Terrible dark pictures of Katie roller skating at a birthday party.��

I'm thrilled she's so capable.� I don't roller skate, so it's awe inspiring to me.��

I'm reading my 5th/6th graders The Horse and His Boy�this year.� (We did Magician's Nephew�last year.)� I decided to get the Narnia map I'd grown up with, but I was disappointed in the quality of this version.� It's not a printed paper poster like the one I had as a kid.� It's photo paper, and not great print quality.� It feels like someone took a cell phone photo of the real map and printed that.��

Katie's flag football season is drawing to a close.� They won one game this year.��

Took the cats in for their shots.� It's nobody's favorite.� I ended up bleeding and Grumman and Fiona gave me the side eye for the rest of the day.��

It's been a while since I've been up close & personal with amphibians.��

We read a book about the changing season and watercolored autumn leaves on diffusing paper.��

I like that I could use different leaf shapes for different classes, so I could see at a glance which dry leaves belonged in which stack.� The following week, we mounted the leaves on construction paper and wrote Give Thanks in paint marker for a fall decoration.� I didn't get any pictures of the finished projects, though.��

I'm pretty sure there's a picture of Annaliese very similar to this somewhere.� Just purple softball uniforms instead of blue flag football ones.� Katie is #2.��

Speaking of Katie, she had a birthday!

My baby is 13.

At the pumpkin patch for evening church one night.��

This story isn't finished yet.� I introduced my 2nd graders to Kandinsky, and we're working on a Kandinsky inspired project.��

Here's the example I made them.� Fingers crossed they can create something similar.��

My eclipse supplies.� I sat outside on the porch swing for the whole thing.� The kids popped in and out of the house.��

We were in the 80% band of the map.� We did have some clouds, but they were moving quickly, so we got some good views.��

No, Grumman did not look at the sun.��

Is it me, or does the eclipse look like the French hood Anne Boleyn wore?� Not that I'm Tudor obsessed or anything.

Fiona IS autumn decor.��

She's also a fairly good seat warmer.��

Jack's boss needed an aerial shot of his business for the county.� So Jack and I flew the drone one morning.� (Okay, Jack flew the drone while I hovered nearby telling him not to crash, not to go over the road, not to go too high, and other "helpful" things.)��

Still weird.��

Grumman pulls random things out of the clean laundry and drags them upstairs to me.� He was really enjoying this pair of boxers.��

Fiona would much rather hold down my latest projects in the sewing room.��

Speaking of projects, this was a fun one.� Our city was holding a drive through donation event for the food bank.� Instead of going through the pantry and pulling out random garbanzo beans and such, we made birthday cake kits.� A couple 4 packs of disposable covered casserole pans, cake mix, frosting, candles, extra packs of unopened napkins from birthdays gone by.� I printed coloring pages, and we put a colored page in the bottom of each one, hoping to brighten the recipients' day.��

My step mom sent us an advent calendar.� I put it away so I wouldn't peek at it.� Now to remember 1) to pull it out on the right day, and 2) where "away" is when the time comes.

The school choir performed in church.� I was impressed.� The accompanist lost her guitar strap in the middle of the song, and the kids kept right on singing while she seated herself and began playing again.��

I've found some odd things in the washer over the years.� But this was my first pair of scissors.� Instead of, "WHO PUT SCISSORS IN THE LAUNDRY?!?!" which would have elicited panic and lies, I left a note on the white board, and the guilty party laughed and indicated they'd seen it.��

This year's school pictures, brought to you by the color orange.� Not sure why they're using the Trump filter on everybody, but several of the moms were like, "This barely looks like my kid.� They're supposed to be blonde, not redheaded."��

Stay tuned for visits from the adult kids.� Maybe if I get really inspired I'll even go back and share the highlights of the rest of our road trip.� It really was quite the adventure.��