Mish Mosh

Okay, so even I can't believe that it's been two weeks since I last blogged. That should give you some idea about how busy it is around here. Or how lazy I am. But I'm going to stick with the very very very busy. So here's a round-up of some of the things we've been doing since school started. (Some with pictures, some without...)


First, this is Hannah doing her favorite thing to do this past summer: Give me a heart attack. She's jumping off the swing almost at the top of the arc in case you couldn't figure it out from this photo:
Then, I have started to shave Cash's face. Here's my handiwork after my first attempt. It's nice to see his big brown eyes and I suspect that he's pretty happy to see, well ANYTHING, since his hair was pretty long on his face. I also tried clipping his feet, but for some reason he's very sensitive about that and he kept biting the clipper, so his face it is. I also trimmed some of his other hair, but you can't really tell the difference:
I took this picture in the Poconos. It's better if you blow it up big, but it's basically a play on the light and dark in the woods where we took a short hike. And speaking of the Poconos, we have made our plan to go to Great Wolf Lodge for the girls' birthday, although we will be going significantly BEFORE their birthday to save some moolah. Just in case you were interested a weekend night at Great Wolf Lodge in November is more than $500 by the time the taxes are added in. So we're going in October and spending that money on pedicures in the kid spa (you didn't think I wouldn't spend the money, did you??)
I started another year as Brownie leader last week and already I am enjoying this year. We changed our meeting place and time and nearly all the girls decided to follow with the troop. We are doing a water journey which is kind of like badgework, but you get badges all about the same thing. Since we're meeting in a nature preserve I thought water would work out well. So far, they are MOST interested in the water conserving toilets in the building that squirt out water to wash your hands (fresh water) when you flush the toilet.

Here's another artsy fartsy picture that I took in one of our drives out in Lancaster. I like the black and white look of it:
Cash is giving Lizzie a congratulatory kiss because she FINALLY lost one of her top front teeth. Oddly, I had her eat an apple because the OTHER tooth was really loose, but then the apple bite loosened this one and so I yanked it out first. THEN she refused to have me pull out the other one because she'd "look weird" with no front teeth. It's been hanging on by a thread for past week and she won't let me touch it. But here she is with one missing front tooth and her (sorry Giants fans) Eagles shirt. They had a football Friday event so I had to buy them Eagles shirts. And then I had to tell them what football actually is.
Another picture from that same hike in the woods in the Poconos: We are in the full swing of fall activities now. Hannah is taking a drama class and dance and Lizzie is taking dance and piano lessons (she's practicing as I type this). They are both going to be in the Nutcracker in December so there are rehearsals every single Saturday between now and then. They'll be angels.
Oh, and speaking of angels, I'm assistant teaching 1st grade CCD, which mainly means I fetch crayons and pick up construction paper off the floor. It's God's work, you know.

I may have already posted this picture, but I just really love it, so it's possible I'm posting it a second time. I like the way the tree is bending over as they walk underneath it. That's Lizzie and Rob in the Poconos:
Rob and I enjoyed Back to School Night last night and got to visit the girls' classrooms and meet their teachers. They had each left us a note thanking us for coming. Hannah's note ended with "Love, Your Name" which is what I'm sure the teacher wrote on the board. I could NOT STOP LAUGHING...

2nd graders get a lot of homework. They need to read every day and do these word sort puzzley things and then they have a whole new math curriculum called Everyday Math, which I have renamed Everyday Math HOMEWORK.

And finally, since I started with a picture OF Hannah, I thought I'd end with a picture BY Hannah! I told her she could take a picture or two with my camera and she took it outside and came back in with mostly pictures of rocks and the car bumper and the handlebars of her bicycle. And this: