It's been a very busy month, as August always seems to be, what with conventions, and realizing summer is almost over, so you try to cram everything in you wanted to do all summer.
We started out with Olivia's 13th birthday up at Mom and Dad's. Olivia made the cake by herself-- two layers of chocolate cake with chocolate frosting in between the layers, and then vanilla icing, tinted "aquamarine", and neon gel decorations! Quite the work of art! Unfortunately, the color on the food coloring box didn't translate well into the icing, so it was rather a sickly color, but still good!
We started out with Olivia's 13th birthday up at Mom and Dad's. Olivia made the cake by herself-- two layers of chocolate cake with chocolate frosting in between the layers, and then vanilla icing, tinted "aquamarine", and neon gel decorations! Quite the work of art! Unfortunately, the color on the food coloring box didn't translate well into the icing, so it was rather a sickly color, but still good!
All the candles in one blow-- being a brass instrument player in band has benefits.
Elliott got a present from Grandpa Lee a little earlier-- a remote control Caterpillar machine. Needless to say, it was a hit, until he wore it out and he and Daddy tried to fix it.
Elliott's birthday was at a rather inconvenient time for big parties this year-- the Wednesday of Freedom convention. Grandpa Dana and Grandma Marilyn were here, though, and the Smiths came over (they left for Freedom Thursday afternoon). I didn't feel up to an exciting masterpiece of cake decoration, so I bought a cake-- 
one with plenty of green food coloring in the icing, apparently!
He was a bit more into actually opening presents this year, though he was like any other kid-- wanted to stop and play with the first one for hours before he opened any more. By the end, though, he was getting into the spirit of ripping!
My present for him-- Evan scoffed a bit over such a "sissy" toy, but he has the vacuum running a couple hours a day. He loves the sound of it-- even when he's playing with something else, he likes it running!
A truck with cars inside... Does it get any cooler than that?
He was a bit more into actually opening presents this year, though he was like any other kid-- wanted to stop and play with the first one for hours before he opened any more. By the end, though, he was getting into the spirit of ripping!
My present for him-- Evan scoffed a bit over such a "sissy" toy, but he has the vacuum running a couple hours a day. He loves the sound of it-- even when he's playing with something else, he likes it running!
A truck with cars inside... Does it get any cooler than that?
The next day (and a Grandma haircut later), he was playing with the remote control car from Smiths.
In his highly fashionable summer outfit of white onesie and shoes (too hot to wear clothes, but need shoes for driving the car!), playing with his Little People fire truck from Aunt Hopie.
Marilla loves being outside-- and Cheyenne is the competent big sister watching!
I just LOVE the smile of Cheyenne's face-- what a kid!
Marilla's creeping a lot lately-- can get to what she wants, that's for sure. She's still not sitting for very long, but she's improving. It's all so vastly quicker than it was for Elliott, I have to say I'm enjoying not worrying about when she'll move to the next stage.
This picture is about a week old, and I just noticed she already has a lot more hair now! It doesn't look longer, just much thicker and darker.
We were able to get to the weekend at Quakertown convention-- first time I'd been there in nine years. Cheyenne was astonished that Mommy actually had cousins-- she's used to Daddy's cousins all over the place! I enjoyed seeing lots of family and friends I hadn't seen in a long time-- and their kids! There were lots of other kids there-- something we don't have the privilege of in our area. There was a big pile of gravel and several "digger" toys for the kids to play with during convention-- definitely worth a little dust on their clothes to have them so happy in between meetings! All the kids had fun with their second cousins, Katie and Wilson, my cousin Sheri's kids. Katie and Wilson also brought lots of their outgrown toys to send home with us-- our van looked like a Toys 'R' Us truck on the way home! They have had such fun playing with them since then.
Then a whirlwind of coming home, unpacking the van (I have no idea how it can disintegrate so badly on a simple weekend trip!), doing the wash and getting ready for Altamont. I think we'll try to space our two conventions a little more if we ever have another baby at convention time-- Rilla was needing to cling after the strangeness of convention and traveling-- didn't fit in well with the wash schedule! Anyway, we had a wonderful convention at Altamont. We heard so much about all the help and provision available for us-- just need to ask for it!
Then a whirlwind of coming home, unpacking the van (I have no idea how it can disintegrate so badly on a simple weekend trip!), doing the wash and getting ready for Altamont. I think we'll try to space our two conventions a little more if we ever have another baby at convention time-- Rilla was needing to cling after the strangeness of convention and traveling-- didn't fit in well with the wash schedule! Anyway, we had a wonderful convention at Altamont. We heard so much about all the help and provision available for us-- just need to ask for it!
Unfortunately, we brought more than full hearts home-- we all got colds! So it was a busy week, doing another gigantic pile of wash and getting ready for Wednesday meeting! Now, though, I think I have almost all of the wash finally done and (mostly) put away, so just a regular busy Saturday here! Evan finally has time to start taping and mudding the bedroom guest room, so exciting to see a little progress on that! Should have the room done before the winter, hopefully.
We got a letter this week about Cheyenne starting Pre-K--so hard to think of her going, but she's so excited. So enjoying our last bit as a little "home" family!
