Until I find/buy that little piece I'm looking for (probably in one of the boxes I wasn't planning on unpacking) I'm going to just show you what we've been up to with my phone pics. There weren't as many as I thought there would be, but we have a fun weekend planned so I'll be back with more next week. (I'm trying to be better about posting on here.)

 Our friend Nicholas comes home with us on Mondays after school and then rides to soccer practice with us. His parents and I decided after the first week of this that homework needed to be done before they go instead of after. I don't think any of us realized it would take 45 minutes to write one letter over and over. It no longer takes that long when the boys do their homework together.


 Christopher felt the need to check and see how Nicholas was doing, but it looks like he's cheating. (I forgot to add that Nicholas has a sticker on his forehead to remind his parents that they have class pictures the next day. The boys were wearing these on their shirts when I picked them up, but he thought it would be funny if he put it on his face instead.)


 We kept my parents' dogs one weekend while they were out of town. Sophie loved Millie. She told me to take this photo. Don't worry, she is wearing shorts. And yes, this is what she wore to school. And yes, she had slept in the shirt the night before. I don't care.


 We "HAD" to bring the train table into the den the other day. This is the track Christopher built after we did that. You can't see it, but my clear cutting board is now a bridge. Unfortunately he uses is more than I do.

Sophie broke the track. But in her defense, my board wasn't quite long enough for what Christopher wanted. We have since found a replacement for it and now I don't have to worry about them bending my board and then I have to buy a new one.

 Last Saturday I had to watch the Khan boys while their parents were gone and it was hysterical! I love watching these four get together. It was very sunny and got hot fast so they put their chair bags on their heads to help cool them off.

 Then we decided to move farther away from the field so we could get in the shade. It was much more pleasant! And yes, Christopher and Nicholas did actually play. I just caught them during their breaks.


 That night they came over with their mom (since we were without our other half) and the kids played and we made pizza. These two put on the pepperoni...


 These two knuckleheads put on the rest of the cheese...


 And this little cutie ate the ingredients. I want to steal him all the time he's so cute!!!


 This is how I found Christopher sleeping the other night. Melted my heart!


 This is now what I use to vacuum the house with. Since the downstairs is pretty much all brick or wood and my little Oreck fills up too fast I figured this was a more economical solution. It works great, I just need a set of wheels so it doesn't turn over. It's a little loud too. But if the suction slows down I just take it outside, put the hose on the other end and blow the clog right out. Easy peasy!


 Sophie loves to clean and wanted to help me mop the other morning. I apologize for how gross the water looks in the bucket. I think I had to dump and refill it about 4 times b/c it had been such a dirty week at the house.


 This is how she ate breakfast the other morning. She cracks me up all the time.


 This is my adorable and sweet nephew Jason. I stole this from my sister's FB page. I love him and want to steal him in a couple months when he's sleeping through the night and no longer needing mommy to eat.


 I picked up Joshua and Sophie from school yesterday and took them to get a cookie. After I paid and sat down I then learned that his mommy wouldn't let them buy these cookies when she did this for them. Sorry Melissa, I was not aware of this and should have known they were sneaky like that!!


 They played the statues outside...


 And ran, and ran, and ran, and ran.... And they'd only eaten about 1/3-1/2 a cookie.


Christopher informed me on the way home from school yesterday that he wanted to wear his new Superman costume and eat popcorn while he watched Superman. I let him. They normally run and play like crazy when they get home and then start melting around 5:00, so if this is what it took to get him to sit still and not become a grouch later I was all for it.


I hope this will tide you over until I can do this again. I hope you all have a great weekend, we are planning on having one ourselves!

I have great news! I finally found my camera! But I still can't find the tiny little thingy that helps me download the photos. That's why I haven't posted anything lately. (And why I put tiny little thingys into big ziploc baggies. Harder to lose a baggie than a little bitty plugin thingy!) Who wants to read anything I write if there are no pictures to look at? Hopefully there will be soon.

Not much else has happened around here. We are still busy. So busy in fact that the kids are exhausted. And I feel like we aren't even as busy as most families. But I've tried to stay "un-busy" for as long as we could b/c I didn't want to exhaust my kids of sports/activities/events too early in life. They are only 3 and 5 years old after all. The newness and excitement of life had worn off and they are plain pooped out! (We've missed choir the last two weeks b/c they are so exhausted.) So now we go to bed even earlier. Lights out, door shut, parent gone at 7:30. And this is from people who about a year ago were making them stay up until 8:30 so they would sleep past 6:00 in the morning! It's working really well though. Some nights Sophie will pass out in the middle of a book and then sleep for 12 hours. Christopher is still trying to convince me that he can stay up until midnight. I just keep telling him to go for it and let me know how that works out for him.

Here's a little news on me, if anyone cares, I have found a great Sunday School class to go to at our old/new church. I went one Sunday and was hooked. I went to girls night out a week or so ago and it was so fun to get to know them a little more. It was so encouraging to talk to one of them in particular about something we've always felt called to do, but I was starting to question. I love how God brings people into your life just when you need them. He ALWAYS seems to do that! (One of the many things I love about Him.)

I'm still trying to figure out what to do with all my time though. Sophie and I got in a groove when Christopher started school, then she started and it's taken me longer to figure out how best to use my days. But she isn't gone as long as he is, so it's much harder to figure things like this out. Should I go run, shower, eat lunch, then it's time to pick her up? OR should I run as many errands as I can alone? OR should I clean the house and do laundry? OR should I say, "I deserve a day of rest" and do nothing? It's tough. I'm much better at cleaning and organizing if I have someone over. Not sure why, but it's more fun to do those things when you have someone to talk to. They don't have to help, just take my mind off what I'm doing.

I have one thing to ask though before I go, and I really hope that my friend doesn't mind me saying this on here, (I don't want to go into too much detail b/c it's not my family), but a dear friend of mine just found out over the weekend that her older sister has cancer. She was like a big sister to me too and I looked up to her and adored her as if she really was. She is only 35 and has 2 small children. They have no idea if it has spread, but are hopeful that because it was actually found early, thanks to a different problem she was dealing with, that it has not. I know that God is with this family, but I also know the fear that the word "cancer" can bring to a family, so I want to ask all of you to be praying for them.

I can barely keep my eyes open so I guess I better go to bed now. Hopefully the next time I'm back I will have tons of photos of all that we've been doing. Until then, goodnight!

Like everyone else we have been super busy since school started. I'm still trying to adjust to Christopher being gone most of the day. It has also been amazing that he gets to carpool with his best friend in the morning. I can't even tell you how thankful I am that our best friend Burt has offered to take him to school every morning. I'm not sure if he really wanted to or if he was just being nice, but it truly made Christopher's transition to kindergarten, a new school, new people SO much easier! (but I think he enjoys it b/c Christopher and Nicholas are quite hilarious when they get together.) He is really enjoying school and is a typical boy in that his favorite subject is recess. He has made lots of friends and the shyness didn't last nearly as long as I thought it would.

Sophie is doing great at her new school as well. I have never had any problems dropping my kids off at school because they hated running errands and I saw it as a chance for them to make new friends and for me to get things done without screaming children along. But Sophie has really become quite the shopping buddy. Her first day I just stood at the window watching her as she stood in the middle of the room taking it all in. It was the first time I ever had to choke down tears. She is my baby girl and I was going to miss having someone to hang out with.

We have also started soccer, gymnastics and choir. Christopher is LOVING LOVING LOVING soccer and I'm so proud of how well he is doing. God is so awesome because when he signed him up we asked if he and his friend could be on the same team, but they can't do that. I was ok with that because I wouldn't want the job of matching everyone up in a crowd of 400+ kids either. I began praying that he would be ok with not knowing anyone on his team and still want to play and would enjoy it. And wouldn't you know, they are on the same team! And to top it off, Burt is the coach! All I could do was laugh when I heard the news. I have tons of photos and video from Christopher's first soccer game, but somehow my camera went missing and I'm very upset b/c I still haven't downloaded any of the photos yet. I'm praying it turns up soon.

Sophie started gymnastics and wants to go every day. She LOVES LOVES LOVES it and asks all the time if her brother can come watch her. We even had to bring one of our Rapunzel dolls so she could watch Sophie do her stuff. She would yell at me from across the gym to turn Rapunzel around so she could see her better. If you have been around her for 30 minutes you will quickly learn that she loves to sing too, so when we learned that she was old enough for choir at church we jumped on board. We were the first ones there the night it started and she can't wait to tell everyone about the songs that she sang while she was there. Or in Sunday School. Or at school. Or that she felt like making up in the car.

I apologize for not updating this very much and that I don't really have any photos to show you. I promise, as soon as I find the camera I will work on it! For now, here's some random ones:

We went to the lake for labor day. We only made it out on the water once. Christopher is obsessed with tubing. He also learned how to knee board. I actually have photos of him doing both, just need to put them on here.


Sophie says she doesn't like the "fast boat" but i think she really does. Look at that? She's having fun, right?



Grabbing a snack after our first game, he scored a couple goals and kept asking when he could go back in.



After the game we went to the zoo with some friends. It was so fun to see them again and we can't wait to go back to the zoo too!



Sophie before a bike ride one morning. And yes, that's her brother's bike. And yes, she's wearing a purse. She wore it almost the whole time.



Sophie has decided that she needs to wash her face in the morning and put her contacts in just like mommy. It's so cute!

I need to upload more photos to my computer, so until I do that I'm going to leave you with a photo that is just too cute to leave out. Hope you all have a great weekend and I think you know who we will be pulling for. So nice to be surrounded by the correct shades of blue and orange again! : )

This past Sunday night, Christopher went to spend the night with Grammie and Pop. We have talked about the kids getting to do this now that we live closer, but we haven't had the time yet. On Friday, Christopher heard that Grammie was going to be in town and hang out with Sophie while he and I went to shop for school supplies and he took it upon himself to go and pack a bag so he could go home with her. We all met for lunch and he asked if he could go spend the night with her, but it really wasn't the best day. She had just spent the week watching my niece while her little brother was born and I wanted to make sure Grammie had some time to rest and catch up on her own life. We talked and decided that Sunday would be a great day. His bag was still sitting by the door ready to go.

We often meet my parents after church for lunch and so we did that again this weekend. He didn't want to stop and eat, he wanted to go straight to the lake. We convinced him otherwise and even though he didn't eat anything, we survived a meal out. He went to the back of the van, got his bag, went and got his booster seat and pretty much said, "See ya later!" and off they went. He had the most incredible time and it was exactly what he needed. Our lives have been so crazy these last several months that he seriously needed some one on one time with someone. He and Pop headed straight to the shop and built a wooden logging truck. He LOVES to work in the shop and has made more trucks out of wood than I ever thought possible. They also pulled out Pop's old train and put that together, went fishing, played marbles and I can't even remember everything else he did. He was in heaven! (Sophie and I had a great afternoon together too, she had the chance to go with her brother, but really wanted some Mommy time.)

Grammie and I decided to meet in Auburn on Monday and we could visit my sister, Anne Morgan and new baby Jason and I could pick up Christopher there. My sister wrote a great post and got great photos of the day and so you can see it here. It's way better than what I would add, especially since it has photos! Hope you are enjoying the rest of your summer. Our is coming to an end very quickly and I can't believe that Christopher starts kindergarten on Monday! I'm really nervous for him. I think the fact he is so shy and I end being concerned overshadows any feelings of sadness that he is growing up too fast. A week ago we realized that he has TWO loose teeth! It's too much too fast.

Now I'm off to watch a movie with the two cute kids that have been driving me crazy while typing this and won't leave me alone until I come and join them.