Back to school

My baby is a 2nd grader! I know, I know, Gary is groaning as he reads this. I am not to call him "baby" anymore. And I don't- in front of others and when it might embarrass him. But he will always be my baby, no matter how big he gets. Here he is with Mr. Mitchell, his 2nd grade teacher. He was SO excited to have a guy teacher. After having a week os school under our belts, all is going well. He comes home happy every day. He has been riding his bike to school and home and "locking" it in the bike rack during the day. He is so proud of that! He did his first spelling homework packet tonight. And he told me this morning that the 2nd graders get to pour their own ketchup at lunchtime! Little things mean a lot!

It's bad enough that my baby is in 2nd grade, but my oldest is officially a Jr. Higher! Being the scrapbooking maniac that I am, 1st day of school pictures are a must. I have been officially banned from entering the school premises with my camera (by the older one), so I am limited to taking pictures out in front of the house. Thankfully I still get a decent smile. Soon enough he'll be too cool to smile, I'm sure. After a week under his belt, I think he's liking school pretty well. He says social studies is probably going to be his favorite class. He's had homework (not much) pretty much every night, and football started this week after school.

Just look at the glee on this face! He's ready to go!

And, of course, the silly picture. Any chance to wrestle, horse-play, mess around, and possibly cause bodily harm to one another, they must take. Boys-



I need to get to bed myself. I've not been sleeping well lately. I've been trying to train my body into going to bed a little earlier, but it just doesn't want to sleep- then anyway. But, oh, do I have to fight to stay up and get busy after the boys go to school. That's when I'd love to lay down for another hour or two!
The last few days have been spent...
cleaning various household items
baking and cooking (yes, real meals!!)
taking Brennan to the park
spending time with my sister, neighbor, and dear friend
uploading summer pictures from my camera onto websites so I can place a big order of pictures
exercising- I made the stupid mistake of pinkey swearing that I'd do a 5 K next summer- I must have been in a really weak moment- I DON'T RUN!!!! I HATE TO RUN!!!!!!!! But I ran 7 blocks tonight, and that is a big deal! I like to walk, but the running thing I will have to work into slowly, ever so slowly. I'd like to will myself to like it. Of course, I really would like to lose some weight, so the exercise is necessary. I am trying to do it right after the kids go to school. Developing the habit is always the hardest part.

I'm gearing up to (hopefully) paint the bathroom this weekend. Nothing major- just needing to tear off wallpaper that is peeling and put a fresh coat of paint on. I'm not sure if I'm sticking with the same color or not. We'll see what strikes me when I hit the paint store.

That's about enough rambling for now. Toodles!

some recent (and not so recent) layouts

I thought I'd post some layouts I've done from the last couple of months. This first one is from last year's Race for the Cure. We have a tradition of walking in this as a family. Gary's mom is a breast cancer survivor, and his parents join us as well. It will soon be upon us again so I figured I'd better get last year's on a layout. I love the butterflies on this layout. They pop up and are dimensional. I wish blogger would have a larger image than this, but this is the biggest. You can always click on the image to see it larger if you want to read the journaling.












This next one is about my childhood home- the one I lived in until I got married. It was sold last fall, so I'm still feeling pretty sentimental about it. I saw a layout done by Stacy Julian a few years ago similar to this documenting memories of a home. I knew I wanted to do the same thing. The layout had been done for awhile, but I needed time to think about the journaling. It was done late one night (after midnight- that's when I do my best thinking!) It was great just to sit and reminisce about my childhood and all of the wonderful memories in this home. I think it would be fun to give this same "assignment" to all of my siblings and see if we have anything in common on our lists!












I love everything about this layout- the picture, the paper, the simplicity. That's really the kind of scrapper I am- clean and simple. The paper is glitter cardstock by Doodlebug, which I am all over. They have matching glitter lchipboard letters, and I have about 4 different colors of those too! If it's blingy, I like it! This was Brennan after swimming lessons. He loves the pool!















This was a "memory" page. I try to incorporate memories and stories into my scrapbooks, as well as event pages, like Christmas, birthdays, etc. Even though my "baby" is 8, he still loves to be rocked. He would ask me this question each night. These are the things that I get afraid I will forget someday. I love it when I go through my scrapbooks and I am reminded of something cute one of the boys said or something funny that happened. This is the reason that I do what I do- not only do I not want to forget, I don't want my kids to forget either.




In other news, school started today. Bradley's response to the question, "How was school?" resulted in, "Boring, as always." Brennan's response was, "Awesome!" But what do you expect from a Jr. Higher and a 2nd grader?

Still here...

It's been a busy, busy week- I'm hoping this week will provide a little breathing room. The boys go back to school on Wednesday!!! I can definitely tell it's time. They begin fighting more than usual and my patience level is less than usual! I will take them out Tuesday for "fun day" as we've termed it around here. This will be year 3 of taking the day before school starts and doing something they want to do. I believe they have chosen golfing at Sleepy Hollow, like last year, and then perhaps catching a movie. I have lots of household stuff I'd like to get done, too, so we'll see if that happens or not.
More later- I need to head to bed- got one last busy day of tutoring before I get the rest of the week off.
Toodles!

When you think about your house, what comes to mind as one of the

smelliest...

stinkiest...

grossest...

dirtiest places that you don't even like to have to go near?

In my home, that would be my 12 year old son's dirty laundry basket. Ugh!

Apparently we all don't feel that same way-(or one of us doesn't have a sense of smell anymore) that's exactly where Oreo had a long afternoon (into evening) nap the other day all curled and nestled in with his nose knee-deep in adolescent sweat. (Note the look of disgust because we're disturbing his nap).

Got the crud

Why do I always get a nasty cold in the summer?
I'm feeling pretty yucky today, thanks to Bradley. He started this junk on about Tuesday. I think he went through 2 boxes of kleenex himself. I had to break into the school supply kleenex stash! He felt miserable most of the week, and just did a lot of laying around. I started getting an awful sore throat yesterday, so today I pretty much laid around all day- did a lot of napping. I'm trying to rest since I have another busy week and can't afford to be sick. I did manage to pull myself off the couch around 5 to scrapbook a bit. I'm trying to finish a couple of projects before next weekend.

Let's see-what's happened since I last posted...

Last weekend my sister and her 4 kids came to go to Adventureland with us. We go once a summer with Gary's work. The kids had a blast! They loved the new Kokomo Cove (water slides) they added this year. I got some great shots and will post soon. I haven't put them on the computer yet.

Bradley went to football camp for 3 nights. He won the punt competition on the last night, so that was pretty exciting for him!

I attended a two day class at Heartland. I have to take 5 credits to keep up my teaching license. I took a Microsoft Powerpoint and Word class. It was really good! I did my first powerpoint ever! It was a slide show for Gary for our anniversary. It came out pretty well, however our system at home and the system I worked on at Heartland were different, so some of my effects didn't show on our computer.

Speaking of our anniversary, we celebrated 15 years on Thursday! My sweet husband brought me 15 beautiful red roses! I made him a CD with 15 special songs on it (however I didn't copy them in the right format, so it only plays on the computer at the moment ARGGHH!!!- just when I think I might be learning a thing or two, I am proved wrong!). I am going to try to burn it again at some point. Anyway, I "hired" (ie paid) Bradley to watch Brennan and Gary and I went out to dinner at Applebees and then looked for a recliner, however didn't find what we wanted. Bradley was a great babysitter, and I think I only checked in 3 times!!!

We had friends over for supper on Friday evening and played some games.

I took Bradley shopping on Saturday morning for football cleats, school shoes, and backpack, all of which we found. He is pretty much ready. He really doesn't need any clothes, so other than a few supplies, like markers and more kleenex, he's set. Brennan and I will go at a later time. He didn't want to go on Saturday.

Brennan has been spending a lot of time in the neighbor's pool this past week. It has been pretty hot (today it's 95 and tomorrow will be even hotter) so he's been cooling off the best way possible!

Well I've rambled long enough. Have a good week!
Toodles!