Lately

One of my favorite food bloggers, Kath, does "Lately" posts in which she posts beautiful photographs of all the healthy and delicious meals she's had.  Today I'm just going to post a mishmash of stuff that's been happening around here lately-- homeschooling, stocking our cabinets and freezer for baby's arrival, and other fun-- mostly in picture form.  Ready?  Here we go.

Late summer afternoons the lake have been simply divine for cooling off during this hot humid August after we've been homeschooling the morning away.  It's a 10-minute drive from our house and Daddy has been meeting us there after work when it's super quiet and peaceful and we practically have the place to ourselves.  So beautiful.

We gathered our first batch of apples from the trees in the yard and I made applesauce while the girls were having quiet time the other afternoon.  It was enjoyed by all after they came upstairs.  Nothing like a free snack from one's own backyard!

The bigger girls woke up suuuuuuper early the other morning, while I was still having what M calls my "hour of power" (I use the 5-6AM hour for catching up on email, updating our budget, or doing whatever online work I have that needs to be done).  While I was busy they broke out their Muppets Make Puppets book and whipped up these little toilet paper roll puppets, then stole my phone and took a bunch of selfies.

Self-explanatory.  :)  I had lots of help.

Super easy breakfast for when the baby comes.  Just add water and egg.

Schoolwork lately....

C:

L:

N:

I deliberately wanted to keep weekends in the month of August clear for homeschool and baby prep, but now that we are pretty much done with that I organized a small party to celebrate N's birthday (very late).  To keep it easy and low-stress for this pregnant Mama I asked her to just choose 3 of her closest gal pals and we invited them over for an afternoon of tie-dye.  We kept things really simple and N did a lot of the prep work herself.

She decorated the cupcakes.

I had not done tie-dye since I was about 10 so I was a little nervous about helping the girls, but N and I googled a ton of YouTube videos the night before.  She was also pretty knowledgable about tie-dye... I'm not sure how but she must have seen someone doing it somewhere.  Anyway she helped me get the hang of it and together we helped her friends.

We rinsed our projects this afternoon and hung them to dry... I think they came out really cool!

N really achieved the classic spiral.

L got a little bit of a question mark going on with hers.

Mommy's finished product.  Groovy.

C tried a completely different fold with hers and ended up with a super cool pattern!

(C was not present for her photograph.)

(L's cute little toes in the pic!)

I have to say that after tie-dye the girls spent over an hour making each other willow-branch crowns and dancing around the yard to music from the Nutcracker.  She has definitely found some kindred spirits in these friends!

Okay, well... I think you're up-to-date now!

I owe you some pregnancy updates and the latest from the doctor... also a meal plan... but I will share those things tomorrow or later, for the sake of ending this mammoth post.  Thanks for reading, and goodnight!