Ashley's summer camp

 Our awesome children's pastor, Travis, takes the 2nd graders to one night of spend the night away camp to prepare them for a week of children's camp beginning in 3rd grade.  Can you tell by the size of the smile on her face that Ashley was just a little excited to be going??????

The group of 2nd graders now in 3rd is all girls-there are a sweet group and here they are with Pastor Travis and one of the high school girls who went along and there were a couple of moms too-they just weren't in the picture

They hiked, swam, and did arts and crafts and learned about Jesus and talked about how God made us each special and unique.  She had a great time!

Around the house

 This is our 2 person love seat that we bought in Manila-only now it is holding 3 people and a giant dog!  I just thought it was hard to get a good picture of 3 kids-who often don't want their picture taken-adding a dog makes it infinitely more complex!

More bass plucking practice!

Recent Scout Projects and Labor Day weekend

 Ryan has almost reached the rank of Tenderfoot-the 2nd scout rank.  Over Labor Day weekend we stayed home (which was a tremendous treat because Greg has been working crazy long hours at work so we REALLY enjoyed just all being at home together!).  The boys both worked on scout stuff.  One of Ryan's requirements was knowing safety and how to sharpen an ax, a saw, and a pocketknife!  Other than the pocketknife these things normally live in the garage!



This is not the child who normally plays in the kitchen with me but Scott is working on a merit badge for cooking and we decided the long weekend would be a good time for him to do some cooking.  He made 6 quiches (starting with pre-made pie shells)-some sausage and cheddar and some ham and swiss.  Quiche is one of Ryan and Ashley's favorite things to eat!!!

 He also made meatloaf-which is one of HIS favorite things to eat.  It turned out well-I just forgot to get pictures of the meatloaf. 

 He also had to use several different cooking techniques and grilling was one option.  So we got the grill out of the garage-we bought a new one this summer-for the porch that is seeming to take forever (there will be a post about that soon!)-but for now the grill lives in the garage.

 They grilled hot dogs and bratwursts for us to eat for lunch.  He also made macaroni and cheese in the crock pot-because that is an example of simmering and because he LOVES macaroni and cheese! 

We also played lots of games together and watched movies together over the weekend-loved having an extra day off to enjoy fun family time!

What Max has been up to lately

 Ashley took this picture of him nicely posing on the couch

 This is how I found him one morning recently when I was the first one downstairs to get breakfast ready on a school day.  I don't think he was ready to get up either!

 Ashley was trying a recipe for bread in a bag-that was fun to make and tasted delicious.  Max does this if anyone is in the kitchen-he lurks and finds the most in the way place to lay down.  He has to keep a sharp lookout in case anyone drops something on the floor!!!!!  He is always there ready to help clean/eat it up!

 Ashley was playing this game with plastic toy scoops of ice cream and she asked Max to choose which one he wanted to eat.  He does not understand about only pretending to eat something AT ALL!  A very short time after he asked her this question, she squealed because he had one of the scoops of ice cream in his mouth and I had to help pry it out! 

 Here she is trying to keep him from eating any more of her ice cream!

Big Musical Instruments

 Ryan chose strings as an elective in 6th grade and after what seemed like MUCH deliberation decided that he wanted to play a bass.  Bass and cello players at his school rent an instrument to practice with at home and have a school instrument to play in class.  This was the first one we rented for him-a half size bass-not literally half the size of a full sized bass but smaller.  Ryan had a hard time carrying it.

 All were quite curious about it.  We have told Ryan that he will have to make an effort to keep the bow put away so that Max doesn't think it's just another stick for him to eat!

 Guess it is a good thing we have a large car!!!!  and I am thankful that most of the time these instruments stay at our house.  Ryan has decided that his bass is going to be named Daniel-after his favorite Manila friend who has now moved to Korea.  Scott is holding the 4 valve tuba that spent the summer with us and is named King Kong.

 So when we realized that Ryan would be playing a 1/4 sized bass at school we switched the rental one so that he would play the same size at home and at school-this one is a much more manageable size for him.  It sounds great though they are still just plucking the strings right now.  It seems that most of the 20 kids in Ryan's strings class are new to their instruments.

Ryan has taught us the strings are E, A, D, and G-the way to remember that is Elephants Always Do Geometry.  Violin strings are the opposite G, D, A, and E.  Also if you are wondering viola and cello have the same note strings but we don't know what they are.

 This different tuba came home to stay at our house this school year.  Scott is playing King Kong at school.  This one is named Hulk.  

Scott's opinions about music are funny to me.  He likes happy, peppy sounding, fast moving tempo music-not unlike his personality most of the time.  Even when we lived in Manila and he took piano lessons on our electric keyboard if a song was slow moving and quiet he didn't like it and didn't want to practice it.  I told him OFTEN as he practiced to slow down that no one was chasing him as he played!  His current favorite to play on the tuba is "Hey, Baby,"

Ashley says that when she gets to middle school she wants to play the flute or clarinet.  That may be a very good thing unless we start tying the bass on top of the car.  I told her recently that the flute's sound was a good fit for her personality too-high and trilly!

Boy Scout Court of Honor

 The boys scout troop (it's really cool that they are the right ages now and are in the same group) has a Court of Honor to distribute merit badges and rank advancements.

 Scott had finished the merit badges personal fitness and citizenship and the community.

 When a boy receives a new rank, he is required to escort his mom up to the front with him.  He is given a pin that he places on his mom's mother's pin-a red, white, and blue ribbon.  Ryan received the first rank-that of Scout.  With each rank advancement the boys get a card for their notebook and a new rank patch for the front pocket on their shirt.  To show they are ready for advancement, boys have to meet with 2 of the troop's adult leaders for a conference where some of the requirements for the rank are reviewed.  After his conference, Ryan received his Scout patch and his troop numbers (on his sleeve) and for once I actually had gotten them sewed on his shirt quickly.  When he receives his next rank then he gets his black troop neckerchief. 

 Scott received the new rank of First Class which is really cool because that is only 3 ranks away from Eagle Scout! 

This was a long Court of Honor because it was the first one since the troop had been to Scout Camp over the summer where they spend a week working on merit badges.  Our boys went to church camp instead this summer.  We all brought food and had dinner before the awards were all given out.  Thank you to Ashley for being our photographer-she did a good job.

First Day of School

 Breakfast with Greg before we all leave!

 Ryan was really sleepy!!!

 Can't believe we now have 2 middle schoolers!

 Ryan 6th grade, Ashley 3rd, and Scott 8th-Ryan has woken up a little since finishing breakfast but Ashley definitely has the biggest smile-VERY excited to see and learn all about the wonders of 3rd grade.

I'm a little sad that she is the only one I get to walk in with anymore!  She was excited to find her desk, sit down and get right to work on a get to know you worksheet.

 Here is her classroom

 and her sweet, kind teacher who read them The Kissing Hand book on the first day and wants hugs from them every day!  She already LOVES Mrs. Wimmer!

 Ashley is super excited about her very own 3 ring binder with dividers!

There is a picture I wish I could have taken with a camera but it is a precious memory in my mama heart-As I was leaving the middle school carline and watching the cars in front of me, I saw the boys walking next to each other chatting up a storm about something (probably Star Wars or Mario on the wii) down the sidewalk as they went to the door-I pray that they always share that closeness!

I am glad that all are happy with new teachers and Ryan is finding his way into this new adventure called middle school but the same sentiment seems to echo with us and my friends and their children-summer was great, went by WAY too quickly, and we are sad for it to come to an end!

More Random Summer things

 We took Max to the dog park several times this summer-Max is in the front

 The dogs and the kids like to see how many of them can fit on this giant rock-it's like a dog party from the kids book Go Dogs, Go-this time we met Molly and our friends from church that are her people.  Molly is a golden doodle behind Christian in the orange shirt.

 This is where Max likes to lay when I am getting dinner ready-right in the way where I will step on him no matter where I go-really he is just hopeful that I will drop something for him to eat!

 We found all the mice on main downtown Greenville and here is Ashley posing with one-it's a cute thing from the kid's book Goodnight Moon

 Here are the boys on a whitewater rafting trip in NC with Boy Scouts

 Ashley and her 2 best buddies from her 2nd grade class-Claire and Aarya-they got together to play several times this summer!

 Ryan holding a turtle they found in the sand dunes at the beach!

 We went to lots of fun programs at the library this summer-Scott took a picture of me at the reptile one holding the tail end of the snake-it was HEAVY!

 The below plaque reminded me of my dad particularly! but also Greg's dad and Great Grandaddy Cook who enjoys his 9 great grands SO much!