September has come and gone with school being the main focus of the month. AWANA has begun along with some other activities. Natalie turned one this month! We didn’t have much of a party but we did celebrate with cake and ice cream, plus a trip to our favorite pizza place. We ended the month much as it started, with busy days and nights.
Cordelia is into the full swing of school, with homework added back into the mix. She’s having a good time at school, continuing to enjoy her work and friends. Corrie continued with ice skating, swimming and piano. She also started a 7-week basketball league that practices and plays on Sundays. She’s had two weeks of AWANA 3&4 grade Truth and Training (T&T). In ice skating her class had a final performance the 2nd week of September and she leveled up to the Basic 3 level. Skating took a two week break and will start back the first week of October. With all the activities and added pressures of homework and now AWANA added on, we think the workload might be taking a toll. Cordelia never backs down from a challenge, so it’s up to us to make sure she’s managing her tasks without putting too much on her.
Anthony started in the next level of soccer at the beginning of the month. He’s keeping up well with the older age group and is having a lot of fun. On the homeschool front, most days he does his work well, but some days are a challenge. He certainly has works and subjects he enjoys more than others. He says science is his favorite subject. The extra curriculars for homeschooling started this month. Anthony has a once-a-week co-op day with two art classes and a choir class. He’s starting to make some friends there. The last week of the month Anthony joined a PE class which will also be once-a-week. In swimming Anthony is starting on butterfly stroke. He’s also continuing in piano and started playing some of the songs Cordelia started playing a year or so back, which is fun. He’ll also start in his second year of AWANA Sparks and is two weeks into the club year.
Lydia is having a great time at Legacy for school. She’s enjoying her friends and is also working hard on “challenging works”. She started putting short words together into a basic sentence and is understanding counting and placeholders. Lydia had a cold at the beginning of the month that she shared with Alicia and Natalie, but we’re all recovered by the end of the month. Lydia is doing swimming and switched to a gymnastics class for September. Lydia is also in her second year of AWANA Cubbies.
Natalie is one year old! We celebrated with Grandparents Powers by letting her smear cupcake icing all over herself. Then she finished with a baby ice cream cone before being whisked off to the bath for a thorough washing. Her siblings were very sweet and bought her some cute toys, which they were very excited to have her play with. During the month she switched from preferring crawling and now prefers walking. Natalie had some sad days when she was sick. She transitioned to whole milk and no more bottles. Overall Natalie is developing well and become more and more interactive. She’s also trying to talk and is constantly making noises. She makes a “quack” sound in the bath playing with duckies. She also likes to point at things while grunting. She waves hello and bye and is generally met with “aww so cute.”
Alicia continues to juggle working part time, homeschooling Anthony, AWANA responsibilities, and toting the kids around to their various activities. There have certainly been stressful days during the month when things seemed to be piling up. Sometimes even finding time to get to the grocery store for yet another gallon of milk seems like a daunting task. Alicia was able to find help watching Natalie for some days when she takes Anthony out for homeschool activities. Grandparents have also been helping to watch the kids and allow Alicia to focus on engineering work for a day.
Tim took two weeks at the beginning of the month off work between his jobs. He shoveled over 7 tons of gravel rocks into a dumpster in 100 degrees. He also accomplished some other yard tasks. He’s happy to be back at his old company. He’s got a quiet (and very cold) office. He’s done some lab work and getting back into the loop on the latest projects. He’s company also switched back to the every-other-Friday off schedule, so he’s enjoyed two of those so far.
With all the obligations and stresses, communication has been a challenge. Responsibilities and pressures also have an impact on emotional and mental state. We continue to work through these situations and find ways to better support and encourage each other as we continue to grow. We started attending a small group through our church. Two meetings into the session, it remains to be seen if we will find the support and community we’re praying for in that group.
