A little bit of Labor Day

We didn't do anything super exciting over our long weekend, but we had a long to-do list and we took Monday to just relax and hang out. It was nice to have a day to just sleep in late, fix a yummy breakfast, take a bike ride, and watch a movie before cleaning up the kitchen and fixing dinner. Here are a couple of pictures I took of our weekend.

Rose's snack of frozen blueberries and honey.

Daddy spent lots of time working on his truck.
(I'm so thankful for a father in-law that taught
mechanics to his sons.)

Yummy raspberries before they were tossed into our breakfast.

Here's our breakfast.
Delicious raspberry scones.

I had a visitor on my bike.
I took his picture and then quickly shooed him away.
Reptiles and I do not mix.

Rosie and Daddy.
This is her favorite position.

She'd stay up there forever.

We took Olivia to the Middle School
right behind our house so that she could
get in some more skating practice.

Burger's on the grill.
So iconic American and Labor Day weekend.

I hope yours was just as lovely.

Lillyella "At Home" for Sept

My new blog post for the month of September is up over on Nicole's blog, Lillyella.
This month is decorating inspiration for the outdoors; your porch, patio, or deck.
I hope you guys enjoy reading it as I did putting it together.

smiles

The other day, all our stars were aligned properly
and I had make-up
and the girls had their hair brushed and decent clothes on
so I grabbed my camera and took a few pictures of us.
They turned out so well Mike took all of them to work
the very next morning for his screen saver at work.

Of course we are completely biased about our girls,
but when they smile like this,
how could you not be?

I can't believe how fast they are growing.
Olivia is our big girl as always, but she's almost at my shoulder.
At 7.
I don't think I'm quite ready for that.

And Sadie~Rose has changed so much lately.
She talks.
Constantly.
Never ending-ly.
From the moment she wakes up until she closes her eyes at night.
She has a good teacher from her sister.

And the girlies aren't the only ones who have been growing lately.
Baby #3 is making his/her mark as well.
I'm now "officially" pregnant to everyone who see's me.
No hiding it anymore.
19 weeks has been good to me though.
And I'm awfully lough to give up my skinnies. :)
It's the only pair of jeans I can still wear.

Hope you all have a wonderful and lovely
Labor Day Weekend!
We are planning possible trips to the beach,
the Charleston Farmer's Market and downtown
or if nothing else, a trip to the playground.
We are all quite excited about the possibilities!
See you back next week and hopefully
I'll be able to share some exciting news with y'all.

quiet

It's been a little quiet over here of late. Wish a had a wonderful great excuse, but I don't. Other than we've been dealing with some not-so-fun stuff. Our summer hasn't quite turned out the way I had planned due to a lack of vehicles and funds. Oh well, right? There have been some very good parts but also a bit of sadness as well. Reading through some bloggy friends wonderful summer posts (like her's, her's, her's, and her's) I realized a. I haven't taken many pictures in the last 4 months and b. our summer days of late have looked mostly like this =




















Not exactly post worthy or inspiring, huh?
Maybe I should follow Andi's example and make a family end-of-summer to-do list for these next few weeks. Maybe I should muster up some spare energy from somewhere and make a few more memories with the family. We'll see. I'll keep you posted.


PS. Please excuse my blue funk and self-pity party. Chock it up to mid-pregnancy hormones. Tomorrow will be a better day!

1st day of school

School has officially started for us. 3rd grade, here we are! Our books arrived last Thursday around 4pm and Olivia was ready to start right then. Thankfully I was able to put her off until Monday.
We had a family conference Saturday morning regarding our attitudes and how everyone has a part to play in the function of our family and for everything to work smoothly (or as smoothly as possible) that we all need to try our hardest and best at all times. I think it has helped, though I don't kid myself in thinking that it will be the only one we'll have to have this school year.


Our days are going well. There is a comfort and peacefulness in knowing how your day will progress. And as we are still with only one air conditioned car (as Mike likes to drive to work in relative coolness in our heat index of 115F) we enjoy quiet afternoons at home reading, folding laundry, and listening to books on CD.

Sadie-Rose spends a lot of time playing blocks or in her kitchen with a baby and fixing up copious amounts of pretend tea with milk. She also has her own "school book" and loves to sit on my lap sorting the pencils and having me help her write numbers over and over.

My favorite day was definitely Monday. All the excitement of starting something new, the new books, new pencils, all make for good spirits. The funniest moment was by far during our math lesson. We were working on learning some new subtraction sums. Here's how the conversation went, being worked out with manipulatives :
Me: "These squares are cookies. If I had 5 cookies and then I eat those 5 cookies, how many do I have left?"
Olivia: "I want some cookies! Give me some cookies!"
Me: "That's not the point, remember. They're just plastic squares. Now if I had 5 cookies and then I eat those 5 cookies, how many do I have left?"
Olivia: "0"
Me: "Right! Now if I had 9 cookies and I ate 9 cookies, how many do I have left?"
Olivia: "0"
Me: "Good! Ok, now if I had 7 cookies and I ate just 1 cookie, how many would I have left?"
Olivia: "6. I still want some cookies."
Me: "Not right now dear. So, if I had 5 cookies and I ate 0 of them, what would I have?
Olivia: "A bellyache! Because you ate all those other cookies! ha ha ha ha ha!"

Much hilarity ensued but we did finally finish our lesson and Olivia finally got her cookie. :)

I hope your first days of school go as well and are filled with as much merriment. I can't wait to hear all about them!