School Blues

School has started and while some things of interest have happened (Joshua's trip to the dentist, Delaney's doctor visit about pink eye where they said she was fat, Rylee's preschool orientation....) but mostly, nothing occurred that was worth taking pictures of.  Or maybe I'm just becoming apathetic.  Either way, I know the grandparents really just want to see the little darlings, so I did download what I had on the camera for their viewing pleasure.

Callie needed to decorate her notebook for school.  She wanted pictures of her with Levi to put on it. 

And she thought it would be fun to have him jump on the mini-trampoline with her. 

Tough to get a good photo of kids in motion! Surprisingly, Levi was happy to bounce with her.  Funny dog!

Oh yeah.  I took Rylee to the Mommy and Me on base.  It tends to be full of younger moms who are already friends so we don't usually go unless we're really bored or really need to get out of the house. 

We went because I did have a friend going so it was fun.  AND, Rylee got to paint.  So it was a win all around. 

Keeping Up

It is Sunday, so I ought to keep up with the blog.  Sadly, I have zero interest in blogging, but the alternative is to go to bed, so here I am.

1.  The first few days of school went well.  The kids all say they like their teachers and that school is good.  Callie said her teacher is mean, but only to the bad kids, so she's okay.  So far so good for all of them.  Fingers crossed that it continues.

2. I was motivated and finally cleaned off the bookshelf and it is neat and clutter free for now!  I also have been going through stuff and I have a box and 6 bags to haul to the thrift store.  Of course, they are all sitting in the hallway cluttering up that area.  I don't know if I should take them away now, and plan on more trips later, or if I should just keep collecting stuff and make one trip.

3. We went to the Temple yesterday.  It was the first time in months (possibly years!) that I have not had a hard time staying awake.  Loved it.

4.  After the Temple, since we were near the mall, I took the kids there while Dan was in his session.  I took Rylee to the Build-a-bear to get rid of her binkies.  I told her she could make a binkey-bear who would hold all her binkies for her.  She chose a cute dog, we stuffed her binkies inside it with all the fluff and viola!  No more binkies for my girl!  And it has gone much better than I ever imagined.  She LOVED her binky.  LOVED it.  So I had anticipated some difficulty when she no longer had one.  Rylee has transitioned beautifully.  Of course, it has been less than 36 hours, so it may just be the calm before the storm.

5. I have plantar fascitis. I do not like it.

6. I realized today that I do like one thing about being the Sunday School teacher.  Oh. Yes, they actually called me to teach the grown up Sunday School class last year.  Trust me, I was way more incredulous than you when they called me.  But, I digress.  I realized I like that I can decide what happens.  I like discussion in my class. No one wants to just hear me, so I judge the success of class on how much talking I do vs. class participation.  And I know when I am sitting in a class, I want to know why I'm learning whatever it is.  Why is that particular thing important and how does it relate to ME?  So that is how I try to go about teaching.  I don't know how my class feels about it, but I'm the teacher, so we do it my way!  Today we were waaay off topic, but it was okay.  I figured, if they had questions and we could answer them, then that was what the class was for.  It made me happy.

7.  Joshua chipped his tooth tonight.  I'm not thrilled about having to pull him out of school (probably twice) to get it taken care of.

8.  The musical "The Book of Mormon" is coming to New Orleans.  Our stake has been challenged to read the Book of Mormon through, before the show opens.  I have accepted the challenge, but yikes!  Its hard.  I have till Oct 12 to do it.

9. I had chocolate pudding for dinner.

10. I'm tired.  I'm going to bed.

Life at our house

Life has been moving along and they days have passed, despite the lack of productivity I achieved.  We did have a few things happen that I felt were worth remembering.

Rylee woke up Sunday morning with this!  Yikes!  I guess that's what I get for letting her go to bed with wet hair.  Sigh.  It was a project to get it suitable for church. 

Our couch has served us well for 8 years.  It is comfortable and the brown hides a lot.  Sadly, you can see that the seams have ripped on the cushions.  You cannot see that the back of the couch has issues where it repeatedly bonked into the wall, and you can't see the lovely "art" that was put on with permanent marker.  I'm sure you can see that it's time has come.  Or perhaps it's time has passed?  Either way, it was time for it to go.

This was my lovely recliner.  It also has been with us for over 8 years.  It also is falling apart, but has been doing so for a lot longer. The arm has been duct taped for a number of years.  One of my darling children attacked it with scissors when it was still really new.  It has been a great chair for us, but it was well passed time for it to go!  

We acquired a "new" couch and love seat on craigslist.  Dan took the old couch out to the road for easier loading for disposal.  The kids were thrilled to have permission to jump to their heart's content on it.  Never mind that it was pouring rain!! 

They had a marvelous time.  I'm not sure if the couch made the rain more fun, or if the rain made the couch more fun.  But fun they had! 

I love these girls! 

And I really love my new-to-me couch!  It is soft and squishy in all the right places. 

And it has a matching love seat.  So comfy and so nice!  I feel like an actual grown up with an couch that is actually NICE! 

And, Happy First Day of School!  The kids went back to school this week.  Aren't they cute?! 

They were great and they all said they had a really good first day of school.  They all agreed that they had nice teachers this year and they were excited.  I love these kids!

Killing Time

This week as been one of killing time.  I realized that actual cleaning of the house is not really possible till the kids are out of the house. We're really only at maintenance level for now, and my 4 thrift store bags are still sitting there, waiting for more company.  I didn't plan any activities, because I thought we'd be getting back into a routine (routine of what, I do not know!), and getting ready for school.  I thought we'd meet some of the many new neighbors and discover new friends.  I thought we might go to the pool (but it is closed).  I learned that the library programs are suspended till September and there is horrid road construction right in front of the huge one we usually go to.  What has happened in reality has been a lot of whining and boredom.  It really is too hot to play outside.  90 degrees and 94% humidity is just wrong.

The children were disgusted that the "No media till after lunch" rule was still in effect.  And since we didn't really go anywhere in the mornings, it has been excruciating for them to come up with things to do.  I have LOTS of things to do, but I get very few things done because I have to clean up after them, monitor them, come up with ideas for them, and finally, all efforts just go to not screaming at them. I did take them out to finish school shopping.  That was dreadful.  Lots of fighting and whining.  I took them to the little library on base and that did go well, but there wasn't much to do and it didn't last long enough. We went to my friend's new house with a pool, but it was pouring down rain, and we had to go about the time the weather cleared up, so all I heard was unhappiness.

Thank goodness school starts this week.  We had a fabulous summer, but now that we're out of any sort of schedule, it is no fun at all.

The Aftermath

We drove home last Thursday.  Yep, we left about 7:30am and got home about 9pm. We had the dog, so we had a few little stops and then we spent 2 and a half hours at Andy and Kera's house.  I know, I said we'd only stay an hour, but we were having such a good time!  And it was worth it.  

Whoohoo!  We made it to Louisiana!  Almost home. 

Somehow it looks like there is a lot more room then there really was.  I was packed to the gills.  The kids were great and loved the audiobook. 

A pretty Louisiana sunset, and a nice welcome home.

It was nice to be home.  Then I looked around and to my surprise, all the clutter I left behind was still here!  So unfair.  I was really hoping it would be gone.  And now I am feeling a bit overwhelmed.  I really really want to get the house in order.  But I have old clutter and mess to deal with, along with all the mess and clutter I have brought home with me.  

Yesterday I decided I was going to get some semblance of order going on and intended to tackle one room at a time.  I set upon the little girls' room and went to work.  Alas, they wanted to help me.  And well, I am the mom, and I have 500 other things I need to get done.  So I got some suitcases unpacked, and I got some of the clothes sorted, and I got some laundry done, and I managed to go through all the dresses (I think, there might be some hiding under the bed or behind the bookshelf still), and I got 3 bags ready for the thrift store, and I did make dinner, and got the kids to karate.  Unfortunately, the room I was going to have organized looks worse than it did before I started and the pigsty that is my life still encompasses me.

Nevertheless, I am the Mom and I am going to start it all over again today.  And tomorrow.  And the next day.....

All Good Things come to an End

We have had a great summer.  I don't know how it went by so fast though!  It seems like I was looking forward to so many things and now they are all over and I can't believe it went by so quickly.  And I can't believe it all went so well.  There are a few things I wish we had been able to squeeze in, although I'm pretty sure there was no place to have squeezed them in to fit.

This was our last week.  We made our last trip up to Silver Dollar City and finally.... finally, got Callie over to see a show.  She has been begging to go to a Branson show ever since she saw The Duttons last summer.  We talked her into going to The Hughes Brothers, and she spent the first half of the show telling me, "The Duttons were better!"  She'd changed her mind by the end and proclaimed that both were equally good.  I think once the kids came out to perform, she was more interested.

 I love the kids' faces here.  They crack me up!

They are a bunch of sillies and I love it! 

Rylee wanted so badly to be in a picture too.  Joshua was so sweet, helping her up. 

Rylee, waiting for the Hughes Brothers to start. 

Callie and Delaney, enamored with the show. 

Joshua really wanted to buy this hat, but I said no.  It IS a cool hat though.

I also dragged the kids up to St Louis. Insane?  Yes!  However, Marian's very best friend in all the world was there, and since he lives in Virginia, that was the closest we were going to get.  So we drove the 4.5 hours in the pouring rain and met at the Science Center.  Wow!  That was a cool place!  The kids got almost 4 hours there before we had to drive back to Grandma and Grandpa's house.  They enjoyed it and Marian was so pleased to spend time with her friend.  It was worth the time and hassle (and dadgummed rain!) to let her see her friend.

 Rain, rain, endless rain and dark, ugly skies on the drive out.

Super fun stuff at the Science Center.  The kids bolted off right away. 

Check out the fun hamster wheel. 

All the kids had to give it a whirl.  I confess I was quite tempted myself, but after all 5 children took a turn, I felt guilty, since there was a long line for it.   

Marian and her best friend.  So cute. 

 Rylee had a very good time.  All the kids did.  I even lost Delaney for an hour or so before I had to go hunting for her.  It was good fun!

Ahhh, yes, these 2 faces make it all worth it.  (Ignore the blurry Callie face on the side.  I do not know what she is doing!)

I love that these 2 get along and "get" each other.  I'm glad we made the effort for them to spend a few hours together.

The last 2 days have been trying to retract our stuff from the house, return library books, wash the mountains of laundry, sort the toys, and all that lovely rot.  We've settled in pretty well and it is such a process to pack up everything.  And somehow, it always expands!  We arrived with room to spare in the van, and now it is packed to the gills and spilling over the seats.

Tomorrow morning I will stuff the kids and the dog and all the last minute items into the van and we will head south.  It should take us 12 hours, and then I may never leave the house again! I'm ready to be done traveling, and done driving.  I spent the evening downloading audiobooks onto my MP3 player.  The kids love-love-loved the "Gregor the Overlander" series, and tomorrow I think I'll start on "The High King" series.  The driving has gone so amazingly well with the audiobooks.

Wish us luck!

What to do with your Ragnar Medal

I know, many of you are wondering, "What does one do with a fancy medal, after having achieved it?"  Wonder no more!  I am here to tell you what to do with your medal!

 It makes a fabulous accessory for church.  Doesn't it look great?!

It really does go with everything.  I wear it around the house and can get quite comfortable as I read a good book.

If I want to go out, I can wear it in the car as well.  

The Ragnar medal is especially nice for taking selfies in the bathroom.

Heck, I even wear it as I do my chores!

Don't let people tell you differently.  Medals were meant to be worn... everywhere!

Relaxin'

It has been a fairly quiet week.  After all that driving, I needed some down time!  Too bad the kids still need to be entertained.   We went to the library and we went to the Ward Pioneer Day Picnic. We went to the lake for a birthday party. We had a movie day and did nothing but watch movies all day long.  We went out to the Conservation Center for a presentation on Alligators.We did the Carmike theater's $4 kids movie (with popcorn and a drink!) and saw "Yogi Bear". So it was more than I really wanted to do, but not enough to keep the kids from complaining of boredom.  I took a few pictures.

I love Delaney!  At the Pioneer Day Picnic, Delaney was making friends with everyone.  I love that she chats with anyone and everyone!

The kids had been at the library earlier that day and Joshua was so engrossed in his book, he wouldn't stop reading for anything. I couldn't decide if I was more disturbed, or proud.

The kids loved playing at the park between games and food.  I loved that they got out to play and I didn't have to make dinner.

Even though the summer reading program ended,  I was delighted to see these 2 reading before bedtime.  The most notable part of that is they were giving up computer time for reading!

At the Alligator Lecture, the guy brought a little 2 year old gator, but he didn't let us touch it or pose with it.

After a while, the lecture was boring.  Well, it wasn't really boring.  It was pretty interesting, but for some reason, the girls thought we were going to an alligator farm and were bitterly disappointed that we didn't.

There was an alligator craft after the talking and Delaney was excited about that.

Callie also meticulously worked on painting and gluing her project.

Note Marian's very grumpy face.  She wanted to go home.  She did not want to wait around for her sisters to finish their projects.  Rylee was happy to color but Marian was displeased that we were not leaving.

Callie showing Rylee how to make the alligator magnet.  I love it when the girls are kind to each other.

Rylee, showing off her finished magnet.