Bella, Gabe and Josiah

We were a month into school and to say that the year started out with a bang would be an understatement. Gabe is doing well. We had his parent teacher conference yesterday and the teacher had wonderful things to say about him. Spelling is the bane of his existence, but he’s surviving. Josy, on the other hand, did not click with his teacher. At all. It’s a long story, but the short answer is that he is now attending a different school and is going really well. His teacher, who is actually a guy I knew in high school, understands how his head works and Josy is responding very well to that. But needless to say, this was a very dramatic start to the school year. On top of that, regular life has been happening. Pat replaced all of the windows in the upstairs of the house. (Downstairs was last year’s project.) Gabe was a huge help too, carrying scrap wood and trying to put the lawn back together. Some nights when I get the boys up for school, I find them like this… One of Gabe’s daycare frie

We had a few more days with Jeremiah and the weather was reasonable so we had a fire and s’mores. The best we could get this summer of all five (boy) cousins in one picture. I was on the porch, minding my own business, when suddenly I was brutally attacked! Josy and Jeremiah had entirely too much fun together this summer. It’s been a lot of fun to watch them get to be little buddies. We had to take advantage of one last beautiful evening. Water fight! I got up early one morning and went for a run. The Lake was beautiful, just 24 hours after it had caused a lot of drama to a lot of people in our community. Just watching it be so calm and peaceful was hard to see. Josy cannot risk a hot chocolate date. He also tried to attack Gabe and his friend. Spoiler alert: it did not go well for Josy… We got to celebrate Pat’s birthday!  

We took all of the boys on a walk and, um, the amount of silliness that this many boys have all together is off the charts. Also, rock throwing. Can a boy pass a body if water and not throw a rock in???

Josy is my little kitchen helper. Chef Josy! Gabe just loves snuggling with the cats. It’s taken awhile, but he’s calmed down enough as he’s gotten older that Lucy now likes to sit in his lap. After Bryson and Knox left, Jeremiah came for a visit. Josy got to go on a lot of outings with Jeremiah.  Eating dinner and watching the Opening Ceremonies. Matching Bathrobes! Josy also decided to help new clean the bathtub. I will not complain about that. The little boys all decided that they needed to help us pay our Gabe. Spoiler alert: they were less than helpful. It is very hard to read your Bible with this much help. I don’t remember what this picture was of, but he was very proud of it. Uncle Nathan was attempting to talk to all of the nephews at once.