Good Stuff: school days

Isn't this a pretty little flower? If you just get really, really close to just one of the flowers on one of the many, many weeds in my yard, it all doesn't look so bad. (See how the acres of dried up weeds and garbage just get blurry in the background?) Having a nice-ish outdoor space is going to be higher on the priority list next summer. Hopefully.

This back to school stuff means we seem to have a limited number of hours to fit in things other than work and school.

Though I've been going back and forth about that current state of things, for the most part, I think that's not really such a bad thing. It's much simpler to have only a few big things to do each day. Weekends are as busy as ever, but for the most part it's all good sorts of busy.

: : Clean up

New flowers for the deck & paint for the door & trim

Dev and I spent a full day cleaning up outside (no more dog & garbage piles in the carport! newly painted door & trim!) and I spent another one cleaning up inside before they came and re-appraised our house last week.  I know the sorts of things we can do in a couple days are pretty inconsequential, but it was still a nice reason to get a lot done. We need all sorts of things from new weather stripping (which one of the dogs ate) to new blinds (which small children totally trashed) to the entire house repainted (inside & out) but at least everything was picked up and put away for a few days. 

I'd actually like to be better at putting the order and cleanliness of our house lower on the priority list. And actually it isn't at the top of the list. Kids and their activities and my work get more attention  (and I'm still trying to figure out how to get my own activities up there a little higher) but I can't help but be bothered whenever areas of the home start succumbing to the eventually disarray. It makes me grumpy and I have a hard to focusing on other things unless everything is clean and in order. So, I'm always spending hours I don't have keeping it all in order.

My kids are old enough they should be helping more and destroying less. Figuring out how to help them do this is another goal for this year. 

: : Lazy Fridays

Lex finished his first week at Headstart, so he's got a busy school day schedule now too. But, he still has Fridays for sleeping in and and wearing pajamas till 10:00 and torturing the cat a bit. (Though his cat was purring like crazy when I took this photo so I think he likes the attention.)

I started back to school this week too. I also have Fridays off which may be one of my favorite parts of this new schedule, even though the week isn't over so I haven't yet had a Friday off. But I'm imagining they will be wonderful. I've been against working on Fridays for a great many years now. Unfortunately, none of the work I've had to do was compatible with this belief.



: : Football Fridays

It was a rough football game Friday.

We had so many injuries (two transported by ambulance) that we were a little light on starters by the end of the game. It also meant that all the EMT duties meant I completely missed Azia & Zoran's halftime flag football games.

Hopefully they'll all be healed and ready to go for next week.

Cousins checking out the football action: Madison& Keiran

Even when they games don't go as you'd hope, it's a great chance to catch up with friends (or cousins).

Or to show off your new boots.

Lex got new boots for school. He kept having to stop and pull up his pant legs so as to show off the entire boots, not just the toes.

: : Soccer Saturdays

 Soccer keeps us busy Saturday mornings.

I had to get up early and go get all the fields set up, so I watched some of the other games before Azia and Zoran played. They both had later morning games this week. 

Go Azia go!

Azia & her team. They're in the 4-6th age group but all but a couple of them are 4th graders! They look pretty small out there some games.

Zoran's team (which is also Bryce and Lettie and Gwen's team) continues to be pretty dominant in that they are only in kindergarten and first grade but most all of them totally get that the goal of the game is to get that ball into the little goal and they almost always go the right direction. If you have watched any kindergarten soccer you'll understand this is no small thing.

This dominance thing, of course, makes Zoran pretty happy.



They even played a pretty good little team this week, but it wasn't a very close match up by the end.


I love watching these two play together.

I think Zoran made at least four goals in the game.

Going in for another

Little K-1 soccer superstars.

: : More ambulance calls, but many less than last month

I think the busy stretch we had is slowing down a bit. 

At least it seems that way, though there are still a few nights like this every so often.

I think modern car design is pretty amazing. Who would think you could roll your car down the highway multiple times at highway speed, smash it up like this, and then just take off your seatbelt and get out (basically completely uninjured) to survey the damage.

: : Apples . . .

The kids eat multiple apples for snacks every day. This isn't really any different than any other day all summer except we don't have to buy them!! Fall has decreased my weekly apple bill by at least $10.
We made a pie last week and apple bread a couple days ago. I think we're going to have an afternoon of picking and juice making this weekend.



: : and we're still pretty super around here

Lex is still obsessed. He always has some version of some superhero action figure with him and he is usually wearing a superman shirt or a cape. Or both.

I don't even know where either of these toys came from. I didn't buy them, but as is usually the case, he has got more hours of play out of them than pretty much anything else I have bought him. It is even cooler now that he has two--twin supermen.

His dad brought him to school the other day wearing his superman shirt again. I told him after I picked Lex up that he'd wore that same shirt the day before. Actually he'd worn it three of the four days he'd had school.

Dev thought his teachers were probably thinking we couldn't afford more than one shirt for our kid. Since his enrollment Headstart is largely based on our low income status this wouldn't be a bizarre assumption.

I thought we should probably get him another shirt. Both Dev and Lex agreed, but Dev was right in figuring shirt number two would just be yet another superman shirt. So getting another shirt really won't solve the one outfit dilemma.

At least he has a wide variety of capes.