Good news!

For those following along at home, our house drama appears to have taken a turn for the better. 

It not only appears pretty certain we'll get our house but also we'll close on September 30. 

Holy cow! We could be in our house in nine days!!!'

What a roller coaster this has been. 

Ruby's Birthday

Ruby started swimming lessons. :-)

And turned one. I'm not sure how that happened but...

Yeah. My baby is a big one year old. 

Maggie's Birthday

We started out by walking to the donut store for birthday donuts. We had to tie Roscoe up outside the donut shop. He was so worried about where we'd gone, I sent Maggie back out to pet him. He's a good dog for sure.

After donuts, we went to birthday karate. Maggie got her first stripe on her birthday. Very exciting. When she gets three stripes, she can test for her next belt.

That evening, me, Maggie, Ruby, Ella, and Richard went to Medieval Times. The girls were fairly rotten in the car but mostly good at the place. We got a picture of us taken and crowns and towels and flags.

When the knights started jousting, the girls were horrified and we realized they thought it was real. Ella turned to Richard, with saucer eyes and said, is he dead? Maggie came out of her seat and curled up next to me. She said, this is so mean. So we explained to both of them it was fake and showed them they were still obviously breathing and would get up out of the spotlight and walk away. After that, they were less upset and enjoyed everything much more.

Ruby just clapped when everyone else did and squirmed and went back and forth and back and forth between Richard and me.

While we were STILL in the parking lot of Medieval Times and hadn't moved in AT LEAST 5 minutes, Ella said, are we almost home?

Luckily I had downloaded some stories for them so I turned that up and they got quiet and just listened about Sacajawea. Well, Maggie is now eight!!! So far, a good birthday. :)

Pictures of a Move

Piss off, Tosoro Circle!

Maggie was crying while getting her hair brushed and Roscoe came and laid his giant head in her lap. So they were best buddies for a few minutes. 

He also went ahead and commandeered her blue blanket.

I am so behind! Part 2

I had wanted to put Maggie in a group piano class. Her piano teacher actually suggested it and I agree. Maggie is so social. The only time she EVER gets in trouble in any of her classes is for talking to the other kids. And she loves the opportunity to be around other kids. So I thought a group class might be better for her.

I asked my homeschooling FB groups if they knew of any piano group classes in the area and they suggested Mansfield Music Place. It is fantastic! They offer piano, theater, and comedy classes for Maggie's age. I gave her the choice and she chose comedy. Surprise!

She loves it! I can't watch the class so it was hard to get to clear a description of what happened but it's definitely game-based. She told me about a game called, Kitty in the Corner, where you have to make eye contact. So. There you go. She has a monologue she's working on from You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. She's Sally and she's so excited about it.

I'm actually thinking about adding piano too. It's super expensive and of course, more time requirements but I love the place and think she would enjoy it.

We're going to one of our homeschool group's play dates. It's at River Legacy park. Maggie and Ella made a friend last week. She's 8 years old and lives very close to the house we're trying to get. Hooray!

Other than that, we've been trying to go on lots of walks. Maggie still complains but I love it. 

Ruby is walking up a storm. She's so darn cute. It's so funny. I feel like our days revolve around but then there's not much to write. She's just so sweet and cute and funny. 

I am so behind!

I don't think I've written since we moved to Laurie's house. Everything is so insane.

We're still working on buying a house so we're still living with Laurie and Jeff and Ella and Jilli and Roscoe and Lucy and Cheetara and Jack and Charlie. It's a full house for real. Everyone is on top of everyone else. We are so grateful for the place to stay and hopefully we'll be gone real soon.

My work opened a new department that provides therapy for children in the foster care system. They asked me to join and I am so excited about it. It is a truly amazing opportunity and work that I really, really love and care about. The only downside has been all the training. I had to be in training all day for an entire week. It was sooo hard on poor little Ruby. Then I had to do a ton of online training. But! I'm done! I should be able to start working next week. My supervisor has asked me to take 7 clients. Woo hoo! It's still contract so I'll still be working part-time.

School started back up but you wouldn't know it. I've barely looked at any of it. Ugh. Ruby's sleep is a mess because of all the craziness so I can't depend on that time to work. So I'm working when I can but there's just too much with two jobs and grad school in the pockets I can grab. I'm going to have to figure something out.

We've done Maggie's school here and there. It's too crazy to try and really dig in. So we're doing lots of reading. I read to the girls, Maggie reads to me, and we listen to audiobooks and podcasts in the car. Not perfect but. . . eh.

I went ahead and signed Maggie up for all of her classes I want her to take. It was quite odd but all of her classes just ended in May/June-ish. Her karate and swimming weren't offered over the summer and her piano teacher moved away to start college. So we took the whole summer off because I didn't want to have to drive 40 minutes to go to classes by where we would be living in the fall and I didn't want her to have classes for just the summer then change again.

She started karate. We're going 3 days a week. It is so cute. She got her first tape stripe on her birthday which was very exciting. Three stripes and you can test for the next belt up. She does quite well in karate. She keeps up well, asks questions, looks at the other kids. All good things. 

We started back in swimming. Ruby's taking classes too! It's so cute. This time Ella and Maggie are in the same class. Poor Miss Alex! But they are sweet little fishies.

Ruby was so cute in her little bathing suit. And she loved swimming around with Mommy. We had so much fun.