Ch-ch-ch-changes

July blew by, with some absolutely gorgeous weather to go outside and play in. yay!!! We got to go see Tim graduate from Air Force Basic training, and spend a little bit of time with his family. This was the first time all the grandchildren have been together, and the girlies got on famously!
There was a lot of hand holding and hugging, and cute getting to know each other playing.
Tim looked wonderful, if quite a bit THINNER. It was beastly hot in Texas, but everyone held up well. I got to meet a fellow AOL scrap buddy, Tinka! She's was a lotta fun, and took me to a crop with her. We took the obligatory foot photos, as well as a photo of us together. Tinka is an AMAZING scrapbooker. She 'threw together' several layouts, and each of them was gorgeous. I plugged along on a project I'd brought along, which was very basic while she was using all sorts of fun stuff. She teaches a heritage class, and made me wish I lived there just so I could go to her classees and hang out with her.

When you have children you are aware that they grow up, but it seems like you're always so busy with just the daily things you don't notice the changes going on in them. I find myself wishing for time to stand still; they're so cute right now that I want to prolong it so I can really savor the changes going on. Benji (20mos) has conversations with himself all the time, but yesterday I understood him saying: 'What's that? I don't know' A lot of his words are mimicking Anna, but he can make himself understood much of the time. When he wants more to eat or drink, he says 'more please'. He LOVES to jump off things, which sometimes makes my heart stop, and is an adorable little monster when he acts like Godzilla. RAWR! Anna is learning to write her name-a month ago she wouldn't have the patience to try and make the letters, she just wanted you to do it. She can say all the letters of the alphabet, and very neatly rolls up ribbon (when she wants to). She's working on numbers, but often reminds me of King Arthur in Monty Python and the Holy Grail "1, 2, 5" (three, sir) 3! She loves to draw, and is good at pointing out facial features.

Andrew turned 16 a few days ago-my baby. He has his drivers permit, and has driven several times already. So far he has been very conscientious, and anxious to do well. Missouri requires teens to have their permit for 6 months, and he plans to have a lot of practice under his belt in those 6 months.
It is time to be planning for the new school year, and I find myself feeling behind the power curve. I know generally what Andrew will be studying, but haven't made a schedule yet. I have some books to find, and some to reshelve from last year. It seems like I've not hardly sat down for the last 3 weeks-always something else to DO. I signed up for Jessica Sprague's class on Brushes..and oh my such great STUFF she includes in her classes! I like that the daily lesson is fairly short, because right now anything with great detail would not get done. I'm having trouble keeping up as it is. So Jeanne and Kel, feel free to IM me and drag me into doing what I love to do-play with digital photos and scrap them! :-) Hopefully soon I will feel sort of caught up on life so I can sit down and relax and scrap!