Our August So Far

 This August has been the best weather I have ever remembered - yesterday, the high was around 80. We are thoroughly enjoying our finished screened in porch and are able to eat out there most nights; when I took this picture, it was raining hard. I will find it a complete bummer to have to eat inside this winter.

  
When I went back and calculated the date I bred Leia, I realized that she is due Sept.  4th, not Oct 4th. She isn't very big and it's her first round, so I am assuming she will only have one to two kids. We are hoping for at least another female to keep.

  
JD is still working on the chicken mansion. It now has complete fencing around and I was able to clip the teen chicken's wings and keep them in. It now has two large "barn" doors - one to each side of the fence.

 I told a friend that I was interested in becoming a Classical Conversations (the home school program that I have Alyssa, Elijah and Bella in) tutor next school year when I also hope to pull my public schoolers out of school. Next thing I know, I am tutoring this fall! I was very behind on the training, so have taken many cram sessions. Between them and the fact that I sat in the kid's classes all last year, I feel pretty ready. I have spent hour upon hour getting my books and supplies ready to go. I have my class list and start this Tuesday. Elijah is super excited that I am his teacher and Bella is equally excited that she gets "her own" teacher. (It's so funny how different these kids are!)

Time line book I've had for 20 years

My plan (after my husband talked some sense into me) is still to leave the three schoolers in this last year. Tori really wants to go, but knows that 4th grade is her last year in school. Julia doesn't really want to go, but she really, really does so much better with a strict routine and I am seldom able to leave her home with our teen sitters due to her challenging behavior. We are trying intensive essential oils and biofeedback therapy this year and hoping to gain serious ground on some of her control issues. It's pretty tough for me to send Selah this year, because she could be in my class at CC and I'd really enjoy having her there. When she wanted to go to K so badly, we had a lot of competition between her and Elijah and it was valuable to split them up for school; that issue seems to have gone completely away. JD convinced me to leave her with the 1st grade teacher that we know and trust to ensure that she isn't going to require the reading therapy that Tori and Julia did. Once I pull her, I will lose access to it.  

It may not be super realistic, but I am going to try and have the three girls do the CC memory work along with the little guys to give them an edge when they start there next year. Tutoring will make CC more financially reasonable long term - they don't offer any large family discounts.

I made a traveling white board to take every Tuesday and use at home the rest of the week.

 Of course, I had to take a break from the books for back to school hair. I accomplished all four girls this week. Julia is the one that we went the extra mile with. I added yarn extensions to make it fuller and a bit longer.   

  
The problem with them is that it took me seven hours to put them in compared to the three that Tori's took. Tori was initially interested, but wanted me to do Julia's first before she committed. I was pretty thankful when she decided that she didn't want her hair that "long".

  
Here's our finished product. I am hoping the yarn and the end of swimming means that they will stay nice looking for longer than usual!