The Beginning and the End

Yes, today our youngest daughter is 4 months old. I can't believe the summer is over already! GraceAnne starts school tomorrow, the evenings are finally cooling off, (although we still bake during the day), and Violet is eating solid food now. She's so big! We got to looking at GraceAnne's baby book and discovered that at 4 months, she was also 25" and 15lbs 9oz. How cool is that!? They're the same size! :)

Violet has been begging me for food for weeks now. She gets desperate and grabs plates, drinks, whatever is in your hand, really! She opens her mouth and arches her back when we put food in our mouths, (can you tell she is on our laps constantly? Can someone tell the child she can sit by herself for a few minutes? ;) ), and cries when we don't give her a bite. So after getting the go-ahead from her pediatrician on Friday, we gave her her first bowl of rice cereal this morning. I made it thicker than they say to, but she loved it! She wanted to help with the spoon and is actually pretty coordinated with getting it in her mouth. I suppose when you imagine doing something for so long it comes easily.
GraceAnne is super-thrilled to be starting school tomorrow and so am I! She will feel so much better when she has a social outlet once in a while. I'm going to try to walk her to school as much as possible when the weather allows. It will do me good to have a reason to get out and get some excersize.

There's been a lot of drama around here this last week. The scooter is broken, (he called the shop and they told him what was wrong and he fixed it and it still doesn't run), the car broke down, (the Falcon...I had to go get him on Friday morning despite the garage sale that was taking over my front porch/yard!), and the rats have taken over our house again. This time they seem to be just mice, though. They tore up my pantry and I had to throw out a ton of my stockpiled food. We found one dead in the stove so we got rid of the stove, (would YOU cook on it ever again?!?), and now have no stove. We have killed 2 and there are more. *sigh* SO...I'm going to be spending the next couple of weeks riding some @sses about the home repairs that were supposed to start months ago. We'll see what comes of that. I have my first Pampered Chef show at my house on Wednesday and I have no stove...every person on craigslist that I write to has already sold theirs. We only have $300 for it, so it's not as if we can walk into Lowe's and pick one out. I'm being diligent, praying and trying to have faith and patience. Sometimes there's not enough of any of those 4 in me. So if you could pray, too, that'd be great ;) It sounds like a country song around here!

Despite all that, I am VERY excited at this month. I'll find out if GraceAnne is in dance classes this week and I have a busy month with kitchen shows. I feel so Blessed that this business is already growing. Have to cut this off now, I hope all is well! We love and miss you all.