Bella, Gabe and Josiah

 I thought we were getting ready for church. Apparently he was getting ready for a golf game…

Yesterday we had Josy’s birthday party. I think we’re going to stop having his party at the park, as this is the third year in a row that it has poured on his birthday. Next year he gets an inside party, no matter what. That said, it may have been wet and cold, but the kids all had fun and it was really good to celebrate our littlest guy.

After nearly two years at boarding school, Bella finished the program, finished high school and came home! It’s definitely been an adjustment to have another person in the house, particularly now that that other person is an adult child, but so far it’s been really good. She’s grown and changed a lot and at this point, it is clear that boarding school was a really good experience for her, and for the rest of us. The first thing we did when she came home was throw her an 18th birthday party, even though it was two months late… She’s been working on job application and all of the things that grown ups need to work on, which can be a bit overwhelming. But she’s handling it well. And she’s completely cleaned out her room, so now I have a pile of stuff in the living room to try and get rid of…

This tooth has been hanging on by a thread. Gabe has spent a lot of time writing on it and it was time to come out. However, he didn’t want to pull it out. He was afraid it would hurt. He wanted to shoot it out. He got some floss and tied it around his tooth. Then he tied the other end around a nerf bullet and shot it out of his best gun. It didn’t work. And it didn’t work the next 30 tired he shot it either. Eventually it broke the bullet, but not the tooth. He tied it to another bullet and shot a few more times. Still nothing. Eventually he gave up and tied the string arrived the door nob and slammed it shut. That finally worked. And now we have a very happy, toothless boy.

It was Josy’s last day of preschool. Ever. My baby is growing up and I’m not okay with it!! We were running behind in the morning, so I asked Gabe to pick up some clothes for Josy. He came down with doing regular clothes, so I asked Josy if he should wear regular clothes or fancy clothes. He said fancy, so Gabe disappeared upstairs and came down with this. Gabe even let him borrow his hat! Josy had his end of year program at school. They sang song and quoted Bible verses and all looked ridiculously adorable. Then they got certificates and their own Bibles. And now my baby is going to be a kindergartener. How did that happen???

Last week, I went on a run and I saw a trail head that I’d never been down. So, the next day I packed up the boys and one of Gabe’s friends and we decided to go exploring. It wasn’t a crazy long trail, but we had fun and we found some super interesting stuff. Also, boys. If there was a mountain, they had to run up it. If there was a rusty old car, they had to explore it (exiled listening to my strict instructions that they could not touch it!). If there was a rock, they had to climb it. Seriously, it was an entire picture of boys, in a nutshell.