Dawwwwww...

It's been a pretty normal week. For example:


:) This is what I happened upon after getting Autumn up from her midday "rest." Don't call it a nap! We're settling into our new routine. Autumn manages to find time for fun stuff in between her schedule of school, homework,


aikido, and dance! Seriously, Autumn doing tap is one of the most adorable things I have ever seen and you guys know I'm not "that mom." Poor thing, though, I think she might have inherited my "everything looks like a fight" gene. One of the other dance teachers and I giggled every time she shot her arms out and kicked like a teeny Chuck Norris.


It's not all hard work, though! We had a birthday party for Teddy.


Autumn frolicked as a butterfly princess while helping me fold towels and attempt to fix a broken picture frame.


We even made a ridiculously delicious dessert today. I'm probably going to post it on the pinwheel blog but it's sooooo goooooood. So good that I forgot to take a picture of it when we cut it up!


We invited Lainey and Pd and Kyle and Lindsay over for the dessert but also for fried rice which I made using a pork tenderloin I made earlier this week. I didn't like it very much so I'm using it in other things, like tonight's dinner and tacos. When P'd came in, he hid from Autumn.


Haha, grandparents! Speaking of...want to see something soooo funny and sweet?


It's Mike and Ryan when they were littles!! Autumn went up to the picture at Lainey and P'd's house on Friday and said, "who is this with Hudson?" So, so funny. It also reminded me how much Autumn resembles Hudson. I know sometimes she looks like Lindsay and, especially in the eyes and personality, she's little Mike but I didn't really didn't think about how that meant she resembles Ryan some until I saw this! Want to see something else, just to be fair?


That's me when I was a kid, along with my mom, dad, and sister Valerie! Craziness. It's kind of nice to have Autumn be such a blend of me and Mike because I can see myself and my family in her, too! So much fun. Here are some current photos.


One of the questionnaires I filled out for autumn's OT had some family info. It asked what her favorite family member was...of course we wrote P'd! The rest of us fall in at varying points behind! We're okay with that, though.


That's it for this week! Everyone in the path of Isaac, be safe!

The First Full Week

Autumn just finished her first full week of school! She really did great! And Autumn likes her teacher so much that she said she misses her teacher when it's her day off (meaning the weekend). So sweet!

Monday she looked like such a little grown up that I just couldn't stand it:


By the way, she wants all of you to know that she had a bandaid because she skinned her toe...


Playing with crazy Uncle Kyle. :)

(I think you have to click this to view it...)

Back to school...Thursday I sent her to school in a jumper that had a cloth belt, a purple sweater because it's about 12 degrees in her classroom, and two braids. When I met her at the walk-up door, Autumn's teacher came out and told me that Autumn had left her belt on the playground, which led to some dismay on Autumn's part when she realized it at rest time. When Autumn made it out and I got a good look at her, she wasn't just minus a belt, she was dusty and only had one braid left. The other had unraveled and her hair was waving about, medusa style! And she had no idea where the tie had gone.


On our way to the playground, I asked Autumn what happened to her belt and she said she was using it to make a map so the Friendly Frog would be able to find the house she and her friends built for him out of straw. I have no idea where they got the water, but they even dug a hole and put water in it so the frog would have a pond! She wasn't happy to find that the ground had absorbed the water.


When I put the sweater and the belt into Autumn's backpack, I realized that one of the sweater sleeves was completely encased in mud! A good day, indeed! Too funny! Here she is looking clean on Wednesday. Autumn's doing occupational therapy for Sensory Processing Disorder. I'll be writing more about it next week on the Pinwheel Blog because we'll be getting the official evaluation from the occupational therapist. So far it's been a great experience! I wish I had know that private OT was available--and covered by insurance!--and we so would have done this sooner.


Biscuit has, by the way, returned to Autumn's regular play rotation. :) I promise you, if you have ever given Autumn anything, it will get played with! She never forgets anything and tends to cycle through her different animals. Here is Biscuit having breakfast while opening her lemonade stand. Biscuit appears to be an entrepreneur!


Tomorrow our second full week of school will begin! Wish us luck!

The Delivery

Once upon a time, there was a Butterfly Fairy.


She had a Super Special Secret Delivery to take to her Butterfly Fairy Aunt's castle across the village. So, she gathered her tiara, wand and her magic spoon...


mounted her Steed of Steel, and set off on her journey.


Braving the Great Driveway Hill, the Curb of Doom and the Asphalt Range, the Butterfly Fairy safely arrived at her destination.


Parking her Steed, the Butterfly Fairy retrieved her tiara, wand, magic spoon and her Super Special Secret Delivery,


excitedly ran the cobblestone path


and presented her Super Special Secret Delivery. A rock shaped like a heart.


After she spread love and sparkles and Butterfly Fairy joy, the Butterfly Fairy embarked on her journey home.


The End.

School, here she comes!!

Thank you SO MUCH for your prayers! Today was such a good day for all of us. I took a photo of Autumn right after she woke up...


And here she is transformed into a...KINDERGARTENER!


There's a book she got as part of the Books from Birth program called Look Out Kindergarten, Here I Come! In the book, the little boy mouse washes behind his ears before school. So, of course, we had to wash behind her ears.


Last night I really mom nerded out and drew a picture for Autumn to see when she woke up. Before we headed downstairs where Mike had made us oatmeal--he told work he'd be late so he could come, so sweet--I showed it to her and she loved it.


Papa oatmeal! I moved that table downstairs when we had some friends over and haven't moved it back yet because Autumn has enjoyed breakfast there so much in the mornings.


Lindsay (she lives across the street now! Did I tell you that??) came over to see Autumn off and I should have gotten a photo of them! But Lindsay got one of us. My hair was the opposite of cooperative. T_T


Our facebook friends have seen this already but it is too cute not to share again! Here we are in the parking lot.


This is one happy miss!


I'm not sure if this will be her permanent classroom or not but I hope so because the teacher was suuuuper nice. And how adorable is this outfit? They have to wear collared shirts and blue, khaki or black bottoms. I made sure she wore something she liked (pink! a skirt!) that was soft and tagless and I got her some no seam socks from a sensory kid store so she wouldn't be distracted by anything.


No tears at all! I think us being there first so she couldn't feed off anyone else's sadness was a huge advantage.


At the end of the day, not much more worse for wear! Although she did have her lovey which I just put in her bag so it would help her to know it was there if she got worried about anything. Funny enough, this is the school Mike went to for a couple of years after they moved to Memphis! He said, "the trees are bigger!" Because it was almost 30 years ago!!


After school, we went to YoLo to celebrate a great day! Penny met us which just made Autumn's day even better.


Happy about yogurt...


Not so happy about stopping for a photo with mama!


Oh!!
And how funny is this? I know raccoons are a disaster if they get in the attic but these little guys were wandering across the street when Mike and I got up! They trundled across and into our azaleas and then spent some time climbing our tree!


It was kind of a fun little show for us.

Seriously, thank you for your prayers. This was such a great day for all of us!

Sigh...

Sunday night/Monday morning readers, tune in tomorrow for a full post...for THIS is happening tomorrow:


o(╥﹏╥)o

Prayers much appreciated, as always.

A Time to Dance!

So we're doing this now!


I have to admit that watching Autumn do aikido is pretty awesome but watching her do ballet is downright adorable. I'm such a mom! And this was almost SUCH a great picture!


She's loving it and I'm pretty excited because the teacher said she could go on to Level 1 ballet in the fall instead of hopping into the creative movement class. Not too bad for a kiddo who took foreverrr to walk, haha.


The day I took these photos, they were pretending to be mice who found some cheese and then had to run away from the cat. And then they pretended to have a beautiful ring which they lost, had to look for, and found again.


This is my favorite series. I thought it'd be more appropriate as a collage...not a bad leap!


By the way, Molly says hi!

Outdoor Fun in the Hot, Hot South

Well, the first couple of weeks of July, I didn't take a ton of pictures but this week I went way overboard! But, I'm going to stick to one subject at a time so Autumn in ballet will have to wait. I guess that makes this paragraph a teaser for next week's post!

This week was craaaazy hot. The humidity and the heat index have been through the roof but we managed to get some early morning fun time with friends. Monday we got to hang out with Cathy and Samuel for the first time in a while!


We went to the park at Shelby Farms. If you haven't gone yet, you totally should! They have a ton of fun stations. Autumn had a particularly good time climbing the nets which wasn't easy in sandals. I have got to get her a new pair of tennis shoes because she has outgrown hers.


Then Wednesday, Mimi had the wonderful idea to go to Oaklawn Gardens. I had never been before but I loved it so much I got Mike to go with us again that night. It's a tiny little park area owned by a couple who has been there for 60 years. And before that, the house and land belonged to the husband's family. I talked to Becky, the wife, and she was absolutely fascinating! They have this eclectic collection of Germantown memorabilia. Even a train car and a caboose! Here's Josh "driving."


And then Autumn took her turn. These two could have stayed there all day.


The best thing about that spot at that time? We got to see a train go by RIGHT THERE! Autumn loves trains so she was tickled pink once she got used to the noise. I love this photo because she looks so grownup and serious about whatever she's telling Josh. You can see the train blur in the background.


When we went back with Mike that night, we had a great time wandering around with him. I think we're going to go back to take photos when it's cooler and maybe the leaves are turning, how pretty will that be! I had Mike take a picture of me and Autumn since I'm always the picture taker. :)


I confess that I ran this through about 5 different photoshop actions to get this look but I thought it'd be perfect for this photo. I really wish I had this one "pink undertone" action because that would have been SO CUTE.


And isn't this sweet?


:) It's not a bad life, for real.

It's about to get better, too! If you hadn't heard, we are now officially a waiting family! You can read more at Passing Pinwheels, as always! The short of it is that we could get a call any time to meet our baby or our birth mom--and it could be tomorrow or two years from now. We'll see how it all goes!