The Great Outdoors- Rhea Style

Gosh. I have so many blog posts that I just put together! HOORAY!! Life has been SO BUSY lately! It's been great, but I just keep walking through my living room, looking at this computer... feeling it call to me... and I say, "There's just no time..." I'm so happy to 1. get these pics off my phone so I can clear up some space and 2. share our awesome life with you!

About a month ago, the whole fam-dam-ly packed up and headed to Booper and Andaddy's for the weekend. These two, of course, were princesses before we got the car unpacked! They are seriously the BEST of friends! What a blessing. 

 After we got settled in, mom started fooling around in the kitchen and whooped up a little bit of THIS!! Bellini's for the ladies!! We were three happy lady folk! Good call, momma! You ROCK!! A cold, tasty libation for a tired momma is like a 15 minute glorious mini vacation and I'll take it every time!

London and Caden have both mentioned wanting to go camping many, many times. I didn't tell them what was going on, but after I finished my beach drink, I broke the news! SURPRISE!! I was taking them CAMPING tonight!!!! (albeit in the back yard.) They were so stinkin' excited and I was thrilled to be going on this little adventure with them! FUN!

 However, being outdoors is hot, you know. And they really needed air conditioning, and they were SWEATINNNNNNNNG. Kids these days. (That would be a fan they are all standing in front of. Hard knock life.)

 With the help of my amazing sis-in-law, we had our tent up and fire going all by sunset! It was such a gorgeous night! Lala grilled us up some delicious dogs (GO GIRL!!!) then we made smores! (which are gross by the way! Yuk!) Also- in a total parenting win, Lauren and I told the kids that, 'everyone knows that if you eat your whole hot dog, then it keeps all the camping monsters away....' 

Boom. 3 dogs, fully eaten. 

 Bedtime. Bad-to-the-bone in the front (London) got sent inside for a while because she would NOT go to sleep and wanted to keep everyone else awake. About 20 minutes later, she moseyed back out saying she promised she would go to sleep! And she did. Praise the Lord. 

After everyone was asleep, I was left... staring through the tent, totally terrified! I kept replaying all of the Columbus horror stories... and there have been a few, so that's a legitimate concern. Barry left Sam out, which I was glad because I felt like he protected us, but he kept walking around so I'd hear random sneaky footsteps all night. I was thankful, however, for working hard to memorize scripture! About 1 am, I fell asleep reciting, 'He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty'... I finally fell asleep feeling fully protected. A verse that brought me peace in another time of life, brought me peace on a fun family campout. Scripture. Always applicable. :)

Lo and Behold, we survived until morning! Little Bad Girl was the last to sleep and the first to wake. I was doing the momma-gritted teeth-whisper-threats... 'if you even THINK about waking anyone up, you're gonna be in so much trouble!!!!' It couldn't have been 5:30 when she woke up! Goof ball! Lizzy woke up about 30 minutes later and they quietly had silly tent time until Caden woke up! 

 This boy. Here he is explaining how Spider Man works. I love him so so much. 

 Good morning, sleepy head!

 When it was actually a decent hour to be awake, we headed inside and Caden, London and I made delicious blue berry pancakes. We were pretty proud of ourselves! 

 We spent the rest of the day swimming at Old Waverly. Well, Lauren, Booper, and the kids did. They gave me a pass since I had a sleepless night so I got to lay out, read, and sleep. I won by a long shot. It was so awesome to veg out! Thank you, ladies!

At bedtime, Andaddy took the kids upstairs and read them Brer Rabbit and Uncle Remus. I love those stories and can remember them from when we were kids! 

 So sweet!

 Then I put this tired little pup to bead and laughed at how it looked like she was strangling poor Shaun the Sheep. His eyes look like they were about to pop out of his head! :) Ha! Maybe you just had to be there....

It was a FANTASTIC weekend! I'm so glad we made the effort to give the kids a fun time! I will never forget this night of excitement and (very mild) adventure with 3 of my very favorite people. Life at it's very best. 

Downtown Birmingham For The Win

I love this city. This comes as no surprise since I include that exact sentence in 3/4 of all my posts. It is so fun! Earlier this year, Downtown build a brand new baseball stadium and exported the Birmingham Barons team from Hoover to Downtown. I thought it all sounded fine when they were building the facility but honestly wasn't super interested. We had never gone to a game before so it didn't matter much to me. The stadium opened and all the sudden Instagram (my social media platform of choice) started EXPLODING with posts about how amazing this place was. 

So, being an advocate of experiencing everything our great city has to offer, I bought London and I a pair of the cheapest tickets they had, piggy backed with our best friends, and off we went for a classic, all american evening at the ball park.... 

It was truly a great night in America! The 'poor folk' area of the stadium was INCREDIBLE and that's without us even stepping foot into the section that actually has SEATS! :) We sat in the outfield so the kids could run around and not bother anyone. I've never seen London play so hard in my life. She and Knox were dripping with sweat! They had the best time ever. The stadium has so much for kids to do...  playground, jump houses, mini wiffle ball field, mini sprint track. Hours of fun!

Shortly after we got there, God painted the most beautiful sun set for us to enjoy! This isn't edited at all, just an all out lovely view. Wow. 

Knox, Lucas, and London posed for pictures being professional baseball players. Lucas' faces were so cute!

We stayed up way too late because I just couldn't leave before we watched the Friday night firework show. It was so good! (picture below taken from the internet) I am so proud of our great city for investing in family friendly entertainment! I love the fact that a low stocked wallet doesn't put a damper on us living life to the fullest in any way. I love you Birmingham and am so glad to be raising a kid in this beautiful, fun city!

Rhea Life

Before I post about the Rhea's, I have to tell a quick story. I won't take the long route... usually the point of a conversation between me and London has a long and unconnected path! Let's just say our conversation on the way to school this morning starting with a question about the word 'toot' and ended with me saying, "Andaddy is a really good whistler. You should have him teach you how to whistle next time we're in Columbus.'

London: "you teach me."

Me: "Hmm. Im not sure how to talk you through it. Put your tongue just under your teeth like this, then pull your lips together like this, then blow out.'

London: 'HMMMMMMM." (making noise with her voice)

Me: 'You look right, but don't make any noise, just blow out air.'

London: *whistles like a bird*

!!! :) She was SO excited! I couldn't believe! Little kid just DID IT! Way to go little one! I'll try to get it on video for you! She's a ridiculous amount of fun. I miss her so much right this very second! 

On to the point of this post! Believe it or not, I'm not the only member of the Rhea/Lane clan who takes pictures. I was working on a project and needed all photographers input, so I ended up with a bunch of great pics from the Rhea side of the family! I don't know the story behind most of these or the time of year, but they are cute non-the-less, so enjoy!

Follow the Rules

We're apparently setting some rules at the house:
"Mom, I do not like your dress at all. But you have to like mine or you'll go to time out."

How about this jewel... during conversation about how other people beside just London are beautiful and how it's nice to tell other people they are beautiful because it makes them feel good, London tells me that I'm not beautiful. I asked why she would say that and she says, 'because I do not like your face at all.'

Ha! The truth of three year olds is harsh, but it's one of my most favorite things when said at appropriate times. The things out of this kids mouth are so funny! Here's a Londonism's post. I have probably written about some of these but I have a HUGE list of them stored on my phone so here goes!

Playing in my makeup one day. She was so very proud of how beautiful she was! :)

Tonight, I was reading her the book 'Peter Pan'. She said, "momma, peter pan lives in my heart.' I said, "No he doesn't, baby! God lives in your heart.' 'No, mom. God lives in my second heart' (hand switches sides of her chest to show me where.) I keep on reading... 'cinderella lives in my third heart.' Me: 'Does she?! Oh, okay!' I keep on reading.... 'Snow White lives in my heart over here (hand on left side of belly).... read some more... 'and all the other princesses live in my other hearts right over here (hand moves to right side of belly).

I let London dress herself one morning and she came in ready for school just like this. TOTALLY worth it! :)

She is three so wearing what SHE wants to wear is sometimes a mexican standoff. I tried reasoning that she couldn't wear her white patent leather shoes to school and she said, "Mom, it only hurts a little bit when my feet are all bleedy.' Dear lord. 

Speaking of feet, earlier this week after breakfast, she came in moaning and said, 'My feet hurt.' I asked why and she said, 'cause i eated too much cereal and the milk ALL goned down to my foot.' We've got digestion down to a science at our house! Andaddy would be proud!

Her school hired a new director. Coach Crump. Coach is a very big, very tough looking, totally bald man.... and London looooooooves him. On the way to school last week she was telling me all about how there was a spider inside and Coach killed it. We pulled into the parking lot at the end of her story and she summarized with, 'Coach Crump killed that spider (then she interlaced her fingers into a fist, put her hands under her chin, and batted her eyelashes)... and he saved the day!'  (In her dreamiest voice!)

Words I love:

Hue-normous= Combination of huge and enormous. 

Sting-a-ma-dig = Thingamajig

Nufting= nothing

Hiccin'= Hiccuping

On purfuss= on purpose- (she's usually upset when we talk about people who did mean things 'on purfuss' which makes it even cuter!)

I'm brrrr'ing cold= Brrrr. I'm freezing cold. (this is a current fav for me!) 

They have a teacher at school named Ms. Mataya, but no one can say that so they call her Ms. Potato.

Sappeared you= disappeared you.  We sappear everything with our magic wand. 

Bresfisk= Breakfast. Her version is SO HARD to say!

Lady and the Ramp= the movie Lady and the tramp

Sunday afternoon body art. 

We went through a phase where she would pet everyone's skin and ask 'Who painted yourself?' She was looking for you to answer "God."

Two weeks ago, we were sitting in traffic and she was 'talking on the phone'. I was eavesdropping in on her conversation and she called Moses and told him that she and mighty angel Gabriel would come over today after school and play in the back yard. Oh I love it so much. 

Peaking around the booth at the two darling older girls behind us at the mexican restaurant! So tickled by them!

We participated in the library's summer reading program this summer. We tried our hardest to fit in as much as we could and little miss read over 2,400 pages in 2 months! She got some super cheap, but way exciting prizes out of the library prize room and was so proud of herself for all of her reading! Here she is showing off her treasures!

And last but not least, my favorite story as of late. I picked her up from school one day and she was clearly upset. They had just come in from the play ground so we got up to the car, got her buckled in and I asked what was wrong. I took the note exactly as she said it....

"Molly hitted on me and when Hudson came to check on me I was all frown face so I went and sitted on a log."

She's my favorite person ever.