the state of things

- fall has hit our neighborhood. not just because the leaves are turning but because bright and early one saturday morning the holiday u-haul arrived across the street. what - you don't have a holiday u-haul in your neighborhood? for shame! it's what happens when your neighbor has so much holiday *stuff* that they have to rent a storage unit to store it all during the non-holiday months of March - September.

- Laithe has two teeth! two very sharp gnawing on anything teeth.

- Guthrie has been practicing writing her name at school and i get choked up every time i see it. so sweet.

- we're going to have a change in schedule soon for the working parents and while there are both positives and negatives it's all making me exceedingly crabby. you can ask my family how well i do with change.

- we've been spending these last warm evenings following a certain someone on a tricycle around the neighborhood. also very cool. also a little scary - the high schoolers can only drive before dark here and they drive fast right before dusk in our little neighborhood.

-speaking of driving around our neighborhood. a block from our house - less than that actually - there was a 3 car accident where one of the cars ended up driving up the fairly steep hill of a front yard and hitting the house. hard enough that there are cinder blocks laying on their basement floor from the foundation. the family has kids that are in the yard a lot. the accident was in the middle of the afternoon and everyone heaved a sigh of relief when no one was hurt.

- it's been a rough few days - maybe a week - in our home. match my crabbiness with Guthrie's, well, actually i have no idea what is going on with her, but i've been hit twice now in the face and screamed at countless times. i'm begging for patience. yesterday i had a lovely day off with her though and it did wonders for my soul - i'm assuming hers too. we're dealing with it in the ways we know how, but man. kids do a number on you don't they?

- this is one of those things that i feel like i should document just for posterity. Guthrie thinks John works here:
it's called The Lodge. it's a hotel. vaguely renaissance-y. lots of extended stay.
she calls out 'hi daddy' when we pass it - or points it out to him if he's in the car.
here's where he actually works:

which she knows. she's with me every day when we drop him off and pick him up. the entire staff knows her. not remotely renaissance-y. in fact it's supposed to resemble the pages of a book being opened. i know. took me a minute too.

she has thought this since we've moved here over 2 years ago. what the heck Gus?