Home of Douglas Loots

Amazing that summer has come and is already more than half over. Time just flies, especially when it’s summer and you have all kinds of time to spend out doors.

June started off well. In the video, the first clip is Brayton thanking Aunt Judy for his new blanket. Just loves them both and goes to bed with both every night. They are both wearing their tutu’s that Colette made for them and I get a kick out of watching Lauren run around. She has this kind of wavy back and forth run, it’s hilarious.

We did lots of fun things the past two months. We’ve been making lots of trips to the Farmers Market on Saturdays. The kids love the bands playing in the street, we get to dance to the music or just sit down and enjoy it too. Plus Colette and I can enjoy a Saturday morning bloody mary or beer of our choice.

4th of July was exciting. We went to the Urbandale parade with Uncle Matt and Aunt Audra. The Iowa National Guard flew in a helicopter, we figured that Gov. Culver would be getting out of it, but he didn’t it was just some very nice pilots that let the kids jump into the helicopter and check it out. The kids got lots of candy, which we’ll be divying up for some time one piece at at time.

At the end of July we went camping at Mom & Dads, in the back yard. Friday night was interesting enough in the fact the kids didn’t get to bed until midnight and then they were up at the break of dawn. Colette and Lauren slept in one tent and they ended up heading inside at about 5am. Brayton and I in the other tent and we stayed out until about 7am. At that point I was unable to keep Brayton down he was ready to get up.

At the end of July we started harvesting our garden. First we picked the green beans, banana peppers, and some jalapenos. When I was cutting them up, I got the bright idea of eating one of the slices of jalapeno. It was so hot, I was coughing, gasping, and my eyes were tearing up. I’ve never eaten a jalapeno that hot, must be our good soil. Brayton helped to pick the sweet corn a week later, we also picked a couple more peppers, and a bunch of grape tomatoes. At the end of the video you get to see Brayton helping me to husk the corn and the final frames are us eating our bounty at dinner the evening of July 28th.

All the past two months the kids and Colette have been spending almost every warm day at the various swimming pools in town. The kids really love to go, and they are all getting the tans to prove it. We’ve also been spending quite a bit of time on our bikes. Brayton is getting too big for the bike trailer so we bought a tag along bike that hooks up to mine. Need to get that hooked up and try it.

Wow, what a fun summer!

In the last post I talked about our “Conversations with God.” The other night we were thanking God for our food and our house. I make it a point to tell him that there are children in the world that don’t have food to eat or a house to live in. Brayton proceeded to ask me where do they go to the potty? I wasn’t sure how to answer that one…I tried to avoid the subject by changing it talking about how many children don’t have enough food because their mommies and daddies don’t have any work to earn money.

He persisted with his question about where do these children go potty. I answered him that they have to go potty outside. Then he made the exclamaition:

“DADDY, DO THEY GO POTTY IN THEIR PANTS!!”

I guess if these kids don’t have a house to go potty in, the next logical place (to a 3 yr old) is in their pants…

My how time flies. It’s been a month since I’ve posted here. I know we’ve got at least 20 minutes of video and tons of photo’s I’ve got to go through to get a really good post up, but my conversation tonight with Brayton deserved it’s own post.

Sometimes I don’t know where my child comes up with the topics he chooses to talk about. Tonight after we said our prayers, he proceeded to tell me a little story. That story went from one thing to the next and was just hilarious. I had to do my best not to laugh while he told it. I think what planted the seed in his head is after we said our prayers, we do a “Conversation with God.” We proceeded to thank God for our food and our house. We proceeded to thank him for all Mommy and Lauren. Then we thanked him for all our Grandmas and Grandpa’s, Aunts, and Uncles.

When we got done with our prayers, here’s how the conversation went:

Brayton:
Daddy, when Grandma Coke and Pappa Allan come they sleep in the room next to me.

Me:
Yes they do.

Brayton:
When Grandpa Gordon comes, he snores.

Me:
He does? How do you know that?

Brayton:
When I go to Grandma Cindy’s house, I sleep with Grandma Cindy and Grandpa Gordon sleeps in the other room and Lauren sleeps in the baby room in the baby bed.

Me:
Really, how do you now Grandpa Gordon snores? (I wanted to figure out how he knew this, if he actually heard it or if he heard someone else talking about Grandpa’s snoring)

Brayton:
When I sleep in Grandma Cindy’s bed, I can hear Grandpa Gordon going “Hnnnooooggg, ssshhhhh, Hnnnnoooogggg, sssshhhhh.” (He was doing his best to imitate snoring).

Brayton:
When Grandpa Gordon and Grandma Cindy come they sleep in the room next to me too. And when they go home Grandma Cindy sleeps in her room so she doesn’t have to hear Grandpa’s snoring…

It amazes me how perceptive a 3 yr old can be, and what a long memory he has.