I haven't taken a ton of pictures since my last post. It seems like we're always busy. Which I guess is to be expected for a family of 7.
We did a lot of prep for starting school. Jules had a kindergarten assessment. Which she aced. All the kids had back-to-school open houses. Cecily was also able to go to the middle school a few days early to get a locker and learn how to open it and walk around. At the open house, she met all of her teachers and walked through her schedule one more time. Mira and I only had an hour to do her open house because it overlapped with Cecily's. But I was finally able to get her to open her locker. She gets in her head about things sometimes and opening a locker lock was one of them. But after a few tries she got it and then we walked through her schedule. Both of us were regretting our shoe choices by the end. Em had her open house about an hour later. She is only taking two classes at the high school. The rest she is taking online. But we were struggling to get her schedule ironed out and to decide which classes she wanted to take at the high school. So it was good to be able to talk to some of the teachers and find out more about the classes she was interested in. She decided on ASL 2 and AP Art Studio. Jules had her open house the next morning.
I've had the opportunity to get together with some of my best friends here: Gina and Camber and Michelle. I've had some yummy food and played some fun games and had lots of good talk time.
I've been able to start up therapy again and I really like my new therapist. I feel like I'm making progress toward my goals. Cecily started soccer and has practice once a week and two games a week. Em got her driver's permit and we've taken her out a few times. She very self-conscious, but she does pretty well.
On August 14, the kids all started school again. Jules is in Kindergarten, Cecily is in 6th grade at the middle school, Mira is in 8th grade at the junior high, and Em is in 11th grade at the high school. I'm so glad that everyone but Em is able to ride the bus and that it hasn't been a traumatizing experience for any of them. Jules actually LOVES it. She's been so sad the two times that we've missed it.
Before school started, Mira, Cecily, and I went shopping for school supplies. We got new notebooks and folders for each of their subjects and the girls decided to customize them. Ces was kind enough to let me customize one of hers because it looked like so much fun.
On the 20th, we had a crew come out and replace our roof. They stripped it down and put new shingles on all in one day. It was a loud day. But at least it was only one. It was 24 years old and our insurance wouldn't cover our house (to bundle with our car insurance) until we got it replaced. So hopefully that will bring our payments down a bit. Getting a roof replaced is stupid expensive though. Took out all of our extra cash, sadly, so flooring isn't going to get changed for at least a year even though the carpet is old and coming apart at the seams (literally).
Labor day weekend, we were able to drive out to Colorado for a family reunion with my extended family on my mom's side. One of my uncles and aunt and all of my cousins and siblings were able to come. Even my mom's nephew (who is older than her) and his wife and kids were able to make it for a short while. We rented a deceptively large airbnb and most of us stayed there. It was a good drive and the weekend was fantastic. It was so great to have us all in a house where we had a common location to hang out, but with enough room to spread out. The cousins' kids all got along even better than I would have hoped with the age differences and I was able to catch up with some of my favorite people on the planet. The only thing that would have made it better was to have all of my uncles and aunts be able to come.
Me and Megan and my mom cooked Strudla (a traditional Germans from Russia dish) and Saturday night we had barbecue pork and sausage and chicken and brisket with cornbread and fried okra and fries and spicy green beans and mac n cheese
A bunch of us hit a volleyball around at the park at Febe's request. I haven't played volleyball in 10+ years, but apparently you don't lose the muscle memory, because I did pretty good at control. Now if we'd played a game I probably would have sucked and died from my injuries. But hitting it around at the park was super fun. Now I'm hoping my girls will get into volleyball so I have a reason to do that more often. :)
We also played crazy solitaire and bananagrams and splendor and Steve got some of the guys to play Deeprock Galactic with him at least once.
All of the extended family left Sunday morning, but I didn't want to have to drive the kids back yet, so we spent the afternoon with Heather and Ryan and Davis and Keegan. We had a yummy dinner and played some Jackbox games. Then we drove home Monday. It was whirlwind, but also filled up my soul.
This guy was out one day when we went to walk Jules to the bus stop. I'm not sure how he made that pattern, but it was worth a photo!
Jules has been obsessed with finding bugs outside lately. I don't mind because it keeps her and Harrison entertained for HOURS every day. They found a leafbug/katydid this past week and that poor guy was manhandled more than any bug I've ever seen. It didn't ever bite them, so they must be pretty gentle bugs. Here is a picture of her holding it on some flowers (she'd picked them for it to eat) and Harrison holding a grasshopper.
I think these last pictures got put in in backwards order, but oh well. I decided to try my hand at furniture flipping to bring in some extra income. I still do book covers, but work has been few and far between lately, so it's not really paying any bills. I'm not sure I'm cut out for furniture flipping though. I've struggled with the first two pieces I tried to strip paint off of. I was ready to throw in the towel completely before I decided to try refinishing something that *wasn't* painted and it's going MUCH better. So we'll see. Apparently it's the new *it* stay-at-home-mom profession and can be pretty lucrative. It may not matter how lucrative it is if I hate it. I'll keep you updated on that front.
The kids all had a dentist appointment this week. That's not very exciting. But Harrison was cute. When the dental assistant asked him to open his mouth, he jumped to listen. That is not usually part of his repertoire, so it was adorable to watch.
Last Saturday Steve and I went on a double date with my friend Gina and her husband. We had Zupas and played games at the restaurant and then we walked to a nearby collaboration dessert kitchen. It was kind of like a consignment store for small food businesses. They all rented the space together and all of their stuff was sold off of one menu. Everything looked delicious, but not much was gluten and dairy free. I ended up getting this gorgeous and delicious coconut cream ice cream. Isn't it pretty?
Springville had an art festival earlier that day, so I took the kids for about an hour. They had a chalk art competition and booths (and a ton of other things that happened Friday and earlier in the day Saturday, so we missed out. I'll have to pay more attention next year. Maybe we can even enter the chalk art competition.
My mom made a poncho for Jules a few years ago, but she wouldn't wear it. It fit Mira, sort of, and she adopted it. She wore it so much that it began unraveling. So she asked my mom to fix it, but it was too far gone, so my mom just made a new one for her. This one fits a lot better. She says it's warm and cozy.
This is one of the pieces I picked up to restore. It was $12 at the thrift store. The picture doesn't do it justice. It was SO red. As red as a stained wood piece could possibly get. I've already stripped the old finish and sanded it down and it looks SO MUCH better. I'll try to remember to post a final picture of it.
That's it for the last month or so! Ta-ta for now!
