Some September Photos

 What we've been up to:

• dove hunting!  This was D's first official hunting experience (last year he just got to play fetch).  Sadly they only got one day of hunting in so far (too much rain), but that did nothing to diminish the smile of pride
• kids each had a friend over last Friday... they were begging to go outside and play in the rain, so I gave the OK as long as there was no lightning.  About five minutes later there was an insanely loud clap of thunder (even though we didn't see a flash) and there was a collective scream and dash into the house moment, which then led to huge puddles on the kitchen floor ;)  Of course everyone was now cold, so they requested hot cocoa... silly kids!  They sipped cocoa while playing monopoly.  I *love* that the four kiddos played all night long without any TV, video games, etc.
• The next morning, we made pretzels!  First time we'd tried this.  The process was fun, but need to find a better recipe.
• A was curled up on the couch reading a Clementine book, giggling at a friend's antics.  Clearly she & I share the "book gene." On a random side note: her tested reading level is very high, which makes it tough to find current "fun" books for her to read; we've come up with the guideline that weekday reading needs to be in her level, and weekends are for fun (as long as she's getting enough AR points during the week).  The Little House series is on her short list, and we'll also be pulling my Trixie Belden books out of the attic soon!
• We celebrated a friend's 35th birthday at Chuck-E-Cheese this past weekend.  You know how fun it is to inform your children that they're coming along for one of Mommy& Daddy's friends?!  Yes, we had a ball
• No specific photo, but we've been getting pounded with bands of showers from Hurricane Ingrid.  It made landfall about 100 miles south, but we've still been under flash flood warnings.We had one small leak in our bedroom (this is what happens when the wind is blowing hard enough to make it rain sideways) but thankfully had no other issues.