Petersons Never Give Up: August

I forgot to post, but before we went to Great Wolf Lodge, we pet sat for the Ellis family. Eli's bearded dragon Pepper was about to lay eggs. When I went to turn off her light one night, she had laid a ton and then the next morning she laid a ton more! It was crazy! They weren't fertilized so we just gathered the eggs and put them on Eli's desk.

Sean went right back to work after we got home and the kids and I unpacked and cleaned and hung out at home since Brett had sores all over his hands.

I made our favorite oat/wheat bread.

Brett played with Pirate

Alana played with cookie:

Sean and I did an escape room with friends to celebrate Steffan Saphrons birthday. We beat the clock and came in second for all time!

We saw the most breathtaking and incredible rainbow on our way home from Mimi's house one night. We had gone so Sean could replace some wood trim around her back door. He just barely beat the rain!

We did a bit of back to school clothes shopping and the girls got matching pajamas. Alana doesn't really wear hers because they are way too hot! But Lizzie loves them!

Lizzie made bear and goose some clothes:

Dumb sores! They are still there a month later!!

The girls think its hilarious that I take pictures of them while they are sleeping! Alana has been sleeping in Lizzies room for weeks!

We went to a fun park with friends that had a big creek running through it. We played in the water and mud and had a great time!

We went to Back to School night and met our kids teachers.

Brett and Eli turned their cities into high rise cities.

Alana and Lizzie woke up at 6:30 on the first day of school and were ready to go by 7! Liz was frustrated when I told her we still had an hour and 45 minutes before we needed to leave.

I started feeling a pull to be back in the school last spring. I decided to sign up to be a substitute and did all the training and such for that. Then when we got home from Great Wolf Lodge I felt like I should apply to be an aid at the school. So I did that. I got a 19 our a week job being a literacy aid. Our groups didn't start until mid September so I spent lots of time working on odd jobs all around the school. It has been so fun to be where my kids are and to see them in the halls and at lunch sometimes. It has also been really fun to see the kids from my neighborhood and primary at school.

Lizzie did a great job getting in her line and being ready to go in!

I didn't do so good =) I felt ridiculous that I couldn't pull myself together. It is such a bittersweet time to have all my kids in school all day. I did eventually get my eyes dried and made my way back into the school to help with all the first day chaos.

I was assigned to help in the lunch room the first two weeks. Its amazing how many kiddos (especially first graders) can't open their milks, lol! It was fun to be a "mom" walking around and helping kids open packages and find their teachers tote to put lunch boxes in.

Brett's birthday is always right at the begining of school. He wanted a lego party. We made lego houses out of lego candy and then played with legos in the basement. We played the Wolverine game (like mafia or among us) and a pass the present dice game. The presents were different candy bars and one of them had 5 gold coins inside.

One boy was allergic to Oreo and was having a lot of sneezes so we put Oreo outside and he was offended.

We had a friend party for Brett on the Saturday before his birthday and then on that Sunday we had a family party. Brett decorated his cake and moulded this bearded dragon out of rice krispie treats then covered it in green melted chocolate! It turned out so great!

Brett was spoiled with lots of amazing gifts!

Pirate puffing out his beard

Alana wanted to have curly hair one day:

The girls slept in Alana's bed one night:

Pirates beard went black one day:

We have been helping to finish my parents basement and there are lots of scraps of wood. The kids like to color on them. One day they made horses and people and played for 90 minutes!