saturday afternoon.  We haven't been in several years, so it was fun to get out and go. 

The Hogs lost, but it was still a fun afternoon.