It's hot outside!!!

Wowers!!!  We are back to scorching hot summer weather!  Today is fore casted to be in the upper 90's and feeling like over 100 degrees!!!  I would love to go to the pool again but Hadassah's got her drivers license appointment today, so we will be off to hopefully coming home with another driver in the house!!!

School has been going really well!!!  Getting up earlier in the morning forces us to go to bed earlier at night!  It's not all bad!  :)))  Ashlyn is the one that's the laziest and hardest to get up and moving but once she is finally out of bed, it's all good!  I drove along with the children this morning with Hadassah in the drivers seat!  She is doing great with driving and was practicing that parallel parking last night again!  This may the last morning that I will need to drive along to school because if she passes, she will be our new "bus/sibling school driver"!  This is going to be great!!!

 

After school, these two get right to playing!  They took their butterfly nets outside the other afternoon and chased butterflies!!!

Ashlyn's zinnias are thriving!!!  They loved all that rain we were getting a few weeks back!

And look what I spied while mowing around this in the yard!!!  We will be watching to see if a butterfly comes out of this!!!

And I also noticed this while mowing.  We have a small sink hole in the side yard!  I hope it doesn't get any bigger and Mike's got to get some dirt and fill it up!

And here's what I do with the flowers the children cut for me!!!

Ashlyn was invited on Friday night to go with Sierra to Chuckie Cheeses!!!  She's begged and begged to go to this place but we did this type of birthday party for Hadassah years ago and Mike said "never again!!!"  He hated it!!!  But, it is a fun place for the children!  Thank you Sierra for inviting Ashlyn!!!  She had a great time!  She earned enough of tokens to get a prize lollie pop!

Ashlyn asked her dad to pull out her front tooth last Sunday.  Now the other is getting looser and will be falling out soon too!

We are in peach season and it's a fruit we've been eating daily!!!  Peaches are so delicious fresh, warm and even in desserts!!!

Yesterday, I got two baskets of Loring Peaches and canned them!!!  Hadassah loves to use peaches in her daily smoothies, so we will see how long these last in the cellar!

 

Like I already mentioned, the weather is hot outside!!!  Austin and I did get to the pool on Monday and Lena met us there with her boys!  We spent the whole afternoon in the sun and water!  I picked up Ashlyn at school and brought her to the pool to!  She loved that surprise!  Matthew had after school golf practice and Hadassah was at volleyball practice.  We all seem to have places to go and appointments to meet but spending some time in the warm sun was high on my agenda because I just know that one of these weeks we will be moving into Fall and the pools will be closed! 

After golf food with his dad!!!

There are some pony's at the neighbors farm that Ashlyn is wishing we would buy and build a barn and then let them live at our house!  But, until her dreams come true, we are feeding them apples and carrots every now and then.  Last night, was magical as they feed the pony's!!!

We are looking forwards to a long weekend at home for Labor Day!!!  With extra days of no school and more days of sleeping in … we are going to treasure our family time and adventures together!!!

We are back in school.

And just like that we are back in school!!!  The kids were excited this morning when I woke them up and ready to head back to their classes!

 

Last night, when we tucked Ashlyn in bed she said, "I'm so excited I could scream!"  She tossed back and forth until she finally fell asleep.  She couldn't wait to go back to school.  Hadassah and Matthew didn't show that much excitement but I know they are ready to get back to school stuff too.

 

Ashlyn lost her front tooth on Sunday morning.

 

Matthew is growing right before our eyes.  All of his school pants from last year do not fit him anymore.  He's grown inches since the beginning of summer and eats two loaded burgers now in one meal.  He is excited to join the Upper School at Houston Run this year.  It's a good change and he's ready for it.  He loaded up his luggage and is looking forward to spending the next few days at Black Rock Retreat with the Upper Class.

Ashlyn is so excited to go back to school.  I can't believe she's entering second grade but she's ready!  She was so happy to see her friends again and get to meet her new teacher, Mrs. Garber.  She was still so excited that she couldn't eat breakfast.
  

And this Little Man didn't miss a beat!  When we woke him up this morning to take the kids to school, he was up in a flash.  I gave him a new back pack after he woke up to make him feel important too and he loves it!!!  He would go to school today if he could!

He is really going to miss his siblings while they are in school.

And as we waited for Hadassah to whip up her breakfast smoothie, the cat kept jumping in the tree.

Hadassah is full of confidence that her Junior Year is going to be a good one!  She drove us to school and is anticipating her drivers license test soon!  Houston Run felt like home again as the high school returned there and she is so happy to be back in this nice building!!!

Hadassah and Matthew are in the same school building now.  Upper School joined with the high school students this year and it's going to be fun watching them all interact and learn!  Matthew is now off to Black Rock with grades 7 & 8.  I also cannot believe that he's in eighth grade this year!!!  He's growing up into a young man!!!

Hadassah jumped out of the driver seat and went right into school!  She's always done so well in school and loves both the academics and social life!!!  Go get it girl!!!  Learn tons!!!

Then I got behind the wheel and went a hop, skip and a jump over to Main Campus at Linville!  It feels so good to have the high school back in town and not so far away!!!  Ashlyn walked into school with her little brother right by her side!!!

She couldn't wait to see Dr. Hurst (sticky tack) again!!!  And look her greeted her right at the front door!!!  How sweet!

I walked with her to her class and she was all smiles!!!

Austin and I walked out of school together and even though none of us cried, I can't get over the fact that it's again just him and I at home again now.  Austin loves when his siblings are home and I hope the change will go well!!!  He can't wait to go to school himself!

There was only a half day today.  It's a good, fun start!  When I picked Ashlyn up at Main Campus, she hopped in the Yukon and her first words were, before I even got to ask her, "It was awesome!!!"  She enjoyed her first day of second grade very much!!!

I'm excited to see the kids get back into their studies and back to normal routine!!!  I just wasn't feeling ready quite yet but after going with Matthew yesterday to his orientation, it felt so good to see school family, the awesome Linville Hill Staff and friends once again.  I knew the kids would feel the same way this morning!!!

We are incredibly blessed to be able to send our children to a Christian school where they get to pray and sing and worship Jesus together every single day in their classrooms.  So much evil is in our world today and so to have this impact on their lives is a huge benefit when it comes to raising warriors to fight against good and evil!!!  We teach our children about God and how Jesus died on the cross to save us all from our sins right here in our home but it just feels so good to know that they also are being taught in their schools about the love of God and taught tools on how to fight and win every day battles!!! 

We are off to a great school start!!!