hello

Things have been so busy here!! The kids are back in school, but I am now babysitting 2 little girls. They are both 'part time' but it overlaps a little. I am loving them, they are so fun! But of course it's much different watching 2 or 3 toddlers than it is to watch 1!!
Barb and I have been trying to walk whenever we can. It's been so nice.
School is going well. Still need to rent Will a trombone.

Art has been switched to a 'night' shift, but it's actually 2-10. Which means I have the kids most of the time again! Oy! And it's hard for Art because his schedule is all messed up. We've been getting a lot done though when he's home for the day! He's such a hard worker.

Colby cut his hair with scissors. Booger.
Owen can now eat a whole apple, it's very cute to watch! BUT- he is now screaming all the time. ALL.the.time.

Gotta head to bed.

Back to Life as we knew it before summer...

The kids are back in school! I'm sad to see them go because I miss having them around all of the time. However, they were getting bored with being home, and very bored with eachother. They are doing good at school and are happy to have things to do. So far, they haven't had much homework so that is nice. I'm sure it will be soon enough though!
On Labor Day we brought the kids to the Chatham Fair and let them ride the rides. It was fun, until Will got a belly ache and felt like he was going to throw up. His favorite ride was the gravitron, where they spin you around really fast. It's no wonder he was sick!!
And then a quick trip to Dair Queen for some ice cream!!!
And then school started...
And on Thursday, Will and Colby tested in tae kwon do... they are now high red belts. Woohoo!!
On Friday Art and Will went camping with the BoyScouts. They just got back yesterday. It was a fun trip, except that is rainy and windy when they got there on Friday night. But it was mostly good weather the rest of the time, and they were able to fish and hike and I'm sure Will had a great time.
Sam joined a new Girl Scout troop. The did face painting at a school ice-cream social on Friday, and Sam was able to do Nellie's and Braelyn's faces! That was exciting. Colby wanted nothing to do with the face painting. But they were giving away free ice cream, which we enjoyed-- a lot!!!
Yesterday the troop went mini-golfing. I hope Sam likes this troop.

Owen spilled water on my laptop, and now some of the buttons don't work right. Very annoying!!!

An update!

It's September already.
Today we took the kids to Helen's for her annual Labor Day picnic. There were a lot of people there, and a lot of kids. Some friends of Art's have a little boy named Parker who is 14 months old, so I talked with his mom a lot and he and Owen "played" together.
Yesterday I took the kids to FunPlex to use up a 3-hour gift card Sam had. They were able to ride the go-karts numerous times, do the bumper boats, the big trampoline, the funny basketball hoops, and also the water wars a couple of times. It was really hot so the water wars felt great!!! After that we used our coupons to get ice cream at Lickety Split-- yum!
When we got home Owen felt hot-- because he had a 103.8 temp. Tylenol brought it down and it went away, but today it crept back to 100.5. Poor buddy. He seems fine otherwise.
Last week our neighbor made a homemade gokart for his grandson, so of course these guys had to ride on it too! Luckily we live on a street that is perfect to ride a gokart down! How fun!
The kids are ready to go back to school, which starts this Tuesday, the 8th.

Samantha just finished the 21-day meds for the lyme disease. She's still not feeling great so I'm not sure if she'll have to do more. She has had her school supplies labeled and ready to go for weeks now! I can't believe she'll be a 7th grader!

Will has been feeding his gecko huge crickets that Art finds at the other house. He's also been giving her a taste of grasshoppers. It's really fun to watch the gecko eat! Will is lucky that Samantha enjoyed labeling things and organizing things-- she organized all of his back to school stuff!

Colby is doing well. :) And Owen too. Owen is still getting into trouble, but we love him so much!! His laugh is so cute. He absolutely adores his sister and brothers. They can all make him laugh when he's upset!

The other day he fed himself yogurt, which is what some of the pictures above are!!

Art is almost done with the house....how long have I been saying that?

Tomorrow we're headed to the Chatham Fair! One last day of fun before school!!!