Mason, Rylan, and Elli
I didn’t take nearly as many pictures this month as I normally do, so this might be a little shorter than normal. The end of August/beginning of September was full of West Virginia, Italian Festival fun. I saved the pictures last month to share them now since the weekend bridged the two months. While there, we went to a little family reunion, bits of two concerts (BeeGees cover band and Jo Dee Messina), hotel fun things, a library talk with some local/Italian authors, Italian food, and more.
We went to Pennsylvania two times this month. Once to go to the Mac Days thing (which ended up being cancelled due to expected rain), a celebration of Marion, and just a visit. I ended up taking pictures of Mitchell while we were there too, since he’s a senior this year. We –minus Elli- also got to visit with Aunt RuthE and Grandma Sollenberger, and play in her new hobbit house. We watched part of a movie outside at the festival grounds and got popcorn and ice cream that night too. Two weeks later we went back to Pennsylvania to acknowledge Elli’s birthday with that side of the family, since Mommy couldn’t find a time that worked for everyone to celebrate together in a party at home. We ate at CiCi’s that weekend, and we watched Daddy, Pappy, Uncle Levi, and Uncle Darrin cut down a tree on Saturday.
This month was full of rain in Virginia. After it had already been raining for days, Hurricane Florence threatened to attack us pretty hard, but it ended up hitting North Carolina more directly instead. All of the places we went on vacation in August were right in the eye of the storm. At home, we ended up getting lots more rain, a day off of school, and a super flooded road and driveway.
Awana started last month, and all of you are having a good time there- even Elli is in Puggles! Mason, you are happy that Emma started coming to Sparks; Rylan, you like to go to Cubbies once you’re in there, even though sometimes you still cry before it starts; Elli, you are always fine going in to Puggles, and we hear that you do great every week.
Elli, you turned two this month! We celebrated a few weeks late at home by going to the jumping place with Nonni and Poppy and then eating at Noodles & Company afterwards. You’re still saying about the same amount of words. We had two visits with the Infant and Child Connection, because they’re going to help us work with you on saying more words. They thought you were pretty adorable, and you scored on-age-level or above on everything except for speaking.
Mason, you had a hard month with your attitude certain days/times. I think it was because of you being too tired, because it was taking you hours to fall asleep each night. For the past two weeks we’ve been using melatonin again to help you fall asleep more quickly. With that and Daddy being home at bedtime for two weeks, things have gone much smoother. You still had some rough times, but they didn’t last as long as they did a few weeks ago. You are doing really well on homework this year; it doesn’t take you nearly as long as it used to last year. We’ve tried to be creative with practicing your spelling words, and you seem to like it a lot more that way. You are also getting really good at drawing designs on paper. I like it when you draw me pictures!
Rylan, you’ve had a pretty normal month. You love to read monster truck books and other books from the library. You have started memorizing some of them just like Mason used to do when he was younger. You’ve been talking about Jesus a lot lately and how happy He was to die for us, because He loves us so much. You’ve also been building things with legos a lot; usually they’re things that fly or float or shoot guns.
Here are a couple funny things you said this month, boys:
“Want to know something? Poppy brushes his teeth and he doesn’t eat ANY sweet things.”
“There was a hole in the road bigger than humongous, and bigger than a perplexus.”
“Elli, you’re a human cutie, not the cutie that you nibble up.”
“Can me and Elli play out there? We won’t make such a clatter.”
Ok guys. That’s it! I love you!