August

August! And look at that, September's not even half way over. Good job, me! Good job! 

My mom has promised a "while mom and dad are away" blog post for me to share and keep for the memory book of her time with Uriah and Ezra while Stephen and I were in Hawaii, but for now, I'll share some of my favorites that she sent throughout the week! 

Stephen's mom, Sherri, stayed one extra day after we got back, since she arrived after we had left for Hawaii. We spent that Tuesday at a Stanford fountain before sending her back to Alaska with lots of hugs!

We had the next few days as a family of four before Stephen's vacation block ended and he started back at work with a 28 hour shift (welcome back!) We went to the beach (of course!) and did a lot of playing - the kids, especially Uriah, were pretty happy to have us back! 

Sunday best! We are so happy to have found a church home here. It's been almost a year since we first went to Grace, but we were slow to get connected - most days I'm taking the kids by myself and I don't have the time or energy to put forth much effort in meeting new people between drop off, pick up, snacks, potty breaks... I truly feel connected to this church now, though, and its people, and we are so grateful for the relationships it has brought into our lives.

Stephen's 28 hour call days seem long to me before they even start - just knowing no one will be home as a buffer for dinner or bedtime routines (or to answer their early wake up calls!) is daunting. But the kids and I try to make the best of it filling those days with playdates and errands to keep us busy. One particular call day lead us to have a picnic dinner at the sand pit close to our house and it was one of the best evenings in our August! We stayed long after we should have just letting the kids run around - Uriah actually requested to stay longer because he was having so much fun with his sister (!!!) Who am I to interrupt that?!

Those people I've met through church that I'm ever so grateful for...?! This is them! We're one baby short, though... Better get working on that! ;)

Lots of crafts this month! Coloring will hold both of their attention for a surprising amount of time, so we've been keeping the crayons in sight and busting them out much more often than normal. Gives momma some time to read, too! Until someone requests I draw a Minnie Mouse... Over and over and over again.

May we never take for granted the fact that daddy works just across the street! Stephen doesn't always have the time to pop outside, but we're always up for a walk to the fountain in case he does!

On one of Stephen's evenings off we took a pre-dinner walk up The Dish. We didn't go in search of lizards or squirrels or hawks, but became quite the animal hunters on our way up! I'm always surprised by the bravery of my kiddos. I guess they just don't know any better...? Though I have no reason to be scared of a tiny little lizard! I was so proud and impressed that they were both so eager to hold it (and kiss it!)

More Sundays, lazy days, pool days, crafting, play dates and beach days. Even with his long call days, it seems we got a lot of Stephen this month and that always makes it a good one. And that California August weather, well it's hard to beat! 

 ^^ The firs time Uriah wrote his name! With no promoting and no help! I was so very proud and it made me so very excited to start preschool with him! ^^

Speaking of... Preschool! It has always been the tentative plan to homeschool our babes until we're done with training and therefore done with moving - up to or through third grade. That's all fun and games to say and talk and dream about, but when I realized that Uriah was preschool age and if we wanted to homeschool we could in fact start right now, well I started to get a little nervous about it! Could I really do it? Did I really want to do it? I talked in length with some friends on the topic and did my research on curriculums and have decided to commit to the next two years of homeschooling - preschool and pre-kintergarden. After that, we'll see, though the dream is still to homeschool for a few more years following pre-k, I'm using these next two as an experiment to see how we all like it. We decided to use a curriculum, because while starting from scratch seems like a great idea, it is totally daunting. It came, it's organized and we start (late) on September 19th! And truthfully? I CANNOT WAIT! I might decided to do a post on it all once we're a month or so in - we'll see!