Heidi’s Unedited Life

I wanted to do Ali’s week in the life project this week, but it just isn’t going to happen. Instead, I’ll do random again.

We’re up to our eyeballs in a huge, messy project. I’d post Before pictures, but we are so very far away from After pictures, and I’ve been told in no uncertain terms that no one needs to see the disaster. (Right now, the project is at the much larger disaster stage. Where things get worse before they get better.) Instead, I'll share a picture of a visitor in our driveway (taken out the dining nook window). We often have deer (even up to 8 or more) in our yard at dusk or night, but rarely in the middle of the day.

My brother-in-law, Casey, turned 40, and we travelled back in time to 1971 for a really great party. I was doing well to just show up, but my sister and her husband are over-achievers.

We’ve entered a new baby stage. The one where nothing is safe. She bum-scoots all over the place (it looks hilarious!) and is pulling up to standing on *everything.* And with this stage has appeared a new Lola. A very, very wiggly, determined little girl.

(While I'm being real, do you notice the background of the picture above? The Happy Birthday banner still up from Luke's birthday in May. I thought I'd keep it up for July 4th (America's birthday, don't ya know), and I'd hate to take it down right before Leif's birthday (in August). Maybe I'll take it down in September. Or wait until Christmas decorations go up... And then there's the picnic basket STILL waiting for that photo shoot I meant to do with the kids a month ago.)

Lola's new height means she has even more things to get into. A mobile, determined little girl in a little house full of boys' toys. Legos. Nerf gun bullets. Permanent markers. All sorts of fun stuff.

But she's so adorable. Still has hardly any hair, but I think it is growing a tiny bit in the back.

She LOVES to play with books. Her favorites are the cookbooks on the bookcase heading into the kitchen.

Speaking of reading, as difficult as I find it to parent three young, crazy boys, I love to watch their love of reading. They read constantly. And in all sorts of places. I think Luke topped the list of strange places to read, though. Warm clothes made a nice little nest on a cool, Oregon summer morning...

Speaking of Luke, when he was younger he didn't talk much and he didn't really enjoy being read to. His love of books and reading came as a big surprise to me. He still surprises me often with his interest in books and ideas... just when I least expect it from him. The other day I was reading Tom Sawyer (aka, Luke). I didn't think Luke was listening, until he excitedly said, "Sssssss! The s's!" He was so earnestly pointing out the alliteration in the sentences I had just read. "It was the sleepiest of sleepy days. The drowsing murmur of the five-and-twenty studying scholars soothed the soul like the spell that is in the murmur of bees." Doesn't it just make you sleepy? Thank you, THANK YOU, Michael Clay Thompson for teaching my boys about the beautiful sounds of language.

And that’s all for now, folks.