Loving Life

August 28th was my birthday. It was a busy day. David had an orthodontic appointment in town, followed by normal school stuff, followed by my cross country practice and then a few hours off before needing to go to worship team practice in the evening. I knew we wouldn't have time to properly celebrate my birthday, so I planned on doing something later on in the weekend that would be special to celebrate my day. Enter in Abby and her sneaky ways. I came home from cross country practice with Ana and picked up Keilah from my friend's house. Abby often goes there too after school while I am at practice, but this day I was told Abby didn't show up. I was a bit concerned since Abby doesn't like to stay home alone and I was afraid that we had miscommunicated in the morning regarding her after school plans (we've done that before). So I rushed home wondering if I would find a little girl in tears. Nope. Not even close. She was cheerful and happy and led me into the living ...

The kids have all completed six days of school. We are beginning to form a routine of sorts now as we work out all the kinks to our school days. So far I am greatly enjoying this year as it has brought a new stage of freedom to me. More about that in a bit. First a picture of Keilah and Bob playing together. They both seem to like each other a lot and enjoy playing together. Occasionally Bob's play is a little rough with Keilah. Occasionally Keilah's play is a little rough with Bob. I guess it all evens out. David's head has been swallowed by a kitten.  This year David is taking a few online classes - things I don't want to teach (calculus and Spanish). It's great because he is getting some great education that I don't have to prepare! He also has an excellent study buddy in the mornings. He calls out to Keilah, "It's time to learn calculus" and she comes running to sit on his lap and watch the videos with him.  She always has a very s...

Today is orientation day for all 6th graders and 9th graders. Since I have one of each, I sent two kids off to school today to explore their new buildings. Technically, David is still homeschooled, but he is taking a few elective courses at the high school, so he is going to the orientation day today to figure out where everything is and what is expected of him during his classes there. So it's just Abby, Keilah and me here today. Abby starts school tomorrow.  Since summer is winding down, here are a few pictures of things we have been up to (when I remember to take pictures).  Corn! A friend of mine gave me a whole pile of corn to deal with. It was awesome. I'm sorry if you don't have such awesome friends. All you need to do is give me sweet corn in the summer and we can be best friends forever.  David turned 14 a few weeks ago. How can this possibly be true? I don't feel old enough to have a child that old and grown up! We had a low key celebration that day...

This post will be a Keilah post since I haven't done one on just her for a little while. She's at one of my most favorite ages - language acquisition stage! It's so fun to see her little mind put things together and try out her daily expanding vocabulary as she processes the world around her. She makes me laugh every day at her cuteness. At 20 months old, she is extremely talkative. I don't always understand all she is saying, but she sure does want to tell me all sorts of things. Like all little kids this age, she loves shoes and wearing shoes that don't belong to her. Here's she's trying on Abby's shoes in the morning while she eats her apple. Nothing on the table is safe from her anymore - especially if it is food. The girls shelled the few peas I grew for them to snack on. She found the bowl and ate most of them. Walking around mostly naked in her beloved pink shoes. You wouldn't believe that just a week before this picture she hated tho...

WARNING: This post will be long and full of piles of pictures! We took our annual family vacation last week. This year we decided to head north and cross over the border into Minnesota. Here is our obligatory beginning of vacation everyone stuffed in the van picture. Aaron took the first leg of driving, so I got to be the picture taker.  My favorite husband. David's my favorite son and Aaron's my favorite husband.  Letting Keilah take a turn driving. This is how the girls kept her occupied at each campsite as we would tear down and pack things up. She loves to drive.  Our first and most important stop on Day 1 was in Decorah, Iowa, where I went to college. We stopped at the Whippy Dip for our first day's allotment of ice cream.  Eating our ice cream by the Upper Iowa River.  We stopped at nearby Dunning's Springs in Decorah for some hiking and cooling off in the ice cold water.  Keilah was terrified by the noise of the falls and...