Aaaaah...the smell of new notebooks

There's something about going into Walmart or Target these days that excites me...yep, school supplies! I not only love seeing them dirt-cheap, but those big bins of glue, scissors, pencils, erasers and aisles of pocket folders and notebooks just make me smile. This year, with two school-aged kids, it was even more FUN!

We had a scavenger hunt-like experience looking for the items that we needed. Now that I'm a bit more experienced, I've learned that you stock up at this time of year. Undoubtedly classes run out of just about everything on those lists in about December, (when your budget is stretched with Christmas), and request an item or two it seems each month following. Now, I've bought them cheaply and I'll be able to find glue sticks when I need them. (Glue sticks and my stapler have legs and walk off in our house.)

So, when we finished with the trip we headed out of Walmart and Seth said, "Mom, we got everything on our lists!!" (Yes, and a lot more.) Then he told me, "They should call this place SUPER Walmart, 'cause it's Super!" That's my SuperTarget shopper talking!

I've just downloaded the pictures from the past few weeks

Rachel pulled a funny one tonight. During dinner I bribed the kids with Oreos to finish their last bites of Taco Soup without too much hassle (we always tell them that the "black beans will make them run faster" and that "Aunt Nettie and Uncle Jeff eat this soup"...but nothing gets it down like cookies).

How to get the look: put Oreos on your eyes and when you take them off: presto, chango! you've got Oreo freckles!


Eliza at the piano. She started lessons last week and loves to practice every day after breakfast. Notice all of her bandaids? She is a mosquito MAGNET and bandaids are the only way to stop from scratching. We're going through a lot of them these days...


We're loving the fact that all 3 kids can play games together! On Sunday mornings you'll find them with UNO, Connect Four or Guess Who? totally independent from James and I. What a spot to be at (for now!).

Eliza taught herself how to ride a 2-wheeler! It's taken quite a lot of practice, but she's a pro now. A tip from a friend that helped us: take off the training wheels of a smaller bike and practice with that until you have it down! Then, you'll be closer to the ground and balancing is easier. Moving to the larger bike isn't so intimidating then.

Finally, our cat Faith. She's almost a year old and is still with us! Amazing. Every time I go to download pictures, there are maybe 10-15 pictures of Faith that some budding photographers in the family have taken. Here's one that's actually clear!

It's HOT! I'm sore! And I'm still a weeper...

It's nice that I've had so many indoor tasks because it is just plain HOT! Last week the heat and humidity took it's toll on me. Being outside for swimming lessons for Seth and Rachel and then an hour later swim team practice for Eliza were brutal. You'd think that 90 degrees would be perfectly fine, but that humidity factor makes it feel like a sauna...

Have you ever noticed how painting one room makes you want to keep painting all the other dirty walls in your house?? I finished the guest room on Friday last week and now it's my favorite place in the house. (Well, my sewing table's in there, so that helps me want to be in there too...) Now I keep having visions of how Eliza and Seth's rooms could look with new paint. I'm just not sure if I have it in me to do it though...I was SO SORE all day Saturday. Shows you how out of shape I am if painting is all it takes!

Also, to be more random, Eliza had both James and I in tears on Saturday. Due to her recent pneumonia, she has had some pretty frustrating swim meets. Instead of seeing the improvement that would motivate her to keep up with swimming, her times had been getting worse and worse. Swim meets ended up discouraging her more than anything. So, it's nearing the end of her swim season and Saturday was the second-to-last meet for her. She swam her freestyle event (forward crawl, 25M) and when she got out of the water, she was handed an orange ribbon! "What's this??" she asked me, bewildered. I fought back the tears and told her that she had WON in her heat. She had knocked 5 seconds off of her time!! Then later in the meet she won in her heat at Breastroke, and knocked 15 seconds off of her previous time. It was a HUGE day for her!!

I've got about a 6-week window

We're getting it all in while we (okay, really me) can!! I'm feeling so good at this stage of pregnancy and know from past experience that it's not going to last very long! So, I'm taking advantage of this small window between the end of nausea and the beginning of some UNCOMFORTABLE weeks at the end. These late summer months could get ugly...

What have I/we been up to? Here's my top ten list...in random order.

1. I painted my adirondack chair!!! Yes, despite the odds, the chair has been happily painted, lacquered and "drying" in the garage all week. (With the humidity, we couldn't just leave it outside.) Picture will follow as soon as it's outside.

2. We took the kids to the waterpark. They earned it in May and the weather has been so rainy here that we had not found a time to go! (Sadly, we think that's where James caught a nasty bug that he just can't get over.)

3. I've started a quilt. This is no small feat. I've been in a quilt rut since we've moved here and have only made one single quilt! Very sad. It doesn't help that my favorite quilt shop is back in Denver. Still haven't quite found a replacement...nothing like Harriet Hargrave's own shop.

4. We bought paint to paint our guest room. They're the worst walls in the house and we will get guests coming in the fall! Yay! That'll be my project this week.

5. I dejunked the toy/guest room. What a mess! I think we've finally got things under control.

6. I made cookies. Pathetic that it makes my top ten list, but I think I've only made cookies one other time since we've moved here...

7. I attempted to replace Rachel's missing Social Security card. It's a frustrating story, but she's had it lost since she was only a few months old. (I drove 25 miles to the office just to have some woman tell me that a stamped signature by a pediatrician wouldn't work...grrrrrr.) I figure I might as well get this taken care of before I have another child and another SS card to keep track of!

8. Read my book club book the FIRST week of the month. That's unheard of! I always procrastinate until those last few days before the group meets. Now I get to read Pride and Prejudice again until I have a new book club book...gotta be able to discuss it with Traci. ;)

9. I recovered the stool in Eliza's room that matches her vanity. (I admit that it did sit in our garage for a few years and I haven't repainted it, but it is being used as a "craft desk" now. If glue/paint/crayon/stickers/marker/glitter get on it I don't care!)

10. We had a great 5-day weekend with James off of work for the 4th of July. We went up to Pemberly and had sundaes and then went to the Great Meadow for the firework show. It was absolutely the most gorgeous backdrop to fireworks I've ever seen. A huge meadow with rolling hills and huge trees off in the distance where they hold Polo matches. There were model plane demonstrations (Seth and James drooled), jumping castles, parachuters (like 25 of them) landing in the field, steeplechasing and polo, of course. Very Virginian.

So, I'm working it all in now since I know this energy is NOT going to last! Consequently, I'm not blogging as much, but now you know why! I'm sure I'll have plenty of weeks to come when sitting at the computer will be the accomplishment of my day...

Aaaah...I can rest easy

Don't you just love the feeling of having some dreaded task completed? I was asked (just a week ago) to teach the Young Women's combined Fast Sunday lesson. So, it hung over my head all last week, as usual. I still get so dang nervous getting up in front of a large group! The lesson went fine, but the relief afterwards is what makes it worth it! I treated myself to reading all evening and finished a GREAT book, Crow Lake. It is such a well-written novel...loved all the flashbacks and the style it's written in. It's a bit depressing at times (four children's parents die and they are left to look after each other) but it's one that makes you stop and think of how your perceptions of people affect your relationships...I loved it!