ok so I’m cheating a bit, this is from the previous week, but I edited it tonight!

Every summer we’ve been going to cape cod, and for a number of those summers now I’ve taken the kids out early one morning to the beach with some breakfast in hand from a local donut shop to take some pictures (and let everyone else sleep in the quiet). We’ve been going in July lately and so to really get up early enough to be up for sunrise we’d have to be moving WAY earlier than I’d ever want to be. But we got lucky this morning at a semi-normal time of 6:30 we got up and the sky had heavy but not complete cloud cover which gave me some light but not too much and we had a hit. I’ve got tons of pictures from our trip but they’ll be doled out slowly as I manage to make it happen and edit them. For now, here’s them early on the beach in their own clothes, handily ignoring that my purpose is to take pictures of them in a lovely setting. This was a new tiny little beach but very close to the house and it worked out great.

We bought this bounce house for Josie’s 2nd birthday party. It’s been used at almost every party ever since in addition to just random outdoor bounce times with friends and neighbors.

Yes this does take up pretty much our entire front yard, or back yard, but the kids find it attracts neighbors better in the front yard. And that’s our car sort of fixed in the background. It mostly looks better, but the door still doesn’t sound good and there’s some more paint and scratches we’ll be taking it back in for.

Josie has been enjoying some videos on artforkidshub.com and this one was of a pug. This picture also shows why we have the cut the corn off of Josie’s cob this summer with her lovely laugh!

Josie gave this picture to the lady next door who owns a pug/Chihuahua mix dog who was most appreciative.

Celia was not in the mood, it took a lot of work to get her to be even facing the camera. This was at Drumlin Farm to celebrate Ewan’s 2nd birthday! Josie said it was too bright to look outside, guess my old eyes aren’t as sensitive anymore. It was super hot and sunny, hence the sweat and sun hats. We’re in front of the pig barn. I set it up, my dad did the snapping for us.

One of Ewan’s favorite games to play lately is ‘goats’ in which he sticks himself or someone else behind a fence and then asks or gives pets and (pretend) food to the goats. We feed the goats at Wright-Locke Farm and it’s made quite an impression. This weekend we went to Drumlin Farm where we couldn’t feed the goats, but this goat sure knew that some excellent patters had just stepped up to the fence and put himself into prime position for lots of back rubbing.

For Josie’s 7th year around the sun, we continued to homeschool while she continued to develop her own interests throughout the year. Her favorite activities this year have been choir and gymnastics. She made it through the entire year of ballet, but was decidedly less enthusiastic about it once they started preparing for the recital and it became more repetitive. Choir has been a joy-bringing hour every week with singing and dancing and making new friends. We also did swimming and gymnastics, and as she’s gotten better at gymnastics she’s more excited about doing it. Swimming is merely a required event in our family.

This year it feels like Josie has really transitioned from being a younger child to being a full fledged kid. While she still plays with her younger siblings a lot of the time, she’s getting more frustrated with their lack of patience and communication skills. She also wants to try a lot of new things that she see’s as being for older kids such as having a bank account, gum, an allowance, and a longer leash in general with doing things. Mostly I think it’s working out well as she is a responsible kid, generally thinks things through and listens to our requests. She’s also more aware of comparing herself and those around her as to how everyone is doing. She can be pretty hard on herself at times so we’re trying to help her see that everyone has different strengths and weaknesses.

At home you can often find Josie reading. She reads voraciously, often in the morning just upon waking up, and again later in the day sometimes after lunch when we all need a bit of a break from one another. Some of her favorites generally focus on fairies, animals or magic of some sort. We’ve been reading a fun series of fractured fairy tales called “Whatever After”. I have to keep a steady supply of books for her each week from the library she’s easily going through 5 to 10 chapter books a week depending on their thickness. I think she can read more challenging material than she’s currently choosing, but the challenge is in finding more rich reading that doesn’t focus on dating or scary topics or isn’t just all about school.

Josie otherwise plays a lot of pretend with dress up, the dolls and anything else she sees around for props. She’s also still very much into art projects, lately it’s been a lot of rainbows but she also loves to follow some online drawing lessons that we’ve found for drawing things like Anna, Elsa, rainbows, kittens and aliens. She’s also developed some great skills following building instructions for lego’s and other such toys. Giving her the space and time away from her siblings is the challenge. We’re really all going to enjoy having some more space soon. Josie reminds us every chance she gets that she wants her own room. We remind her that it won’t be happening any time soon.

Josie also enjoys cooking in the kitchen. She’s learned how to use a small pairing knife this year and will cut up broccoli and carrots for me and other softer vegetables and fruits sometimes. She can make her own cookies except for putting them in and out of the oven, and made some for her cousin Abby just last week.

She’s frustrated that a few of her friends have moved away lately and while they’re not totally out of our lives, they’re not nearly as convenient and frequent a fixture in them as they once were. She’s also been loosing teeth! Her first one went down the drain as she was eating and didn’t realize that it wasn’t a piece of food that was in her mouth.

Josie continues to be a big talker and will narrate and share everything going on in her head, in the car and around the dinner table. We’re working on reminding her to give other people a chance to speak as well.

She’s looking forward to starting soccer this fall, returning to choir and continuing with gymnastics. In general Josie will help out around the house when asked and will even pitch in when she sees something that needs to be done. But the cries of ‘that’s not fair’ have been rather frequent lately as she spies the world for more injustice. We’ll try to keep that spirit alive to fight for others in the world suffering true injustice. And I’ll try to cut the servings up equally and continue to give up my share to make things even out.

• Size/weight: 8, ~51″ tall
• Favorite foods: cheese, pasta, dessert
• Favorite toy: art supplies
• Favorite book: Whatever After series
• Favorite activity: playing with her friends
• Sleeping: bedtime ~8:15; gets up about 6:30
• New skill: good handstands and cartwheels
• Teeth: Lost 5 so far
• Literacy: devouring books

Today we had lots of physical activity. In the afternoon Google took us on a summer outing to SkyZone for fun on trampolines. The kids jumped for almost two hours and also ate lots of snacks and sandwiches. The menu was basically designed for Celia, they had tomato and mozzarella bites on a skewer that she could shovel into her mouth as fast as she could chew. Then she took a whole other plate home of them to eat for dinner. Above you see them all just after Jordi won a dodgeball game on the trampolines. Then after our time bouncing we went to see Jordi’s softball team eek out a close win in a high scoring game where Jordi got two triples. After the trampoline park, the kids were actually willing to sit mostly still for an hour and a half!

The trains have been in the basement for a while, so when I brought them up everyone was excited to have a turn to play with them. Sadly the needs of a 7 year old to set things up just-so and the clutziness of her younger siblings when walking around don’t go so well together. Josie tried to work on it while Ewan was napping some more, but he did appreciate the nice track she made.