Ukulele

Here's some of what's happening:

• Summer is over!  The kids are back in school!
• C is a 7th grader now and is over at the junior high/high school building (it's a PK-12 school).  She has the full dignity of her own locker.  It's an 8 period day, 20 minutes longer than the 6th grade day, but she does have study halls in the morning.
• C has an elective first period (study hall), a block of academic classes with everybody else in her grade, then a final 8th period elective that she has some freedom over (that's a little up in the air, as her first choice was cancelled for lack of enrollment).
• There's going to be a Greek club!
• D is starting 4th grade!  Latin!  Physics!
• Extracurriculars are also up in the air right now.  We'll be doing CCD for both kids (at a different parish than the past 7 years).  We'd like for C to do therapeutic riding and weekly guitar and for both kids to do fencing, but we're currently figuring out the logistics for that.  
• For reasons beyond our control, there's no PE for C this fall (complicated reasons having to do with C not being in official school sports and the school being small, so they can't afford both fall and spring PE for a tiny group of children).  That's kind of a pain, but we will try to compensate.
• Baby T is talking a bunch and likes it.  She often makes funny comprehension mistakes--she thought that "fat" meant "cat" and that "on line" had something to do with lions.  She LOVES animals.  I have bought her clothes accordingly--she owns two cat shirts, a horse shirt, zebra pants and cheetah pjs.
• Baby T is bummed out that the DVD player in the new-to-us minivan is broken.  She says "moo" for movies.
• Baby T can make sad faces on command.  
• Baby T was SAD to hear that mommy has no tail.
• Baby T loves puzzles, but isn't yet up to doing jigsaw puzzles independently.    
• Husband and C and D have been watching movies on our ceiling with the projector.
• We now have a huge solid pine dining table from IKEA.  The old dining table (1998-2014) was set out on the curb and disappeared--it was simply not big enough for our family anymore, and certainly not for if we have any company.  I expect that the new table will dent up, being pine, but it is very generously sized--it's big without leaves, and with two leaves it's supposed to seat 10.  (We got the biggest brown-black Stornas table.)
• The IKEA trip is totally different with a DVD player.  In fact, aside from driver fatigue, there's really no obstacle to our doing longer trips now.  
• Furniture for D is next on the agenda.  Christmas?  We also will eventually be getting a larger leather sofa, probably in chocolate brown.    
• C is still working at Scarborough Fair on the guitar.  She has also bought a ukulele with her own money and has been working at that, too.  I think D is softening up to the idea of music lessons.