I feel like I should write something just to write something, but don't really have any ideas! Public school started in this state last  and I no longer allow the children to go outside in the mornings...except that I've already taken them out myself to dental appointments (when the dentist asked, I just said "They're in a private school, which doesn't follow the German holidays"--totally true...), and I have a check-up with the midwife in an hour, and will also be taking them.

We did do a Schultüte (a big cardboard cone filled with goodies, given to children on their first day of school) with Lukas, as he of course knew about them and wanted one, and we did give it to him on the first day of school in this state. When Marie was first-grade age, we had three other homeschooling families living nearby and had a "not-back-to-school party", which was really fun, and the two first-graders got their Schultüten. Then when Jacob started, that was when my two older children DID go to public school for six months. But this time it felt artificial and silly--we don't follow a school calendar of any kind, and there are no homeschooling families anywhere around, so it was just us. Lukas was of course pleased with his Schultüte--I mean, candy (just a small package of Maoam!) and new crayons and one's own gluestick and a cool pencil sharpener and a pencil case filled with marking pens and colored pencils, plus a bag of Erdnuss-Flips (peanut butter-flavored things that look like Cheetos and taste like styrofoam) to fill it up--of course he was happy! And Lukas has been registered as a resident of California, all totally legal, if a little weird, and on October 1st I'll file the affadavit in California...

We finished Mystery of History Volume 2 last week, with written tests (I HATE that kind of thing, but my very weird children both requested that I photocopy the test at the end of the section this time and let them do it written, instead of just talking about it all!), and I was fascinated by how much they remember. The two little ones (okay, not SO little, but they supposedly weren't doing MOH, being 6 and 3) like to walk around the house chanting "Marco Polo traveled east, 1271." What they will DO with that information, I have no idea... And we're going to start Sonlight 3 (just the Core--I don't like their science or LA) today, which they are very excited about. Of course, since I supposedly try to make a point of NOT following a traditional calendar, I'm annoyed that we're "starting" at a "traditional" time, just by chance! LOL But I do comfort myself with the fact that nothing else we're doing is "starting" right now. Marie is somewhere in 6th grade German, Jacob somewhere in 4th grade German, Marie about 1/4 of the way through 7th grade math, Jacob--oops, okay, again, just by chance, he started 4th grade math last week, we're reading a book on geology together, I'm reading the Narnia books to Lukas, Legos and trains and dress-up clothes are always there, etc. So the vast majority of our lives (at home, anyway...) is NOT on a schedule. :-)

Of course, with school starting back up, our outside activities have started (or will soon start) back up, too, so Marie has violin lessons and orchestra rehearsal, Jacob has art class, Katie and I go to a playgroup once a week (starts this week), Marie and Jacob have youth group while Lukas and Katie and I have mother-child playgroup, Sunday school is happening again, and so on. Lukas may take swimming lessons starting in September--no swimming lessons in the summer in this country, because nobody is around!!

And our baby is due in 18 days, but it's been mostly a nice, cool summer, so I'm feeling very well, overall. However, we're having the usual nightmare with names--maybe worse than usual, even! We've used up all our favorite names that also fit the "requirements", not to mention several names that DON'T fit our requirements, and there just isn't much more out there. Anyone want to help? Here are the rules:

--May not start with J, K, L, or M (I hated having the same initials as two of my siblings...) 

--May not end in "a" or the "schwa" sound (I hate being called "Sheiler"...)

--Cannot have the short-a sound in English (my husband's English is excellent, except for that one little detail. I can't hear the difference between "Alan" and "Ellen" when he's speaking...)

--Ideally, should be very close to the same in English, German, and Spanish (have only managed that more-or-less with Lukas so far, and of course I always have to explain that it's with a K, not a C--even my mother still spells it wrong, and he's six years old...) Added bonus if it's the same in Greek, which we don't speak yet, but want to learn in Cyprus!

--No "th" or "r"--Germans can't pronounce the first and I can't pronounce the second in German!

--Preferably no obvious nicknames, although outside of English-speaking countries, people don't have the tendency to automatically shorten names, so it's not so much of a problem.

--It would be nice if we LIKE the name, and having used up 14 names so far (all the children have two names each, including the three we lost in pregnancy), they're getting scarce!