Halloween Weekend

We've stuck to our new system wherein Craig sits down with each kid and helps them pick out a Halloween costume on the internet.  Thank goodness for that.  Then my job was to keep them from destroying their costumes before the big day.  I let them try everything on ONCE to make sure it all fit (and also as a bribe to get them to practice!).  That's when we learned that Camille knows nothing about storm troopers, as she thought this was the perfect storm trooper pose:

But it made her happy and it made me laugh, so it's all good!  And speaking of making me laugh...

The rainbow unicorn never gets old!

Ryder's costume came with a mask, but there really wasn't any good way to actually wear the stupid thing-- the elastic it came with couldn't fit around anyone's head.  So Craig decided to do makeup on Ryder instead and--- as always-- he did a fantastic job:

Two Face!

One more shot-- I just can't resist!

At the last minute, Bentley decided to wear my giraffe costume

And here's everyone all ready to go for the ward party!  (Kendra is a queen, but she didn't want to wear her crown for the Trunk-or-Treat; Colton is the Grim Reaper)

Poor Craig was so stressed about the weather for the trunk-or-treat!  Our stake has determined that we're not allowed to eat indoors for church activities right now and it was POURING that day.  But the rain cleared up and it all went great!  Huzzah!

I do enjoy sitting in my car giving out candy!

We finally let the kids carve their pumpkins Sunday afternoon.  Craig mostly helped out as needed while I puttered around in the kitchen.  We were sort of in a rush to get to the neighborhood shindig, and I was nervous about my costume...

This year, the women in my neighborhood decided we should all dress up like different iterations of Britney Spears.  Unfortunately, by the time I noticed all the texts flying back and forth about this, the only one left was I'm a Slave 4 U Britney...  😳  Obviously, I wasn't going to be donning a bikini (not enough time for the surgery necessary to make THAT work!), but people helped me figure out a few work-arounds and so this was what we ended up with:

Craig got me the mic from school, and Camille graciously loaned me her stuffed animal snake, so, as Craig put it, This costume practically built itself!

All the grown ups

Most of the kids

Owen and Ryder

Queen Kendra and Huntress Eliza

Craig took the little kids trick-or-treating, and I sat by my fire pit in the driveway with Bentley passing out candy.  It was a lovely day!  And we have more candy than we will ever know what to do with!

Laundry Thoughts

Few things fill me with rage faster than realizing that the clothes I'm pulling out of the hamper were never worn.  Normally I would just put them back up in the kids' closets or drawers, except now they've been sitting with dirty underwear and socks piled on top of them, so that's just too gross.  This happened the other day with Camille: she'd gotten dressed for church, and then I pointed out that she wore that dress last week, so she should wear something different today.  I found both dresses in the hamper Monday morning.  I also recently discovered about five pairs of pants belonging to Bentley.   I'd just done laundry the day before, so I knew there was no way he'd worn all that in 24 hours. I asked him what was going on and he just shrugged: "Those don't fit me any more."

So I-- as calmly and rationally as I could manage-- explained to him that if the CLEAN CLOTHES in his drawer don't fit, all he needs to do is give them to Ryder.  If he throws them in the hamper, what  happens is that I'll wash them and put them right back in his drawer again so he will not have accomplished his goal.  

But I shouldn't complain.  Bentley is my only child who actually puts his dirty clothes in the hamper without me having to nag him.

Why is this so difficult for everyone???  (And yes, I know, I really need to make my kids do their own laundry.  But it's one of the few chores I really don't (normally) mind doing and it's so easy for me to do it while they're at school...!)

P.S. Bentley's pants not fitting him reminds me-- he just passed Kendra in height!  She's been taller than him for at least 5 years now (all the "data" I have on this is from us marking the walls in our house), so this is the end of an era!  According to our pediatrician, he grew 4 inches this year!  Holy cow!

One of my favorite shots from our photo session!

Good News

I officially handed keys the to our condo over to our new tenant Thursday!  Whoosh!  I also had the carpets cleaned on Wednesday, and I spent Tuesday driving to two different Lowe's (Lowe'ses?) looking for the cheapest stainless steel dishwasher I could find to replace the broken one.  Technically, the condo was without a tenant for only four days (although it was empty for a few more than that, since our previous renters moved out a few days before their end date, and our new tenant moved in a couple days after his start date).  But we weren't losing money on it for most of the month, which is HUGE.  That's always the really scary thing about this business-- What if we can't find a tenant???-- and dealing with a change up in October made me more nervous, but it turns out that people move all year round, so I shouldn't have worried.

But still!  Big sigh of relief!

Now hopefully we can find the time to deal with all the stuff that is suddenly breaking in our own home...  It reminds me of that line about the shoemaker's kids going barefoot.  We've been pouring all our energy into the condo while our own garage door is suddenly only working sporadically and the clutch on Craig's car suddenly went out!  😬  And while I doubt any of that will be fun or cheap to fix, at least we can take care of it knowing we're not also bleeding money on the condo!

Keeping Busy

We've continued to have gorgeous weather here.  The nights are getting longer, but the days are still warm and the leaves have barely started to turn.  But this morning it was a brisk 46℉ as we walked to the bus stop, so things are definitely cooling down.  But still, I've been enjoying it, especially as it bounces back into the 70s during the day!

I LOVE seeing pretty sunrises while we're at the bus stop!

I feel like I've been really busy, but then every so often I'll have a day with not much going on, and it sort of surprises me how time can fly by that ISN'T filled!  So some of the things I've been up to:

-Trying to get the primary kids ready for the primary program.  It's so hard to get people to memorize stuff!  And we've also been trying to learn to sing "I am a Child of God" in Spanish, which has been challenging.  It helped when Craig figured out that the rhythm of the first line is different in Spanish, but the whole thing is a bit tricky.  Anyway, this is one of those callings that seems so easy when you're not the one doing it, but when you're up there waving your arms around in front of people, it's hard not to suddenly become self conscious and wonder if you're doing everything wrong...  

-Getting our condo ready for a new renter.  Our tenants just moved out (after two and a half years, when they only signed a 6-month lease!) and we've been frantically listing it on Zillow, fielding requests for information, and showing it.  And now-- even more work-- getting it all cleaned and painted.  I've been doing most of the internet/Zillow stuff, Craig has been doing the painting and fixing up.  And while he's hard at work, I run around to Lowe's and our house getting him whatever paint, tools, and food that he needs.  I think I spent four hours driving on Friday!  But he got the master bedroom repainted so now it's a light grey instead of a dark brown, which is a HUGE improvement.  Especially since that room only has one medium-sized window, it really should never have been painted such a dark color.  And we just signed a new renter yesterday, so the condo will have only been empty for four days, so that's pretty fantastic.  Go team!  I also got to tour the Lowe's in the area finding the dishwasher I wanted, and I hung out at the condo for a couple hours yesterday while the carpets were cleaned.  It's a lot.

-Meanwhile, I'm also getting all ready to reupholster my dining room chairs.  These belonged to Craig's Grandmere and they were in such perfect condition when we got them.  But they were covered in ivory fabric and we have NOT been kind to them.  (Craig even covered them in plastic when we first got them, but even that only lasted so long...)  They're at the point now where I'm embarrassed to let anyone else see them (let alone SIT on them!), so it's time.  I watched a YouTube video and it seemed pretty straightforward.  Then I went to Joann's to shop for fabric and I hated everything I saw and immediately felt overwhelmed and left.  I decided maybe I could just buy new chairs instead.  But when I complained about this to Adam, he told me I needed to go to a local fabric store, The Second Yard.  And he offered to help me.  Craig quickly intervened, explaining to Adam that "helping" me on a project such as this will actually mean he does all the work while I sit around talking to him and watching.  This is a fact.  It's how I wound up with super cute book slings (thanks Jen and Nina!) and how I got matching aprons for me and Kendra (you rock, Emma!).  Adam seemed okay with this, so after we picked out fabric (and he was right-- The Second Yard was AMAZING!), he sat down with me on Amazon and helped me order foam and dust cloth and all the other stuff we needed.  He's scheduled Nov. 2 for our big reupholstering day!  I can't wait!!!

-Still trying to get out and exercise on a regular basis!  I led FiA on Monday and we did a cardio-strength-yoga thing that I really enjoyed (which is, um, why I picked it, obviously).  I'm back to TRYING to run a couple days a week, too, but that's pretty hit or miss depending on what else I have scheduled.  It's a work in progress...

I look nuts, but I love everyone doing their yoga poses in the background!

-I also feel like I'm constantly taking kids to doctors appointments.  But no one is sick!  We've had Camille with an eye problem, Ryder getting his glasses and fixing his broken wrist, Kendra had a rash that wouldn't go away, and Bentley's yearly physical.  Plus orthodontist appointments, and Colton got his flu shot yesterday (all the rest got theirs during their appointments, so he was the only one left)...  It's been a lot.  How do working moms manage to do all this???

-And I've also been busy with my stake calling, although I keep hearing that I'll be released from that one soon.  On Saturday we had a roundtable discussion with all the relief society presidents in the area so they could chat and hear what everyone else does with issues that come up.  It feels nice to get them together to commiserate, if nothing else!  But we served them brunch and had to have things all organized and ready, and then the other counselor and secretary didn't show up, so I felt like I was the only person there helping Christine out.  I worry about how she'll get by without me!  (Craig pointed out that she'll just call another responsible counselor and she'll be fine.  And he's right.  But it's hard to not worry!)  And then we had regional training last night, which was REALLY good, but it was another two hours on Zoom, while Craig was doing tithing settlement in the basement also on Zoom and it is REALLY hard to also get kids in bed and clean up the kitchen and do all that at the same time.  Phew.

So, yes, October is busy.  So lovely!  But also busy!

I don't have anything planned for today while the kids are in school, so I'm thinking it might be a good time to make some granola...

Life Is Delicious

This last Saturday, Craig and I were excited to go on a date night and check out the new hamburger place that opened near us.  It was supposed to open in April or so of 2020, so obviously that didn't happen.  We weren't sure it was even still in the works (a LOT of restaurants that were planning on opening in that area have had to pull out), but Craig noticed a "Now Open" signs so this was one that came through!

The new place is called BurgerFi and it is very clearly trying to look like Shake Shack.  Same colors, they both sell "concretes," you get the idea.  Unfortunately, BurgerFi is possibly more expensive than the Shake Shack, but certainly not as good.  It may actually be fancier than Shake Shack, but I didn't like it any better.  So until we get a Shake Shack, but I'll probably just stick to Five Guys or Citizen Burger Bar.

So that was a bit of a bummer.  It would have been fun to have had a really amazing burger place really close to our house.

But as we were leaving, we could see into the side of another shop and it was clearly under construction.  We rounded the corner and got in front of it enough to see what it's going to be and we literally gasped in delight:

Just when I thought Charlottesville couldn't get any better!

In all fairness, I should explain a bit: Charlottesville DOES have a Coldstone, but it's nearly 20 minutes away from our house and it's TINY.  This means you can't really sit in the store to eat your ice cream, but by the time you drive 20 minutes home, your ice cream is pretty melty and sad.  So that's less than ideal.  We also have Chaps, which is a FABULOUS ice cream shop, but it's on the downtown mall so you can't access it without parking your car (which is a pain) and then walking a few blocks.  That's fine in great weather, but if it's cold or rainy, then it's a less than ideal way to get ice cream.  (And YES, I still want ice cream even when it's cold and rainy.  I'm no fair weather friend to my ice cream stores!)

This new Coldstone will be perfection.

I can hardly wait!

Sneak Peek

One of the things I learned during Hiking Club last year, was that Adam takes really good pictures.  This was further confirmed when he'd send me the occasionally picture from one of his weddings.  So, naturally, I asked him to do our family portraits for us, and he was very nice about agreeing to do so.  We picked a date-- October 17th-- and began discussing locations and what sort of poses I like.  Last year I just scrounged around in the kids' closets for outfits that would work, so this year I'd promised myself that I would actually BUY clothes.  So I poked around on Amazon and ordered stuff I thought would work together (and would hopefully fit my kids).  I was so proud of myself for being really on top of things this year.

Because usually I wait until the weather is just turning cold and then remember that we need pictures and then I frantically start messaging everyone I know asking if they know any good photographers in the area and they're all already booked OR/AND they're insanely expensive and the whole thing tends to be a big mess.  

Cuz here's the thing: I LOVE LOVE LOVE having family portraits, but I HATE HATE HATE the process of actually taking them.  The whole thing is a stressful mess.  Leading up to it is stressful, and the actual day is stressful, because you need to get everyone ready, but really you also want to wait until the last possible moment to get your kids dressed so they have less time to ruin their outfits.  It's all hard.

So it was nice feeling like I had all my ducks in a row for once!

Then last Friday night Adam texted me from a wedding pointing out that if we hurried, we could get our pictures while the wildflowers were in bloom at Pippin Hill.  And those wildflowers are so pretty...

So suddenly our picture date went from being October 17th to October 5th.  I went from being in really good shape to being pretty, um, desperate?  (And we were lucky to even be able to make that work, since normally Craig, Bentley and Kendra would have had youth night!  But it just happened to be canceled that week.)  The dress I'd ordered for myself wasn't supposed to show up until the 10th, so I frantically ordered four more and hoped one of them would get here in time and look okay.  I sent Craig out shopping with Bentley since the shirt I'd ordered for him was way too big.  I managed to get a haircut THAT MORNING (and miracle of miracles the girl did a fantastic job, too!).  I pulled everything together so fast.

We took pictures Tuesday evening.  Adam sent us a couple, just from what he took on his phone:

Craig was bummed that he has crazy eyes in this shot

I'm so happy.

They may be a lot of work and stress, but oh, man, I love having family portraits SO MUCH.

October Autumn

We are hitting the ground running this month!  On the first day of October, I had scheduled a doctor's appointment for Camille (she has a small lump on her eyelid that isn't going away), but when Ryder fell off the swings the day before and his arm still hurt the next morning, I managed to get him in at the same time as Camille so the doctor could confirm our suspicions: he'd broken his wrist.  (Womp, womp.)  The good news is that it's a pretty simple buckle fracture, so all he needs is a splint for 3 weeks and then he should be good as new.  Just wearing it in the splint he felt better almost immediately!  So yay for young bones that heal quickly!  This is the first time one of our kids has broken a bone, so that's kind of crazy.

(And the doctor didn't know what to make of Camille's eyelid and referred us to an ophthalmologist.)

Waiting to get an x-ray

I finally bit the bullet and agreed to lead another FiA workout.  I knew I'd be kayaking later in the morning, so I made heavily focused the workout on leg and cardio exercises.  Everyone wanted to kill me.  But the joke was on me-- instead of working hard kayaking up the James River, we ended up just paddling around Walnut Creek, so I definitely didn't need to "save" my arms for that!  Oh, well.  It's still good to work those leg muscles!

It is HARD to take group selfies in the dark!

And we're still enjoying kayaking!

Pretty sunrise as I wait for the bus to pick up my elementary school kids!

This is Craig with Megan and Melissa, who he worked with his first year at Albemarle High School.  Megan is his boss now, and Melissa had popped by to help with testing, so they were excited to have this little reunion!

Ryder and Owen and a mystery kid (?) at recess. (One of the perks of having two of my neighbors work at my kids' school is that I get little glimpses of what they get up to at school!  Thanks for this one, Ginna!)

We also celebrated Grandpa's birthday!  We had a yummy dinner at Taste of China and then the big kids played a game that Grandpa brought while I put the little kids to bed (as you can see, Ryder just barely managed to eek himself into the Big Kids category!

Bentley is 15!

These kids just keep growing up on me!  Last week was Bentley's birthday, and we celebrated throughout the weekend with his favorite meal (this year it was sweet'n'sour hotdogs), doughnuts, dinner with grandparents, more doughnuts, and of course, presents!  He was also delighted that his porch vibes buddies decided to hang out, so he even got some social time!  An all-around win!

He looks like he's in pain because we're singing to him.  That's the only torture he endured, though, I promise!  (He had various teachers who offered to sing to him and he told them all not to bother.  Where do his genes even come from???)

It was a very happy birthday!  I think I say this every year on his birthday, but I can't believe I've been a mother for fifteen years!  Where has the time gone?

September Stuff

Despite Ryder's early grumblings about Colton playing baseball with him, he is being the best big brother EVER to Colton and really looks out for him on the team, a fact which I appreciate so much.  And they've been enjoying playing.  They've won all their games so far (it helps A LOT that the kids who pitch on their team are actually really good) and I really like their coach.  Each practice, he chooses a star player who did well and yesterday Ryder got picked, so he was thrilled about that (he'd managed to catch a pop fly, so I think that was the reason why he got picked).  Anyway, I'm glad they're having fun.  Now each morning before we head to the bus stop they'll usually spend a few minutes playing catch in the driveway.  It makes me so happy!

Ryder hit two doubles at his last game!

Colton is still figuring out batting, but he's getting better each time!

Meanwhile, the youth in our ward decided to hold a pinewood derby contest, so my kids have been having fun using power tools at youth night:

And then, of course, there's always a little downtime while others are using the power tools!

We noticed recently that Ryder was having trouble with his long distance vision.  He couldn't read the hymn numbers (from the 4th pew!) and when we went to that high school football game, he could read the score, but he couldn't read the words above the score.  If I can read those with my uncorrected 42-year-old eyes, I figured that wasn't a good sign.  So we took him to get his eyes checked and now we're waiting for these beauties to arrive:

I think these will frame his eyes really nicely...

So far his eyes aren't terrible: his prescription is -1.25 in one eye, -1 in the other.  Hopefully they'll stay that way and not get worse.  In the meantime, he's very excited and nervous for his glasses to arrive!

And in more personal news, my BFF Tracy just moved to Wisconsin!  😭😭😭  She's been in Manassas ever since I moved to Charlottesville, so I realize that *technically* I moved away first, but she was still an easy 2-hour drive away and I liked knowing we could meet up and/or see each other at the ward camp out!  That's going to be a LOT more difficult now that she's 15 hours away.  So I was actually pretty sad about her move, although I am also really happy for her, as they were pretty crowded in their townhouse AND NoVA is a pretty crowded place, as well.  Their new home is lovely and huge and I'm sure they'll love being closer to family.  But obviously, her leaving meant we needed to get together one last time:

Quick-- take off your masks for the picture!  L-R we've got me, Jacqui, Sarah, & Tracy at some park in Woodstock, VA

Sarah and I carpooled part of the way there and back.  But unfortunately, about five minutes into our drive, her husband called and announced that he'd just tested positive for Covid.  So we got to mask up in the car.  I'm still fine, but Sarah and most of her kids all caught Covid (despite being vaccinated!) so that's been a real bummer.

I miss you already, Tracy!!!

Crazy Weekend

This last weekend was WAY busier than I like things to be, but everything went fairly well and most of it was really fun, so I'm happy and exhausted now.  Friday morning Adam and I went hiking, which was delightful!  I was a little stressed as to how I hike without my children.  Do I need snacks if it's just me?  How long will this take if we don't stop to eat and catch our breath every twenty minutes?  Do I need to stop and catch my breath every twenty minutes???  My kids give me such an excuse for stuff like that!  But it was great: we did the 5.5 mile loop around Ragged Mountain and it only took a couple hours (it turns out I do not need snacks or a break)!  And the weather was perfect, just starting to get hot as we were finishing up.  

Then in the evening we all attended football games, with Kendra going to the Fluvanna game with a friend while the rest of us met up with Craig's parents at the Monticello game.  This required a fair amount of planning and driving Kendra around, but we managed.  As soon as we got to the Monticello game, Bentley ran off with his friends and we barely saw him, which felt delightfully age appropriate and made me very happy (even if we had to go back and pick him up, too, since the little kids couldn't get through the whole game and had to go home and go to bed).  Also, when we went to football games in the past, Craig was always working, so we barely saw him.  It was really nice to actually get to sit with him and enjoy his company for a change!  (And have his help putting super tired kids to bed afterwards!)

Saturday was our ward Day of Service, so Craig took Bentley and Kendra do to yard work for a friend who is very overwhelmed right now. 

Gotta love Bentley's muppet face!

Fresh mulch makes EVERYTHING look better!

I'd been planning on helping assemble refugee kits, but it turned out Ryder and Colton had their first baseball game at the same time, so that's where I wound up, despite my good intentions...  But they won their game and were very happy, so that was nice.  Camille divided her time between climbing a tree and playing with a new friend, so everyone had a good time.  

Then Craig had to go help out with a funeral and I ran around like a crazy person getting my house tidied up and trying to get the kids to actually help (it had been clean the day before, I honestly don't know how my kids destroy everything so quickly?).  Craig's parents arrived at 4 and we left straight away and drove to Wintergreen, a local ski resort, and met up with Sarah and Tracy (and Nate and Joe) to see Sarah's first professional play (as opposed to community theater) that she music directed, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat!

It's kind of fun (and only slightly terrifying) to ride the ski lift to the stage!

A couple years ago they did The Sound of Music, which is about the most perfect play to perform in the mountains ever!

Anyway, the show was very fun, and hanging out with Sarah and Tracy afterwards was even MORE fun!  (All the men watched BYU crush the U of U, so a splendid evening was had by all!)  We didn't even get home until 1am, so getting up for church the next morning was rough.  And then I went straight from church to a neighborhood baby shower.  I feel like I mostly see these ladies at the pool so it was a little fun to show up actually wearing makeup with my hair done and cute shoes for a change!  How shallow of me is that?  And the baby shower was one of the more hilarious ones I've ever been to-- the first game they had pictures of huge tummies and you had to try and guess if those were pregnancy bellies or beer bellies.  And then it got dirtier from there...

After that I hurried home to take a nap (bliss!), and then drove the airport road chapel to help set up for our stake relief society activity.  This was an activity that was originally meant to be held in April of 2020, so it was very exciting to finally make it happen!  We were reading from the book The Hundred Dresses, and talking about kindness and actually helping one another.  And we collected a whole bunch of dresses for a local charity.  (We also had lovely cookies from a bakery that were decorated as dresses, and we'd folded origami dresses that were attached to water bottle.  WAY more decorating than I normally do!)  It was a lovely evening and I thought everything came together really well.  

I'd folded a whole bunch of these a year and a half ago so it was nice that they were finally put to use!

So, yes, busy weekend.  The kind of weekend where you wake up Monday morning and think to yourself, "But I still need a weekend!"  But I'm so pleased with how well everything went, I really can't complain!

Moving Into Fall

I feel like we just keep chugging along here!  The weather is starting to cool down beautifully at night, so when you first get up in the morning it just feels wonderful outside.  This is especially great because I am back to exercising at 5:30am again, so it's nice that it's no longer 70°+ and muggy!  That was a bit unbearable...!  (Also unbearable was how sore my arms were after that first time back!  Who knew a few measly push ups could make EVERYTHING HURT?)

With the kids all in school, it's weird how my days just sort of fill up.  Last Friday I'd offered to help a friend move a mattress (it turns out a twin is REALLY easy to shove into my van!), and then that morning I got a text from my neighbor asking if I could fill in since her nanny was sick.  So I had almost-2-year-old Zevi with me all day while I drove from Lake Monticello to Richmond and back to Charlottesville helping my friend.  When the little kids got home from school, they were quite leery of this new little guy, asking me carefully who he was and looking quite relieved when I explained that Zevi lived down the street and would be returning home shortly.  

It was kind of nice to realize that Zevi was incredibly easy to take care of.  When I needed to change his diaper, I just asked him to lay down on the changing pad and he did!  I had him changed in about 30 seconds like it was the easiest thing in the world.  A far cry from Isaiah, where it would take three of us to wrestle him down and I'd be sweating profusely by the time I was done...  I think trying so hard to take care of Isaiah and sort of not being able to do it really messed with my head and left me wondering if I just really couldn't handle watching other kids at all.  It was kind of nice to get some confirmation that the problem wasn't me.  Or at least it wasn't just me...

The youth had a hiking activity that sort of turned into a just getting milkshakes activity (because the trails were closing).  They didn't seem to upset by the change, though...

This is Bentley's favorite way to stand awkwardly.  What a goofball!

He's not always a weirdo, though!  (With him are his buds, Ivan and Aaron!)

And Kendra finds the girls to hang out with!  (Avery, sitting in the car, has cerebral palsy, so it's much easier for her to sit.  Lest you think her lazy for not standing around the parking lot like the rest of them!  I'm sort of impressed she was willing to try hiking, actually...)

On Saturday we spent one last day at Kings Dominion before they switch over to their scary Halloween stuff.

They finally have their Eiffel Tower open, so that was the first thing we did!  Apparently it's one-fifth the size of the real thing, which is just insane to think about.  Made me miss Paris...

I just love Camille's cool face here...

Waiting for forEVer for the log ride...  They really need to hire more workers here!!!

It was a fun day, but I was glad we had Monday off, too, so we could have a relaxing day before the week started again!  So for that "relaxing day," Craig cleaned out the garage and I took Ryder and Colton to buy gear for baseball.  Ryder's been playing for a little while now, and he made it look so fun that Colton decided he wanted to try it, too.  This, naturally, enraged Ryder because baseball is supposed to be "his" thing.  I had to explain to him that he doesn't get to hog baseball all to himself.  (Although, as a fellow middle child, I do understand the need to differentiate yourself from your siblings!  Why do you think I took Japanese in high school rather than French???)  Anyway, they're on the same team, which I'd been trying to avoid, but now that I see how busy we'll be with games and practices, I'm very glad that we don't have to double that!

After that shopping, Colton and Camille went with the Palmers to splash in...  some lake somewhere?  I have no idea.  I'm a really great mother.  But they had fun, wherever they were!

And there's Sydney's super cute puppy, who was named Rosie, but then became Lexi. I was super proud of myself when I figured it out.  

And in the evening we had dinner at the pool.  It will be closing at the end of this week, so we have to squeeze in our last few visits!

And a few more random pictures to wrap up this post!  I liked these two matching at the bus stop:

And here are Ryder and Owen at the top of the spider web during recess.  Apparently they've taken to calling themselves the high council, a fact which I find absolutely hysterical!

And here's Camille climbing a fence during baseball practice!

Yay for September and autumn and all that great stuff!

Quote to Remember

I'm not going to make it a habit of sharing memes I found on Facebook here, but I did really love this quote and would like to try harder to be this sort of person, so here goes:

"Regardless of how another person interacts with you, you can give away only what you have inside to give.  Just like the proverbial orange, when you squeeze it, you get what is inside-- it has nothing to do with who does the squeezing, or the circumstances surrounding the squeeze.  What comes out is what is inside.  If you respond to hate with hate, or anger with anger, it is not because of what was directed your way; it is because that is what is inside you.  You can't give hate if you only love inside, no matter how much squeezing comes your way."  -Wayne W. Dyer

As someone who has road rage nearly all the time, this feels like a better way of viewing and changing myself from the inside...

And in a note that feels related to this, Craig sent me this article about a woman's new approach to Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion training and I just LOVED it.  I hope she's incredibly successful because her ideas feel correct to me.  I try hard to keep this blog fairly apolitical, so I'll leave it at that.  But if you read and have thoughts, I'd love to hear them!

Next post will be back to pictures of my kids and such, I promise! 😉