Quinnisms

In the car on the drive to a birthday party:
Q: Mama, can I use your phone?
Me: Yes, but you aren't going to take any pictures on it if you use it.
Q: I won't take pictures but I will just look at the camera.  I need to decide which smile I am going to have at the party.  (Proceeds to make different smiles into the camera and evaluate them on the screen.)
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We are gearing up for a big siding project, that will lead to repainting our house.  We've been talking about that some--what colors we'll use, etc.  One day as we were pulling out of the driveway Q said, "Too bad Van Gogh isn't still alive.  We could have him paint our house in sunflowers and those colors he uses."
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Q: Mama, I know a new word.
Me: What's that?
Q: Asinine.  It means stupid, dumb, foolish.
Me: Interesting word, where did you learn that?  
Q: DAICIA you TOLD me you read the Ramona books when you were a kid.  Didn't you pay attention?  IT'S IN THE BOOK.
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Friday night we were stuck in traffic on the I-45 feeder for literally an hour because they had shut the road down for construction.  It started getting late and the kids were tired and grumpy.  Q started complaining that she needed a blanket to put her head on.
Me: Sorry, I don't have anything at all to give you.
Q: Can I have your sweater?
Me: I don't have a sweater.
Q: Well you're wearing a skirt and shirt.  Can't I just have some of that?
Matt: You are welcome to take your shirt off and use it for a pillow, Quinn.
Q: MATT, I'm not going to sit here with no shirt on, PLEASE!

Yeah....cause asking someone to do that would be ridiculous?!  Unless it's Mama?

viaBeck.

Sunday morning I sent Beck down to his room with a mission of choosing his offering gift for God.  My kiddos give their things rather than money, as money still doesn't have much value to them (though Quinn is definitely getting there...), so each week they choose a toy or personal possession to give to God.

Beck came back down from his room with his beloved blue fire alarm.
B: I'm giving this one to God because it doesn't make any noise.  He doesn't like loud things to hurt his ears.  

I must say I love the 2-3 year old stage of offerings, where they give open-handed and whole-heartedly of their favorite things.....snakes named Pookie, Shelby Cobras, smoke alarms....And then we spend the rest of our days trying to return our hearts to the place where we can give like that.  Moments like this really drive home Jesus' words about "being like little children."

Thanks, Buddy, for the real sermon before the actual Sunday sermon.....

And another:

B: Pinky's not coming to take Quinn to school with us today.
Me: Why, Buddy?
B: Pinky's on vacation.  He's going to Mexicoke.
Me:  You mean "Mexico?" 
B:  Yep.  Mexicoke.  To get some Cokes.

And Another:
While getting him settled in for his nap-
B: Mama, you're the sweetest kisser.

Nothin' but sweetness here.

today {outside}

 Today we went on our longest bikeride ever!  I'd planned just to ride part of the way on the road, and then we'd walk once we got on the path.  However Q was loving being offroad, so she rode the whole way.  She seriously rode like 3 miles today!  And with that little bike of hers, it's a lot of pedaling!

 We rode to our "turtle bridge" where Q was heartbroken to see our favorite softshell turtle with a big hook in his face.  She is begging Daddy to go catch it and get it out....We'll see about that....

 Here's how he gets pecans down:

 Yep, I found wildflowers.

 We have to walk under a bridge that has bats under it and it's rather stinky.  Today he handed me his long grass pieces to carry and stuffed one finger from each hand up each nostril.  It was pretty hilarious!  I don't even think I will teach him the traditional method of nose plugging--his way is too cute!

We have had to put Q on bike/scooter-riding-in-public probation because she is just a crazy girl once she gets going....all over the road, on the wrong side, not paying close enough attention to other riders/cars/pedestrians....after a very unsafe and frustrating ride last night we had a little Come-to-Jesus meeting at bedtime with her and went over how things have to be.  She did so much better today and we were all proud of her progress.  She gets so excited and cocky that she stops paying attention, then ends up doing unsafe stuff....so today she was really being more diligent....just in case all our biking/scootering photos look too lovely....needed to give some behind the scenes that involve lots of us yelling, "Quinn, GET ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD."  ;)

Quinn's bday celebration

This year Quinn's birthday festivities were kinda out of sorts because we had a lot going on in our family.  Our new little niece/cousin was born 4 days before her bday, so Mimi was in Tennessee, I was ready in case I was needed to go help (Madi spent several days in the NICU), and GrandSue had a recent foot surgery and shingles....so our family was a little out of sorts.  When Mimi got back to town she told Quinn she was sad to have missed her birthday and Quinn said, "That's okay, it's more important that Madisyn breathes well than having my party."  SO SWEET.  Anyhow, we still celebrated our girl on her day, though we haven't had her parties yet.

We met Shann (Lovebug was outta town) at La Madeleine (Q's choice) for dinner.  

 Then we walked over to Coldstone for ice cream!

Lots of fun!!

Them. An Update.

Here are my two munchkins, late September.

Beck 1, Q 3 

 Beck 2, Q 5

 And, in keeping with the tradition, I bribed them with some M&M's and set up the scene in Beck's bedroom to get our annual pose!

Beck 3, Q 6

 And their favorite part....when I let them make silly faces!

 Here they are singing their favorite Rend song.

Book news....

These pictures were taken after a 15 minute melt-down because she had to wear shoes (for our bike ride) other than her beloved blue tennis shoes, since they had gotten soaked and muddy at school earlier in the day.   So she wasn't the happiest for this series.  And that is life around here!

I introduced her to the world of Ramona and Beezus--some of my childhood faves.  She has been listening to all the stories on Cd.  She is a huge fan!

 We loved this short chapter book--it was hilarious, had some great illustrations and was extremely well-written.  There are more in the series we are anxious to check out!  This would even be good for younger listeners as it was pretty short--we finished it in one naptime.

 This one was a big accomplishment--over 500 pages with very small font.  We LOVE the Tumtum and Nugmeg books.  This one is a compilation of 3 of the books.  We spent about 2 weeks working through this.  Q was on edge, so captivated by the story through every page.  The stories are sweet, simple, beautiful...I can't say enough about these books.  We just loved them!

 This is actually a later book in this series....Which we didn't realize till we started reading it.  Oh well, we will now go back and read all the others.  We both really enjoyed this book, and it has a more mature content, so we got to talk through some interesting topics, but which were still developmentally appropriate for her.  She couldn't wait to get to our chapters every day, and I enjoyed it, too!

An outing with Mimi!

This morning there was a chill in the air when we stepped out the door!  

And the thermometer stayed under 90.  Waaa-hoo!!  

On days like this we drive with the windows down and the radio up, and we decided it was a good day to meet Mimi at the park for a walk/ride/scoot in the sunshine! 

 Turtles under the bridge:

 Beck saw a man running shirtless, so he decided that he was hot and needed to take his shirt off.  We like to keep it classy.

Mimi snapped this one of me giving the little guy a help....with my bouquet in hand, of course.  Fall wildflowers in Texas are awesome!  I can never resist picking a few.  

Man I love golden sunshiney autumn days!  Looking forward to soaking in all the ones to come!  I know two little people who will probably be willing to join me!

School morning.....

Tuesday is soup today.  I kinda forgot until we were headed out the door, so our kale was as fresh as could be....as in plucked from the garden on the way to the car.  Beck loves to carry something into the school for Q every day.   

These days Q only wants her t-shirt shorts (so she doesn't have to change later in the day to ride her bike--dresses and bikes don't mix well) and her too-small tennis shoes she refuses to part with.

Lately.....

This is how we mostly spend our afternoons, if they have anything to say about it! 

Replacement cicada after he lost his beloved one from last week.  Good thing for big sisters with sharp eyes!

This week.....

Beck found this dead cicada at Trent and Mayra's last weekend.  He carried it lovingly around all week, until it finally got lost.   

 Our neighbor came running over to get us as this snake was in their driveway and they hate snakes.  After hearing about them killing the last one, we begged them to let us come offer snake removal services to keep our snakey friends alive.  So we rescued this little guy and had a lot of fun holding it before we released it on the far side of our yard to live out its days!

 Shannon made Quinn this super cool playmat with beanbag toss, tic tac toe and hopscotch.  It has been a BIG hit and great for this super rainy week!  Beaux keeps score.

 We did some face painting!

 Some watercoloring:

 Decorated our table for Michaelmas (29th) with St. Michael and a dragon:

 Took an "after-the-rain" hike to pick cattails from the pond:

 There are mushrooms everywhere after days of torrential rain:

 The kids begged to splash in this puddle at the park:

 We got a new car.  (real pics to come!)  Friday night we did a Sams trip in it and tried out the giant trunk!  YEa!

 This guy started riding his big boy bike this weekend!  Look, I had to put a little basket on the front so Pinky could ride along:

 The kids spent their birthday monies on kick scooters:
(which Quinn spent every spare second of the weekend riding--I can't believe I didn't snap a picture of that.....)

 Quinn's copywork during communion this morning:

 Matt the monkey.  He cut down a bunch of dead branches in our trees.  He climbed up as high as the ladder would reach, then climbed the tree (on belay--see, I am belaying him with a rope), then pulled up his chainsaw (on the slacked rope) and cut away!  He is a pretty good arborist and all the giant limbs fell perfectly!  My boy has wicked chainsaw skills!

 When you come outta the tree, there's nothing like a Little Mermaid cup of ice water delivered by your 6 year old!

 Then we had a big mess to clean up on the ground.

 We gathered up a bunch of acorns from the limbs:

 Then we cleaned the gutters--which means Matt on the ladder doing all the work and me standing at the bottom spotting him and emptying the bags between trips to the top.

This guy has had a great time building all weekend with the various materials scattered around the garage and driveway.

And boo, in one of the storms a dead limb off our neighbor's tree came down on our truck and dented it.  

This inspired Matt to get busy with our driveway widening project so we could park both cars out of the reach of our neighbor's trees.  We are going to do a paver extension next to our driveway to make it wide enough to park two cars, so this weekend brought a pallet of pavers and a load of cement aggregate....lots of digging ahead for our crew!  Here are my two littles enjoying the forklift show!

We also got to celebrate my nephew's 6th bday and meet one of our new nieces/cousins!