three little monkeys...

After several weeks of begging and other obligations to be met, we finally had a free Friday to enjoy at the zoo.  It had been very cool the day before but Friday started off a bit warm.  Fortunately, overcast skies came and it cooled off again a bit.  This Friday was particularly empty and a great time to enjoy the zoo without millions of other visitors.

First stop, the reptile house--per David's request.

We watched the elephants for a while.

Then the cats... asleep as usual.

On the way...to the African section.

Lunchtime finally!

Stop off to view the giraffes.

We went into the new bug house.  I must say I was very disappointed.  It was small but the biggest issue was that more than half the window exhibits were higher than any child could see and several I even had a hard time viewing due to my height of "only" 5 '7".  The cutter ants were fascinating though. And we did get to see a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis.

 (see the bug?)

Spent a few minutes in the Children's area.  Never noticed the hedgehog's face before.  Rather an ugly creature, at least this one was.  We lost E as she took off to play on the playground.  Fortunately, after a few frantic minutes we did find her.  And then we went to pet the goats.  A was very uncertain but E (normally my scaredy) was enthusiastic about running from goat to goat to brush their hair.

loved the reading meerkats.  Wouldn't they enjoy some more interesting reading? :)

Last stop was the monkeys.  I was already pushing my three monkeys to their limit.  (it was 2:00 and no nap yet--was lovely and almost completely empty at this point!)  The ring-tailed lemurs reminded me so much of my three monkeys though.  As the rest of the zoo settled down to a nap, these monkeys were still going strong chasing each other around their cage!

back to a schedule

And along with the start of school, I found I have not taken very many pictures at all.



Here is E's first picture she ever colored in the lines (vs scribbling).  Of course, documenting her favorite colors of pink, pink, and more pink and purple.

Biz is such a lover of princess stuff...(and did I say before "all things pink?")

We started the school year trying to teach E along with David but quickly learned that David was more distracted and E was not quite ready for that jump.

Now, E (who fights taking a nap almost every day but still needs one) takes a nap and D does school with me.  After crying (by me) on the first day of school and a rough first week, we are finally getting somewhere.  David is now able to write sentences from my dictation (been one of the hardest things for him in the past).  He also can read a good bit (even a few words that are not phonetic) and recognizes quite a few sight words despite not working on that too much.  We read at least once a day.  His math is continuing strong.  He is doing addition through 7s and can count by 10s and even 5s (with a tiny bit of prompting).  We are on schedule to be finishing Kindergarten by Nov-Dec.  Think we may continue on to First Grade in the spring.  After much consideration/prayer, we decided to put him back into Kinder at church this year.  Just don't know where he belongs because he is growing in maturity too but not ready for the next step quite.

We started soccer again.  David is on the same team again this season but sporting a different color uniform.  They are now red camo.  I did not realize how fortunate we were to have such a capable coach.  Coach Al plays seriously himself and is used to coaching--unlike most of the other teams David's age.  David is learning a lot and improving.  He still seems better cut out for defense than offense.  He is a tough defender and far more hesitant to move the ball to the goal himself.  He even got to attend a Dynamos game with his team (and Daddy).

The sibling fighting and craziness has calmed down a lot.  There is still a lot of chasing each other around the house (although most often with both parties happy about it), but overall, it is wonderful to see reciprocal kindnesses, sharing, and love toward each other.

The kiddos also all got their matching tshirts this month.  We use the HEB book club tshirts for sleep shirts.

And a few pictures of D that did not make it in respective past months because they were hidden on Daddy's phone:

Here's to another month of madness...

the handyman

I am in love with my handyman.

He can do anything!  Even tackle new chandeliers in 20 foot hallways.