Good morning, Starshine, the Earth says hello!

Take one:

(sun in their eyes, whoops....)

Take two:

(that's better...)

Take three: Guess who really wanted to go to school?

(Cut!)

Ready or not

The kids are back in school. They were excited. School supplies are the best. I miss my older kids. Mostly, I miss the way they entertain and help with Audrey. I thought I was going to get stuff done with school in session. Looks like I'm going to be following Audrey around, preventing bodily harm and fixing everything she destroys.

They've been gone an hour and a half and so far Audrey has

fallen off the piano bench,

thrown bites of egg down,

tried to sweep the floor,

broken the spindle on a chair,

rubbed buttery hands on Andy's dress pants before he left for a very important meeting,

grabbed scissors,

ripped a page out of Andy's sketch pad,

unrolled a roll of scotch tape,

dunked Josh's leftover birthday cake into a cup of milk,

pulled gear out of Andy's camera bag.

a few questions

Isn't microdermabrasion basically just sanding a layer skin off?

Is it Monday yet? School starts on Monday.

Don't vintage clothes have old germs in them? How about vintage furniture? (Shudder.)

Is Ritter Sport gluten free?

Laughing all the way

This week, we are donning swim suits as much as possible just so the kids remember that they did have fun this summer. At the splash park, I laughed as several other mothers yelled/hollered/protested that they were getting wet. Did I mention that we were at a water feature? With actual water?

My kids are ready for more routine than our non-routine. (Tangent: someone please remind me of this when I am in the throes of our fall schedule of soccer/swim team/music lessons/scouts and I cry because I am a natural homebody that is never home.) Sometimes they fight. They are kids. It happens. I used to stress about this. I mean, yeah I want everyone to get along, but lately I find myself laughing. You're freaked out because of what? And then I just laugh, because one kid is upset that another kid moved his new backpack out of the way.


We also revisited our fake camping experience. One night. Canoes, paddle boats, rocks, sticks, foil dinners, s'mores, one (unnamed) child who didn't make it to the bathroom, one sleepless toddler and two sleepless parents. Four extra loads of laundry. Ha ha! Gotta laugh at that.

There were rocks in my dryer courtesy of Audrey...





These two cousins couldn't reach the paddles on their paddle boat. They ended up nearly standing on the paddles to get back to shore. You can it ingenuity or character building, I simply call it funny.


I bought these socks for Melina. I didn't envision that they would be worn like this.


P.S. Is it wrong that I am already humming Christmas carols? Laughing all the way...ha ha ha!