They do get some things

The boys each earned themselves their own Kindle Fire tablets at the end of the school year last year after returning home with all A's for the year. 

 

Here Nicholas is laughing because he is pretending that he is Mr. Grier, the bus driver, diving through some zombie apocalypse. 

 

By the end of the weekend, he had earned upgrades to the bus, and Mr. Grier was doing pretty well and was armed.

 

My children also get Dairy Queen Blizzards when I get the hankering. I could only talk Nicholas into going with me on Sunday afternoon, the other three declining.

 

?

First School "Dance"

And so the girls and I went to pick the boys up from the middle school after their first school dance last Friday. 

I don't think there was much dancing, nor decoration, nor much of anything really.

And poor Nicholas' first ever school dance "date" ended before it ever began, when the girl's parents apparently heard about the date and grounded her from attending the dance.

 

Ha, guess that will happen more than once along the way.  But really, they're fifth graders, there will be plenty of time for this.

 

And at pick up, we waited for an extra super long time, as while I was waiting in line, their friend's dad asked me if I couldn't take his too.  And then, the sister lost her iPhone (well, 99% sure that lost is really stolen, since she had left it out on the bleachers there), and we looked for a long time and shed some tears.

 

Two observations:

Middle School gyms stink and are hot.

There are a few reasons my children do not have cell phones yet, and this is one of them.  There will be plenty of time for this as well.

 

 

And then we packed up and headed to Burger King, the gang and I for burgers and shakes all around.

Take That School Paperwork!

When you have to fill out two of everything,

and you have a boy who has to sit out gymnastics,

you suddenly only have one set of paperwork to fill out.

Cake Wars

The marathon obsession one evening last week on television.

 

Carrying over to the next afternoon, where we baked and filled and butter creamed.

Raspberry jam filled red velvet cakes with butter cream frosting with a hint of raspberry extract added?

Run an extra three miles.

Early

It's not very early that we get out of the house before 8 am on a Sunday morning.

 

And then remember that church doesn't start until 8:30.

So we went and watched the morning.

 

In a park we'd never visited here.

Didn't even know there was a nook of this place we hadn't visited here.

Fall Cleaning

When you show up with that on your head, you must be put to work.

That's Right Now

Made me nearly pass out in the emergency room.

 

Realigned and reset.

The T-Shirts this year were particularly appropriate.

 

 Onward to the half cast.

 

Straight again and free, and frustrated that he can only do two pull-ups.

 

Saving this one.

Dad made it kind of cool to not be able to use your arm.

About ten seconds after getting home with this cast, Nicholas spilled hot chocolate all over it.  He was beside himself, because he had planned to keep this one all clean (yeah, right).

Dad came to rescue.

Brothers

Help you put on socks when your arm is broken.

Even if Ben may have been milking it a bit.

This is What Takes Us Down.

We made it safely through the rides, then Alida clobbered her own self on the kiddie playground.

She walked up and asked if her nose was bleeding; it was gushing.

We ran over to the drink stop--they were out of ice.  We were able to find one piece.

Just Dance

 

One family activity that Ben simply shakes his head at.

Patric joins every time, always dancing his own dance.

Before We Went Back To School

They stood in line for a little while for this.

But no one has yet to make the wait to ride it.

 

This one though, several times over.

Back To School

 

Alida had to be pushed up onto the bus due to all of the weight of supplies.

By all reports, week one went well.  It always does.

Regular sort of maintenance

 

The lightbulb in the fridge kept going out randomly but not completely.

Was it staying on while the door was closed?

Their dad asked them to help him check.

Second Birthday Celebration: The Actual Day

"Mom!  Now I know you are not the type of mommy to crush little girls dreams!"

Actual quote after gluing those things to their little fingers.

 

 

Here, I got you each a cat.

They are robotic.

You loved them for as long as you would have loved real cats. 

 

 

Alida.  Having a near-Thanksgiving if not on-Thanksgiving birthday myself, I became used to just requesting a pumpkin pie out of consideration for the cooks that day.

That you asked for this on your ninth birthday instead of a cake--tickles me.

You ate the whole thing in three days.

 

 

A little more summer-styled and not-from-scratch--Elaine you wanted strawberry shortcake.  Only you wanted the Sara Lee Poundcake that I just pull from the freezer at the store.  Well done!

 

Mugs of Cool Aid for Birthday toasting and our celebration was complete.

Good Morning!

Hi ladies.

It's 9 am.  Glad you decided to get out of bed this morning.

Are you ready to go to school next week? (as in this week by the time this posts)

 

Elaine?  Where'd you go? 

Ben's Arm

 

And so the boy received another set of X-Rays just before going fishing, and received the full arm cast.

 

Not on the same day, yet in the same shirt...he continued to heal and earned back elbow movement.

 

 

So exciting to have this creepy keepsake hanging around the house.

 

We'll go back next week and hope his arm is freed.

Aggravating Things: School Supplies

 

We received the girls school assignments and supply lists 6 days before school began, so I hoped over to Amazon after digging the boys' school list off the school website. After the order, I realized that Alida's teacher had used a curly-que font, triple-spaced everything, and ran over onto the second page, which I didn't see nor order.

 

 

Four days to school start:

Meet the teachers.

Receive an entirely new set of school supply lists for the boys.

Remake the master list.

 

 

Take stock of what we received from Amazon and what will never make it before school.

Figure out where the old lists and the new lists overlapped.

Make a new list.

 

 

Then follow all the different teachers preferences for labeling and sending the school supplies.

 

But not before going through the backpacks and finding some rather random things shoved in there from the summer.

 

Seriously: Tell me how much money to send, and I might even send extra money to pay for a needy kid.

Keep doing this list crap, and I will withhold every single extra piece of school supply that arrived to my house in a stingy little cabinet, send the minimum, and burn the teacher optional request list--Post-it notes, ha! Highlighters? Please.  I'm keeping them all!  And I hate those things.

 

Elaine's teacher: she gets extra.  She sent the list early; it was organized; and, I could actually figure out what she was asking for and how much of each.

 

Now, I must go fill out 40 pieces of school information sheets.

No, I'm not kidding.

Heading Home

Early flights happen early in the morning.

 

But give us time to rest on the plane.

 

Until next year.

Until then we have Fifth and Fourth grades to tackle starting next week already!

 

A Few More of Our Favorite Things

Reading vertically

Legos in the closet.

 

Searching for the change that grandpa "dropped" in the sandbox.

 

Cornhole

Pinball

Third birthday celebration

Tubing on the river

The Mississippi Headwaters

Sleeping in

Trooping down the Mississippi Headwaters to our necks

Fresh corn on the cob

Running in the grass.  We just don't have enough of that at home.

 

That creepy fox skin that grandpa keeps.

 

 

Swinging

 

And the claw and popcorn maker.