Quick 5

It's fall!  At least, that's what they tell me.  You wouldn't know it by the 88 degree days we've been having this week.  It's really putting the skids on my All Soup All The Time plan.

1.  Last Friday we had a rare family lunch date.  Alaina didn't have school, and Lee was working from home.  And Lee had secured some free meals from Freddy's by way of a raffle win and a trade.  So we took the girls out for lunch.  It was delicious.  Although girls who eat slow at home eat even slower at a restaurant where there are many many more things to look at.

2.  Last Saturday was our final church family hike of the season.  We hiked Mount Falcon, which is a really great hike near Denver.  In fact, at the ruins you have a nice view of Denver.  It was a beautiful day and the mountain smelled so good.  My parents came with us, which was a huge help in keeping track of girls.  I didn't get the best pictures, but the good Children's Ministry leaders did, so it all worked out.

 3.  Alaina had another eye check up this week.  She's doing great.  Her bad eye is right on the cusp of being 20/20, so the doctor wants us to patch for a couple of months to see if we can push it over the edge.  She wears the patch at home for two hours, and needs to do things like dot to dot pages and color by number and hidden pictures to really train that eye to focus.  Our patches consist of baby socks that slide over her glasses.  It was a great idea, since I was just about to throw away a bunch of baby socks that were missing partners and that Bria is too big for anyway.  Alaina complains most of the time.

4.  Speaking of patches, Alaina and Joya wanted you to see them with the patches they've earned so far in Awana:

She hasn't earned any patches yet.

 5.  This last thing falls under If It's Funny Later, It's Funny Now.  But it isn't funny now.  It's actually a real problem that has us at a loss.  I'm sure you remember Joya eating cookies in the night.  That was cute, I suppose.  Then the other day she came out of room time smacking her lips.  I asked her what she was eating and of course she said nothing.  But very quickly she confessed to sneaking a sucker in at room time.  She had hidden the stick under her bed.  She was disciplined, and after the discipline confessed that she had gotten up in the night and eaten a sucker.  I had heard her come out of her room at about 2:30 in the morning.  But I thought I had put all the food away.  Then last night she didn't eat all her dinner, and therefore didn't earn dessert, which was a cake pop made by one of Lee's coworkers.  But at bedtime, as I was gathering the girls to go brush teeth, I went into the kitchen only to see a huge mess of crumbs and one missing cake pop.  I know it'll be funny later, but the blatant sneaking of food and lying initially about it is baffling us.  It's no longer cute.  Obviously we'll be much more diligent about putting food and snacks out of her reach at all times.  And she's had some stiff restrictions placed on her.  But that's all I know to do.  And of course, I feel like I'm getting a glimpse of how God feels about us, when He's given us instructions on how to live and we blatantly do the opposite.  It's a yucky feeling.

But here are some cute faces to see you out: