September 2016

September 2016 proved to be a first for Laura - very minimal picture taking.  Typically, I have to weed through the photos and I still end up putting 30-40 photos on the blog.  Unfortunately this month I had to scrape for photos.  To say September was busy is an understatement.  However, it was busy for me and I highly doubt there would be any entertainment with photos of me at work or in our home office with me writing papers. :)

Pete coached Claire's soccer team this month while the younger two simply tagged along.  They did a great job entertaining themselves at games and practices and we look forward to getting them into more activities in the future.

We struggled this month with our sweet little Claire.  She had some difficulty with honesty.  I will spare you the details but she had to be punished substantially a couple of times.  We definitely think she learned her lesson.  It was a parenting first for us.  We know she has got a heart of gold, but it is extremely challenging to figure out the best way to teach your child right/wrong, actions/consequences, good and bad conscience, etc.  She showed a lot of remorse and told me she prayed to God that she could have a clean slate.  

Grace's month of September was filled with losing teeth.  She lost four teeth this month and had to be bribed every time.  I pulled three in one night and she got an ice cream sandwich.  She then had an awful looking snaggle tooth and she wouldn't let me anywhere near it.  What finally did the trick?   A shiny new pair of high heels and that tooth came right out!

Jake seems to be doing well in kindergarten.  We are blessed that he has the same teacher as Claire and Grace.  It is nice to have a rapport with her and she does a great job keeping communication open.  His speech is coming along well, but his listening skills are still our toughest challenge.

Here are some pictures from our month of September:

Hot tub/campfire night

At a gender reveal, the family sprayed silly string to find out that we are expecting a nephew in February

Grace and her new heels

We purchased a new minivan - it was a quick search since our old one was nearly $3K in damage repair.

Grace the night we pulled 3 teeth

I started this month in Nashville at a Neonatal Nursing conference.  It was a great experience and I got to stay at the Grand Opryland Hotel

The kids got stuck in the rain at one of Claire's soccer practices - they were in good spirits about it though