you would think that since we are no longer traveling and i don’t have to squeeze blogging in amongst various amazing and epic adventures, that i would be able to keep up with it better. you would think.
anyhoooo. it’s only 11 days into september (edited: 19 days) and i’m finally getting to the august generic post, so it’s not as bad as usual. i have a billion pictures and i tried to sort them to not have some sort of rambling 96 picture post. we’ll see how i did…
aside from our trip to great smoky mountains, august was pretty boring around here. one exciting bit was derek’s birthday. the girls were super excited to make him a cake, now that we have a proper(ish) kitchen and some cake decorating supplies. so, i taught them a few basics and let them have at it. the funny part was, derek didn’t even eat it. i had ordered a keto key lime pie from new local keto baker, so that was his dessert.
anna handled lettering. 
hazel was in charge of green stars. 
they both handled border duties. 
finished product. 
keto pad thai (made by derek. ha). 
keto key lime pie. so good. 
derek’s parents came by to celebrate with us. family photo shoot.
i guess this is a good time for all of the baking photos. i have no shortage of helpers these days and our counter is always stocked full of homemade treats.
pancake assistant. 
unicorn chip sugar cookies. 
baking with friends is more fun. 
snickerdoodle chefs. 
the annababy loves baking. she’s getting quite good at researching and following recipes.
when anna’s birthday fell squarely in the middle of the chaos and stress and grief and frustration of settling into the (stupid new) house, she pretty much got the shaft in terms of celebrations. we promised that once we were settled, she could have a little gathering of her choice to make up for it.
after baking with her pal kaylin (above), she decided that for her “birthday makeup event” she would like to have her other pal shira over for a baking party. i helped her look up recipes and we bought all the weird ingredients and they got to work. i mostly stayed out of the way, except for when they asked for help. or to stop someone from trying to pour baking powder into a tiny spoon while holding it over the bowl of ingredients. or grabbing a recently licked spatula before it was reused in the batter. :). oh, they also generously allowed me to step in during cleanup efforts. anyhow. the party was a raging success and the girls were quite pleased with the results. and my debt to the anna baby has been settled.
baking pals. 
teamwork. 
snickerdoodle cinnamon sugar coating. 
strawberry cake prep. 
decorating. the best part. 
fresh strawberry decor. 
proud star bakers. 
the big girls let hazel join in and she couldn’t have been more pleased. 
three girls three cakes. 
between bakes, while i cleaned, they ran off to play, adorning themselves in tattoos. 
aerial shot of the decorating mayhem.
well. that covers all of the baking for august. but, my other old hobby, sewing, didn’t go so well in august. i just really wasn’t feeling it. i would go in my quilt room and move some things around and think about making something and then clean up and leave. i had no sew mojo. derek tried to perk me up with a big fat shipment of national park fabrics, and they are super cool, but i really have no idea what to do with them at all.
anna’s sew mojo is just fine. and her art mojo. and her science fair project mojo. i’m always finding little books and drawings around. she’s a lot of fun.
she left this inspiration by my machine. 
evening art tutorials. 
a world of magma. her next non fiction book.
august also brought the start of school. after a lot (a LOT) of back and forth about how to educate the lidkids, we decided to give homeschooling another year. hazel is in kindergarten, anna in fourth and isaac in seventh. i wasn’t ready to hand hazel over to the public school system. and plunking isaac into middle school after years of homeschooling seemed traumatizing. and anna is still working through a bit of separation anxiety issues.
we did find a bit of middle ground though, by joining a local co-op. the stem triad co-op offers super cool classes for the kids to choose from and it gives us a little bit of structure to work around. isaac is taking kitchen chemistry, math review, comic animation, and digital electronics and coding. hazel has a full course load of simple machines, reading adventures, busy brains and bodies, and math art. and anna is taking botany, workshop for young engineers, and novel ideas. so far, they are loving it, but there were a bit of nerves on the first day, and i may or may not have had to sit outside the classrooms of one particular lidkid for the first couple of weeks.
kindergartener. 
first day photoshoot. 
stem triad photobooth. 
lunch. (they no longer all sit together). 
botany homework. (there’s a LOT). 
school car pool. 
a little bit of coffee to start the school day. 
kitchen chemistry truffles.
before public school started back up, we were able to sneak in a trampoline park playdate with our pals the dishers. isaac went to kindergarten with johnlee, where his mom and i were room moms and became friends. and, so, well, the rest of our kids were forced to become friends too. anyhooo. we did a bit of jumping and then found a frozen yogurt place for post-jumping, 100+ degree day refreshments.
rope ladder. 
swinging acrylic thing. 
frozen yogurt enthusiasts. 
from above.
in stupid house news. our yard is stuffed full of surprises. from leaf bugs and millions of spiders and creatures that feast on my basil. to. a random basketball court in the middle of the woods. derek and anna discovered a goal (shaq attaq, from the 90s), and then realized there was a 22′ x 26′ concrete pad too. they cleared it off, and our forest basketball season is in full swing.
basil eaters. 
court discovery. 
all cleaned up and ready for a game.
and now. some general randomness from the month of august.
summer dance. 
1:1 ketchup packet to nugget ratio. 
quilt room design wall. 
baths. in my tub. of course. 
bums.
lastly. all the ruby pics. it was a rough month. ruby has really given us a run for the money in the housetraining department. (she’s all good now, thankfully). at least she was cute. she also was spayed during august and i didn’t take nearly as many cone of shame pics as i had hoped.
anyhow… that’s august. hope you enjoyed.
Thanks for the August recap. Loved all the pics!