Soccer and Strawberries

I was in no mood to write a blog post last week.  We had spent the weekend at the cabin and it was a challenging two days.  Hadley was in full two-year old mode - tantrums, not listening, hitting and climbing out of her pack-n-play.  I had envisioned a fun and relaxing weekend as a family but came home Sunday night feeling tired and depressed at having to yell more than I'd like combined with a dose of mommy-guilt.  My post last week would have been about all the ways our family didn't get along and the stress of the weekend.  Luckily, we redeemed ourselves and had a wonderful week.

New with Miles
Miles got another haircut from nanny Doreen - she has him looking so cute!  The kids are both in Pea Pods, a children's nature and science class, at the Arboretum and Miles comes home with facts about dandelions, dirt and all sorts of interesting stuff.  Every week they bring home a plant to plant in the garden.  One night he was carrying around a basil leaf - smelling it - fascinated by the scent.  Watching him was an awesome reminder to stop and take time to smell all of the amazing things around us.  He's also getting really good at recognizing all of the letters and numbers and is the mini-adult in our household.

He had soccer the last three Tuesday nights.  While he spent the first night crying and clinging to us by the last class he was huddling with his team (the Dinosaurs), kicking the ball, running and scoring goals.  Sometimes he would lag behind his friends - walking instead of running.  When I asked him about it he said his shoes made him run slow. 

New with Hadley
Hads can sing the alphabet, recognizes some letters and numbers and counts up to 10.  She also has the most amazing vocabulary for a two-year old.  People often remark how much and well she can speak.  Our girl has been going through a more challenging phase and we went back to reading "The Happiest Toddler on the Block" - a parenting book that explains even if our little one looks and acts like a mini-adult their little brains are still developing and are often irrational, physical and extremely emotional.  In this book they liken small children to cavemen and the description seems appropriate.  It helps diffuse our frustration with Hadley's challenging behaviors when we think of her as "Bam-bam" our little cave girl.  

Family Fun Day
Saturday was an official family fun day.  We headed to Hutchinson in the morning and visited our CSA farm, Loon Organics, where we picked strawberries, watched the chickens and learned about bees.  We then had lunch at Zella's in town and played at their city center park.  After naps we headed to Lebanon Hills Park for professional pictures.  While it's always a bit stressful trying to wrangle the kids and cajole, bribe and threaten them in order to get a few good pictures we're optimistic that our photographer captured a few cute moments.  This afternoon we had a party at Grandma and Grandpa Nickolay's with the Sievers.  It was was a great weekend with beautiful weather - it feels like summer! 

The first pontoon ride of the year.  Everyone was happy at this moment!

Miles Beckham on the soccer field

The rest of the team is by the goal already - this is one of the times where Miles' shoes were slowing him down

So proud!

Checking out the chickens

Picking and eating juicy, ripe strawberries

A fun summer party

The three cousins

Hadley made us all laugh while she aimed perfectly to blast Miles and Corey with the hose