No nap for Piper

Earlier this summer Piper made two decisions. Her first one was to wake up between 5:30 and 6:00 every morning. Her second decision was to stop napping. Her plan hasn't worked out so well. By about  dinner time she is either a cranky mess or she ends up like this. 

 Another result of her decisions is that she doesn't eat dinner any more. Oh Piper you (and the rest of the family) would be so much happier if you would only get a little more sleep.

Dexty here gets lots of sleep and therefore is a happy guy.

More Nashville

One of the days we were in Nashville we went to Cheekwood. It's an amazing park that has some pretty cool gardens. Every year they have a different exhibit and this year's exhibit was different tree houses. The kids had a blast climbing all of them.

 I'm not going to lie, I had a blast climbing them too.

 My little fish here is drawn to all bodies of water. He loves jumping across streams like this.

I'm so glad we got to go on this trip. One night Nate and I got to go out for a date. We went to the most amazing Japanese restaurant, and then went and saw a bluegrass band perform.

Nashville

A few weeks ago we went to Nashville for vacation. We stayed with some of my family. Of course we picked the hottest week to go (I think the coolest day we were there was 101). On our first morning we went to the Opryland Hotel. This is by fat the coolest hotel I have ever visited. There is a huge river that runs through it (you can actually go on a boat ride). Amazing gardens grow throughout the main parts of the hotel.

 Piper just wanted to touch the "pretty skirt".

 I love all the waterfalls.

 Piper loved seeing all the flowers. We had to stay on top of her so she wouldn't pick them all.

Something close to my heart

A while back my friend Kim started posting about their journey towards foster care and she also started talking a lot about different adoption stories. I started reading through different stories and it broke my heart. I spent hours reading through them and sobbing. I knew I had to do something. I started talking with someone at the organization Reece's Rainbow and she recommended I become an orphan warrior. This meant I would pick a child through their agency and advocate for him or her. I picked Nicky Z. He is a little boy with Down Syndrome who is in an orphanage in Eastern Europe. When I first started raising money for him he didn't have anyone who was interested in adopting him. I started raising money for him through different fund raisers. Last month I found out that a family has spoken for him. The Rogerson family is going to adopt sweet Nicky! I can't even tell you who excited I was when I read those words. They still need about 6k towards his adoption costs (the original total was 24k). Nicky needs to get home quickly. He is living in horrible conditions and he needs his Mom and Dad. The Rogerson's have three kids already and Nicky will be the sixth member of their family. I'm asking if everyone can give six dollars today. Here is their website. Please help me get Nicky home!

http://reecesrainbow.org/40671/sponsornicky

Nickels

I'll warn you, this post may contain information unsuitable for young children. Piper may also not be so happy with me when she learns how to read.

For some reason over this last week Piper has become a little obsessed with breasts (or boobs as she calls them). She is constantly asking when she will get them. The other day she woke me up in the morning by saying "Mommy when I grow up I want big boobs. I want to be a princess with big boobs".

This is the breakfast conversation at our house today:

Piper- "Daddy where are your boobs?"
Nate- "Piper boys don't have boobs"
Piper-"Yes you do. You have little boobs just like me". She then proceeded to lift up her shirt to show everyone. "See I have little boobs, so does Asher".
Asher- "No I don't, I just have nickels".