August Critters and Comrarderie

We saw so much wildlife in our backyard this past month.  One of the most amazing was a red-spotted purple admiral butterfly that we found in our yard - see top left photo below.  We have never seen one of these in real life before!  We also raised eleven black swallow tail butterflies from caterpillars we found on the dill in our garden.  It was exciting to release them.  Will caught a vole in our garden, and Lucy found some really big grasshoppers as well.  Emma's bare foot unfortunately found a honey bee in our grass, and was promptly stung - see center photo below with her sting slathered with a baking soda paste to help draw the poison out.  

Charlie also enjoys the wildlife in our yard, and in the photo below, we found a chipmunk hiding from his advances.  We were able to rescue the chipmunk and lock Charlie up.  I continue to be so torn about Charlie's role in our local ecosystem.  He serves a useful purpose for us, as we haven't had a problem with mice since Charlie moved in, however despite the high quality food we serve Charlie, he still prefers fresh catches over kibble and wet cat food.  Here Charlie is below, sleeping on our living room window air conditioner - you better believe we sweat that nap out, as heaven forbid we turn on the air conditioner and wake him up.  

After going through all of my photos from August, I realized we spent much of our time outside, which makes me happy.  Here the girls are below, enjoying the beautiful weather in our own backyard.

August definitely reminds us of the impermanence of summer, and we became focused on achieving the last of our summer goals this past month.  Lucy and I went on a date together, clothes shopping and then we dined at Chipotle, which Lucy and I both love, but the rest of the family could take or leave.  Will took the three oldest girls to the local baseball diamond, where they enjoyed stadium food and some special daddy time.  They went back again with Will and his parents, after receiving free tickets to the ballgame from the library's summer reading program.  In the center photo below, Violet is smiling in the dentist chair.  We have finally begun Violet's dental journey, and are looking forward to watching her smile evolve.  It's a fine line, as Violet has told us that she loves her smile, but also that she wants her teeth to look like ours.  She has experienced several different occasions of curious kids hurting her feelings in regards to her teeth, and I think that the dentist that we have decided to go with understands our wishes of function first and cosmetics second.  The dentist told us that if at any time Violet decides that she wishes cosmetics to be first, that we will make the necessary adjustments.  We are trying a relatively new procedure for fixing Violet's mouth, and our hope is if this is successful, she will avoid jaw surgery down the road.  For the price of a luxury car payment, we are taking the chance.  Will and I both feel very grateful for this opportunity/advancement in dental care, and that we have the ability to invest in a person we love.  And maybe someday, medically necessary dental care will be covered by health insurance.  The National Foundation of Ectodermal Dysplasia is tirelessly working to make that dream a reality.

We celebrated my mom's birthday this past month, spent time with friends who are like family: small, inset photo on the right is of Lucy and friend, whose mom grew up with me!  And the bottom, left hand picture below are friends whose dad grew up with Will!  In the bottom right hand picture below, the girls are making memories with Will's aunt and uncle who specialize in making our kids feel special.

Will and the kids joined me for the annual Bee Fest at the Belle Isle Nature Center in Detroit this past month.  I have no photos of me, as I was mostly busy talking about bees, and Will was mostly busy keeping the girls happy.

We have decided to transform our backyard into a native ecosystem.  I have been researching native plants and their importance in saving insects and animals.  I hope to teach a class on native ecosystems once our yard is complete.  Below is the first of several projects to transform our yard to mostly native plants - Will buried our downspout and had it feed into a culvert that our sump pump already feeds into.

We then planted native plants that thrive in wet conditions.  Imagine our excitement the first time it rained after our project was complete!  It works like a charm, and area is already abuzz with insects and we've even seen a frog!  We are hoping (especially Lucy) that in time, more frogs will make their home here.

August also marks the time for Will to head back to work.  Here we are below, enjoying ice cream cones downtown on Will's last night of summer vacation.

 We had a great summer, and I wish I knew how to slow down time.  Summer goes by so fast for us, and I have to say that we are all at our happiest when Will is home.  Does happiness equal time going faster?  I had a few projects I wanted to accomplish before Will went back - organizing some things at home, as well as making a self care area in my bedroom.  In the photos below in clockwise order from top left: Lucy with a comic strip she created for the library's summer reading program, the girls dress up clothes now hanging in Opal's closet since all of Opal's clothes minus a few dresses fit in her dresser, some roller bottles of essential oil scents as part of my self care corner, and a peach blueberry coffee cake I made on Will's last morning before he went back to work.  Those dress up clothes have been the bane of my existence for several years now, so I am excited to see if this solves the problem that a clothes rack and a bin couldn't solve before.

Some of the motivation for the organizing was to have more space in our house which is starting to feel quite cramped.  Six people in a three bedroom house is totally doable, and so we need to just pare down our stuff.  Will and I have been dabbling on realtor.com, trying to decide if we need more space or if we can make it in our current house that we love so much.  All arrows are still pointing to staying, and so now the effort of paring down so that we can freely move about in the house that we love is in fully swing.  We've also looked into getting an addition put on the house, but for now, we think our money will be better spent investing in our kids than in our space.  Speaking of investing in our kids, here we are in the photos below kicking off our eighth year of homeschooling.

We started back to school a little earlier than the schools around us, which was fine by all of us as it gives us more flexibility during the school year.  So, when we went up north for our final trip this summer over Labor Day weekend, we already had a few weeks of school under our belt and it felt like a welcome break.  In the below photos - Will's aunt and uncle sent us cookies in the mail from our favorite cookie place that we visited back in July.  What a wonderful surprise that was, especially since we were going up north the very next day and got to bring them with us to be enjoyed on beaches several hours away from the shores of where these cookies were from.  It was like our two favorite up north places got together, creating the ultimate in flavor and scenery.  

Our first night up north, we caught the sunset at the beach, while nibbling on our favorite cookies.  It was the highlight of our trip.  Such peace and beauty and yumminess.

 This is the same place we have been going for three years now, twice a year.  It feels like our home away from home, and for this four day weekend, we had a bucket list of places to go and food to eat.

 Opal is now old enough to do some hiking on her own two feet.  It was a joy for me to see all four of my girls with their feet on our favorite trails.  Although Opal outgrowing her hiking carrier definitely slowed us down!

 We climbed a big sand dune and realized halfway up that we forgot to bring our waters.  We asked a dad carrying a baby back down the sand dune how much farther until the beach and he responded in a defeated kind of way, "there are hills and hills to go and once you think you climbed the last hill, there will be even more hills."  Will and I looked at each other and decided that we had climbed enough, and would travel back down as well.  There were still some spectacular views and we had hiked for over two hours.

We shopped at some of our favorite farm stands, and had the best blueberries, corn, green beans, donuts and pizza bread (that we put pizza sauce and mozzarella cheese on and toasted in the oven).

 We enjoyed some cozy campfires and tasty s'mores, snuggling with storybooks on the couch and Violet even decorated our table with flowers floating in a bowl of water.

 Memories were made, and rest, relaxation and fun was had.  It was a great way to end our summer, and I am looking forward to enjoying the next three seasons, and then going back up north again!