final days of summer

tomorrow is the first day of school. seriously! although i've been back in my classroom working, working, working almost every day for the past two weeks.

i may have skipped out on a couple of treat tuesdays and craft thursdays, but we have tried to make the last two weeks a little fun.

we did some back to school shopping. who doesn't love that?! oh, wait. my boys don't.


grouchy shopper, 20% off. not much of a bargain if you ask me.


don't be fooled by their sweet smiles!


my best shopping buddy!

this year we resisted buying unnecessary clothes, just because it's back to school time. it really was hard. my mind tells me that my kids need to have new clothes for going back to school, when in reality they don't. i know this, because i inventoried all of their clothes. they took everything out of their dressers and piled them onto the the living room floor. we pulled out the too small and too holey items. i made a list of what they have and what they needed. they didn't need much.

we are also re-using the same lunch bags and only bought one new backpack.

after our shopping bonanza, we had a little end of summer vacation bbq and swim party. bqq-ing and swimming are family favorites around here.


a back to school gift...


matching rainbow tie-dyed shirts!

the boys have learned a lot of new tricks in the pool this summer. honestly, i have to hold my breath sometimes watching them. being a mom to wild and crazy boys can be scary!!












this is a little more my pace :)






this too :)

tomorrow will be a totally different set of pictures. backpacks, lunch bags, only slightly stained clothing (vs. heavily stained... ha!), combed hair, brushed teeth.

5th grade and 2nd grade, ready or not, here we come!!

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and as promised, here is nattie and her birthday cupcake.


tired and unusually cranky


oh, what's that???


going in for the finger poke


forget finger pokes, she is going for a big bite!


and another


and another


and ANOTHER! mmmm!!!


almost finished


all done!

:)

natalie's first birthday

the day started with natalie waking at 1:20 am. just 10 minutes before the official start of her birthday. i rocked her for a while and thought about how one year ago joe was probably just handing her over to me for the first time. i told natalie this and she laughed. that's my girl--all smiles at 1:40 in the morning.

several hours later we got up for the day. i had a lot to do, but i tried to spend as much time as possible playing with natalie. i had to finish up her birthday video by adding pictures of her on her birthday. she loved the music and watching the baby on the computer monitor who smiled back at her. she kept yelling "hiiiee!!"so cute!

we went shopping at whole foods for a dairy and soy free mix. if you ever need an allergen free cake mix, i highly recommend you check out cherrybrook kitchen. so yummy! i've used the chocolate chip cookie, brownie, and cake mixes. i love that you can eat the batter without the worry of contaminated eggs.

for dinner she had real food. for the first time! no pureed or smashed anything. she did so well! and she had her very first cupcake. by the time we did cupcakes, natalie was very tired and starting to show it. i dipped my finger in the frosting and offered her a lick. initially she swatted my hand away, but then she took a small taste. it definitely got her attention and gave her the energy she needed to make it through the rest of the night. ha!

it was a great day. and natalie seemed to know it was her special day. i love that girl to pieces. i'll try to post some pictures of her eating her cupcake tomorrow.

happy birthday to my one year old girl!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

emmarie and i-day

alissa and mark have an adorable one year old named emmarie. oh my, she is pretty much as cute as they come. for three days she toddled around our house on her chubby, one year old legs having the best time. kinda made me want natalie to start walking. kinda, but not really. natalie, do not start walking yet!!!

being that the girls are 14 and (almost) 12 months old, they didn't do much interacting. but it was obvious they had some things in common...

they loved splashing in the pool.








can you guess what else they both loved?













did you catch that? we didn't. not until 5 minutes later when we were in the house changing diapers. we chuckled about it, wondering how and when that happened. then i was looking at pictures and saw these. the whole thing was caught on film! emmarie, i think i know exactly what to get you for christmas.

alissa and i went to spu together. we became teachers together. and now we have little girls together. i love that! emmarie, i hope we can get together again soon!!

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today is the day before natalie's first birthday. one year ago i was admitted to the hospital to be induced (i-day) . it was six days before my due date, but i had polyhydramnios and my fluid levels were crazy high. my induction was a slow one, because of the risk of a cord prolapse. i spent the day reading a little, playing bejeweled on joe's iphone, and wishing labor would go just a little faster. it lasted 14 and a half hours, ranking #3 in length of labors. it was my easiest and most relaxing labor, likely because i had been there and done that. i loved my nurses and my very own doctor was actually on duty that evening! it was the best labor experience, but something even better was to come...!

science saturday

boy have we been busy!

on wednesday afternoon i got a call from my dear friend in seattle (hi alissa!), who happened to be in southern california visiting family. she asked if we'd be available for a visit. of course we would!

thursday morning i got another call from alissa saying they were on the road and would be rolling into town around 3:00 pm!!

fast forward to friday night. after lots of visiting and eating yummy food, alissa's husband mark asked us what we are doing saturday. not much i say. noticing that our summer list has a few unmarked boxes, he asked if  we want to do science saturday. mark is a science teacher. SERIOUSLY?! no pressure or anything. sure, let's have science saturday!

i pulled out the science kits the boys got as gifts and shared with mark my master plan. haha! then mark shared his plan. it involved building an oven, baking our own food, observing chemical reactions, and building and launching homemade rockets. did i mention mark is a science teacher? so cool!

saturday morning begins with lots of excitement from the boys. they know we are having science saturday, but they have no idea what we are going to do. our house was buzzing with enthusiasm.

mark and alissa show up with a load of materials and the first annual science saturday begins!


building the solar oven


building s'mores to bake in the solar oven


my contribution: making "snot"


zach thinks it stinks (it does)


snot in a bag


waiting for a chemical reaction (mentos and soda vs. mentos and water)


so cool! "more!!" they shouted


getting educated :)


dad helping to make rockets


zach


ben


taylor


boys and their homemade rockets


ready for lift off

i have no pictures of the launch?! how can that be?


s'mores are ready


mmm...


mmm...


good!

thank you mark and alissa for making science saturday so much fun, not to mention educational. i am going to guess that this will be one of those days that the boys, especially taylor and zachary, remember for the rest of their lives. it will be one of their best childhood memories. that is how great it was (even if teaching them was harder than teaching a room full of 5th graders... ha!!)

while the boys were busy learning, the girls were having a good time, too. I will post their pictures tomorrow :)

so mark, will we be seeing you again next summer for the second annual science saturday?!!