October Already!

I would swear the girls just started school last week, but the calendar says otherwise. I cannot believe we are already in October! Even the weather has cooled down just a tad-highs of 83 instead of 90, but we will take it. Some days this past week were actually comfortable-in the shade anyway. It will be a while before we will see any noticeably cool weather though. Fall in Florida is the hardest time for me. I long for some cool crisp weather and changing leaves, but it just does not happen down here.

We have just been busy with the little things in life. The girls got me to put up the Halloween decorations last Sunday. They had waited as long as they could wait and had been begging for a week to put the decorations up. "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, when can WE decorate?!?!?" After five minutes of "helping" they were running around the yard playing with friends, and I was decorating alone! Thank goodness I don't have much, so it does not take too long.

Sadly, Leah's fish, Swimmy, died this week. It was hard on her, because it was her second one and Allison still has her first one. We got the first fish about two years ago. Leah's first one died sometime around February of this year. We got a new immediately, per Leah's request, and now he is gone. Allison is still on her first fish-and he is a cool fish! When you go into the room he comes out to see you. I told Leah that this time we are not going to replace the fish. She is complaining that Allison has two pets and she only has one, but I use the argument that her tortoise will outlive us all and therefore, her pet trumps Allison's two pets. She hasn't asked for a new fish for the last couple of days, so I might win this argument. Having pets is can be fun, but the loss of a pet, no matter how small, is always sad.

Poor Leah had a tough week. After getting out the Halloween decorations, I realized I needed to redo the door wreath. Florida's sun is tough on outdoor decorations. The berries, leaves, and bow were badly faded, so I went to the craft store and bought new ones. After the girls got home from school, I was working on it and of course they wanted to help. Well, feeling sorry for Leah, because I had just had to tell her that her fish died that morning, I let her help........with the hot glue gun. She wasn't paying attention and let a large drop of glue drip on her ankle. She now has a terrible burn! I feel just terrible about letting that happen to her!! She is now adamant about not using that again! And she is going to have a lovely scar too!

We got a very lucky break this week!! After Rachel got home from school on Thursday, I realized she was missing a lens from her glasses. She had been home about 20 minutes when I noticed, so I was not sure if she got home with it or not. I looked around, but didn't find it. On Friday I mentioned it to the teacher, and she said she would look around too. When Rachel got off of the bus Friday afternoon, the aide handed me the lens!!!! They had found it on the playground! I went to put the lens back in and had to get a screwdriver to loosen the frames to get it back in. I have no idea how the lens actually came out on it own, because it appears it was in the frames securely! Rachel will never tell! I was so glad that we did not have to go get new glasses just yet. There is really no need to just get a new lens, because the frames are getting too little for Rachel. She will need new ones soon, but thank goodness not right now.

Rachel is once again enjoying her horseback riding. She is riding a new horse this year. His name is Flip. She calls him "Lip." She is also starting to enjoy her gymnastics class and is asking to go to "knicks" (my best estimate of what she calls it!) during the week. When she is there she does not want to even step out of the gym to get a drink of water. The teacher carries her out to me, with Rachel saying, "Noooooooo, juuummmppp!" I make her take two sips of water and she heads back into the gym.

Allison and Leah and some of the neighbors set up a lemonade stand in the drive way yesterday and made $9!! Today, they have a snow cone stand out there. Business was slow to start with, but I think it may have pick up a little, because Leah came in saying she had four orders. I think most of the snow cones were consumed by the entrepreneurs, though.

Fall in Florida......snow cones for sale 50 cents! After the hard work was done, they went for a dip in the pool.

When the kids are not making the big bucks with the lemonade and snow cones, they are harassing the lizards around the house. Get a load of this TINY guy sitting on Allison's finger.

The cobwebs are the girls' doing. They want scary decorations, but I won't do it. There are three sets of blinking eyes in the shrub to the left, but this is as scary as I would let them go.