Firsts

For anyone short on time, here's a bullet list of our recent "firsts." Read on if you're interested in the details!

• Jade's first two weeks of 2nd grade
• Aeris's first tooth
• Our first garage sale
• Logan's first allergic reaction

Jade started 2nd grade July 28. We love her teacher! On Monday Jade brought home a weekly homework page (I can't believe she's planning to send home one of these every week of the school year!) The topic for the week was worms. They measured gummy worms in math, for art they made a worm out of a nylon stocking filled with a stuffing of their choice, wrote in a "Worm Diary" at home as a creative writing assignment, and shared it all on Friday with the rest of the class. In class they made a worm home out of a 2-liter bottle and dirt with a water bottle inside the middle to keep the worms closer to the outer wall. Jade could hardly wait to go back to school Tuesday so she could check on their live little friends and the tunnels they'd made.

Aeris acted more clingy and grumpy than usual this week. I'm glad she actually had a reason this time! I was so excited when I felt a tiny tooth in her bottom gum. It's about time, right! I guess I'd better take some last picture's of that gummy grin before her mouth's all full of teeth!

I've been on a de-cluttering kick lately. We keep aquiring more and more stuff, and I'm terribly sentimental, so a lot of it piles up. Using potential monetary gain as a motivator, I've been working on clearing it out. On Saturday we held a garage sale. Our more valuable items sold, so I'd call it a success! It was fun spending the morning hanging out with our neighbors and my parents (they sold some stuff too!) and giving my stuff new life in new homes! I had the hardest time parting with my Nintendo. I know that probably seems silly, but it was such a part of childhood for me. Super Mario Bros 3 is my all-time favorite video game. I'm not really much of a gamer, but that one stole my heart! I made it to the end, but always ran out of lives before I could reach the finale. It was so frustrating that the console didn't have the capability to save your progress along the way, so you had to spend hours in one sitting to make it to the end. When I dug it out to make sure it still worked so I could price it for the sale, I tried out the game one last time. It was great for nostalgia's sake, but there's no way I have enough time in my day for that anymore! It sure felt good to sell it. The man who bought it also bought Nate's old Sega and our original Playstation with all the games. Apparently he stocks up on garage sale bargains all year then makes an annual trip down to Mexico to give them to the kids there. What a wonderful project!

Tonight we attended a birthday dinner for Nate's dad. *Happy birthday Eddie!* Logan scared us when he threw up then broke out in a rash and swelled. Nate had given him a cashew nut about 5 minutes before. We figure that was the cause, but will have to have some allergy testing to be sure. So far this is the first major allergic reaction for any of our kids. Neither Nate nor I have any food allergies (I have scary allergies to certain medications), so this is new to us. I'm nervous about what this might involve since his reaction was so extreme for having had only one little nut.