Resume of a Three Year Old

Name:  Harper Sloan, aka "Harper-Lo" or "LoLo"

Age:  Three and a half
Current position:  Littlest sister, youngest daughter, Princess of destruction, Queen of all things messy
Position desired:  Full-time Hairdresser Extraoridnaire
Experience:  Brief internship in early 2011.  Extensive experience before turning pro in Summer 2012
Special skills:  Scaling countertops, baby gates, opening cabinets to reach forbidden scissors in total silence.  Not managing to poke eyes out with said scissors.  Also available for mural artwork, hot dog eating contests, and pedicures.
Specialty:  The soon-to-be trademarked "layered bob with super-short bangs".

An ear-length cut, suitable for summer, with chunks of hair cut to various lengths throughout.

Short on the sides, so Mommy (aka "hairdresser's assistant") has to cut the back to even it out.  Slightly longer on the right side, because holy moly, the left side is cut really short. Modern "boy style" cut to top of head (a perfect spot that CANNOT be hidden), where partial-ponytail used to be.

Achieve this unique effect by cutting ponytail just ABOVE rubber band.
Career goals:  "To have a mohawk like Aidan!"

Salary desired:  Negotiable.  Payments in ice cream and pop tarts are acceptable.
Benefits desired:  Unlimited access to Sharpie markers, scissors, nail polish, and pantry spices.
To contact:  Just follow the sound of my mother's weeping.

First Day of School

I know, I know, I'm two days late with this post.  In my defense, we've had a busy, fun August, full of family, broken bones, and photographable moments.  This slacker-blogger is still trying to catch up. 

We ended summer with Brandon taking most of the last week off, so we had several good days together as a family heading into the school year.  We did not obsess over the start of the school year, and spend the last 2 weeks frantically shopping and organizing and going to sleep early in preparation for school.  We squeezed every last drop of summer that we could, and then hit the ground running this past Monday.

And by "hit the ground running", I mean I think everyone got breakfast, Emerson spent 35 minutes eating a bowl of oatmeal, and Dane had a meltdown because I had thrown away a pair of broken tennis shoes that were too small for him.  But other than that, a pretty smooth morning, and the kids were all very excited about the first day of school.

Especially this girl:

She and Daddy took the liberty of selecting a first-day-of-school outfit, and I let it go and just let her wear the selected outfit, even though I had something slightly different in mind for this momentous occasion.

Aidan found out at Meet the Teacher that his best friend from last year was in his class again this year, so he was pretty excited to see him again.

Dane also has a classroom full of buddies (and a pregnant teacher that he will probably only have for half a year) and forgot to bring his marker to school so all of his friends could sign his cast.

Poor Dane-o and his broken arm.  Thankfully, it's feeling much better, he's off the pain medication, and has a little more of his spark back.  And by "spark", I mean I had to tell him to quit jumping on the bed and to please stop playing football in the living room. It's going to be a long 6-8 weeks in the cast.  (Sidenote:  Dane reads a lot during school, and today he took his copy of the young adults' edition of the Tim Tebow autobiography.  And he read the ENTIRE BOOK today while at school.  I have no idea if he actually did any school work.)

BACKPACKS!  The elementary-schoolers were happy to show off their new backpacks. When we were in the store picking them out a few weeks ago, Emerson was all ready to go with her pink Disney princess backpack.  Until she saw this Avengers bag with "Daddy Thor" on it.  It's maybe time to cut your hair when your daughter is convinced that the fictional character on her backpack is actually her father.

And where was Harper during all of the first-day-of-school picture taking fun?  Pouting on the driveway with her new backpack, refusing to take pictures with the other kids.

Dear Summer,

Well, it's been quite a summer.  It may not have quite been the Summer of Awesome.  I have to admit, it was more often the Summer of LOOOONNNNGG.  There was more necessary discipline and rule enforcing than I would have liked.  But there was also lots and lots of swimming, backyard football, coloring, puzzles, church camp, grandparent time, and adventure days.  More days than not, my kitchen was strewn with coloring books, swimsuits, wet towels, and chalk.  And books, princess costumes, and Pokemon cards.  I've decided that if my house is too clean, then my kids are probably watching too much TV.

We enjoyed a July full of decent temperatures and lots of indoor rainy days, and an August full of hot temperatures and occasional outdoor rainy days:

We discovered the greatest snow cone stand on the planet way too late in the summer, sometime in mid-August...

but that has not kept us from filling up 3 "buy 9 get one free" snow cone cards.  Turns out the best days end with cold treats (ice cream cones, frozen yogurt, or snow cones) right after a long swim at the neighborhood pool.

We'll miss you, Summer 2012.  It's been a fun-filled one.  But in this house, we are welcoming school, cooler temperatures (hopefully!) and football season with open arms.

One Last Hurrah...Kind Of...

Two days.  School starts in TWO DAYS.  We are frantically trying to cram as much summer fun into these next two days before it vanishes for another nine months.  We've had a high-low week this past week.  Awesome high points, and really crappy low points.  REALLY CRAPPY.

So I'll start with the awesome.  Tuesday we loaded up the van and the kids one more time and headed slightly west, young man, to see Brandon's sisters and their families for a couple of days in the Austin area.  We decided to swing by the Blue Bell factory in Brenham just in case they weren't too crowded and could get our little family in for a quick tour and a scoop of ice cream.  

We were in luck.  We walked in at 11:40, and were touring at 11:50.  Nice.

After the tour, we each picked out our scoop of ice cream (mine was Strawberry Summer Pie, in case you were wondering) and chowed down on our pre-lunch snack.

Aidan got rainbow sherbet.

Harper finished her rainbow sherbet in record time, then proceeded to mooch ice cream off of everyone else.

Harper's fortunate to have such sweet brothers and sister.

By this point they were a little "over" smiling for pictures, and we were all ready to head out for some late lunch.

Brandon got a recommendation from one of the Blue Bell employees, and we headed off the the little airport in Brenham to eat at the Southern Flyer.

Aidan found what he wanted for his birthday parked in the parking lot right outside the door at the restaurant.

The Southern Flyer did not disappoint.  We sat on their outdoor patio, which was screened in on all sides, sitting right next to one of the 4 giant air conditioners that were on the patio.  Perfect :)

Harper and Emmy read an airplane magazine with their Daddy

While Dane read a Wimpy Kid book while he waited for his food.

Every now and then my kids are really, really sweet to one another, and this was one of those days.

Emerson was reunited with her beloved gravy at the Southern Flyer, and dipped every single piece of her food in the gravy before eating it.

Last Thanksgiving, we were driving back home from my parents' house, and stopped by a Texas Burger for lunch.  Emerson ended up with a chicken finger basket with gravy.  It did not occur to me that she may have never had gravy before that day.  She dipped her first little french fry in the gravy, ate it, and her world has never been the same since.  She immediately tapped me on the arm in that Texas Burger, leaned over to me and proclaimed, "Mom.  I found my dip."  She found her dip.  And I had no idea we had been looking for it.  But gravy is her dip.

We got to Aunt Val and Uncle Izzy's house Tuesday night, and had a wonderful reunion with all of the cousins.  The boys fell right into a wrestling match/football game combo, in between climbing this awesome climbing tree in the backyard.

It was all well and good and awesome until about 8:50 Wednesday morning, when Dane fell out of the awesome climbing tree and broke his left arm.  Yup.  Broke his left arm.  He ran into the house, cradling his bent-at-an-unnatural-angle left arm.  I loaded him up and headed to the ER.  After lots of morphine, some Ketamine sedation, and a talented ER doctor straightened his arm out, we loaded up a very sleepy Dane, ("this broken arm was better than the last broken arm because I had a better dream with the sleeping medicine this time.  I was a baby bumblebee, just flying around...") and headed back for a few more hours with the cousins.  I FINALLY got to meet baby Juliana and snuggle the sweet, sleepy baby.  When everyone was awake, fed, and in relatively good moods, we got all the kids dressed and went to a park for cousin pictures.  Sorry you broke your arm 4 hours ago, Dane, but it doesn't get you out of cousin pictures.

Please excuse the hospital arm bands on Dane's wrist.  I forgot to take them off.  Being that the chief baby-holder had one arm out of commission, Juliana wisely stayed in her carseat.  And it's a little spooky how much Aidan looks like Laurel.

We cut our trip a little short, and headed home after dinner Wednesday night.  We missed church and bowling Wednesday night, but figured we needed to get Dane-o back home so we could load him up on codeine and build him a pillow-fort in his bed to protect him from rolling bed-sharing brothers.  Yup.  The REALLY CRAPPY part of our summer.  :(  I'm trying to look for a bright side, at least Dane broke his arm at the end of a summer filled with fun and swimming and backyard football.  He will just be in a cast for the next 6-8 weeks, and out of PE for a couple of months past that, thanks to our uber-conservative crazy orthopedic.

And we're T-minus 2 days.

The Non-Synoptic

I have this little problem.

You see, I like to take cute pictures that have all four of my children in them.  I love it when all four children are all looking in the same direction and smiling.  I'm boring like that.

But you see, I have this problem.

Let's call her the non-synoptic.

She's not so great at the picture taking.

She marches to the beat of her own little drum.

If everyone else is sitting, she is standing.  Or dancing.

She's the non-synoptic.

Oh, how I love my little non-synoptic.  Even when I can't get a decent picture of all four littles because of her.

Brave

When we were at the beach last week, Emerson got "BRAVE".

She LOVED the beach.

She would wade about waist-deep into the water, goggles firmly in place, and attack each wave as it came splashing onto her.

She put those fists up, got her game face on, and she OWNED those Galveston waves.

Screaming, "I am BRAVE!"

Girl was in the zone

and ready to take on anything that little corner of the Gulf of Mexico could throw at her

Those waves didn't know who they were messin' with.

If they thought they could take on Emmy, they had another think comin'.

Because this girl is BRAVE!