Where has the summer gone?!

I was looking through Sophie's school supply list & realized that she has 3 more weeks until school starts & her summer comes to an end. It made me so sad & so proud in the same moment. She will only be gone for a few hours (they do half day kindergarten here), but will be growing up without my help. Sophie has always been incredibly independent & makes friends easily, but I'm a bit worried that her friendliness will be taken advantage of by other kids. She's been so extremely emotional in the past 6 months or so & I guess I just worry she wont be able to handle them if someone is mean, won't play with her or is not sharing (her triggers for tears here). I know you can't protect them forever, but darnit! I want to! ;o)

Maddy us adding new words to her vocabulary slowly but surely. I've been working so hard reading to her, practicing saying words & phrases properly & we sing a lot of songs. She's such a sweet little thing & very shy and quiet like I always was. I'm hoping that by her finding her voice more and more, she will gain more confidence. For example, she regressed from going to Sunday school confidently with the bigger kids, to requesting the church nursery again, so maybe she just needs more time to get it back. But she's been so super snuggly lately too, which I am enjoying.

Noah just turned 2 a week ago & acts so much older. But he's only 21.7lbs & 31.5", so he looks much younger, so he totally surprises people all of the time by how much he talks. He has entered the copycat stage & repeats everything anyone says. He is even stringing words together...close to catching up to Maddy! He finally is sleeping through most of the night & sometimes he even sleeps in his "bed" (crib mattress on the floor with Elmo bedding in it). He never lasts the entire night, but baby steps in the right direction!!

I was hoping our housing & life situations would've improved over the summer, but that's not in the cards at the moment. It is getting so hard trusting God to provide & guide us, when what I'd rather do is complain & cry. But He has us where He wants us to be right now & I must remember that when life starts to feel impossible again. I was feeling down the other night for having to spend my birthday money (turning 29 on Wednesday) on bills instead of sneakers which I really need. But I soon realized how blessed I am to even have my mom care & support me after all of her struggles. I am blessed to have bills because that means we are still living on this Earth. God is shaping & molding us, but for what I don't know yet. I just hope He makes His plan a bit easier to understand soon. ;o)

So this summer has gone by too quickly, but I'm grateful for all that we have experienced during it. Continued prayers for better jobs (and hopefully a WIC peer counselor position open for me soon!) would be appreciated!!