First Grade Scholar!

Nola LOVES First Grade!

She's reading all sorts of books,

learning all sorts of cool facts,

and earning a pretty sweet award!

She was chosen as

"The First Grade Scholar"

for the month of September!

Great job, Nola!

We are ALL so PROUD of YOU!

It was The Best of Swingsets. It was the Worst of Swingsets.

This Spring we splurged on a gently-used vinyl-clad

swingset from Craigslist.

It was a thing of joy.

It had forts for hunkering down...

A sweet slide...

A perfect trio of swinging toys...

And lots and lots of smiles.

We thought we had found the PERFECT toy!

And it was -

for about a month -

until our sweet, tenacious Payton

fell from the highest fort, and broke her leg!

Here's her X-ray from that same day.

She had a spiral fracture in her left femur.

We took her to our local hospital, 

and they had to transport her to the County Hospital

where they can handle trauma.

What a scary, scary night!

They checked her from head to toe,

and she only hurt her leg.

We had friends who helped out, 

ease our journey through the hospital system,

and her surgeons were very wise and handled 

our precious Payton with great care.

Dr. Early put two tiny rods through her bone,

called intramedullary rods, 

which held her leg together

as an internal splint.

She came home in a wheelchair,

and spent a few weeks wheeling around in it,

but it didn't take long for her to be out and about again...

Even suggesting we keep the doomed swingset around a little while longer...

Okay, Pay Pay, We'll keep that darned thing,

but we will require that you use it according to the rules,

and if you don't we'll have to package you up in bubble wrap 

before you go out to play.

We love you, and are grateful you healed so quickly!

As for the swingset...

I'm thinking Craigslist may be in your future at some point.

Nothing personal.

As for the metal rods...

They eventually became 

THE COOLEST SHOW & TELL EVER!

Student of the Month

I can't believe the cuteness

or the pride that we feel as her parents.

Nola is student of the month in her Kindergarten class,

and can we just say, "Woo-hoo!"

She's an awesome daughter,

big sister,

friend

and

just an awesome girl.

We are proud of you, Nola!

Love, Mom and Dad

Christmas Card Outtakes

Oh man, I knew that I should have thought twice about posting the blog address on our Christmas cards!  This would mean that I'd have to catch up a little bit on my lag in posting.

Thank you, to those of you who have ventured over here (and that's not just Nonnie!  Hurray!), and thank you for reminding me to post our moments before they are far too distant memories!

I can hardly stand the cuteness and the craziness of trying to get these three little ducks in a row and get universal SMILES!  Needless to say it took many, many takes...

 Two-ish out of three isn't bad...

 Until that one-third starts to spread dissent... 

 Alright then...

Let's try some bribery! 

Suckers! 

 And, let's see how the sugar affects our shoot... 

 Great Smiles!

 Crazy Smiles!

 Alright, let's dial down the smile...

Finally, we found the best way to get a picture 

was to make our little stinkerpot Charley as happy as a clam,

and to jump in on her shot,

and Voila!

Merry Christmas from the Akls!

(and three cheers for Charley's long-suffering sisters

and mommy!)

Louisiana: Lake Emfred

There's something special about Louisiana.

There are lots of things I don't miss --

primarily the humidity and the mosquitoes,

but I want for my girls to grow up knowing

about all of the beauty, culture and charm that are unique to Louisiana.

Nola and Rhys throwing rocks off of the same docks we used to fish off of as kids.

My mom and dad still live there (when they're not out in California), 

as do my sister and her three kids: Declan, Emma, and Rhys.

We decided to pay them a very long visit this Spring,

and we had such a wonderful time!

Papa helping Nola on the monkey bars near the lake.

I could easily tow this load several miles each day.

Not only is the cuteness level enough to lighten the burden,

but the load sure does feel lighter when there are no hills --

and it's February, so no humidity or mosquitoes!

Papa photobombing Charley's swing time

No photobomb here!  

Nola and Payton welcome him over, as long as he does all the hard work.

We loved Lake Emfred and the park,

but most especially, we loved going with our family.

Charley's One!

My mom: What are you going to do for Charley's Birthday?

Me: Oh, probably nothing.

-silence-

My mom: Why don't you all come up here?

(In fairness to me, Nola just got over pneumonia, 

and we just started a massive project on the house)

I promise, I did not intend to shirk my mommy duties, Charley,

but I have to hand it to your Nonnie and Aunties,

because if not for them,

your birthday would have consisted of a cupcake 

and a shaky i-phone picture commemorating it.

Instead, we have a "Charley's One!" Bug-themed birthday

with cousins, signs, grab bags and all the necessary awesomeness

that makes any old event a Nonnie-sponsored one.

Thank you all for the awesome giraffe!

It only took two-hours for my sisters to confiscate it,

which tells me it's a prized possession!

The only reason Charley would pass up any food

is if it had a gigantic bug on it.

We managed to move past that pretty quickly.

And even found some room for petri dish jello slime!

Slurp!

New Year's Beach Day

The Lockwood cousins were in town for a little while longer,

so it was very nice for the weather to gift

them one more trip to the beach.

 Charley's not so sure the hat is necessary, 

especially since her sisters aren't wearing any!

While the bigger kids played in the waves,

the beach was a far safer place for the wee ones

and a much better spot to get some great pictures.

Thanks, as always, Nonnie!