You know, I started this blog thinking it would be an easier way to journal our family's life together. I pretty much stink at traditional journaling. I'm not sure I've written in mine more than once since McKenzie was born, which means anyone discovering my journal years from now wouldn't even know I had two more children, which is just kind of wrong. But what I'm discovering is that I just stink at journaling period. Having a different media only helps ever so slightly. I suppose half a dozen entries in three months is still a marked improvement over no entries in eight years.
I think what's holding me back with this blog is thinking that I need to include pictures with every post. As I mentioned before, that's very time consuming and also a big fat pain in my backside. So, as with all things that require more than a little effort on my part, I put it off as long as possible. I do have a lot of great photos to share of our weekend trip to Portland at the end of last month and our most recent trip to Seaside that we just returned from earlier this week, but I'm not going to do that today.
Today I'm going to tell you that summer is winding down, and while we had a great time and were able to make lots of fun trips and do lots of things together, I think everyone is ready for the routine of the school year again. My kids complain of being bored from 15 minutes after they get up in the morning all the way to 10:30 pm at night sometimes. You're bored at 10:30 pm? Hel-lo! I've got the cure for that--it's called bedtime! The most popular form of daytime entertainment seems to be annoying siblings and picking fights and tattling to Mom and throwing big tantrums (those tantrums would include Mom, by the way).
So I'm ready to say farewell to summer and hello to fall. Sure, we won't be able to sleep in or stay up late or eat lunch at 3 pm, but I'm counting on the 6 hours a day of no bickering and hoping for at least another few minutes here and there after everyone's home. Only 11 more days!
We went out yesterday to shop for school supplies for the girls. It was a looong list. I'm guessing that has something to do with the fact they'll be attending a brand new (as in just built) school this fall. (Grove Elementary is just three blocks away. It's a beautiful school--at least from what I can see from the outside. The girls were excited to see they're putting in the playground equipment this week.) The elementary school they had been attending up until now just asked for a check for $15 for each student, so that the teachers could buy supplies to be shared by the whole class. The supply list we received for the new school also noted that these supplies would be shared by the whole class, so we shouldn't bother putting names on anything. Some people used to complain about the $15 check, thinking that with the right sales they could probably find everything needed for less that $15. After yesterday's shopping trip, I'm convinced that's not true. I spent $45 between my two girls with just about everything being on sale. Ah well. Can you put a price on a good elementary school education? Forty-five dollars sounds like a bargain to me!
We haven't even begun to do the school clothes shopping. Everyone at my house refuses to stop growing (unfortunately, at times that includes Mom), so we'll be needing at least shoes and pants all around. I can't imagine I'll be able to get everything on that list for $45. Sigh.
Tyler's going to be in 7th grade this year, McKenzie in 3rd and Elise in 1st. Where does the time go? At least I'll still have one "baby" left at home. Although, Syd's not much of a baby anymore. She turned three last month. We had been hyping up this third birthday as a stepping stone into big-girldom complete with nights spent in her own bed and days spent wearing big girl underwear and using the toilet. We're three weeks past and have made little progress with the bed thing and zero progress with the underwear thing. It's always a bad sign when you're child starts screaming the moment you stick them on the potty. Now everyday I just ask if she'd like to try using the potty today. Her response is always the same, "No, thank you." At least she's polite about it.
Well, it's about time to pick up the oldest two from piano, so that's all I've got for now. Sometime in the next six months, look for a Sydney birthday post, a Portland trip recap and a Seaside vacation wrap up. But don't hold your breath.
