What life is really like at our house after school. We have a couple of plasma scooters that the kids take to the top of the drive way and ride down. Road rash is pretty common at our house.

I finally got the camera out tonight to take some pictures of the girls.

Grace posed for about 30 seconds for pictures until she realized there were fire ants.

Pretty Merry lasted a few minutes longer.

Toothless Merry

Both of Merry's front teeth have fallen out and I have been meaning to take a picture of her before her big teeth arrive. After the move, unpacking, visitors I finally got the camera out. Here is sweet, toothless Merry in our front field.

A visit from Papa

Papa stopped in for a short visit en route to some meetings on the other side of Florida. Luckily we still made it on his travel circuit. He gave us a minneola tangelo tree and valencia orange tree as a house warming gift. Brian planted the trees while I took the kids for a swim. He was so excited it did not take him a pick axe and 4 hrs to dig a tree-size hole like it does in Texas. We also ate some BBQ and played Settlers of Catan (Jacob loves this game and wants to play anytime we have visitors.) I have been spoiled to have 3 weekends of visitors.

Papa and the kids ready for church.

One day when I finally organize my stuff, I will start taking house pictures. This is our entryway, the stair case leads up to a loft that over looks the living room. At first, I was going to make the loft the toy room, but Adam and the open staircase are not a good combination. I was also pretty sure that toys and kids would eventually come flying over the balcony, so the loft became the office/craft space/ extra, extra guest room/ catch-all space. So a picture will probably never be taken of that room.

Grace carries the recessive genes for tongue rolling.

Grace has finally grown a couple of inches. She has always been in the 10th percentile for height and compared to Merry who has always been in the 90th percentile, she looks tiny. She loves to make people laugh and is always dressing up for Merry and Jacob's entertainment. Today she wore a unicorn costume and danced around then came and told us that "unicorns eat corn when they are hungry." Make perfect sense to me.

August and beginning of September

So after trying several internet providers we finally found something that actually works in the boonies. So here is the short summary of the past month.

The kids started school, both have fabulous teachers and we love the school. Merry's kindergarten teacher was actually taught in second grade by Jacob's second grade teacher. Grace started preschool and after adjusting to not having Merry around all the time is doing great. Adam is at the same preschool as Grace so she loves seeing him at school. Adam runs too fast out of the pictures so he did not make it in the picture.
We have slowly been unpacking all of our junk, it is amazing how much stuff we have accumulated in 11 years. We love the new house, minus the country blue front door. There is a lake behind our house so we have spent a lot of time canoeing and swimming. Well Merry and I swim and the rest watch from the canoe. The view from our back patio is amazing, here are a couple of sunset.



Brother Dan and Lexie came for a visit. We had a great time, so great we didn't take any pictures. We went to Honeymoon Island, which is an awesome natural beach. Dan learned not to flip a fiberglass canoe in the water. He did get a pretty great work out trying to tow a water laden canoe back to shore. We had lots of great food because Brother Dan cooked and I laid on the couch and drank a DDP. Did I mention I love when he comes to visit.

And finally Adam turned 18 months. He is at such a fun-naughty age. His favorite song is E-I-E-I-O or rather Old McDonald's, he only knows the chorus and randomly breaks out into tune. He loves being outside with the big kids, that is why his knees are always brownish. Climbing is his other skill, I frequently find foot prints going around in circle on my island in my kitchen. Here are a few snapshots of Adam at 18 months.