August 2012

Okay, it’s summer vacation!  Let’s get this catchup started!

Last August, just minutes before the new school year started (so it seemed to me!), we moved into our new house!

Strangely, I can’t seem to find any pictures of the front of it.  I should probably take care of that at some point!

If you asked the kids what their favorite thing was about the new house, they unanimously answered, “The stairs!!”

 

The view from the back deck

 

Don’t worry!  Jim is right behind them, and he put the screens in the windows right after I snapped this picture!

 

In case you’re curious, four first graders need so many school supplies that they don’t all fit in the giant tub!  Thank goodness the elementary school has a pre-first day Open house so parents can cart all the loot to school!

 

Of course, MY school days started a week before the kids’ did.  This year, the super-fun and awesome Miss Mandy kept the kids while I went to work. 

 

We love Miss Mandy!

 

First day of First Grade!

 

Dropping the kids off for their first day of first grade was a COMPLETELY different experience from their first day of kindergarten!  (First day of kindergarten)  I drove to the school, got in the drop-off line, AND THEY JUST GOT OUT OF THE CAR AND WALKED AWAY!!!!!

 

Love you, Mom!  And off they went! 

 

It must be so much easier for them because they have siblings, plus they were two-and-two this year, so no one was going alone to a classroom.  They were SO BIG!  No tears at all! 

 

At least not from them…I might have gotten a little misty-eyed…but only for a couple minutes!

 

Also in August:

Reagan lost some teeth.

 

We had a visit from Mr. Scott, Mrs. Laura, and Baby Grant!  What a cutie!

6

We took this picture.  I don’t know why.

 

And we discovered what happens when you throw laundry in the air near an intake vent.

 

All in all, a pretty full month!

 

Next time? September!

Scenes from the Apartment

As you probably know, we sold our house this past summer.

Well, technically, we sold it in April and moved out at the end of May.  The problem?  We had no home to move into!  So it was apartment living for us!

We lived in our apartment for about two months, but it felt like an eternity someplace really awful!

Okay, I might be exaggerating, but it WAS really, really difficult.  If any of you reading this have kids and live in an apartment, my heart goes out to you! 

There’s just no place for anyone to go to get away from each other!  The worst part was that there was no place for the kids to go unless I went with them.  We desperately missed our back yard!  The kids just wanted to run around and play and be kids, but they couldn’t go outside, and they couldn’t be too loud inside because we didn’t want to disturb the neighbors that were all around us!

We were pretty much cranky all the time!

Anyway, here are a few shots from our time at the apartment:

Jonathan and Zachary and the Legos in their bedroom

The pool-apartment living did have ONE bright side!

Our back door :)

A visit from Ms. Kee!  Another bright moment!  And she brought books!  No matter what books we have, hers are always better!

Reagan, in Mom and Dad’s room

Independence in Memphis

Well, I wrote this post on Christmas break, but couldn’t get it to post to the blog.  Let’s try again!

We’ve just returned from our Christmas trip to Memphis, so might as well post about our summer trip to Memphis, right?

We were there for Kallen’s birthday and the 4th of July and had such a great time!

The birthday/4th of July party was quite an extravaganza!  They even had a snowcone machine!

As usual, the evening’s fireworks display was a source of displeasure for most of my children.  I wonder how old they’ll be before they finally get over their fear of fireworks?  Jonathan loved it, but the others did not. They started out in my lap, then we moved farther back in the driveway, and eventually they went inside and watched from the window!

Cousin John even came out and did a magic show for the kids!  He was a little out of practice, but it was almost as good as I remember from my own childhood!

Slip ‘n Slide Time!!!

Summer visits to Memphis are always so much fun!  Hot, but fun!  Thanks Bud and KayKay!  We love you!

Party Time!

January 2013.  Happy New Year everyone!  In honor of the holiday season, I thought I’d post ABOUT THE KIDS’ BIRTHDAY PARTY LAST SUMMER!  Good grief!  Oh, well.  mayb it will help keep us warm on this cold winter’s day to remember how hot it was last June!
We had our first pay-someone-else-to-handle-everything party this time, since we were living in an apartment and there was no way we were having the party there!  We decided to have the party at the zoo, and we HIGHLY recommend it!
It was really hot that day, but the party cabin was air-conditioned!  The zoo helpers talked to the kids about animals and passed around animal skins and things.  The kids LOVED it!  You can pay extra to have real animals at the party, but we didn’t.  Nobody minded!  They were too bust petting zebra fur and elephant tail hairs and playing animal charades!

Then we opened presents and ate cake and ice cream!

And I didn’t have to clean any of it up! 

Despite the look on Carter’s face, everyone had a great time!  Even our special guests, Jonathan and Heather and little Samantha, the lucky people who bought our old house!  (Sorry, I didn’t get a good picture of them)  Plus the party came with admission to the zoo for everyone that attended, including the adults! It was great!

The brand new water park was especially great!

Happy 6th birthday JonZReaTom!