August Adventures!

 We had a fun August -- quite a few road trips, the start of a new school year, Zoë's 5th birthday, and more. Here are some pictures! 

Zoë turned 5 years old! We had a fun unicorn party! 

The next day, August 3, we started our new school year! Now I am teaching three kids and I think it's actually better this way, I have more of a plan and they can stay focused for longer periods of time. It's more work for me on the planning part, but the result is better and smoother days! 

Our first grader <3 

Awesome 3rd Grader! 

Naomi wanted in on a picture too -- starting some preschool activities with her. 

First day -- filling in their SuperKid sheets! 

Zeke was so happy to finally get to crack into the U.S. geography puzzle. It is really neat and shows the shape of each state. Levi and Zoë like putting it together too! 

Showing off her new dance gear from her birthday! Her first class is 9/16. She is very excited to begin!

Zoë finally has her own room :) 

A fun preschool activity -- reading Caps for Sale. Zoë hid caps around the house for Naomi to find. Then we stacked them up on her head to see how high we could stack them. 

Zeke got in on the action too because he remembered doing this activity as a preschooler. 

Dress-Up fun! 

SpiderGIRL 

A little frightening... 

We went up to Mimi's a few times. Naomi helped snap a bunch of green beans! 

She loves this new spot to sit at Mimi's house! 

We came home from Mimi's with lots of zucchinis. We made an assembly line to shred it all up and ended up with about 40, 2 cup bags. Looks like we'll be making lots of bread and brownies this winter! 

We explored a new trail -- Amity Woods. It was a nice, easy trail. The kids had fun riding their bikes out and back. 

Exploring! 

We made some refrigerator dill pickles. The kids were not big fans, but I thought they turned out ok!

Pickle making -- Levi had fun chopping the cucumbers. 

Proud of all of his hard work! 

One Friday I made finger paints for the girls. They started out very daintily with just one finger dipping into the paints. 

The colors were bright and the paints were a fun texture! 

After their first papers, I gave them cookies sheets to paint on so they could be washed and reused! 

The boys joined in the action!

Zeke mixed up all the colors and came up with some fun creations. 

By the end, she really got into it! 

Later that morning, we did another hands-on project! We were reading about Norman castles in our history, so we constructed a castle out of reese's pb cup cereal! It was fun and delicious :D 

They worked hard to make the walls, towers, the tall "Keep" in the middle, and a drawbridge. 

Naomi's contribution to the project :) 

Zoë helped build a moat. 

We took Zoë out for her birthday lunch to Jason's Deli 

After her birthday lunch, we went to Target so she could use her birthday money. She picked out some rings (that actually fit her instead of wearing mine!) and this cute Ariel nightgown. 

One evening Levi helped me make this delicious Cobb salad for supper. This was actually just the boys' bowl of salad and there was another bigger bowl for the rest of the family. He loves chopping veggies and helping in the kitchen! 

They enjoyed this giant watermelon very much!

Summer fruit is the best kind!

Near the beginning of August, my cousins and I went to Grandma's house to pick out some of the items we wished to keep before Cody moves in. One of the items I'd always wanted to have was this grandfather clock. It hadn't been working for several years, so after I brought it home I called the Clock Shop here in KC and they sent someone to come bring it back to life. I am so excited that he was able to get it up and running with relative ease. The kids and I are enjoying hearing it all through our day! 

Zoë is creating her own Kindergarten textbook. She has made pages of letters and numbers and she is also working on different flowers as well. This one is a Wood Rose and I thought she did an excellent job!

Jeremiah and I attended the wedding of a friend from high school, up in Lincoln, NE. We had a nice time and I was able to visit with several classmates that I hadn't seen in quite a while. 

The last Sunday of August, Levi, Zeke, and Zoë were all able to attend the Gracie Game night up at Kick MA. Naomi was feeling a bit left out, so we decided to get her a special treat from Sheridan's -- the Razzle Dazzle! It was quite delicious and a special little time for Naomi with both of us, which rarely happens! 

Well, that was August in a nutshell! It was quite a fun month! 

To life... full of road trips to NE!