transition to fall

A family meeting was called to order tonight by my hero, Dax. Basically we went from crazy, fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants summer to a rigid back-to-school schedule but we kept our summer I-can-do-whatever-I-want-and-go-wherever-I-want-whenever attitude and we were spiraling so we all decided our spirals need to line up. With 3 kids in soccer, 1 in dance, cub scouts, activity days, and 8 piano students, we've kept a mad pace these past 2 weeks. It was time to get on the same page.

Summer was awesome and I could not picture my summer without UBIC (Uintah Basin in Celebration) which is comparable to other town's Peach Days, County Fair, or the like. Except way better. Preslie sang in the UBIC talent show and won a trophy and performed her song at the park.
Matt, Abbey + kids came to see us and join the weekend festivities. Abbey entered the Tri-Athalon and did AWESOME. We were all so thrilled to call her our own.

It was a fun weekend!
I decided to give our dog a better home and found a great family not far from here with a lot of land for him to run on. It is very telling that it took my kids 3 days to notice he was gone. I feel so much better now that he's not tied up in our backyard each day for hours. We love Echo; we went and visited him at his new place and it was great to see him and how happy he is.

I am still working on Preslie's room here and there. This is her desk chair that I made over. It used to be cream with a maroon cushion cover.

I also took my kids on a quick trip to Salt Lake to see my niece and go to the temple with her as she received her endowment in preparation for her mission. We went to the ward campout and then BOOM; school began.

Preslie learned how to open her locker just before school started after several attempts and trips to the junior high on her own. It only took one lesson from her old, out-of-touch Mom who she thought surely could not know how to do such a cool thing as open a locker. Ha.

Hunter is surviving his first 2 weeks despite his certainty that the world was going to end once he entered school again!

Mack started Kindy this week and has the whole school thing wired. The first day- when all Moms on the face of the planet drive their little ones to school, hold their hands and walk them to the right class and sit with them until the bell rings- Mack insisted on riding the bus and assures me he can find his class on his own. And he did. He was so excited to board the bus; it was darling. How could I be melancholy?!

The evening of his third day of school, we were all chatting before bedtime and he tells us how good school breakfast is.. Say wuh ?
"You went to breakfast at school? How did you do that?"
"I heard a teacher say, 'if any of you are going to breakfast, go ahead and go' and I just followed the other kids that were going."
(shock and amusement)
"Well, you don't even have a lunch card and there is no money on your account. What did you tell the lady sitting at the beginning of the line?"
"I didn't go to her, I just went and got a tray and put a chocolate milk on the little square that said 'MILK' on it. (In a singy-song voice) The ham was deLIcious! But I didn't drink the chocolate milk because it was too hard to open."
By this point we are all laughing and shaking our heads. Preslie said, "It's your THIRD day of school. I didn't figure out about eating breakfast at school until I was in 3rd grade!"

Thank you, Mack for always rescuing us from the daily-ness of life with your crazy mind that is always thinking and doing things that make us laugh!

signing my life away

It's been a good summer but yes, school has started once again. And in true form, Preslie has been ecstatic for it to start with a paper chain counting down the days and poor Hunter dreading every day that moved him closer to school time.

P- 5th grade      H- 3rd grade

Preslie has had her first week of outfits picked out and hanging in order in the closet well ahead of time. She has been driving us all nutty with her over-zealous and over-prepared self.

 

The night before school started I realized Hunter probably needed something decent to wear in the morning. Here is the conversation that went down before bed...

Me: Hunter do you want to pick out some clothes for school tomorrow or should I just lay something out for you?

Hunter: (no response)

Me: You probably don't even care what you wear do you? I will just pick something and lay it out for you.

Hunter: ...uh Mom, sorry. When you started talking about clothes you lost me.

 

Lost. Kind of like his brand new pair of school shoes. No where to be found that morning. Did he care? No. Did he know where he wore them last? No. Would he have gone to school without shoes had we not all but put them on his feet? Yes.





Preslie even had her hairdo planned out for the first day but needed a little help. While I was pinning her bangs back...
Me: How big do you want the poof in front?
P: Not that big. Not as big as Snooki's.

That evening, Dax and I were in charge of putting on our neighborhood picnic. It was a success with over 80 people in attendance and good times and food had by all. We live in a GREAT neighborhood. What a blessing that we often take for granted. I liked the streamers I hung across the road from my house to my neighbors' house. It made for a great party vibe. If anyone ever needs 200 feet of streamers, I'm your gal.


That same week soccer started. This is our first year playing it (or any sport) so it is a new thing for all of us. I didn't realize I would be signing my life away for 7 weeks but hey, who needs to eat dinner or clean their house or go to back to school night?

Dax's work has picked up like crazy and he's been gone more nights this week than he's been home. Couple that with hunting season and you have yourself a semi-single Mom here. So what does a busy Mom do with herself spread so thin? How about get a dog?!

Meet Echo. The newest member of the family.

WHAT? Am I crazy? Totally! I don't know WHY we have this dog. I saw him on our local KSL-ish  site and I kept thinking about him. I know it is weird and surprising and cheesy to think that perhaps this dog was meant to be in our family. He is a great dog. Smart and obedient and awesome with kids. It's work to have a pet though and I don't know why now, with the busiest we've ever been, I decided this was a great choice. Now we add fence the rest of the yard to our list.



Life is fun and crazy and keeps us guessing. I can't help but get excited for Halloween when I receive severed limbs in the mail. It's just so awesome.

 

And here is a fun decoration I set up for a neighbor boy's b-day party. I wanted to take Mack's picture by it (it was the first party he's been to) but he refused.

But hey-it's September now so can openly get excited about Halloween. Let the good times roll.