Weekly Wrap-up for August 18

How in the world are we more than halfway through August? How is it possible that we've lived in this house for approximately EIGHT MONTHS already? I don't understand? Sigh . . . life goes by SOO fast!

Anyway . . . we DID manage to cram quite abit of living into this past week, so that's a good thing :)

Tuesday we went to visit our friend, Monica's property (some of the same friends we had so much fun with in May). It was AWESOME. Sassy and MiniMe were so excited to go, and their feet barely hit the ground before they were off in the woods with their friends, having a blast! They spent the better part of the day off in the woods where we just randomly caught glimpses of clothing enough to do a headcount and know all the kids were accounted for, but I did get a few pictures.

Monica took all the kids who wanted to (that would be 10 of the 12 kids) for a ride in the trailer of the ATV.

The close-up of the kids:

The 2 kids who didn't join in were Little Bit and the baby, so I stayed with them. 

 Little Bit spent a good part of the day just watching and talking to the baby. She declared herself the "big sister" and doted on that sweet baby all day (I might have grabbed as many baby snuggles as possible too LOL).  After their ride, Monica took all the kids over to a big tire swing in a HUGE tree, and came back to see if Little Bit wanted to come swing too.  Most of the kids were swinging as high as possible, but Little Bit and E both preferred a slower swing, so they got to swing together. They were best buddies all day :)

Later on some of the littler ones found a little toad and spent a surprisingly long time taking turns holding it. I'm not sure the toad survived the experience, though they did, eventually, "let it go", but they sure had fun petting it, and were taking turns so nicely!

That evening we reluctantly said goodbye to our friends and headed to Mama and Papa's house. 

Wednesday, with Mama's help, the girls sewed their colonial skirts (writing a tutorial of how we made them is on my "to do list", we made it up as we went). they LOVED that too. And picked up on the basic idea of sewing very quickly. One great thing about these skirts is they're all straight seams, gotta love that! 

Wednesday evening we headed home, so the girls could have their music lessons on Thursday. They were very excited, after missing the last 3 weeks (we were travelling and then their music teacher was travelling).

Alas, I woke up Thursday morning with a stomach bug. No idea where I got it, but there was no way I was going anywhere that day, sigh . . . Rodney had an appointment he couldn't change, but COULD take the girls with him on, so, being the most awesomest husband in the world, he packed all 3 of them up, and took them with him. He THOUGHT it would only take a couple hours, but he ended up being there all day. He said all 3 girls were AWESOME! The big girls kept Little Bit entertained and all 3 of them were quiet when they needed to be and weren't whiny. Meanwhile, I slept most of the day, and felt better, if tired, by evening.

By Friday I was relatively "back to normal", although by mid-afternoon, I was 100% out of energy and had to sit down and rest for awhile (Rodney continued his awesomness on Friday by going to the farm to pick up milk and eggs for me since I hadn't been able to go during the girls' music lessons like I normally do). 

Sabbath was church and Friendship meal (potluck at the church) as usual, but I had to snap a quick picture of Sassy teaching the Bible story in the little kids' class. MiniMe is holding one of the little girls and, amazingly, both Little Bit and J are sitting relatively still and paying attention :) 

Sabbath afternoon, was AMAZING! Awhile back I talked to the teacher who does our year-end evaluations about getting together during the school year to talk about nature stuff, she and her whole family are brilliant about all things nature, and I feel so inadequate even trying to figure it out along with my kids. Plus the girls adore Miss Karin! So anyway, this Sabbath was the afternoon that worked out to get together. Karin's husband is very quiet but a walking-field guide!!! She had talked to him and he'd liked the idea of exploring our back yard with the girls, showing them what is (literally) in our back yard and teaching them about it. He came well equipped with field guides, butterfly nets for the girls to use, jars to put things in while they identified them, etc. The girls LOVED it!!! We are definitely going to be scheduling more nature lessons with him! 

Little Bit wasn't quite old enough to appreciate all the questions and answers, but she thought it was pretty cool when she got to let a praying mantis crawl up and down her arm.

So that was our week! We are having AMAZING weather right now! I don't think I've EVER seen such perfect weather in August (in the mid-atlantic) before! So we are reveling in it!