August 2011 already???!!!

Where has time gone? I can hardly believe that it is the end of summer (calendar wise, not weather wise) and that our kids are 7, 5 and almost 3. It's been a busy but good year. In the last few months...

Grace finished 1st grade and is now an accomplished reader (she now reads all of my emails over my shoulder as I'm typing which is kind of annoying, but at least she isn't asking me every 2 seconds what I'm doing). She loves to play with hot wheels cars, squinkies (how they can charge so much for teeny tiny plastic things is beyond me!), and play games. The newest favorite game is Rat a tat cat. In the last couple of weeks, Grace learned to tie, which is a good thing since her new shoes have ties. She caught on really fast. Grace is a HUGE help around the house and with Megan. We love her compassionate and helpful spirit.

Megan is morphing from baby to little girl, though she is decidedly maintaining her monkey tendencies and lack of fear. She enjoys picking all the flowers in our yard (much to my dismay), swimming wherever it may be, and using poop as finger paint. I'm confident that when I finally get around to potty training her that she will do just fine and when she grows up she will be a famous artist painting huge murals with shades of brown. But for now she has very definite opinions on clothes and gives some pretty great hugs.

Nathaniel, aka "the boy", still has a smile that melts my heart. He finished up preschool and will be heading to the big "K" this Fall, after much prayer and deliberation on our part due to his summer b-day. Nathaniel has an affinity for numbers and is always asking us how much two numbers add up to or what the date is. He knows the powers of 2 higher than I do and can do an insane amount of mental math for a 5 year old. When we were at the beach this summer, he informed us all of the exact date we had been there the previous year (he was right, too). Weird. Guess the child takes after his father.

Summer has been busy - our "usual" Lincoln City trip (a week in an oceanfront rental house with family) included lots of games, beach combing, shopping, games, the annual flooding of a sand village, reading, and yes, more games. Kids have had swim lessons at the Y most of the summer and are really enjoying it. I was blessed to be able to attend MOPS Convention in Nashville, TN last week and came home Sunday encouraged, energized, and ready to tackle life. It is now Wednesday and I'm beat (but I did get a lot done and had fun with the kids (Sunday night-Wed). But such is life as a mom! Upcoming is a week in Fairmont, Canada. We hope to do lots of hiking and general relaxing followed by a day at Silverwood Theme park.