The Day Before!!!

For Labor Day we wanted to do something fun with the kids for two reasons....Daddy was home and it was the last day before Ella started school. The weather ended up being really nice so we took the kids to Steel Lake Park. It was crazy busy, but there are so many different play structures it doesn't matter at all. The only unfortunate part of the trip was poor Zeke man was in a mood. He was not happy at all. He was crying about everything...even swinging!!! If you know him you know he could be pushed on the swings for hours!!! It got to be so bad Michael just took him to the van. I stayed with the bigger kids and we had a blast! 

Can you find Owen? 

Jackson is always asking me to, "come over here and take my picture!" 

"Take a picture of me climbing up this mama!" 

Fireman pole! 

I even went down the fireman pole with the kids. They can't be the only ones having fun after all! 

In fact...I had so much fun chasing this guy around the play area. He kept trying to get away and he'd think he did and then I'd find him. Of course the fact that his shirt is practically glow in the dark really didn't help his cause much! I could see that kid from everywhere! 

This picture was before Michael took Zeke to the van. He helped Jack get on the monkey bars and then he did them all by himself...these ones were tricky too! 

The play area is a castle theme and this slide is supposed to be the dragons mouth so I told Ella and Jack to climb in there and act scared! 

I was thinking it would be fun to take the kids out to frozen yogurt since that's what we did the day before Jack started Kindergarten.  Then I got to thinking how it was probably going to cost us around $20 for all of us and that seemed silly when I could buy ice cream with all the fixing and we could have it at home and there'd be leftovers! So on our way home we stopped at The Dollar Tree to get some Nerds and Whoppers to add to our ice cream and then we stopped at Fred Meyer's to get two different kinds of ice cream. That only ended up costing us $12! Much better! 

We also had earned a free pizza from Papa John's so we had pizza for dinner and ice cream for dessert all while introducing the kids to Back To The Future! Love that movie!!!

The kids also got to choose from stuff we already had at home such as...chocolate sauce or caramel sauce, chocolate chips, mini marshmallows and sprinkles! 

Owen of course kept hounding me for seconds of his ice cream! 

It was a nice fun day spent as a family before this big girl started school! 

What Do You Do When Your Neighbor Gives You Two Giant Bags Of Plums???

So last week during the wind storm our neighbor brought over a big bag of plums. He said it was raining plums. My friend Kim and I already had plans to can our tomatoes a couple days later so after that I just borrowed her canning pot so I could make some plum jam. 

Lots and lots of cutting...my fingers hurt! 

I ended up being able to make 3 batches of jam....I could have made a fourth, but I ran out of jars even though I had just bought a brand new 12 pack the night before. 

Processing! You know what's music to a canner's ears....the pop of the lid sealing! 

Here are the jars of jam and you can see my diced tomatoes. There ended up being 13 1/2 jars of jam! 

Then I thought I should take some of this lovely jam over to my neighbor...so I did. And...I came home with another giant bag of plums. Not really my intention, but he insisted! 

So I searched Pinterest for other ideas using plums since I honestly don't think a person needs THAT much plum jam and I found a few I wanted to try out. 

The first was a plum crisp and my oh my this is so good!!! Of course the children thought it was gross....seriously the crust has brown sugar and 2 yes 2 sticks of butter in it. What's not to love!!! 

The next thing I tried was making a plum bbq sauce. This made almost 2 full jars and it smelled good. The fun part was I was able to use tomatoes and onions from my garden and the plums from the neighbor. I love it when I get to use all homegrown stuff! 

The next day I drove to Kim's house and gave her a jar of plum bbq sauce and I borrowed her dehydrator. 

I've never dehydrated anything before and this was the only thing I could think of to use up a lot of plums. I was able to fill all 5 racks of the dehydrator and I still had plums left! 

Well one things for sure....our digestive track is going to be right as rain! 

A Few Loose Ends!

I'm sure I've mentioned it before on the blog, but just in case...at the end of each school year I write a letter to the boys. It's just a synopsis of their year and also a little bit of looking forward to their next year. I also include $20 in the letter. This is going to be the kids graduation presents. In all they will end up with $260 and some cool letters from their mom....yeah I know the money is going to mean way more to them at that time, but I hope that one day they will cherish them! 

This year I was a bit behind though I didn't actually get them finished until the first day of school. At least they did get finished though. Next year I'll have to write 3 letters! 

As for what I mentioned in the last post about Ella's clothes....I came up with a plan! If you are a person that was a teenager in the 90's you will totally get this...if not just try to picture it. Remember Cher from Clueless and her AWESOME closet and her super cool computer that would put outfits together for her at the touch of a button. Well...I tried to recreate that for Ella, but in a less techie way.

Ella was given this cute picture book from a friend of my Mom's...thanks Barb. She's had it for awhile and I just wasn't quite sure what to put in it until this idea popped in my head. On two different occasions I laid Ella's clothes out on her hope chest and took pictures of different outfit combinations. The first reason I did this was mainly to see how many clothes she actually had that didn't have stains on them....girl is messy as can be I tell ya! Second I wanted to actually piece together some things she might not normally wear so she could see how cute they were and third...I know my child and mornings at our house are going to be a total bear if she doesn't have her outfits picked out the night before. This way she gets to "shop" for her clothes and it gets to be her choice. At the same time there are limits set in place so she won't try to get away with wearing clothes that I don't think are appropriate for school...like her leotard...or as she lovingly refers to it...her tard! 

So far this has worked like a charm...granted we've only used it for two days, but seriously the fact that she actually wore jeans and a shirt she normally wouldn't was amazing. She did end up taking her shirt off while we were at school because she was hot, but she had her cute pink tank top on underneath so that was okay. When we did get home she changed into shorts, but again I don't care what she changes into after school I just want her to not have a total freak out cow in the mornings. The best part about her clothing catalog...it was absolutely free! I took the pictures with my phone, uploaded them to my blog and then printed them out at the library. I can't tell you how much I love our library!  

First Day Of School For Owen & Jackson - 2015!!

Ready for picture OVERLOAD!!! Okay...here we go! 

Holy cow it's the first day of school already....or maybe I should say, "Thank God it's the first day of school". Normally I am not ready for the kids to go back one bit, but this year I am! I love my kiddos, but they were driving each other crazy. I think they were just plain sick of each other. It will be so nice for them to be apart a bit and get to play with other children. Let's hope that absences makes the heart grow fonder!!! 

This year I made new letters for our 1st Day of School sign...the old one had seen better days! The above picture is actually a retake since the first one with his coat off turned out blurry. He was pretty insistent on not taking his coat off for the second round and the fact that he still lets me take his pictures is a win so...coat it is! 

Of course the goofy face pictures are always a favorite! 

Look at this handsome dude! Seriously such a heartbreaker! 

Jackson by far is the master of the goofy face pictures...he cracks me up! Those eyes!!! 

Jackson - 7 years old - 2nd grade  ~  Owen - 8 1/2 years old - 3rd grade

Weirdos! 

Why can't they act this loving everyday?!?!?  The Sunday before school started Ga-Ga and I went back to school shopping. I had pretty much already gotten everything we NEEDED with a few exceptions. Owen needed a new raincoat and muddy boots, but everything else was covered. Ga-Ga really wanted them to have nice first day of school shirts so off we went. We ended up find really great deals and it was fun to spend the day shopping with my mom! 

There are no words! 

And now for the yearly T-shirt pictures. I really truly hope they will still humor their mother and put these on when they are in high school! I love these pictures! 

Jack's pictures turned out so great. How you ask? See Jack tends to have a fake smile so I thought...I want a true genuine smile...hmmm...what can I do? The thing that popped into my head...."Jack imagine that Owen has monkeys flying out his butt"...yep that did it! His laugh was so great! 

The winning smile!!! 

So big!!! 

Of course the boys ran with the whole "flying out of their butts" phrase so I think at the end it was rhinos and not monkeys! 

Growing up! 

Cute brothers! 

Time for the younger two to join in on the fun! Ella's first day of school isn't until the Tuesday after Labor Day. Then she'll get to have all the fun of having her pictures taken with the sign and her T-Shirt! 

Cute big boy in his new first day of school shirt! 

The only thing that's new on Ella is her pink tank top...it's just like the black one she loves, but she had never actually worn that flower shirt before and she normally hates jeans. There will be another post on how I accomplished this feat!

I thought it would be fun to get a picture of all of them with the sign....I think Zeke is just a little too short for everyone else! 

On the first day of school I always drive the kids...this year we got there almost 20 minutes early so I could find a spot in the school parking lot. Last year I didn't even try and we just parked in the neighborhood north of the school and walked. 

Owen's classroom was actually the first class we passed, but it was also right where two sidewalks connect and where the buses let out so I thought it would be better for us to wait at Jack's class which is on the other end of the school. 

8:10 the bell rang and Ms. Davidson was ready for school. Isn't she the cutest thing!!! 

 After watching Jack head into his class we walked down to Owen's classroom. By this time all the kids had already gone in so it was way less crazy! 

After that Ella, Zeke and I ran all over the place....Fred Meyer's for gas, my friend Kim's house to drop off her canning pot, back to our house to grab snacks, Joann's to buy fabric, the library to print stuff for MOPS, home for lunch, my friend Rachael's to workout and finally we walked to the bus stop to wait for the boys! 

Here they come!

The first day of school was a major success! Jack is happy that his friend Triona is still going to run with him at recess even though she's not in his class this year and Owen was super excited that he didn't have homework, but that I did! Boy was he right...I ended up having to fill out all sorts of forms and have the kids sign papers with the schools policies and so on. It ended up taking me well over an hour to go through them all! I'm sure glad I'm not in school anymore!!! 

Back To School Bash!!!

The day before school starts the kids have an Open House where they get to go and meet their teachers, see their classroom and drop off their school supplies. Ga-Ga and GG...(she's been up from Denver since we got back from Wyoming)...came up after lunch so I could take the 3 older kiddos. I was going to take them all at once, but then it occurred to me that it might be better to take them separately so I could focus on that one child and then I wouldn't have to listen to how bored the other two kids were! I decided to just go in birth order so Owen and I headed out first. 

Owen is in Ms. Howdeshell's 3rd grade class this year. I was hoping that he would get Mr. Heintz...Jack's 1st grade teacher...since he moved up to being a 3rd grade teacher this year, but after meeting her I think she is going to be awesome for Owen. She is a louder teacher and she is quite frank and has lots of rules and expects the kids to become WAY more independent. Let me tell you the gloves come off in 3rd grade. Owen is going to have to take a lot more ownership of his work this year. It's going to be a change and change is always a little painful, but it's going to be great at the same time. 

Ms. Howdeshell's classroom is decorated with Minions and it's got a grown up feel to it. Right off the bat she told Owen to find a desk and put his backpack on it. That taking ownership stuff was already happening! 

Once Owen and I got home I decided to come back with both Jack and Ella. For one thing our schools parking just plain sucks! I honestly thought I was going to have to park in the neighbor north of the school when Owen and I came...luckily I noticed a lady getting in her SUV and got a really good spot. Also I didn't want to have to walk in the rain anymore than necessary! When I came with Jack and Ella I got lucky again and got pretty much the front row spot. Yahoo! 

A couple weeks ago Ella attended Kindergarten Camp and at that point we didn't know who her teacher was going to be. She had already gotten to know 2 of the kindergarten teachers...they had to hire another one since the third teacher found another job, but at kindergarten camp they hadn't hired anyone yet. Ms. Asselin is going to be great with Ella. The theme in their room this year is A Growing Garden of Learners...they have all sorts of stuff that's related to growing and blooming this upcoming school year. You know me...I love a theme! 

Jackson's teacher this year is Ms. Davidson which is SO awesome since she was Owen's 2nd grade teacher as well. I've always thought it would be fun to have the same teacher for another child! I only was able to volunteer in Ms. Davidson's class once last year so I'm happy I get another opportunity to help her out again this year. This year will be her first full school year since she wasn't hired on until the end of 2014. It was nice to see her classroom all set up and ready just the way she wanted it. Also she's going to use this program called Class Dojo. Mr. Heintz used this last year with the 1st graders and I'm so happy it's such a great way to see how your kiddo is doing and it's so easy to contact their teacher! 

Checking out his new desk! 

Per our tradition since the kids started going to public school we always have a Back to School Bash the night before the first day. Ga-Ga & Pa come up and we go to Red Robin for dinner. Since we don't go out to dinner very often this is a fun treat. Of course this year GG got to join us too! 

The Red Robin near our house had just undergone a renovation and it looked really nice. 

The only thing was the windows behind us were leaking from the rain. 

Michael had to actually request a towel since it was splashing up on his arm and the back of Jack's head. Our server was right on top of it and the problem was solved. 

And of course balloons for everyone!