If August is the Sunday of summer, I’m pretty sure I took a too-long Sunday afternoon nap, because the month drew to a close while I wasn’t paying attention. Now that all of our schooltime activities are back in session, we are in full-on fall mode over here (even if the weather disagrees). First, though, a look back at August.
|| READING LATELY ||
My fiction reading this month was largely a disappointment, with a thriller that was too crass and too convoluted to be enjoyable, a literary novel with a lovely premise and dry presentation, and a ghost story of sorts with great voicy narration but a story that didn’t totally work for me. The one positive stand-out was this lovely story that delivered a heartwarming story and characters that stole my heart.
I had a little more success in nonfiction, with an insightful take on my favorite fictional series and a helpful decluttering guide from one of my favorite online gurus. Reviews of these titles are coming in a Quick Lit post next week.
|| LISTENING LATELY ||
A few podcast episodes that inspired and informed this month.
The Oaks Equipped — Israel Replacement Theology & the Christian Response [a message from our own pastor]
The Daily — An Expert on Conflict Says Your Relationships Are Doomed Without It
The Jeremy Boering Show — What Were Pastors Doing While Charlie Kirk Did Their Job? | Ep. 53
The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe — 491: MacKenzie Price—The Most Talked About School in the World
|| MONTHLY KID-ISMS ||
CHARLIE-ISMS:
+ As we were making some pun-ny jokes: “We’re such nerds, Mom. It’s so great!”
+ After learning that 23% of American adults have not read a book in the past year: “How is that possible? What do they even do for fun?!”
+ “I bet Spider-Man is glad he didn’t get bitten by a radioactive maggot or something.”
SULLY-ISMS:
+ “I’m gonna give the guys in my picture some ear wax.” Charlie: “That’s disgusting.” Sully: “What? Every guy needs some ear wax.”
+ “When you get kicked out of school, do they actually kick you?”
+ “You can’t steal. Unless the person is dead and you asked permission before they died.”
+ “I think I know why Kali weighs two pounds more than me. It’s because she has two earrings. They weigh about a pound, right?”
+ “I love cereal. It’s in, like, my top ten favorite breakfast foods.”
+ Me: “What is the plural of fork?” Sully: “Utensils.”
KALI-ISMS:
No Kali-isms this month, but an anecdote: Kali is in a huge Daddy phase and has been making him a new card each day, to the point where he needed to add a folder to his filing cabinet to hold all of them. We’re going on a month of these daily Daddy cards, and I’m still waiting for my Mama card. . . .
NICO-ISMS:
+ I got a text message from the nursery at church during service saying that Nico was asking to go potty and needed help . . . which is funny because we hadn’t started potty training yet, but he was very interested and always asking to go. I guess he had the nursery workers convinced that he could do it! [Since then we HAVE started some easy training, which he is basically doing himself!]
+ We were reciting our weekly Bible verse, Matthew 6:7, and when Nico heard us cite the reference he started waving his hands up and down in the “six/seven” movements. It is WILD how toddlers are always paying more attention than you realize.
+ Me, hugging Nico: “I love you Nico Nico.” Nico: “Thank you, Mama. I love Daddy.”
+ We have pictures of each of the kids as newborns hanging on our bedroom wall. Nico can identify his own picture and Kali and Sully’s, but whenever he points to Charleston’s baby picture he says “turtle.” We’ve corrected him so many times, but he insists that he’s seeing a picture of a turtle. We’ve started calling Charleston “Turtle” as a joke.
+ “I’m not a baby, Daddy. I’m Nico!”
+ In the first two days after he’d turned two, Nico just about gave me a heart attack TWICE. The first time was when he jumped into the pool without his floaties; I was standing on the opposite side of the pool but saw that he was headed in and somehow dove into the water fast enough to catch him as he jumped. We weren’t as lucky the next day, when he fell five feet from a playground before I could catch him. He cried, but wanted to get right back on that ladder. The boys is fearless! (And he cried far more later that day when the three kids left him alone with Mama when they went to Sports Day. Little Brother does NOT like feeling left out.)
|| HAPPENINGS & HIGHLIGHTS ||
My parents drove through Texas on their way home from visiting a sick family member, and they were able to spend a day with us. It was a short visit but we had an awesome time with them, playing board games and spending several hours at the pool. We treasure every chance we get to be together.
After months (possibly years?) of planning, we finally merged the big kids’ rooms, moving dressers and beds into what used to be Charleston’s bedroom and making the twins’ former room the kids’ library. We are all really pleased with how it turned out! I like having all our children’s books in one spot, and the kids all love having their own desks. They also really enjoy sleeping in the same room, which was our one potential concern with the room merging (since Charleston has a later bedtime than the twins) but has been working out beautifully.
We didn’t do too much in terms of redecorating the rooms, but I DID designate one wall to display all of their birth announcement boards. The twins’ boards were already on this wall, so I just needed to order and fill in two new boards for Charleston and Nico. (I did something different for their original birth announcements, but wanted them all to match for the wall.) I am tickled by how fun this turned out. (Confession: I’d finished Nico and Charlie’s boards and put the letters away . . . then realized I had misspelled Nickelson. It’s fixed now, but that mistake definitely had me laughing at myself for days.)
We got to celebrate our littlest man turning TWO this month! We had a Daniel Tiger themed party for him since DT is his fave, and even though it was just a small family party, we went all out with the decorations: the kids made paper chains and drew pictures of Daniel Tiger characters that we hung around the house, along with prints of pictures of our birthday boy. We hung some Daniel Tiger banners and decorations that I got on Amazon, ate lunch off of Daniel Tiger plates, and created a colorful balloon background (but no balloon tower this time because Nico was terrified of the balloon machine and it seemed cruel to prolong the balloon-blowing torcher). Of course, Nico wore a Daniel Tiger shirt for the event.
At the party, the kids played on our water bounce house and Nico was able to join along in the water play. He was also ALL ABOUT his birthday cake, sing “Happy Birthday” right along with all of us and blowing out his own candle. What a big boy!
Nico’s actual birthday was on our first CC community day of the year, which meant I didn’t get to see a lot of him during the day. But he had fun in the nursery that morning, and on his birthday evening we celebrated with presents, adorable homemade cards from the kids, playtime, a video call with my parents, and a second round of candles and cake. I think it’s safe to say that he had a pretty awesome day, and it was sure fun celebrating our little guy.
Nico’s birthday was our first day back with our Classical Conversations community. Though the break was nice, it’s really good to be back. And I’m a tutor this year for Charleston’s class which is fun! The kids also had their return to their weekly sports program, and Trail Life and American Heritage Girls are starting back up as well. As much as I loved the slower rhythm of summer, we are excited to be back with our various groups and communities.
|| ICYMI: AUGUST ON THE BLOG ||
Present in 2026 Book Review #3: Keeping Company with Jesus
Nickelson Ryan || A Love Letter to My TWO-Year-Old!
I hope that your August was a wonderful one. What is something you are looking forward to this September?