First Day of School

The kids and I woke up at 0-dark-thirty this morning. I was scared of oversleeping and the kids were all excited about getting to class and seeing their friends for the first time in months. It felt weird being up literally before the chickens! Since May 23, 2009 (last day of school), I haven't even set my alarm to go off before 6 a.m and even then I had the bad habit of hitting the snooze alarm a couple of times before getting up. *grin* And of course, the girls would've stayed in bed until mid-morning all summer long if I had let them. Davis isn't much of a sleeper - he'd rather hop out of bed and hit the ground running. (You can squeeze a lot of video game playing time into a day if you start early enough!)

Now I find I have my mornings to myself again. I'll do my normal early morning walk and then I think I'll add another once the sun starts to go down. In between, I'll make beads and get supper started. During the summer, sometimes we wouldn't even eat dinner until 7:30 or 8 p.m. Since the kids are complete bottomless pits, there were usually several snacks in between lunch and dinner! Now I'll aim to be feeding people around 5 p.m. With an 8:30 bedtime for the kiddieboos, you just can't wait 'til much later.

Gosh, the house sure is quiet right now! It's kinda relaxing and creepy at the same time. I'll get used to it soon enough, I'm sure.

Okay, well - time to go get started on the "alone" portion of my day!

Fried Day

Autumn Glow bead set - $36
now available in the Boutique

School starts back up on Monday and I have to say - it'll be a relief! We spent the early part of the morning at Elinor and Davis' school, getting classroom assignments, buying uniform shirts and PTA memberships, talking to the other moms and checking in with last year's teachers to say "Hi" and see how they were doing. Both Ella and Davis were beyond thrilled at the teachers they've got. Davis is in 3rd grade now and ended up getting the teacher that Elinor had when she was in 3rd. The teacher is an absolute doll, I just wanna keep her in my pocket! Ella is ecstatic because the teacher she got is the one she has been hoping and praying to get all summer long. I don't know her as well, but she seems to be very personable and all the other mothers I've talked to have had nothing but good things to say about her. So we're off to a good start! This is Elinor's last year at the elementary school and she's really excited to be "top dog".

Tilly will be in 8th (eek - one more year until high school!!) and we picked up her schedule after leaving the elementary school. We wandered the halls until she found all her classes. The school is 3 stories and spread out, plus her classes don't seem to follow any kind of natural flow, so it looks like she'll be doing her best speed-walk to get from one room to the other in the allotted 4 minutes!

After orientation was over, we met my Aunt Virginia for lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant. It was a joint celebration for both her birthday (Aug 6th) and the end of Summer vacation. Much chips and salsa was snarfed, along with oodles of good conversation. Then, we headed home and hopped in the pool for a couple of hours while I gleefully reminded my children that this was probably the last weekday that they'd be able to swim with school starting on Monday. That was probably a little mean, but I did remind them afterwards that until it was too cool to swim, they'd still have the weekends!

Now it's time to cook dinner and then make beads. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!!

Hump Day

Ahhhhhhh.... summer?

There's weeds to pull, grass to mow, mosquitoes to avoid, swimming lessons to attend, weeds to pull, arguing children to referee, tennis try-outs, weeds to pull and more mountains of laundry to plow through. Have I mentioned the weed situation yet?

Will someone please remind me why I look forward to summer all year long? I seem to have forgotten. *sigh*

Sidewalk Chalk

I went to the grocery store yesterday and picked up a few fun things for the kids along with the regular stuff on my list. The most popular of the kiddie-boo treats was definitely the sidewalk chalk. It seems every flat, paved space has been decorated with very colorful (and extremely dusty!) designs. I've got lots of interesting work to admire now as I work outside the house. There's hopscotch, abstract art, doodles and a very nice mural depicting the life story of a caveman named Ogai done in the style of the Lascaux cave paintings. Ahhhh........ Summer!

I think the kids have their eyes on "improving" our stepping stone walkway next!

Last Week of School

It's a little hairy here, now that we're into the last couple days of school for the kiddos. I'm doing a lot of last minute running around and helping out as much as I can.

Everything on the *jenagirlbeads* front should be back to normal by the weekend. I can tell you that everyone's beads have been mailed out, so be sure to check your mailboxes in the coming days if your beads haven't already arrived.

For some reason, I ended up with quite a few duplicate orders this last time around. Either my shopping cart wasn't updating quantities correctly or several people ordered the same beads at precisely the same time. Whatever happened, it sure made it interesting come time to pack the beads and mail them! But hey - on a good note - I've discovered that quite a lot of people really like the Cabana Boy color scheme!!

Boy, do I need some caffeine right about now!!