Minuet in G Major, Goodbye to Winter, and Allegro. She worked on these pieces for an audition at Vandy, too (as well as Greig's "Elfin Dance") and did a great job!

When you walk into R's room in the morning to get her out of her bed, she doesn't even bother to say hi or "good morning." She starts frantically pointing at things and naming them:

"Cat!"

"Shoe!"

"Outside?" (always with an inflection)

"Pants!"

"Hand!"

"Toe!"

"Ear!"

As you are lifting her out of her bed, she's still rattling words off like a machine gun. Even while you're changing her out of her pajamas, she's still jabbering. It's not until you get her into the kitchen and she settles in on "Bite? Bite?! Bite?!?" in a frantic almost-scream.

Often we won't go get her out of her bed until we have something already ready for her to eat. Oatmeal. An egg. Anything to stem the frantic onslaught of "Bite?! Bite?! Bite?!"

We still love her, though. Even if we occasionally have to fish out some ear plugs because, wow, does that kid have a set of lungs. I'm pretty sure there are certain higher frequencies in which both A and I have lost some hearing.

On the plus side, her vocabulary is expanding so fast that it's not easy to keep up!

January was weird. It was predominately very warm. I even sat outside and worked from the patio some days.

Then on other days, we got enough snow to go sledding.

On one day I made the mistake of riding the bike to work without checking the weather. By the time I got to the office, I was slip-sliding around on an inch of snow. I had random people cheering me from the sidewalk.

My dad came to visit and helped me work on the girls' playhouse. I had put up the poles, but ran into some issues getting it all square (I'm a nerd, this is not really my thing). He helped me get it sorted out and we got the walls framed out. I decided to build a custom door since an 8' tall building on 4' poles seemed a bit overmuch for a playhouse.

J got herself a harp and started taking lessons. She took right to it. Piano is still the primary focus, but she has been pretty consistent about wanting to play a harp for a long time and we found a good tutor in the area.

I shared this conversation on 'gram, but I took C out for coffee during one of J's dance lessons and we had the following conversation:

"Dad, I want some fancy shoes."
"Your shoes glitter! They seem pretty fancy to me."
"No, I mean like hers," and she points at a girl in high heeled boots. "I want the kind that makes noise when you walk."

She has expressed this a couple of times since. More recently we were at church when she watched a woman walk down the hallway with "fancy shoes" and she pointed them out to me. "That's what I'm talking about! Like those!"

My youngest brother came to visit. I asked him if I could pay him for drawings of the girls and he agreed to. He did a great job with C's picture, but he wasn't happy enough with it and wanted to redo it. I sometimes forget how much energy the girls have and how overwhelming it might be for someone who is unused to all of the attention, but he was a pretty good sport about it.

We played a lot of games in January, which seems appropriate given how early it gets dark. C has gotten pretty good at checkers, and J is pretty good at chess. I even bought a full-size, tournament-weighted chess set because I got really frustrated with the tiny, cheap plastic set we were using. We have also been playing Tsuro, and most recently added Qwirkle and Spot It! to the rotation. It's a lot more fun now that two of them are old enough to play group games together.

And, lastly, I can't post anything without the obligatory shot from Shelby Bottoms.

Happy new year! I've been behind on our monthly summary, so this is me catching up.

It still needs some work.

Little bit tried to outdo her big sisters with some sick dance moves.

Nashville stayed warm all month. We ripped up all our tomato plants and planted kale and mustard greens, but we had tomato plants growing up among the kale! They even have little green tomatoes on them.

The leaves, however, did begin to come down.

We celebrated Sukkot by setting up a tent in the backyard. We tried to spend the night in it, but the attempt was abandoned around 8pm when it became apparent that no sleep would be had in the tent.

We took advantage of the nice 70-80F weather by visiting parks.

A co-worker gave us tickets to "Boo at the Zoo" so J and C got to enjoy that.

 

In September we celebrated J's 7th birthday!

She got to take a couple of friends to see the ballet Cinderella.

We didn't do much with the garden in September. It's pretty much an overgrown mess, save for some kale, mustard greens, sweet potatoes that are still growing, and the remnants of some watermelon vines. We haven't had as much time to clean it all up, so it's quite weedy. It's also still been very hot in Nashville - regularly above 90F°. I'm very much hoping for a cool-down in October. The heat means the grass still grows like crazy and the weeds still hide our worst enemy - chiggers.

We went to our first Mini-Maker Faire. Nashville's is a "mini" in that it's not as big as the ones you might see in Atlanta or NYC, but it was still great to see locals show off their handy-work. C was fascinated by all of the people dressed up as Star Wars characters. One woman was dressed a green Twi'lek and C went right up to her and asked, "Did you paint yourself green?"

"No," she replied with a straight face. "I was born this way."

C was still skeptical, "But I see some places on your neck that you missed."

"No," said the Twi'lek without missing a beat. "That's where I started to paint myself to look like you, but I ran out of paint."

C paused for a moment before letting out a little, "Oh." Then she moved on to the next booth.

J got to see a bunch of robots that were very proudly demonstrated by a 10 year old. He demonstrated Lego robots that stayed inside a line drawn on the table (it had little cameras), little cleaning robots (small motors attached to a toothbrush head and a larger cleaning brush so they appeared to walk across a flat surface). C was very captivated by a model of a Useless Box. She kept flicking the switch and watching the "little man" inside switch it back off, over and over until her eyes glazed over and I had to drag her to something different.

Useless Box

Once we start building kits together, I will definitely have to get her one of those.

We also went for a nice long bike ride at Edwin Warner Park. J rode the 4.5 miles on her own bike, the farthest she's done yet. She is determined to working up to a 10 mile ride so she can pedal herself for the next Tour De Nash. R and C rode in a trailer, but I can imagine that it won't be long before C will be pedaling herself, too.

Lastly, we took a week-long trip to Boston, from which I am writing this. The trip has been a blast. We got to visit with three different families in the area.

Our Lowell friends (whom we have known for almost two decades now!) visited the New England Aquarium with us. We followed it with an excellent lunch at Quincy Market.

There was some added excitement when a poor woman tripped on the cobblestones and smacked it pretty hard with her face. Our friend, Cassie, is a nurse, so she went into full-on "I'm helping this person" mode while we stood and helplessly gawped.

We also rode the train out to Lowell to visit them. Lowell is a really neat little town that seems to do some really great work promoting local businesses, artists, and craftsmen.

It was pretty cool to see our kids (approximately the same ages) hanging out, given that we all met each other when we were high school-aged.

We also drove up to Portland, ME to visit friends from our time in NYC. They have whole-heartedly embraced the farm lifestyle, with a multitude of plants and animals that the kids enjoyed seeing. James had just slaughtered and butchered a 300lb pig the day before, which I found fascinating. I've killed and butchered animals before, but nothing bigger than a deer or a goat. That's a lot of meat!

We also visited a family in Boston that used to live in Nashville. It was neat to hear about how they have embraced the city life and adapted to the colder winters. Nashville doesn't have much in the way of winter sports, but in Boston there is sledding, ice skating, and more. They also have beaches for the summer, which seems pretty nice.

When we drove out to Plimoth Plantation for the day, we did get to briefly enjoy one of those beaches.

It was too cold to swim, of course, but it was still nice being out on the water. It's a bit difficult to replicate that in a land-locked state.

I enjoyed the coastal nature of Boston. If we had more time, I would have liked to see more of the nearby islands. As it was, we had to content ourselves with the Charlestown Ferry.

We got to walk in Boston a lot - in good weather and bad. The kids were troopers, for the most part. Mark and Cassie lent us a stroller, which aided the adventures considerably.

All said, I think it was a fun week and I could definitely see us coming back to Boston.

Hmm, what did we do in August?

Well, we got a new cat. It was a stray, and it's very friendy. Since J got to name the dog, we let C choose the name. She dubbed it "Rosetta." She's been very consistent with this name, although no one else really cares for it much. Mostly it's just "kitty." As with any cat, it wants to be right on top of whatever it is you happen to be doing.

We also took a short weekend trip to Chattanooga. We seem to always go in August, and usually it's blazing hot. This time, however, it was relatively mild. We took advantage of that to explore the new riverfront additions.

We spent an entire day (with a break for lunch and naps) at the Creative Discovery Museum, which is always a treat. A took the older two to the Tennessee Aquarium, too, but I stayed behind to let Robin nap.

We walked, explored, and ended up at a place called "All Books" (try to find that one online!) where a woman in her 80's talked to the girls about knitting.

In fact, we walked so much that eventually C tuckered out in the very awkward sitting position in the back of the Joovy.

On the way back we swung by Savage Gulf State Park to check out some waterfalls. Unfortunately, I did not properly prepare for the kind of terrain we were faced with. The trail to Greeter Falls was short, but there are some really high cliffs (more than you would think driving there) and in the descent to the base you are faced with a steep two-story+ drop-off with a crazy metal spiral staircase. It's easy for adults (although maybe a bit dizzying if you are not great with heights) but positively terrifying if you are trying to shepherd several small children along.

Still, it was a beautiful trail and a beautiful waterfall, and I certainly want to revisit the 25,539-acre park in the future (when the girls have a more healthy respect for sheer drop-offs).

August is also, of course, the month of the local Tomato Arts Festival. Given how many tomatoes we grow, I can't imagine missing this festival (despite the heat). This year felt a bit different in that it was much larger and had many more tents set up by large companies (Verizon, Lyft, etc), but it was still quite fun.

We also went to the newly renovated Belcourt Theatre to see a live production of "The Little Mermaid." The girls seemed to enjoy it.

J keeps losing teeth. We already have to cut up apples and shave corn cobs for the kid. She better get some new teeth soon or she will have to start carrying around a straw.

Last, but not least, R started walking. It was off to a rough start at first.

But by now she's trundling along quite capably after her sisters.

Other than that, we just made sure to enjoy as much of the mild summer as we could!

C took lessons with her sister in July, and now the kid is swimming! She's in that stage where her confidence exceeds her ability so she has to be watched very closely, but she is sliding around in the water now, waving and smiling at me as she does it.

J has lost several of her front teeth, causing friends and family alike to gasp when they see her. With teeth missing on both the top and the bottom, you can spot the gap a mile away!

Both of them have been taking music lessons. C is taking violin and J is taking piano. C is listening closely while J practices and she is constantly at the keyboard trying to piece together songs by ear. We have not been "teaching" her on the piano, but just from doing this she has learned to play several tunes, including "Let It Go" from "Frozen."

We were still getting blackberries up until the end of the month. We got gallons and gallons from basically one plant. With 25+ other plants still not quite in prime bearing years, I can't help but wonder what next year will look like! Maybe I will have enough to make some blackberry wine.

We also started getting watermelon, which really means summer is in full swing.

Of course, we have an entire neighborhood festival centered around another summer fruit - the tomato. And, wow, have we gotten a lot of tomatoes!

A canned about 30-35 quarts before she finally tossed in the towel and declared it sufficient for the winter. The different varieties of tomato made some really beautiful jars.

Meals this month have featured a lot of summer foods: corn on the cob (from the Farmers' Market - we didn't plant any this year), tomatoes, watermelon, peaches...

I took the older girls downtown for an event at the Bridgestone Arena with their grandfather. They didn't get to ice skate like we planned (it was too crowded by the time we arrived), but they did get to put on facepaint and jump off a high shelf into a pile of fluff. C was a little terrified of the height at first but she eventually worked up the courage to do it, and when she did a crowd of onlookers cheered for her.

For the last weekend of the month we hosted a big birthday party for a friend of ours in our backyard. We had 40+ guests, a bounce house, "Batman" from 1966 on an outdoor screen, and Edley's BBQ. It was a blast!

We also adopted a stray cat this month. I was helping a friend move and the cat was hanging around the new house, just being friendly. After confirming that no one owned it, I took it home and C has dubbed it "Rosetta." (She has been pretty insistent about this name from long before we got the cat, and I have no idea where it came from.) Rosetta is quite friendly and has tolerated Wilbur's presence quite well.

R is still not walking, but she did take a few steps in a row at our church the weekend of July 24th (just as we were telling someone that she couldn't yet walk). She still crawls everywhere, but I suspect by the end of August she will have started walking.

June was fun, y'all.

No, really. June was packed with family visiting, garden-harvesting, summer-starting, swimming, cycling, you name it.

First, A's older sister came to visit with all her family (plus a guest). Our little house was a tight fit but they were wonderful, tolerant guests and we were quite happy to have them. They really seemed to enjoy Nashville, particularly all of the tall trees and the cyclist-friendly roads in our neighborhood.

We took them out to Burgess Falls, which was sadly closed due to some flooding. Still, parts of the river and the trail to the top of the falls were open so the trip wasn't wasted.

The next day we stayed a little closer to home and went to the Harpeth River to beat the heat. (It was so hot that we set a heat record set back in 1880!)

After that, we took them out for the true Nashville experience - hot chicken. Only Owen was brave enough to try the hot variety, and he suffered accordingly.

After the Pitts family headed home, A's  mom, middle sister, and her kids came to visit for a couple of days. Cue more trips to parks.

My grandparents, now in their 80's, also came to visit. It was pretty great to be able to show my grandfather, an avid gardener himself, how we have made use of our large yard with chickens, bees, fruit trees, vegetables, berries, grapes, and whatnot.

Lastly, we went to the first Cornelia Fort Picking Party of the year. It was right after a storm had blown through, so the crowd was pretty small, but the girls still had a blast playing with friends in the old airfield.

Cornelia Fort, for whom the now-decommissioned airport is named, was quite an interesting woman. She was the daughter of a well-off family here that became a pilot and was the first American to run into the Japanese at Pearl Harbor. NPT did a short special on her.

The blackberries started coming in!

I also found a snake in the chicken pen. It was caught up in the bird netting; I'm not 100% sure how that happened. I cut it loose (while it hissed at me the entire time) and I hope it recovered.

June, while fun, was also exhausting. C expressed it best.