The Leiningers

Tommy's Travels

Ohhh, Tommy should write a blog called "Tommy's Travels!" I can see it now. Unfortunately, it would be the worst blog ever, since luckily for me, he almost never goes anywhere. In September, though, he went to Houston to help with hurricane clean-up, and to San Francisco for a big data conference. I'm mostly just posting these pictures because I thought the hurricane clean-up was so crazy and the pictures were amazing of all the work they did. They left at 5 am on Saturday morning, and drove four hours down to their location west of Houston, went to a neighborhood, and just started ripping stuff out of houses and throwing it out by the street. Everything that got soaked with water had to be trashed. One of the houses they helped with still had a few inches of dark water underneath the floorboards once they ripped those out. It was amazing to see the pictures of the destruction and havoc caused in these really beautiful-looking homes.

This was the group from our ward that went down. We also sent another group down two weeks later. It was unfortunately the Primary program week, which meant Tommy couldn't go because I needed him to take care of Graham and Lucy while I led the music for the whole meeting, ha. But he was glad he got to go once.

They slept overnight in a high school gym and spread all throughout the hallways of the school.

And had a brief church in the school auditorium with some two thousand people before rushing out to muck out some more houses.

And, a few pictures of Tommy being cute in San Francisco. I was sad I couldn't go with him--I'd love to explore that city with him. Someday we will go!

My dad's favorite pupusa place!

Perot Museum

I had a few family goals set for us at the beginning of this year. One of them was for us to learn all the Articles of Faith, which we did great for the first four and then totally fell off the wagon. One was for us to do service activities, which we have failed at miserably. But one was to do one family date a month (meaning, a fun outing with all of us, once a month), and we've been doing that pretty well. I wanted to force myself to plan something out of the ordinary just once a month, because it's amazing how it's easy to spend every Saturday just doing chores or puttering around the house instead of ever going out of our routine and trying new things. Of course, I want to spend our Saturdays being productive and doing chores, but I also want to do stuff like this every once in a while.

So, for Labor Day, when Tommy was off work, we headed downtown into Dallas and went to the Perot Science Museum. It is a cool science museum, mostly aimed at kids, with some really cool and interesting exhibits. I've been once, when we first moved here and Camille and Brandon were visiting, but we've never been back. Reasons why: it's super expensive, and far away, and Dane was so young last time we went that it was totally pointless. Now, it was fun (but still expensive and far away, so we won't go back for a long time). I'm really glad we went, because it was a nice morning and really interesting and interactive, so both Dane and Graham were entertained. There was a robotics exhibit that Tommy was really into also. It was a great family date and something I've wanted to do for a while.

Dane has been really interested in space lately, so he liked the space exhibit.

Tommy the meteorologist, with his assistant.

At the bottom of the science museum was a kids' museum. Of course, they were thrilled to be there and once we got there, there was no going back to the "educational" part of the museum. Graham spent like 20 minutes moving these bananas around.

And Dane could have worked forever moving these blocks up this ramp. He seriously was enthralled. And then they found the sandbox in the back and it was all over. Why bother with anything else when there is dirt to dig in? That is my kids' philosophy about playing, anywhere, ever.

And after we finished at the museum, we got Shake Shack for lunch! Yep, a real official Shake Shack in downtown Dallas. It was really fantastic and satisfying. I can see why people are obsessed.

Little Things in September

Okay, I've kind of let this blog fall by the wayside the last few weeks. I've been SOOOO busy with other things... NOT. I just didn't feel like blogging, ha! But, here goes with some catching up and posting some pictures for Bethany to enjoy!

Graham wrapped himself up with his blanket and said "I'm Angel Moroni!" He's been very interested in the Angel Moroni on top of the temples lately.

Graham crying because he wanted some salad with dinner and I didn't make a salad. Yeahhhhhh.

LOOK AT THAT GIRL.

Dane and Ben carpooling to school in the back of Tommy's car. LOVING IT.

Graham on a date with a girl. Emmi sat on the couch next to Graham and kept scooting closer and closer to him.

Such a cutie! I always think that every stage is the cutest stage yet. Look at this boy. I love listening to him talk and think that it's my favorite stage yet.

But look at how big Dane is getting! This is making me sad. I'm not going to be able to hold him any more soon.

Some early morning cuddle time. We are going to miss the chance to do this next year when Dane starts kindergarten.

Graham laid out his blankie for a picnic for his nighttime friends.

Perfect angels who do NOT constantly fight over who gets the green jeep.

Sometimes it's hard to wake up from a nap, okay?

Lucy, determined to eat Dane's hair.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME.

So happy about eating baby food!!

A family home evening involving fishing--way more work than I usually put into FHE activities, don't worry, haha!

We started off on our walk with Dane on a scooter and Graham on his trike, then they both wanted to be in the stroller.

Dane was sick-ish one day and fell asleep and could not be woken up. Lucy was hitting him with her toy and Graham was crawling all over him and he just kept sleeping on.