Magic Moments

 We are starting school tomorrow. It'll be a gentle day....we'll probably go for donuts in the morning and then get to know all of our new books and talk about the our schedule. I've never done a "gentle" start before. Usually we hit the books on day 1 and it's initiation by fire. But, this is my first year having three children all with a full load of subjects to get through. Cade will need me for every single thing, so I'm trying to stage the day so I can teach the older two and have them do their assignment while work with Cade and then trade off.  It's really hard to say goodbye to summer. But, it's still August and since we're living at the lake I refuse to believe summer is ending. We'll still have every evening to soak up the warm sun. Aiden starts soccer this week and guitar lessons resume soon for Sage, but I'm going to live in summer mode for as long as I possibly can.

 I can tell summer is ending. This weekend it wasn't quite warm enough to be in the water and no one (cousins, aunts, uncles) knew what to do with themselves. The start of school is looming and no one wants to let go of carefree days. No one knows what to expect going forward either. Public and Private school will both be different for our cousins and who knows what soccer and guitar and church will be like. Today feels like one of the most beautiful days we've had. The air is warm and there is a breeze. The humidity is low and the lake looks so pretty. But, Cade is sick today and so I've been spending all day taking care of him. We took the pontoon out so we could sun ourselves and soak in the Vitamin D, but even that didn't last too long. My poor baby has a fever and he's just not himself. So, we've taken it slow and we're hoping for a fever free day tomorrow.  We've been protected up here at the cabin while everything in the world is wrong, and it...

Cade doesn't care if you're supposed to sleep in on Saturdays. He was in my room at 6:45 AM and the conversation went like this: Cade: Mama, where do dreams happen? Where ARE dreams? Like, dreams on shows are above peoples heads in the air. (I think he was referring to thought bubbles). Me: Cade, dreams happen inside your brain. Cade: Well, ya know when people say, "turn to God?" How do people know which direction to turn so they go towards God? Me: Turning to God means you stop pursuing evil and do what God wants you to do.  We ponder the deep things of life on Saturday mornings, usually while I'm half asleep. The routine is SUPPOSED to be that on Saturdays the kids can't get up before 8 and they can't wake us up. At 8 AM they can go watch TV and eat leftover cold pizza from the night before while watching TV. BUT, it's summer at the cabin so we're kind of on permanent vacation mode. School and routine, both of which are starting shortly, are goin...

 The plan was to have a water balloon fight on the trampoline. But...the water balloons never made it past the front yard. 

 We have become quite obsessed with our kitties. When we got kittens we were so afraid they'd be mean cats since the Kuphal family has a long history of owning crazy, mean cats. But these two are just the loviest little things. They sleep with the boys at night, Clementine is an excellent mouser (which I almost wish wasn't necessary but we're living at the cabin), and Chester is the laid back, cool cat on the block. Clementine is really vocal and you can talk to her and she'll respond. Chester purrs easily and we often find them sleeping in silly places.  I was anti-cat when we went to get these kitties. But they've proven to be the perfect addition to our family. Cade fell on Chester over the winter and broke his hip. I was skeptical at the time, but we had surgery done on our cat and went through a 9 week rehab that was a major pain the the butt. However, he's totally healed now and so it was worth it. We all (Clementine included) are so thankful we have him a...

 The boys love board games. While this is all well and good, I HATE board games. I will do anything else under the sun besides play board games. I can handle a short game of Candy Land or Don't Break the Ice with Cade, but I'm a definite No for games like Risk. The boys fell in love with the Lord of the Rings version of Risk while at their Auntie Amy's house. Their cousin and uncle were sweet enough to indulge them in a game (or two). Their Auntie Amy was also lucky enough to score the game at a garage sale. The boys wanted to own the game and Amazon had it for a price they didn't want to pay. But, they found a "like new" edition on Ebay and they went half-sies on buying it. Aiden and Sage have been watching the tracking everyday until it arrived. Now they are recruiting cousins and uncles to play and I'm making myself scarce.

 I've started writing several times since my last post. But these days my brain doesn't hold space for writing. Life is just too much to right now to feel like I can sit and think and write anything worth reading. But, I'm attempting again, mostly because I want Cade to feel documented like the other boys were. My mother-in-law bought me a wall hanging for our new house (when we buy it) that I had been eyeing for awhile. It is the perfect summary for right now. It says, "Gratitude turns what we have into enough." I could lament that we haven't bought a house yet. The reason being is Tom is working remotely and that could be permanent, but we don't know, and we won't know for awhile. So here we are, in a state of waiting with all our belongings in storage. But, we get to live at our beloved cabin which is the place we ALL consider home. We get to be surrounded by our family which we missed for YEARS and it was heartbreaking. We certainly have more than ...