September Update

September pretty much flew by at the speed of light.  I feel out of breath just looking back on the pictures and thinking, wasn't that yesterday?  Ughhh.  Anyways, here is a mishmash of some of our favorite things.  

First - one night I stayed up and braided Ellie's hair so it would be curly the next day.  We both agreed she looks like Jane from QUBO.  Cute.  Another thing we've been up to is Skyping.  We've discovered this wonderful world and I don't know how we would have made it through without it.  I think it helps me more than Ellie, but for some reason kids don't know how to video chat.  In our experience all they end up doing is making faces at each other and holding up toys for the other kid to see.  Pretty boring.  But it has helped.  Another awesome thing?  Daddy is home every night to help with homework!  AWESOME, right??

Ellie also started gymnastics at Virginia Techniques.  It's hard to get a good picture they are always so far away from the "parent seating area"  A huge step for us was Ellie's FIRST PLAYDATE!  It was at Cierra Peterson's (bishop's daughter).  Cierra was the only girl in her class until Ellie and Sophie moved in in August.  We were ecstatic!  We've been riding bikes around the loop, had our first pit roasted southern barbecue at Due South Barbecue with live cowboy entertainment and yummy homemade sauce.  And see Ellie down there standing in front of my picture frame collage?  Do you want to know how long that took me?  No, you don't.  A few weeks after we moved in there were still all of our decorations littering our home and we were tripping over them - I just lost it one Saturday and pretty much laid down the law that we weren't doing ANYTHING (no TV, no nothing) until our dang frames got up on the wall.  Several hours later, we survived with family relationships intact, amazingly.  Here daddy snapped a shot of Ellie and her hotdog at the Daddy-Daughter camping trip at Claytor Lake.

Ellie has discovered Science.  I think she's hooked.  I need to get with the program and do some internet research on candy experiments.  From what I hear, they are super cool.

Our family went to VT volleyball game for a family date night (so nice that entrance is free).  Ellie has been dying to meet the Hokie bird (tweet tweet ~ we always make the sign language sign for bird when we see mr. hokie).  And one thing we were most excited for is we found someone to teach piano lessons!  Ellie's teacher from church Sis. Osborn had played a few times in Sacrament so one Sunday I asked if she taught.  She hadn't in a long time but had been thinking about starting back up, so she agreed to give it a go.  She has been AMAZING.  And it helps that Ellie loves her with a love of a thousand suns and moons and stars.

Here is daddy helping with homework (AGAIN) and what is a first in our marriage -- Darik sitting down on a Saturday with nothing to do but watch ESPN football.  Life has been so intense for such a long time that when Darik actually had a Saturday off it was filled with a to-do list about 72 miles long. We never had time to just sit and watch football.  I mean maybe after Ellie went to sleep we'd watch a movie - but during the day?  Fat chance.  Darik was of a firm opinion that I didn't want it to happen and once things were done I would go hunting for more things for him to do.  Boy, did I prove him wrong. Now that we are renting there are no home repairs, lawn care, garden care . . . and on Saturday all we have to do is clean 1000 sq feet of home and then do laundry.  It only takes a few hours to clean.  So about a month after we moved and settled in and D had a Saturday off of work he gets to sit and watch football and do laundry.  He was shocked.  And I was happy for him.  I had a clean house and my DH was folding the laundry as he watched tv.  What more could I ask for?  The other pictures are of Ellie and I giving doggie Lisa a bath.  She went hunting with Marc (downstairs renter) and got sprayed by skunk.  She went from being a little stinky to being nasty wet dog smell.  It smelled worse so we sent her back downstairs!  Too bad her owners are coming from Costa Rica next month to fly her home with them!!  It has been nice having a dog around we don't have to care for :-)  And the last pic is Ellie jumping on the tramp with Tristan - at the kid magnet house on the other side of the neighborhood.

Phew.