June, July, and Aug Pictures

 

Kate is 24!

 Kate had her 24th birthday! She is happy living at home and will live at home as long as she is not married. She has written two novels. I am not sure if she has another one in her right now or not, but I expect she will. She helps with homeschooling too. She is the calculus teacher and doing an excellent job with that. Kate's baby blessing said that she would love each one of her siblings as individuals and be a bonding influence in the family and Kate is definitely that. Sometimes the other kids feel like Kate has a little too much popularity and despise her for a day or two, but then she gathers them all together for a big game of legos or dungeons and dragons. Kate loves the Cure with me and that makes me happy too. I am glad that we have not kicked our kids out at 18. I wish that they had marriage prospects, but I am glad we took the old fashioned approach and let them stay here. They will be able to go into marriage debt free and that is good. 

**Just a note. We do not believe the in the courtship model for marriage. We trust our kids to choose their own spouses and want them to be alone a whole lot and know a person deeply before marrying them. It seems like folly to me to not let my kids know how they will be able to talk and get along in private with the person they will marry before it happens. 

Eliza is 2!!

 

My baby is 2 and I am not pregnant. This has never happened before. This time it is very much on purpose. My health is done and so I am done. But this is a new develop for me in life. I have been having babies for 25 years, and it feels nice to be starting the lasts of everything. Ruth was the firsts of everything and now Eliza is the lasts of everything. She is my last kid to turn two. As her birthday approached, probably, 3 to 6 of my kids said, "Eliza is turning 2? Well, she is already acting 2."

Eliza is smart, talkative, whiney, fitful, somewhat athletic, as she has been my only kid to do somersaults at 20 months old. She is bossy and adorable all rolled into one very busy active toddler. She will keep me from slipping into the sedentary life that I somewhat desire and somewhat despise. 

I definitely enjoy my youngest little thing and am so glad that she came to our family and that my body could get her here. 

Gideon Tale

 Gideon does not go to bed and he sleeps past noon and if he wakes up before noon, he then takes a long afternoon nap. John lives on the same schedule, so he has been doing late night things with Gideon. Last night John had Sam and Gideon in to watch the old movie, The Ten Commandments. Sam saw the title and read it. The Gideon said, "Ben Ten Commandments! It's Ben Ten!"

Story from Rachel

Rachel Robertson

Sun, Aug 13, 6:02 PM

I told Susan and Arwen I was going to make pizza dough. They both clapped their hands and then Susan said "I hope there is Peppermint pizza. Pineapple pizza is good but Peppermint pizza is so great.
You can guess what she meant.

Fun July and August Kid Stories by Ruth

  

Gideon named Kate's grey bunny Batman and Kate's white bunny, Batman's Wife.
Kate talking to Gideon holding the bunny, "Remember batman doesn't have superpowers so he can get hurt."
Gideon then cheerfully said, "by nothing!"
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Sam: can you get me seconds dinner
ruth: so get you seconds?
Sam: No seconds dinner
sometime after...
Sam: why is there no butter and salt?
ruth: well you didn't ask for it
Sam: Mom always does it
Ruth: well I don't know how mom does it. It's been a long time since
she's serve me
Sam: Oh. How old are you?
Ruth: Guess
Sam: Um.... 45?
Ruth: *starts laughing*
Sam: 49
Ruth laughing harder now: Sam I'm 25
Sam: WOAH

somehow I wonder if he thought 25 might be older than 49
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Eliza ran down the hall and went to the boys beds to cry. I happened
to pass by to go to the bathroom. She saw me and then proceeded to cry
outside the bathroom door until I opened it and picked her up. I
carried her into the living room. She then pointed at Kate and
excitedly said: "Kate!" She pointed at Rachel and excitedly said
"This!" (As only Mom, dad, me, kate, arwen and gideon have names.
Everyone else is "this.") She pointed at dad and excitedly said "Dad!"
Then I went into mom and dad's bedroom and she pointed at mom and
declared "Bad!" As soon as I sat down she ran out of the room.
Turns out mom had put a diaper on her and that was why she ran to the
boys bedroom on the opposite side of the house to cry.

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Kate and Johnny at 1:45 in the morning run into a complex math problem
in the book they are reading. They then proceed to attempt to solve
the problem for several minutes. Inwardly I thought I should tell dad
the nexts time he says that Kate never practices math and should more.
All he has to do is shove a few complex problems in the pages of her
book
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Susan sleeptalking at 10am "I didn't get your name but can I just
call you spikey."