Good Stuff: weather cooling down . . . schooltime activities heating up

 
Still moving towards fall. The mornings are cool, the apples are ripe and attracting dozens of bears, and the sunflowers are about thirteen feet tall.  I love that we have such distinct seasons. 

: : Just the Boys

Iyezk and Lex doing some important work.

These two are still having fun hanging out together, and I'm really loving hanging out with them. I've had like a week of not having to be at work anywhere or have lessons prepared or papers graded or really even pay attention to much of any schedule (beyond the four different hectic ones my kids have). But much of the day I only have one or two kids to keep track of and haven't had to do about six hours of work after the kids go to bed at night. I've been running nearly every day, reading other than for work, and cooking real meals with the kids every night since I'm not totally sick of it after doing it four other times for a dozen people though out the day. The ambulance has slowed down a bit, too. (Last month I responded to 42 calls. That's sort of a lot for a volunteer thing. I don't think I was imagining that feeling that it was taking up a lot of my life.)

Anyway, this new, temporary pace is so relaxing (comparatively) and fun. I've been envying stay at home moms . . .  next week back to work. There are a lot of things I like about working places other than home, too, but it's been a good week. As soon as someone else will pay all my bills I want to try it again.

Lex's crazy pink person in progress. Right now it just has hair, ears and eyes.

Lex and Iyezk start school in a week and a half, too. It might be a bit of a schedule adjustment. I've been letting Lex sleep in till about 10:00. That gives me an hour and a half to answer emails and download photos and do whatever I might want to do that is more fun without a three-year-old. It gives him a few extra hours of sleep so he's not crabby without a nap and his 10:30 or so bedtime.

I think his school starts at 8:30, but I may have to get him ready before I leave at 7:15. Lex isn't much for other people's schedules, so we'll see how that goes.

 : : First Home Football Game (with Indian Tacos!)
 
 Israel enjoying an Indian Taco (boosters fundraiser) before the Cutbank football game.

Dylan back to throw

Israel got stuck monitoring his little brother for half the game. I felt pretty bad about this. Even compared to the nuisance of general three-year-old watching, Lex is really in another league. (I say this having spent many, many days of my life keeping track of dozens of different three-year-olds.)  Israel had friends who were back in town for the game but I was there with the ambulance so I needed to be available to help (without keeping track of Lex) and had a dead cell phone (so I couldn't keep Lex and call Israel to come get him if needed). I usually don't make Israel watch the younger kids unless he's up for it. He is such great help I don't ever want him to resent having to do it, but since his dad didn't want to have to keep track of Lex either, Israel was put in charge while my cell phone charged in the ambulance throughout the second quarter.

Ray diving for a few more yards

Hopefully next year he'll still want to play football. Since he'll be in high school and out with the team, I guess that'd get him out of Lex duty for at least football evenings.  In fact, that may be reason enough to play football.

:: River Trip

Summer almost got away from us before we got in our river trip. But, September in Montana can still be quite summery.


I think we may have concluded that we must add another raft next year. Or bring some of the canoes. Even if we stop adding people, our people keep getting bigger. Luckily half them don't actually care if they are in the raft while we are floating. (We do a pretty calm stretch! Too many tiny people for real white water at this point.)

 Look at all these life jackets ready to throw in the car. Too bad I forgot to actually throw them in the car. We drove all the way through Ronan and were on our way to the bridge when I remembered we had no life jackets in the car. So we turned around and ended up starting about an hour later than we'd planned.

Bryce. Going in.

Deva & Aodhan enjoying the view

Paisley & Iyezk. . . holding their spot on the tube for when we ended our shore break and pushed off again.

The boys had to get out and stand on the rock. They then had to swim to catch up to the rafts because as all the little kids excitedly pointed out:  "That rock is moving away really, really fast!" 

Beautiful Jenna.

Azia takes a turn on one of the tubes.

Zoran showing off his little froggy. There were frogs everywhere. I'm pretty sure the kids were more excited about meeting the frogs than the frogs were about meeting the kids.

 


: : More on that losing battle to have an orderly environment

Every time I open a cupboard or the freezer or any door in my house, I find something like this. Actually this wasn't too bad since it's not actually messy at all. But why has someone frozen an army guy in a bowl in my freezer?

And why does the cat need to clear out half the plant and dump piles of dirt on the floor every day to make himself a comfy bed when he has a perfectly comfy bed of his own? 

I suspect the answer has something to do with why it pees on the kids beanbags in the reading every single day, rather than peeing any normal acceptable place a cat should pee.

 : : Element at the Skatepark

 Sunday at the skate park they had free lunch and Element Skating company giving away all sorts of stuff: shirts, bags, boards. All sorts of skaters of all sizes showed up to check it out.

Gage. He left with some free shoes!

: : 1st Soccer Practices

Soccer's underway!

Most teams only got one practice in so far, but first games are Saturday if the weather is good to us.

Lex giving me some sort of odd face when I asked him to look at me. He never cooperates. He was pretty interested in helping get all the balls inflated and ready to give out to all the coaches.

He was also pretty interested in these beverages Christina had for all the players.

Eldon is coaching Azia's team (which is also Jenna and Daij's team). 

Zoran and Bryce ready to make a goal. Gwen is their coach again. Paisley & Lettie are on this team, too.

Zoran watching. Ready to sub in when it's his turn.

: : and more adventures with the boys

Lex checking out the MHS sign on our way to soccer.

Iyezk and Lex stocking up on their gumball trip. Iyezk is obsessed with gumballs. He is now sharing the obsession with Lex.

 Checking out the sunflowers and Papa & Yaya's. They're getting so heavy they're starting to droop now, but they're still pretty impressive. The corn is pretty tall too, the trees are loaded with apples, and the pumpkins are winding through the corn and continuing to grow.

Luckily Yaya and Papa live right next to us, so we can enjoy fall even though we still live in a garden-less cow pasture!