Life in the Woods: September

It has been a long time since I have made my way to the computer to post. August into September was quite busy and the past two and a half weeks have been a revolving chain of illness. Here are a few updates and random thoughts I want to hang on to.

At the end of August we had the chance to see the Reitanos again. Mike and I even got to go out alone with Josh and Paige on a date. It was SO much fun!

Grammy and Poppa came on September 1st. We had a great visit and went to the beach and pool and downtown. They were so helpful and such a blessing to us. (of course no pictures...surprise!)

Jonah has been pretending his puppies are baby kitty cats. He tells us they are squealing and has us snuggle them. He nurtures and cares for them so sweetly. Recently I have let them watch the cartoon Martha Speaks and one puppy became Martha and the other Skits. He is such a sweet, sweet boy!

Jonah has started stuttering. While it is mostly a non issue he does have times where it is very frustrating for him. He got stuck at breakfast the other day and finally slammed his head against the chair out of frustration and through tears yelled, "I can't say it". It broke our hearts.

Both kids LOVE their new classes for church. Jonah walks right in and waves to me. It is such a blessing. Now if only I could feel that way... :)

Emma started school - another post to follow

Jonah has been going through a daddy phase and he cries for daddy all day long. Sweet and frustrating at the same time.

Fall is officially here and we are still in full summer weather. The overnight low dipped to 60 and everyone was complaining the next day about how cold it was. I say bring on the 50s and jeans and sweatshirts. Fall is my absolute favorite time of year and also the time I am most homesick. I miss the activities and weather of Cincinnati this time of year but we will again enjoy the Pumpkin farm here and start to look for some new traditions involving shorts and swimming and enjoying flowers and green trees for a few more months. Nothing bad about that...just different.

I know there is more I wanted to share but I am so distracted and overwhelmed with these three sweet babies that I forget just about everything. Just yesterday I closed the garage door before I closed the door to the van and it got caught and made an awful screeching noise and left a pretty good scratch on the door. I was so frustrated but life goes on...our life is full of noise and commotion but is so fun and our kids are such an amazing blessing. It is such a gift to watch them grow and see God's creativity come out as they develop their interests and personality. So fun!

I walked into Emma's room and found her wearing this...the shirt is 18 months. She was "riding" on her pillow pet and it was a riot. She has quite an imagination and loves to dress up.

This picture just does not do any justice to the flooding, but we had unbelievable rain at the end of August. It caused amazing flooding in the city. In one 90 minute window our part of the city got 6.7 inches. It was crazy. We had two days of this rain and it caused a lot of problems.

Bath time escaped the tub a little too much and leaked through to the living room ceiling...ugh!

Emma fell asleep at the top of the steps in her doorway one night as we were battling with her to go to bed. It was just hilarious to come up the steps and see that she fell asleep while making her stand.

For my birthday Jonah got to have a mini Thomas cake like his birthday (since he couldn't eat our cake).

This is the balloon Emma Kate picked out for me for my birthday. Very special!

Football season is here and we are excited!

Emma Kate started back to dance classes. Aren't these tights just special?! I am working on finding places to say yes and I said yes to these and did not shed a tear when they tore the first week of class.

Surprise! Jonah got sick again. He started a virus in our house and then a cold which has cycled through all of us and caused double ear infections for Emma Kate and Jacob. The past two and a half weeks have been full of sickness.

On this morning Jonah was asking for toast with jam. I looked over and he was trying to eat the middle of the toast and had the entire thing plastered against his face.

The cake Emma Kate and Grammy made for my birthday!

Getting big!

Love his smiles!

Jonah has really started building with his blocks. He now builds Sodor (the island Thomas the train lives on). This was complete with football guys. His creativity is coming out and is so much fun.