Catching up on our summer

Where has the summer gone?  I am behind on posting pictures from our trip as I sort of deleted my operating system on my new Mac...  :-(  I have to go back and download pics again!  But I have uploaded pictures of what we've been doing since we got home.  We are back at "school," it's TOO hot to do much of anything else.  If we're going to be inside, we may as well make the most of our time!  

The Princess all dressed up...to go grocery shopping?

I spent quite a bit of time cleaning out our homeschool shelves. 

Since we started back to school, we have started doing more nature study and nature walks.  Connor chose to draw an oak leaf he found and Jacob and I decided to photograph items of interest to us.  We saw some orange flowers up the tree and since we've been studying insects (and have studied hummingbirds in the past), we were able to discuss the shape of the flowers and what type of creatures might like them!  I love when it all flows together.   We also photographed some vine growing on our back pine tree to study later.

We went to BLR for a weekend.  Our sunroom is almost finished out there.  It should be done by Tuesday of this coming week!  We're not doing the bathroom yet, we just want to be able to move furniture into the room and use it.  We still sit out there sometimes, but not as comfortable on outside chairs.  Here the girls are pretending to have babies in their tummies!  Too cute!  Shaoey loves to talk about her birthmom.  Gives me goosebumps to think my grandbabies will be Chinese!  To think of how we've changed the look of our family tree is amazing to me!

How often do you catch a picture of brothers NOT fighting, wrestling, or otherwise hurting themselves or someone else?  I had to capture this one on camera!

Sweet Shuangshuang...she loves to pretend she's a ballerina and it just tickles my heart every time.  She is so adorable!

Ben and Me

(or should I say Jacob and Me?)

Shaoey, Shuangshuang, and LingLing (Shaoey's gerbil)

What a ham!

I have been in a season of seeking God's will for our stuff.  I know, I should always be in that season!  I truly feel like He's working in a big way in our lives.  I don't know what that will look like, but I know that stuff is not making me feel good.  It is draining and creates stress.  I never thought I'd say this, but I envy people who live in a smaller home with less stuff.  I know that's probably hard to understand, but all I can say is that God has really been pruning my heart and my stuff.  DH was down and out with a horrible virus this past weekend and I went to town on our house!  I went through the pantry, the spices, the utility room cabinets, my closet, the bathroom cabinets...you name it.  I was on a tear!  Here is just part of what I gave to Good*will, it doesn't include the stuff that wasn't even good enough for that.

Everything on the counter came out of that open cabinet over the girls!  I have NO idea how it all fit!  We couldn't find anything and I was constantly buying more because I couldn't find what I already had.  Anyone else have that problem?  And how many containers of salt does one family really need? And we really don't even use it!  We managed to pare it down nicely, combined bottles, got rid of out of date spices, and then organized it according to use.  Whew!

Miscellaneous pictures of my sweet children  being sweet and silly!

And of course all this work and play makes for some very tired little girls!  SS actually covered herself up on the utility room floor and took a nap.  God knew I needed our fourth to be a napper.  She is all GO until she drops and we all breathe a sigh of relieve and reprieve!

I hope to get back into the swing of it and start posting more often.  I still need to go back and do our NJ reunion and our Cincinnati trip!