{Pray, Please.}

If anyone still follows this, please pray for us. Hubby is looking for work again, for the second time in a year. We were completely blindsided by this, last time we had a safety net, this time we do not. We are confused and scared and trying to hold on to God in a very rocky situation.

Thanks.

Geesh.

Well, I've tried this twice now. Third time's a charm right? I want to make this publish tomorrow, but the first time instead of editing the time it would show up I just hit publish. Then I tried to take it down but it won't let you just remove it from the page, you have to delete the whole thing. You'll notice that if you go to the site that post is gone all together, if you have an RSS feed or something. I wanted to repost it but messed up. I tried copy and paste but that just ticked me off and I deleted the whole thing. So here we go again. Pictures of more, non-dance things we did this summer. Again. Sorry. If this posts yet tonight, chalk it up to my allergies and just delete it.

Hopefully many more to come. I love looking back on my blog posts and I want to have them up! I don't have pics of them playing in their new blow-up kiddie pool, or of A as she uses her new-found biking and swimming skills, or anything! Sheesh.

First a gentleman who owns a reptile sanctuary in our state came to our library and all three girls got to hold a young alligator for a bit. That was pretty cool.

C thought it was pretty cool!

S apparently looked mature enough for the guy to take the rubber band off the alligator's mouth. I thought that was pretty neat that he did that for her. 

A would have held the alligator all day if I'd have let her. 

We've spent some time at the big lake. My grandparents camp there and it makes for an easy and free thing to do sometimes. I hope to go a couple more times as they'll be out there for the couple weeks leading up to labor day.

These three were a normal day on the lake. Nice waves and sunshine!

This one, the waves were eerily calm and it was cool and foggy. I can't remember the last time I saw the lake that way in the middle of the afternoon. In the lifejacket is my (yes, my) 3 year old cousin.

The girls have even been very helpful all summer. One Saturday we got up and they had done the dishes already. Then the same day they cleaned their room, the playroom, and helped me in the kitchen and the bathrooms. Amazing.

She's helping me clean the slider. I just love the look on her face and her hair swirling all around in the wind. 

So, those are what I have from the rest of the summer. I've got to start carrying my camera in my pocket...

And then there were three...

...weeks until school starts! I cannot believe it. We jammed this summer so full of classes and camps and swimming at Grandparents' houses that we are three weeks from the end of summer break. I wanted to bring my little blog up to speed picture wise.

We have two little dancers in our family now and they danced like crazy this summer! Both A and C were in two camps/classes (A's is still going) and they LOVED them. Want proof?

C in her cute little 4 and 5 year old dance camp. They even learned a little dance over the course of only 2 weeks! She worked hard to earn her cute certificate.

A in her camp; obviously, even in pictures, they're a little more advanced. They learned a dance to an entire song in the 2 weeks! Pretty impressive. She got her certificate with smiles, too. Many thanks to their instructor! She does a great job and has endless patience with these tiny dancers. 

Quite a bit of our summer has been taken up with these camps. S has had a lot of patience putting up with sitting through classes! Good thing I rewarded everyone with donuts from the bakery every so often! This summer has gone so well. I'm thankful for health and all this time to hang out with my girls! 

Don't worry, we didn't just dance, and I did manage to get more pics but this one's long already, so later.

Christmas in...August?

I keep clicking that 'New Post' button, leaving the tab open all day, then getting to the end of the day, going, "I am far too tired to blog" and clicking the little x in the corner and going to bed. So today I'm going to work on it as I need breaks from a very, very long cleaning list. Wanna know why the list is so long? This is why:

Most of this year's Christmas present for me. Happy Mama!

I have a beautiful new desk in my living room. We have long been talking about moving our big TV downstairs and having that be the 'Living Room' and making our upstairs the 'Sitting Room.' So this week we just happened to wander into our local antique store and find this piece. As you may know about antique stores, if you like it and can afford it, snap it up, because once it's gone, it's gone. It solves a couple issues we wanted to address before we started the room transformation. It gives me a central place for the computer and bill paying.

It also allowed me to put a lot of things in the drawers and shuffle things in the kitchen to create more storage in there. We had been looking for a side board and a corner desk to solve the two problems. This piece solves both problems in one. Eventually we want to move our giant davenport couch downstairs and finish the living room down there. Then I can start shopping around for the eclectic chairs I want to fill the sitting room with. So, basically, I have my Christmas gift early (because of needing to snap it up before it was gone), and my hubby gave me the start of a long, ongoing process to make this house look exactly like we want it to look.

I suppose all of that doesn't explain my long cleaning list. I happen to be one of those people who once we get started on one project it tends to bleed all over the place and before I know it two or three rooms are entirely reorganized. So the kitchen and living room have been revamped quite a bit! That led to a very long cleaning list today.

There are a lot of reasons why I haven't been posting, mostly dance stuff with the girls. I'll post pictures and jabber about those soon! Hopefully tomorrow.