Summertime....It's Time

School is officially out! Yesterday was the last day for Isabella and Zoe, Noah finished last week. I'll spare you the harrowing, psychological drama that is swirling through my head over having all three of my kids in school full time next year and how it's the end of a significant part of raising our family. A milestone moment, if you will....met with all sorts of mixed feelings!!!!

Zoe is starting off the summer sick, poor girl. Monday we will start our "summer school" books. Those are just workbooks we do on our own to make sure the kids brains don't turn to mush. Just a page a day and reading too, of course. I've got a million organizing projects to get done this summer. You know when you move into a house, like seven and a half years ago, and you stick stuff in cabinets and closets and never see it again? I've got lots of that to deal with. Plus the rest of the junk that has been crammed in front of it all. I'm not an organized person. Correction, I am surface organized. You know, everything you can see out in the open looks nice and neat (I actually consider it a compliment that I've been called a Stepford Wife before), but if you open a drawer or closet door it's complete and utter chaos. So we'll be working on alleviating this problem, at least until the next seven and a half years rolls around. I'll be cracking the whip at the children. Most of it for a nominal fee though. Teach them the value of earning a buck.

Other events on the horizon (So you know I'm not just a mean old mom):
Swim lessons for Isabella and Noah
Summer School for Zoe (her idea)
Piano lessons for Isabella and Zoe (let's see if we can finally get this thing going)
and hopefully some fun adventures!

Seven Years

What were you doing seven years ago today? We were moving into our new home! Actually, I don't know the exact date but it was the day after Thanksgiving, 2001. A lot has changed since we moved here. When we moved in it was just me, Brent, and our two little girls. Now we've got three kids in elementary school! Aaaah! How time flies! I remember when we were choosing our house plan we decided to go with this rambler, they called it The Eaton, because we didn't have any plans to move anytime soon and we wanted a house we could live in indefinitely. So this plan gave us a full basement to eventually expand our two bedroom home. The rambler also would work well if we decided to stay here 'til we were old and gray and no longer able to climb stairs. We were thinking waaay ahead. So here it is seven years later and I guess we made a good choice because we are still here and may be here 'til we're old and gray for all we know! We expanded that two bedroom house by finishing the basement and now we have five bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms, an art room, family room and the rest of the stuff we had to begin with along with all the other cosmetic changes (flooring, lighting, fence, etc.) Pretty good deal, huh? I think we made a good choice here. What's not to love about our town? You really couldn't pick a better place to raise a family. Right? And I love this house. Every few months I get the moving bug and start looking at houses on the internet. Then I walk through my house, assuming it's clean that day, and I think, this is a great house, I can't leave it! I'm good for a few more months. It's just a passing idea, not anything we ever seriously consider. The kids are happy about that. Who knows, life may take us somewhere else somewhere down the line, but until then we'll be here, happily hanging out in our just right house in our great neighborhood.

Then
Actually this was spring of 2003, the pictures from when we moved in, in 2001, were taken on our old non-digital camera and they haven't been scanned in. But you get the idea.
Look at our cute little plants!

2008
Now with Monster Plants!