August in Review

I've been MIA for a while, but I have a good excuse: I'm really stinking tired. In a nutshell, here is what the Rooks family has been up to the past few weeks. Ready? Here we go...

A few weeks ago, Brandon, M&E and I made the 12 hour drive up to Virginia to attend my 10-year high school reunion and visit my dad. Here we are reuniting with friends Megan and Lolly and their significant others.



The next day, we headed up to DC where we visited with more friends at the Air & Space Museum. M&E really enjoyed meeting Harper and Roman and totally ignoring the barriers set up around the exhibits. Madeline decided she needed no formal NASA training for an up close and personal view of the space shuttle.



We left the museum and headed to Dulles, where we dropped off Brandon to catch a flight home. The kiddos and I stayed in Culpeper for another day to visit with Granddaddy, which included a bike ride. That's a skort, not a skirt I'm wearing, people, and no, I did not plan to participate in this ride. It was really hot and my impression was that G'daddy would take M&E for a ride without my help. No such luck.



The next day, I hopped in the car with M&E for the long car ride home - alone. I was pleasantly surprised with how easy it was and it only took us 11 hours to get home. Praise God!

We had to get home because M&E started school 2 weeks ago. The adjustment has been wonderful. In fact, I don't think there has been an adjustment. I walk them into their classroom and they dissapear without so much as a "Bye bye, Mommy" and that's just how I like it. Here they are on their first day. (That black front door that I have despised since we moved in is gone now - more on that later.)



Another big hurdle that we are leaping, well, creeping over is potty training. I'm happy to report that M&E no longer wear diapers while at home except while sleeping. We've also gone out several times sans-diapers. Eli is proving to be quite the boy and has an accident every day, but Madeline is impressing me with her control. My hope is that soon we will be able to pay for school with the money we will save on diapers. A few people have asked me for pointers on potty-training. Here's what I have to say:



Naked time! I'm telling you, it works.

So, in my spare time between emptying potties and cleaning up after failed potty attempts, we've been trying to wrap up the work on our house. Brandon and I are all moved into the new master suite and as you saw in the last post, M&E are settled into their big girl-boy rooms. We have a few odds and ends to wrap up (paint) and we'll finally be finished. Pictures to come shortly!