Fun Times

We've been off enjoying fun times with these fine people. Where's Lila you say? Well you'll just have to stay tuned to find out:)

Lila's Words

Lila is in that sponge stage. Whatever you ask her to say, she says. And makes the words cute in only the way that she can. Nate has been challening her lately with words like agitated, potomus, and parachute. She can finally say Kitty Paus but usually calls her Beo anyway. She says Bobo less and Nate more, which makes me sad. And everyday it seems that she masters a word that used to be so cute when it wasn't mastered. Ahh. She's growing up. 

I love this video. She said Hi to "Blu-dette" without any prompting and it warms my heart that she talks about all of her cousins.

Loss for Words

I'm at a little loss for words this week. And I have no pictures. It was our first normal weekend at home in  while, so I took a break from capturing my children's every move. We swam, celebrated the Griggs move to England, swam some more, watched Elmo, played Batman, went to bed early, and swam even more.

I also did lots of procurement. And housekeeping. And refereeing. Here are a couple of snippets of the things I remember most about our weekend.

Lila loves roll-on sunscreen containers. LOVES THEM. Like over the top obsessed. If she sees one, she has to have it or she will scream, cry and carry on until you can hopefully distract her. Sometimes you can't and it carries on for hours. I know someone out there is saying, clean one out and give her the empty container. Um, nope. She has to have it rolled up where she can touch it OR IT JUST ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH. And more crying ensues.

Nate is super into Batman. He has several old episodes of the real Batman on his Kindle. He's been watching it so much lately. His favorite character is the Riddler. He uses his old Super Why mask and wand to act out all things Riddler. He talks to me about him like I know him. When in fact, I had to look him up to see what he was talking about. And now I'm on the hunt for a Riddler costume for Halloween.

Have a great week!

What To Do

A couple of things have recently happened to us that caused me to think "What to Do?"

The TV that we purchased in February mysteriously quit in June. It was still under warranty, thankfully, but the warranty required you to ship the TV back to the manufacturer. Do you think we still had the box? After several weeks, Scott took the TV to Kinko's to ship it. We waited. And waited a little longer. We finally got word that they couldn't fix it, that we would be getting a replacement. Woohoo! However, Scott did mention something about them finding a replacement of equal or greater value, meaning you could get a TV that was larger than the one you purchased. Normally that would be a WooHoo! Except we got that size TV because it fit nicely in our existing entertainment center, as we are patiently waiting to upgrade our living room furniture when we find ourselves in another abode. As previously stated, who the heck knows when that will be.

So when a TV 2 sizes larger than the TV we purchased showed up, we find ourselves in a conundrum. Of course, we'd like to have a larger TV. But is it really worth purchasing a new piece of furniture to house it? New furniture that wouldn't match with the rest of our furniture? Ai-yi-yi. What to do.Bigger isn't always better!

Nate is going to Lila's school (his old school) for a few days this summer. They have a program for older kids and he has had so much fun. And it is so much fun for us to have both kids in one place, even for only a few days. One problem. They still ask them to rest after lunch. Well. Our sweet, napped-til-he-was-5 years old-boy, has been sleeping for almost 2 hours every afternoon. They aren't stopping him of course. Normally, I would say Woohoo! More sleep! Well. Not-so-much. He believes he needs to add these hours to the end of his day and is having a hard time falling asleep before 10:00 PM. Way past my bed time. What to do. More sleep is not always better!

Adventures via iPhone

Last week's adventure in iPhone pics...

Leaving on a jet plane...she was wild. But happy.

 The movie star in Athens, complete with accessories.

 My big boy on a riding toy that is much too small for him:) His legs go on forever!

 Great night out with friends in Atlanta - we don't get to see the Pharmacy School crowd as often as we'd like!

Back at the old Nashville hangout - Sportman's! It's such a happy happy place for us. If only the Pooley's could have joined us:)

 Excited to see Nate on Saturday morning! I think they missed each other. Although it only took about 2 hours for them to start fighting again.

Lately Loves

This summer I decided to take a different approach to Nate's shoes. In the past, I've had to purchase more than 1 pair of shoes to get thru the summer / fall. I heard about Keen's and decided it was worth it to buy a more expensive shoe, but only have to do it once. These shoes are the BOMB. They are water resistant, comfortable and protect his feet. And he'll be able to wear them for PE when school starts. Score.

They went on sale at REI this week and I purchased Nate another pair for next summer and Lila a pink pair too! So exciting!

 My mother-in-law told me about this iPhone app call ShopKick. I'm usually not that into apps especially if they require me to do something. Well. This one changed my mind. You find nearby stores that will give you "kicks" and when you get to a certain amount of kicks, you can use them to get gift cards to great stores like Target, Toys-R-Us, Starbucks, etc...You can get kicks for walking into a store (varies) and for scanning items. Let me tell ya, Nate & I had a great time walking around Macy's last weekend scanning the items. He LOVED it. Score for ShopKick for providing a great way to get a return on just walking into a store AND allowing kids to be entertained while shopping:)  

 I'm not one for fancy water. But since I drink so much water, sometimes plain water gets old. I found these when I was out of town last week and am hooked. No calories and tons of great vitamins (Scott says I don't get enough vitamins.) And tastes like lemonade. Guess I'll be adding these to my bulk list for Sam's:)

Around the World in 9 Days

The Boyles have been around the world and back in the last week and a half. Nate has been gone from his bed for 9 nights and I'm only 1 for 9 in my bed as well. But we are back home now and have many stories to tell from our adventures.

On Friday the 13th, our family of 4 flew to Atlanta to visit Mimi & Paka. Scott was thrilled when his mom suggested we go to UGA on Friday for lunch. We had an awesome lunch at the Grill and then walked over to take some pictures at the Arches. I have to admit when Scott & I first started dating he took me to the Arches, which happens to the picture recognition for UGA, I was not impressed. Being from Missouri, our idea of an Arch is much larger.



Mimi & Nate at the Arches.

Scott was almost giddy to be back in Athens. Guess we need to go more often.

Back home in Dacula, Lila listened to Paka play the guitar.

And Nate helped Mimi bake a cake.

On Sunday, the Odom family of 5 came to visit! We were so excited to meet the littlest Odom and hug on the rest of the fam.

Of course they wouldn't all look at me. Too busy shooting each other.

Levi, the littlest Odom. It was so hot and humid while we were there. I'm out of humidity practice since STL has had hardly any rain this summer. I felt like I was in one of those movies based in the south, like A Time to Kill, where everyone is always sweating:)

Goggles Girl - she is fearless in the water!

The two "littles" - thanks Blue-T for leaving your pj shirt the same week Lila got permanent marker all over hers!  We're getting good use out of it:)

He is so sweet and such a content baby. Love him.

Getting ready for Mimi's photo session - how is she already this grown up??

Giving her cheesy grin:)

The warm-up to the picture session. I love this picture. Noah & Gavin LOVE Nate. They all 3 play so well together and I'm very very thankful Nate has such wonderful cousins.

The baby that started all this grandchildren business...

We've grown alot since him!

Mimi & her lovelies!

So funny. I told Lila to smell this flower. Guess she got her senses mixed up.

Nate was trying so hard to be nice to Lila...

She wasn't having any of it...



So thankful for these 2! Nate stayed in GA with Mimi & Paka, Noah & Gavin for the week. We missed him so much but are beyond thankful that he can do this and have such a great time. 

Thank you Mimi & Paka, Amanda, David, Noah, Gavin & Levi for a wonderful week!