State of the Family #40

Whew!  Things have been busy around here.  I can't believe school starts in 2 days!  Be prepared for this mama to be an absolute mess!  Where did the summer go?  Where did my baby boy go?  On a positive note, after Miss Firecracker starts school in 1 week I might have more time to blog with only one at home in the mornings!  I also have to apologize that none of the pictures actually go with anything I blogged on.  Evidently I was a terrible picture-taker these last couple of weeks (which is not like me at all!)

Our Veggies for dinner one night... ALL out of our garden!

So, in the past few weeks Mommy has probably been the busiest.  Yeah!  I do have a life outside of my home!  I was beginning to wonder after this summer with trying to get in as much time with my munchkins as possible before they grow up and go to school.  The last two weekends I have had a lot of mommy time. 

The last weekend in July I got to go to an acting workshop held at our church.  It was a lot of fun to learn some breathing techniques (that I knew about from singing, but had not ever really learned some of the exercises to get better at them and to use them for speaking as well) and character development things.  The 2nd day was a lot of fun doing short scenes from plays we didn't know in a "Reader's Theater" format.  Then we all gave praises and points of improvement comments to each of the groups.  I got to 'fight it out' once again with my 'hubby' from the Christmas musical last year. 

All the girls have matching toes (please don't mine mommy's 'not so cute feet'! 
Actually a first for Miss T.S. since she was really little.

The next weekend was my biannual scrap booking time.  Yeah!  As usual, I didn't get as much done as I would have hoped, but it was great fun, nonetheless.  I get to see people that I usually only see at these events, so it is lots of catch up and chat time.  I also teach a few of the classes at the event, so that adds to my 'excuse' list. 

I also participated in my first (as well as Lincoln's first) Quarter Auction.  I was there as a vendor with my Pampered Chef business.  It was such a good time.  "What is a quarter auction?" you ask.  Each vendor at the event had 3 items they placed up for 'auction' and every guest at the auction sat at a table with a vendor and had a bidders number.  One at a time, a vendor would go up and auction off their item.  If the item was worth $20-$40 it would cost you 3 quarters to 'bid' on it (other items worth more or less would cost a differnt amount of quarters to bid on).  If you wanted to bid on that item, you would put your 3 quarters into the bucket at your table.  You would raise your bidding number and they would draw out a number until someone with the drawn number had bid on that specific item.  The winning bidder would have to whoop and holler so that they knew to stop drawing numbers.  It really was a blast!  I won a Miche purse with 2 shells (worth $80 something) for $2 (It was a 4 quarter bid and I bid 2 numbers on it).  Let me know if you want to come to the next one in October!!

Trying to walk around in the highest pair of
heels mommy owns!  She thinks she is pretty hot stuff.

As for the rest of the family...

I took the kids to Paint Yourself Silly in Lincoln for the first time.  They had so much fun and totally loved going to pick up their finished item the other day.  For those of you who have never heard of this place, it is a store where you get to go paint your own pottery.  The older two did coffee mugs, which will be great Christmas gifts for some coffee-drinking Grandpas (shhhh!), and Miss Thumb Sucker, who enjoyed the painting part for about 5 minutes before she was ready to ransack the place (I will probably wait until she is a bit older to take her again), painted a little square dish that will be a great ring holder or something similar for a Grandma (again, shhh!). 

Noisy Man and Miss Firecracker finished their last swimming lessons.  I am so amazed at how far they came.  Like I said in the first post after their first lessons, it is not for the faint of heart.  But that only lasts the first couple of lessons because they learn what they need to pretty quickly.  I highly recommend these lessons if you have a child that seems to show 'no fear' of the water and you want to teach them how to be safe.  By their last lessons Noisy Man was able to jump off the diving board and swim back to the side completely by himself and Miss Firecracker can float on her back for an entire minute and swim on her tummy over 10 feet.  I am thinking of signing Miss Thumb Sucker up for these lessons this fall. 

Miss T. S. has been waking up around 6:30 every morning, so around 11:30, while I
 am making lunch, she usually crashes on the couch or the floor.  Neither of my other two
would ever fall asleep anywhere but their beds, so this cracks me up.

We also had the open house for our school and ice cream sundae bar for a fundraiser for the PTO this last week.  It was fun to see Noisy Man and Miss Firecracker's classrooms.  Daddy tells me that they got to Miss Firecracker's preschool room door and she walked in, turned around and said, "See ya, daddy."  Yikes!  I don't know what will be harder... peeling one off of your leg and leaving them crying (like I had to do for Noisy Man his first weeks of preschool) or just having them brush you off so quickly!  I am so glad Kindergarten and preschool start on different days or I'm not sure I would be able to function the rest of the day.  Have I mentioned I am not ready to send my baby to Kindergarten?   Daddy had to tell me what she said because I was busy with the ice cream, which turned out to be a huge success.  We ran out of ice cream!

Well, that is about it for now.  I am hoping to post on Tuesday about Kindergarten so I have a record of it on here.  It would be a fun one to go back and read the day he graduates High School.  Did I just say that?  Oh, I can't even imagine.... One year at a time, please.