Catchup

Oh August has flown by!
First of all, here are my kids on the first day of school!

My crazies

Except school started like three weeks ago. They are at a school all the way across town next to Craig's work called Manzanita Elementary. It's HUGE. I guess I was just used to the schools I taught at and that Chloe went to school at, but here there are about 5 classes per grade level, and it's just giant! Plus they won't let you walk your kids to their class after the first few days, they just have to figure out on their own where to go, that made me super nervous, but lo and behold, they figured it out and now don't have an issue with it. Linus is learning so much and I love to hear him tell me the things he absorbs at school, which is everything. I think all kids eventually break through a barrier when they go from sounding words out and stopping their way through a story to actually reading, and Chloe magically broke through the barrier. Well, it's just the first few weeks, but she's impressed me with her reading scores so far, hopefully it sticks! Odell tells me she misses Chloe and Linus all day, and frequently asks when we can go get them, but I think she also very much enjoys being my center of attention for the majority of the day. I don't mind it so much. :-)

We also found a friend on our back wall a couple of weeks ago. The kids affectionately named him Jack.

By affectionate, I mean progressively so. When Craig brought him inside the house in the jar, he had it behind his back. Chloe innocently meandered over and asked him what he had, and when this monstrosity was revealed, she shrieked and screamed and scrambled like a madwoman onto her bed and forcefully insisted that Craig take it OUT of the house from her room. We both went in and explained that tarantulas are relatively harmless, not to mention this one was in a jar and could not hurt her. Minutes later she broke herself away from her bed and blanky and was tapping the glass to get a closer look at him. Craig wanted to keep him, but when he managed to crawl to the top of the jar, when we previously thought he couldn't, precariously close to the LARGE holes Craig had stabbed through a paper towel at the top of the mouth, I said, NOPE, Jack's got a family to go home to, let's make that happen!. Craig let him go on the way to church the next morning. He was so large we could see him still sitting on the rock he was emptied onto on the way home hours later. I'm sure he was just waving goodbye.

And Odell turned 3!!

She loves her new Merida toys

And her towel finally from Grandma!!

I attempted to use cookie cutters to make small cakes. Didn't turn out how I planned, but she LOVED the princess theme.

This weekend we are getting together with some family and barbequeing it up for Labor day weekend! So excited to have a break. See you in another month probably. :-)