Slowly it creeps in...

It used to be that there were no school activities on a Wednesday. Slowly, schools added sports practices to Wednesdays. It should be ok as long as it doesn't interfere with the actual time of church activities, right? What could the church going parents say? Of course at that time also, teachers would not stack a lot of homework on a Wednesday night either.

Fast forward down the road many years. Now I have students who have sports practices on Wednesday, of course. And they are loaded down with home work that evening as well. Add a catechism class to that load and they are wiped out.

But, it gets worse. Now, they are scheduling parent teacher conferences on Wednesdays. In the school where my husband teaches, they have always had after school meetings on Wednesdays (which annoys me anyway). They had a meeting this past Wednesday to discuss how they could make up the regularly scheduled meeting which would be missed due to scheduling the parent teacher conference on one of those Wednesdays. Seriously.

There are about three teachers who have church activities on Wednesday (my husband is one of them). They were essentially "bullied" into having a double meeting on a Wednesday to make up for that conference (which my husband was unaware of in the first place - somehow that conference ended up on the schedule). He found out today that this Wednesday conference is kind of a test. If it goes well, they'll do another Wednesday conference in the spring. That just makes me angry. See how it creeps in.

First Day of School

We school year round, so I decided to just choose a date for our first day of school. I chose the day after Labor Day. That's when school started when I was growing up and it just seems like a logical time to start over. I had intended on getting some pictures of starting our first day, but our first day ended up in the car repair shop!

Thankfully, I was able to start my van (barely!) one last time and get it to the shop. I figured it was the battery (since it is the original battery in a 2005 van). There was a day, when I could change a battery myself. Unfortunately, the way they design these vans, the battery is buried under a bunch of stuff that require shop tools to remove.

We packed our school books and sat in the shop while they replaced my battery. Butterfly got all her work done there. I'll have to stage some photos later. I guess it would have been funny to take pictures going into the car repair place...

Some days...

I wish other people could see my girls the way that I see them. But, I guess that's why I'm their mom. I love and appreciate them the way their are. They aren't perfect, but they're a gift that I treasure.

Along those same lines, some days I wish we could just be secluded in our own little world where we could get things done at our own pace without the thoughts, opinions, judgments, and interruptions of everyone and everything else.

Clarinet Lessons

Ladybug had her first clarinet lesson this afternoon. It was awesome. My friend, Jay, is teaching her and he loves beginners and loves the clarinet. He teaches with such enthusiasm and I'm hoping her will draw her out of her shyness.

I think she's off to a great start. I'll be looking forward to the next lesson. :) I enjoy being a fly on the wall and hearing what Jay has to say to a beginner.

I'm wondering...

I have a couple days which are sooo busy. Do I chuck it all on those days and getting nothing else done beyond what is scheduled? Or do I buckle down and shut off the phone, computer and everything else in order to hope to get a few more things accomplished? Either option is frustrating.....

Wordless Wednesday

Yes, I am a wimp!

I have decided that we are done with swimming at the pool for this summer. We went yesterday and it was sooo cold! It is only open one more Sunday, so we aren't missing much.

I have decided that I really like heated pools! We found out this year that they heat the pool through June. Next year, I think that we will try to swim as much as possible while it is heated! I REALLY love my friend's swimming pool. She found a spa setting on her heater and the one evening we were swimming, the water was 90 degrees! It felt so good!

A Moment to Treasure

Brian and I watched a movie tonight. The girls were supposed to be in bed. Instead, I found Ladybug reading the book she wrote, to her sisters. I could hear Butterfly asking her questions about her story and she would patiently explain things. They all giggled together at the funny parts of Ladybug's book. So, I left the light off to my room and sat and listened and treasured the moment. It's so neat to be able to eavesdrop on this kind of interaction.

Vocabulary words

According to the 7 year old:

The power that keeps our lights on: lightricity.

Our lightricity went out this morning. It was so convenient that it came back on just about noon. Now I don't have to do a lot of work to reset my alarm clock. :)

I thought about doing a wordless Wednesday yesterday and it was more wordless than planned! Next time I'll try to get a picture in there...

A little drama with your spelling?

I was doing the spelling list with Ladybug, when in the middle of the list she exclaims, "Wait... time out, hold on a minute!" holds up her mechanical pencil (with feeling), gives it a click (also with feeling) and then finishes writing the word.

We had to wait to write the next word because we were giggling too hard.

A visit from a friend

Sunday, a dear friend stopped by and introduced us to their 5 month old daughter. She is absolutely precious.

I had the joy of passing on some of my girls' baby clothes and toys to her. It was such a blessing to pass them on to a friend. I get sentimentally attached to these things which are tied to my girls' infancy. I treasured the time they were babies and it went by so fast. My heart ached sorting through all those cute clothes which were mostly gifts from my dear family and friends. So, to be able to give them to a friend whose sweet little daughter will wear them is such a joy.

I forgot to ask my friend if I could post pictures of her daughter. She's a cutie!

Time for clean-up

I'm not talking for the kids! Yesterday was a major clean out day for us. The pull the junk out of the closet that I stuffed in there when company was coming (um - several times...) kind of clean out. The two boxes of paper recycling kind of clean out. The got behind during the school year and whoops, just lost the summer too, kind of clean out.

Well, you get the picture. I didn't get done by any means. But, it's a few more steps in the right directions. It will make me much happier when we are stuck inside all winter.

Brian even mopped my kitchen floor with the lavender cleaner and it smells so good!

Toothless

I don't know about you - but I love these toothless smiles!

This photo was taken by my friend's daughter, Courtney. This was a preview picture that I downloaded - so the quality isn't as good. I'll be getting the disk soon. I can't wait! Courtney did an absolutely wonderful job!

Where did the summer go?

My last post of June 12. Oops. I've gotten so behind on blogging. I think I have 2 of you left reading this! So, for the 2 of you, I'll update life and then I'll see if I can get going this fall on putting thoughts on the blog.

The end of May was Ladybug's choir tour. We went to Branson and had a great time. In June, all 3 girls had swimming lessons the first two weeks. They also took tennis.

I took two internet classes in June in hopes of keeping up on credit hours for my license renewal. I took a podcasting course and a powerpoint games course. They were both very good, but sucked the life out of my June!

July brought camp. The girls kept busy with art classes. Brian was so good at keeping up with all the household tasks while I was busy.

Now I find myself halfway through August. Brian has returned to school and we are busy in our schedules. I'm setting up lessons and preparing for those while keeping up with the girls' studies and the usual work around the house. Time to buckle up again and hang on for the ride!

Fun With Cousins

On our way home from Branson, we stopped at my sister's house. The kids enjoyed some fun with sprinklers and water guns. My niece and nephew prepared a birthday party for the girls, complete with signs and a place to sit to open presents. It was so sweet!