Woods Walking

Saturday evening Kent and I took the girls, including Leah, to one of our favorite places for a little walk through the woods. It was a perfect fall evening!!! The girls, all three of them, had fun playing in the creek and exploring the trails.

September!

It's September, and it feels like Fall!!! I love sweater wearing weather, and it appears to have arrived. Every morning, the girls and I study the leaves for signs of the changing season. I love Fall!!!! It has always been my favorite season!

In the next month, we have a lot of fall activities to squeeze in. I want to go camping in the mountains, go apple picking, visit a pumpkin patch, and there are several Fall-ish harvest-y type festivals in the surrounding areas I want to attend. We also have an upcoming fifth birthday to plan. Just FYI, Sophie requests a Halloween theme with costumes for those of you who are local.

In early September, we celebrated Eddy's birthday. She turned four this year!!! That means more cake and more fun for my little ones!

Sophie has started a new ballet class, and she loves it! She says her teacher is really nice, and when the kids make a mistake, she helps them instead of yelling at them (you might recall her former teacher in LA). What a concept! Madeline has started a gymnastics class, as well. She goes for 90 minutes on Friday evenings. I kind of like the 90 minute class as it allows me time to run home and tidy up and catch up on an errand or two.

School!

The day after Labor Day was the day our lives got ridiculously busy. I started teaching fifth grade, and Madeline started her year in third grade. Madeline and I are at the same school for the first time ever! It's quite convenient not having an additional drop off or pick up, but it does make being super productive before and after school more difficult, and it makes for a pretty boring morning and afternoon for Madeline. I've been working some fairly long hours adjusting to a new school and new curriculum, but hopefully, that will change as I get use to everything.

Sophie really likes her new school, and Madeline goes over there on Monday afternoons when school dismisses early for teacher meetings. I may look into Madeline going over there an additional day a week or check into the after school program at work. Luckily, I was able to get Madeline into the jumprope club which meets twice a week before school, and I am hoping she'll enjoy it while giving me some uninterrupted time to prepare for the school day.

Here is some good stuff about my new job: My students are bright and very polite. They like to read and work! Some of them are very talented athletes and musicians. They have very involved parents. We don't start our school day until 8:45. I love when Madeline walks through my classroom door at 3:45. It surprises me every day even though I am expecting it. We have fairly unlimited resources and can pretty much order the teaching supplies we need. Our copy machine staples!!! My students have art, music, PE, band, strings, chorus, library, technology, and Spanish during the school day. We have already had one day off due to inclement weather (flooding). The other fifth grade teachers are all very nice. I was told at a training not to worry about test scores as 99% of my students could pass the state test on the first day of school. What?!?!

And here are the things I am getting used to: Dismissing students until 4:00 means I am not likely to get home until 5:30 most days. My work laptop is a Dell, and I hate it. I miss my Mac. I get 20 emails a day, and have to remember to check frequently throughout the day for important school information like announced fire drills and stuff. The parents of my students also correspond with me through email, and I am just not in the habit of reading through/responding to email during the school day. The kids have so many special activities that it is hard to squeeze in curriculum. I miss not having my good friend Jodi next door to me all day.

That about sums things up so far!

Kings Dominion and Bye-Bye Summer

Madeline got her birthday wish! We made it to Kings Dominion, and we had a pretty good day. The weather was great. No rain, no storms, and it wasn't too hot. We rode rides for the first six hours, and the girls enjoyed most of them, although a couple turned out to be too scary. Their favorite part was the area called "Water Works" where there was a lazy river, a spray ground, and a wave pool. We spent a little over two hours there.

This part was confusing to me. We went without a stroller, and Sophie walked the entire day which included nine hours of amusement park rides and water park activities. She was not carried once. The ride home took over an hour, and I tucked her in about 9:30. She was still awake and looking at books at 10:30 and never fell asleep on the way home. How is that possible?!?

Things Got Busy!

The cake before. Does Madeline look excited or what?

Things have gotten quite busy! But, let's rewind back to a couple of weeks ago. My big girl turned eight!!! She had two requests for her birthday. One request was to decorate her own birthday cake, and the second one was to go to Kings Dominion. We haven't made it to Kings Dominion just yet, although it is on the agenda, thanks to a certain hurricane. Thank you very much Irene. We lost power for a few hours, but other than some heavy rain and wind, we were just fine. Back to Ms. Maddie's birthday. She did decorate her own cake, recieved some amazing gifts, and had not one, but four cakes. Uncle Josh and family came into town, and we had a little celebration with them, Aunt Jen had a little cake with her while babysitting (I was in training), Ralph and Shirley had a cake for her while babysitting (I was in training, again), and we celebrated another time in honor of all the August birthdays (Maddie, Kent, and Dawn) over at Blake and Jen's. Whew! That's a lot of cake!

She requested a shell border and for me to put her name on it, but that's all I was allowed to do.

Trying out her new skateboard.

Little girls! Lots of em!

Besides Hurricane Irene, we had an earthquake, on Madeline's actual birthday, no less. Pretty amazing, really. I thought I had left earthquake country behind, but apparently I have not. I was at a teacher training in a high school at the time, and besides some confusion, things didn't seem too bad. I was surpsrised to come home and find several pictures knocked from shelves, some open drawers, and this spilled vase in the bathroom.

A picture from the August birthdays party. It's a bit dark since it was evening, and the camera is still without a flash.

And, I got new glasses. And, I started my job. I haven't had a full day with students yet, but the county has kept me so busy with training after training that setting up my room and actually planning lessons has kept me at work until 6 lots of days this week. It seems there is never enough time for everything, but that is nothing new. We'll have some first day of school pics this coming week. Should be exciting and exhausting!

Hidden Pond and a Hidden Turtle

On Tuesday, I took the girls to Hidden Pond. I went there lots as a kid, and Kent and I use to take Leroy there to run around, too. There is a really nice nature center, but it turns out, they are closed on Tuesdays. Boo. That was a disappointment. But, as we were walking around the pond, we spied these head shaped things popping up out of the water and went to investigate. We saw huge turtles! I would guess their shells were 18-24 inches long, although it's hard to tell in the video. Madeline spent an hour luring them over and uncovering them. She keeps talking about them and telling everyone about them. They really made an impression on her, and I think we'll go back tomorrow when the nature center is open.

Around the House . . .

I made a new craigslist purchase! It's kind of addicting. It's so easy to find something I like at a great price, I just can't help myself. We needed something to set a lamp on in our front room, and this table was pretty perfect. Great fit for the space, pretty and not too heavy looking. Most of our furniture is dark wood, so I like how this has a glass top and a lighter feeling. It was forty dollars and a three minute drive away. Here are a couple more pics of the new piece in our new place:

Also around the house . . . Madeline finished the third book in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. She stays up pretty late reading, and I love peeking in her room to see her light aglow and her nose in her book. I think I mentioned before how having an extra bedroom has improved bedtime . . . Where I used to hear talking, playing, bouncing, and nagging between the two girls, I now hear nothing. This is what's going on at bedtime now:

Most of last weekend was rainy. We stayed indoors for the most part and caught some sunshine through the windows. Leah loves to sit on our bed and watch the goings on down below through our bedroom window.

The girls love dressing her in tutus . . .

And . . . Eddy and Rae came to spend Monday with us. The four girls had a lot of fun. Madeline is a huge help with the little ones; she adores babies and toddlers. It was a nice opportunity for me to get to know my nieces better. They are super sweet girls.

Another Friday, Already?

So, we couldn't keep up with the Friday pizza-making-tradition we re-started last Friday because we were too busy visiting DC. We were able to walk this trail in our neighborhood right to the metro station. Kent does this on foot or by bike every weekday, but it was the first time the girls and I had tried it out. It's about a ten minute walk, but with these dawdlers and a creak nearby, it took us 20.

Riding the rails. The price to go from our stop to the zoo with maybe 12 stops in between was three dollars, a bargain! Then to go from the zoo to Kent's work, which is only one stop up, was 2.40 and not such a bargain. That just doesn't add up! But anyway, we rode the metro to the zoo on our way to visit Kent at work and that was quite cool.

After our zoo stop, we went to see where Kent spends most of his time, at work. The studios were cool with great views, but the girls were mostly impressed with the snacks and candy each room was stocked with for the clients. Go figure, they are 4 and 7 after all. Then we commuted home with Daddy making his daily ride more enjoyable. Happy Friday everyone!

A Sneak Peak

Here is a peak at the girls' bedrooms. I'd still like to purchase Sophie a dresser and Madeline a bookshelf, but the lamps arrived providing enough light for me to take photographs (my cameral flash has been broken for at least a year), so here are some pictures of the bedrooms in progress. Sophie has requested new bedding in pink tones, but she's quite happy with this for the moment:

Sophie was very specific about the placement of her birdhouse and butterflies, just FYI. I may have selected somewhere different, but her choices seem to work out o.k. It's just a rental (aka: temporary) after all. ;)

Madeline's room isn't that different than her old one, except that she doesn't have to share it, and she has a new lamp. We both really like her new lamp. Yay for Target! The curtains came with the house, and I really like how they cast pink and green hues on our rental-white walls.

This is our neighbor. He is really nice and six years old. The girls have spent many hours at his home, and he has spent many hours at ours.

I found these shelves in our storage room; they use to be used in our shed. I don't love the look of the playroom, but the shelving/storage is a big functional improvement.

A Little of This and a Little of That

We've been busy getting to know our new hood. We got new library cards; Madeline and Sophie both have their own! Madeline loves the self check-out, and we have already been twice! Yesterday, Madeline attended a reptile show at the library, and since they were really strict about the 6-12 year age range, Sophie and I read for 45 minutes, 45 fairly long minutes. :) Sophie would be happy if I read the same book over and over again for 45 minutes, but I limited her to two readings per book.

Earlier in the week, we met up with Aunt Jen and kids at this spray ground. We had heard of these types of playgrounds, but we had never experienced one before. Since it is a county park, it is free! Free! I love free and fun kid activities. It was a bit short on shade for onlookers like myself, but other than that, it is a great place for the kids to cool off.

Our rental home is slowly becoming more cozy and home-like. I found this great file cabinet on craigslist. Kent and I LOOOOOVE craigslist, and we have had much success finding high quality good condition furniture pieces at great prices. I had been searching the listings for two weeks when I found this cabinet. (The filing cabinet at our old house was built in, so it was sold with the house.) We made a few furniture changes on our main level and put the new cabinet near the kitchen. If you're wondering why we would block the sliding glass door with furniture, it's because the door is basically a big window. Since the owners did not add a deck, there is just a safety rail on the outside. It's a bit hard to see the details of it in this picture, but I really love this new piece!

Just a picture of a fruit salad I made with the blackberries and peaches we picked, plus some leftover fruit from Saturday's family potluck. I have been making the kids brunch lately since they sleep until around 10 most days. I tucked them in at 9 last night, and still, twelve hours later, the upstairs is quiet. School days are going to be rough in a couple of weeks. :)