August 2020

 

So what if I have more pictures of my dog than my kids?

And sunsets. Can't go wrong with dogs and sunsets. Sunset from the back porch on our last evening on the farm.

We spent a long weekend in early August at Lori's new house in OK, getting her all settled in and knocking out a lot of a pretty long punch list.

The kids weeded the entire driveway.

And then, much to their delight, pressure cleaned it.

Naomi post-pressure cleaning.

They found this sweet old rope swing in the back yard that they could reach if they jumped off the top of the bobcat. It's some kind of small miracle that stitches weren't involved for our kids.

Celebrating at the end of a hot first day... I had forgotten just how hot Oklahoma is in August. It's no southwest Florida, but it almost is.

The kids learned the joy of scraping paint.

Don't feel too sorry for them -- there were popsicles involved.

Clifton is doing something with an outlet here. Not exactly sure what but it looks legit. We are so grateful for friends who know what they are doing to show the rest of us what to do. 

And at the end of the weekend the kids came home and got to see their new house!!

Cousin time all together!

Sarah was kindof obsessed with holding sweet baby Everett.

Back home again, Annika had an end of summer tea party with her best buds before starting their last year of elementary school!

And Naomi's trio got together one last time before each heading off to their own middle schools.

And the mamas got a chance to catch up too after far too long.

And then the first day was here.

Right on time.

And we pretended it was normal and took these pictures

Except that there isn't anything normal about this

(Sarah wants you to know she has allergies and hadn't been crying)

And for at least a while, this is what school looks like in our house.

And this is how you hang out with friends to work through homework together on google meets.  The kids are making it happen. We're finding our groove.

Birthday parties during COVID -- two pairs of sisters, some water and a trampoline.

Naomi's leg doing some creepy optical illusion thing.

Naomi (and her buddy Lucy) did the Fall showcase performance of Die Puppenfee -- all filmed instead of live performance, all while masked. She loved it.

During filming

It was her first performance en pointe.

For school Sarah had to draw three things that were similar and one thing that was different. Of course my kid draws three cups and a wine glass.

So many spa days in this house. 

Sarah at school.

I taught my kids Snausage, which is a ridiculous game I learned in college. It's like steamroller, but you bring a blanket along with you as you roll, so in the end you are all snuggly wrapped all together, often unable to get out for a while, laughing your heads off. Yes, I said college.

Annika's been making me do training runs with her for soccer. 2.5 miles on my days off. I kept up with her pretty well for the first few. Turns out kids get in better shape faster than adults. Or at least faster than me.