August 2017

August was filled with lots of excitement, and like always, a good dose of silliness!

Abby learned how to cross her eyes - this is her go-to picture face now... I love it!   It makes me laugh every time!

Our small town has a community-wide garage sale the first weekend in August every year, and since Bruce and Abby have been begging to have a lemonade stand, we decided to participate this year!  I love going to garage sales, but the idea of hosting one has never interested me - but since we didn't have to pay a permit fee, and we had quite a bit of toys we were ready to part with, we decided to give it a go.  We were only set up for a few hours, and made $150 - so not too bad, but definitely something we won't be doing again any time soon!

Abby worked so hard selling her lemonade, and was so stinking cute that nearly no one could resist a cup!

Another really big thing that happened towards the beginning of the month was that our church finally opened!  I know I haven't written much about our "journey" with figuring out church stuff the past two years, but mostly because everything was still always in limbo, and I never really had anything concrete to share.  It's nice to finally have a home base again though.  After our last church closed nearly two years ago, Charlie and I (along with some of our close friends) took some time trying to figure out what expression of church we wanted to have in our lives.  We spent several months just meeting as a small group, and then we decided to start visiting new churches about a year ago.  There are so many wonderful churches in our area, but nothing felt quite right for our family.  I have a really good friend that was telling me more about her church - Life Church - and the funny thing is, it started sounding like exactly what we were looking for.  I say it's a funny thing, because prior to this year, I would have never imagined myself being a part of Life Church.  I honestly didn't know anything about it - other than it was huge - and if I'm being completely honest, I sort of viewed it as "fake" church.  I believed it to be a typical "mega-church" full of gimmicks and shallow spirituality.  But man did I have to eat my words.  I think the Sunday before we first visited the location in Moore (it's one church that meets at nearly 30 locations around the country, but several of them are in our area of Oklahoma) back in February, I made a comment about how "If I have to wear earplugs to go to church, then something's wrong" - but let me tell you - I happily grab my pack of earplugs on my way in (yes, they provide them...) and love every minute of it.  Yes, the music is insanely loud.  Yes, the laser lights nearly blind me every week.  Yes, some of the methods they use make me slightly uncomfortable because it's not what I'm "used" to.  But the church is absolutely amazing, all of their core values align with my heart 100%, and so many people are radically changing their lives as a result of being a part of this community.  I could talk for hours about why I love being a part of Life Church now, but in short - they just opened a new location right down the road from our house and we've been helping with the launch every step of the way.  Between attending vision-casting meetings, and helping to assemble all of the furniture, and helping with the media team take pictures of the different "opening" events, to helping every week in the kids area - it's been a crazy whirlwind - but it has been so exciting to be a part of it, too!  

they had the whole church to themselves while Charlie was setting up Go-Pro cameras

Big news!  Bruce turned 6!  And he wanted to have a robot themed birthday party!

Bruce and Abby helping Charlie make a robot out of farm scrap parts

so excited!!!!!!!

the robot is ready to party!  and pass out party favors!

Bruce helped make all the robot designs on the serving pans and balloons!

We made big plans for the solar eclipse!  Charlie's mom gave us the push we needed to make seeing "totality" a priority, and I'm so thankful she did!  We made arrangements to stay at Charlie's company apartment in Kansas City Sunday night, and then drove to one of his co-worker's uncle's homes in Atchison, Kansas for an eclipse party.  The weather didn't really work in our favor, but we had a wonderful day with amazing strangers-turned-friends.  

the library held several eclipse-themed events - here Bruce is making constellations with marshmallows

trying for a family picture with our eclipse tshirts... Abbs not really cooperating... they were supposed to show the changing crescent of the sun/moon, and the sky slowly getting darker and then lighter again.  Since it was Yvonne's idea for the big adventure - she got to have to total eclipse shirt!

cross-eyed Abbs!

proper viewing specs

hard to see from the picture, but the "sunset" in the middle of the day was beautiful!

the clouds parted just in time for us to see the "diamond ring"

the traffic wasn't too bad on the way home - this was the only bad spot... definitely not the apocalyptic disaster people were predicting 

enjoying the second sunset of the day back in Ponca City

The next day we drove to our nearest National Park - the Chickasaw National Recreation Area - so we could turn in our Junior Ranger eclipse books and get a badge!

of course we had to make it worth our drive, so we had picnic lunch by Little Niagra

there were so many swallowtails that joined us for lunch!  (at least that's what I think this is...)

The last weekend of the month we had a tie dye party with our home school group, then we went to "member appreciation day" at the zoo (never again) and finished off our crazy busy day with a trip to the Grady County Fair so Charlie could take some photos of the first event being held in the new buildings he designed there.  

Bruce and Abbs were so excited about their tie dye shirts!  I had no idea they'd be so popular!

playing at the park next to the tie dye pavilion!  We love this ladybug!

the mushroom queen

and the splash pad was still open too!

being silly while waiting in line to pet the sting rays "for free" - I've never seen a line so long!!!  Bruce and I stuck it out, but Abby and Charlie left after a few minutes to see some other animals!

The fair had a lot of free give-aways, lots of balloons, and tractors to climb on!

there was an open registration for a "pet show" so Bruce entered his pet crawfish that he had found earlier that morning - still in it's water bottle... 

he earned a ribbon and two dollars!

we stayed for the tractor pull!

neither kid was strong enough to get the tractor moving, but it was still fun to try!

our tie dye shirts, pre-wash.  The kids' turned out fun, but I think we'll try a different approach next year for our adult ones!

Other highlights and kidbits of the month:

The bugs have been out like crazy this month - and the kiddos have enjoyed every bit of it!

these spiders make GIANT webs every single night.  It's amazing.  

caterpillars galore!

this was quite the find!  Charlie found a cicada that was still inside of its other shell and we took a time-lapse video of it coming out!  So neat!  We find the shells all the time, and then of course we catch the cicadas - but this was the first time for me to see it hatch out! 

These monkeys!  They have my heart.  They are still learning how to love each other well, and do a pretty great job of it most days.

still enjoying their scooters!

School has been really fun this month!  We've been learning about the Middle East and having a great time getting more involved with other home school families!

since Egypt was such a hit, we went to see REAL mummies at a museum not too far from us!

we also visited a local mosque and had a very insightful peek into the Muslim faith.  Bruce's favorite part of the tour was the library and all the books written in Arabic!

PE often looks a lot like playing freeze tag in the backyard and doing kid yoga videos!  

In addition to the field trips I planned for our Middle East lessons, we joined the home school group on a tour of the fire station!

fire fighting is serious business

I think it's safe to say that Bruce has not wasted a single day of his six years so far on this planet.  He is busy, busy, busy - and never stops.  His gears spin in different ways than mine, which sometimes can be so frustrating, but overall he is an absolute delight to watch as he goes about his days.  He still spends most of his free time crafting up a storm, making weapons for his bird army (he thinks our parakeets are going to train the wild birds to defend themselves against our cats...) and building simple machines that don't really do anything - but look super cool and I'm sure the process is helping his brain work ideas out.  I still haven't figured out what to do with all of his projects... so for now, it still is exploding across every surface of our house...

Bruce learned how to do the monkey bars this month!  I never was able to do it!

Abby gives me a run for my money nearly every day, but I think things are starting to get better.  She is fierce and beautiful, and we're working on ways to make our days more and more pleasant.  We've come up with a few strategies - like taking a bath in the middle of the day, or having her help me make dinner - to help with the "crabby-appletons" (as we called them growing up) that start to creep in as the day grows late.  She is also starting to crave friendships, which has really helped her barbaric-at-times social skills.  She is growing more and more enamored with horses every day, and it has been really fun to be able to get excited about something with her.  Bruce has always had his "thing" to obsess about - but it's been so much harder with Abby to know what she's really interested in.  Dinosaurs are still a pretty big deal, but I think horses are definitely #1 on her list these days, and I love it.    

 

Overall August was a pretty mild end to summer, and the weather has already given us tastes of the Fall season to come.  I know the next few months will be a quick spiral to the new year, and I'm excited for all that's in store between now and then!