I kept thinking I would get around to posting photos for August, but, nope, now it's October and I've got to include September as well.
Looking back at the photos from August 1, I'm amazed at how much R has changed in the past two months. Of course, she's nearly twice as old as she was then.
I spent a lot of August walking with R in the morning. She was waking up several times a night and would be alert and happy at 6am. I would take her out for a walk in the hopes of letting A get an extra hour or so of sleep before I left for work. Morning walks, even at 6am, are quite pleasant. Other folks in the neighborhood were out as well. Some people were walking to the bus to leave for work, others were walking their dogs about the same time. One of our neighbors, a little old lady named Ruth, was often out working in her front yard garden. I spoke to her briefly about the 6-7 new houses going in across the street from her. She said she had lived in the house for 60 years and had always looked across an empty pasture. It was going to take some time to get used to the new view.
Our neighborhood has an annual festival in August (which means it's often blazing hot outside). This year it rained the night before, so it was mercifully cool.
They had a water slide set up for kids so the girls got soaking wet, of course.
Our garden tends to get a little shabby over the summer as weeds grow up and take over. I spent one weekend in August clearing everything out and tilling it all up with our brand new Husqvarna. Prior to purchasing the 18" wide Husqvarna we either paid a neighbor to bring his giant $20,000 Kubota tractor with attached tiller or I would have to tackle it with a tiny little 9" Honda tiller. That little tiller was not really up to a 2500 sq ft garden (leaving out the other plots A has plans for occasionally). I am happy to say the Husqvarna is a much more formidable tool and I consider it a great investment if you plan on tilling very often.
We also made another weekend trip to Chattanooga. We hit up the aquarium as usual, but the main purpose was to join my family in celebrating my aunt and uncles 25th wedding anniversary. They happened to get married on the same day as my grandparents, who were celebrating their 62nd wedding anniversary. Wow!
Also of note, J started first grade. We home schooled her thru kindergarten, so we took the obligatory "first day of school" shot this year.
So far her school has been going quite well. We do wish we had better options that didn't require a 20 minute drive. Our local public schools rank as some of the worst in the state, and the state ranks as one of the worst in the United States. That's a pretty low bar. For that reason we've enrolled J in a hybrid system where she goes to a school 3 days a week and we teach the remaining days. It seems to work well so far.
Getting to know R's personality over August and September has been a delight. The girls ask to hold her nearly every single day, and J does a great job of entertaining her when we are busy doing other things.
Another thing we did in August was eat a lot of peaches. I work near a farmer's market so I would stop several times a week to buy a 10-pound bag of them.
What with the new baby I haven't been able to cycle to work much this summer. Hopefully I can start that up again next year, but in the mean time I bought a really nice road bike from a co-worker at a very deep discount (the best way to purchase a bike!). I took it out several mornings in August in September and even made the ride out to Percy Priest Lake, about 11.5 miles away. You can take a green-way the entire way, which means you don't have to interact with traffic at all. It's a very, very pleasant way to start the day.
We also celebrated Yom Teruah (Rosh Hashana) by going hiking. I bought a shofar, too, which we blew several times to celebrate the day.
Lest I forget to mention, our oldest also celebrated her sixth birthday in September! We took her to Chuck E. Cheese (at her request) and somewhere A has a photo sitting with her fingers plugged in her ears. Everyone looks completely zonked in one photo we took.
Abbey also got mustard greens, kale, spinach, and many other fall garden plants into the ground. I am working on putting hoops up over it all so we can extend the growing season a bit.
We made a fall trip to Cheekwood, too.
We celebrated the feast of booths (Sukkot) by putting a tent up in the backyard. Unfortunately, it rained the entire week, so it didn't really get a ton of usage. However, not all was lost: they enjoyed having a nice air mattress to jump on.
Fall is coming quickly and summer is fading (despite the fact it's still been very warm). We have been having some work on the house done to make room for R. A screen porch has been in progress; hopefully it'll be done before it gets cold. We are very excited to sit outside and drink hot coffee or tea without having to battle the hordes of mosquitoes!
Over all, the past two months have been very enjoyable and I feel as if we are adjusting well to having three girls in the house. We are wonderfully blessed in so many ways.