August Wrap Up

1st day of 4th Grade!

 My Freshman!

At our children's museum.  You can't really see it, but Basia is lighting a light bulb with her hand by touching the plasma ball with one hand and the light bulb with the other.  Cool stuff!

Here are some of the kids enjoying the tortoise we found.  When we released it, we watched it walk straight to a tree in our front driveway where there was a big hole for him to live.  We had no idea!

Basia often makes me take random pictures of her and what she is doing.  She tells me to post it on my blog but to use her code name, "Piper."

August is the month when we get one of our two yearly clothing allowances for our foster children.  It is a lot of fun spending someone else's money to buy a whole lot of clothes.  Here's Wee One in his pile of new clothes for the winter.  Oh, I should mention that I don't take these pictures for blogging alone.  We have to turn in pictures of the clothes along with our receipts and thank you letters.

And here are Miss Independent's clothes.  The new boys hadn't been with us long enough to get money for winter clothes.

We took the kids to the last ever Diablos game last weekend.  In a year or so El Paso will have a AAA team, so the Diablos will no longer be our team.  The kids weren't that interested in the game, but they liked the quarter hot dogs and the snow cone.

We now have two handy, dandy picnic tables for the kids outside.  I often serve at least one of their snacks out there and also their lunch.  It keeps my kitchen cleaner, and they love eating outside.

We have had some cooler weather, but most days are still quite hot around here.  We have done some swimming and have played with the water table and sprinkler.  This is my latest attempt at getting a picture of my kids that I can share online.  You may notice that Brishen's gigantic foot is missing.  His would have taken up the whole picture.  He also thinks he's a bit old for playing in the sprinkler.

The beginning of school means I am trying to let the little kids do some sort of art project several times a week.  Have you ever tried keeping art projects for 5 or 6 kids when they each want to do multiple pages a day?  Me, neither.  Will they one day be mad that they all go in the trash?  We shall see.

Here are my little boys checking out he lions at the zoo.  This is the first time that I color coordinated most of my kids (Brishen was having none of that).  It actually made it really easy to take regular count of who was still with me.  We will be doing it again for sure.

I took the five older kids to see Planes this week.  Basia was very much inspired.  She has been building airplane creations out of Legos ever since.  These are her first attempts.

Brishen made his debut as a taekwondo judge.  I had to run to the store at the last second to find him a white shirt and a red tie for the occasion.  He enjoyed it and wants to do more of it.

Basia earned a 2nd place trophy for her forms.  She also got 2nd place in sparring.  Brishen got 2nd place in forms, too.  I don't have many pictures because my children do not like getting 2nd place and are not in posing moods when they get 2nd place.

Here's Zade taking a lunch break at the park during the taekwondo tournament.  It is not exactly fun to have the whole crew at an all-day tournament.  Most of the day is spent sitting and waiting.  Toddlers are not known for being good at sitting and waiting.  We somehow survived.  We are trying to think of a Plan B for the Albuquerque tournaments that will be happening in the next few months.  

And there, you have it, a recap of the parts of August that I did not get around to blogging.  Now September has begun, and a certain someone started the month with a birthday bang!