Saying goodbye to August. This is command central for keeping our schedules organized – calendar for everyone’s appointments and events, bulletin board for the school lunch menu and ongoing school assignments and such, and Matthew’s karate school schedule taped to the cabinet. The schedule is still up there from last spring in the hope that he'll be able to start up again at some point, although he’s got so much homework right now that I don’t know how we’ll manage if/when that happens.
Kaylee doing her spelling homework. After sorting her assigned list into pattern categories, she had to come up with her own additional words that matched the patterns.
Shot of my desk in work mode. I spent a lot of the day putting together an ad for the ScrapDish storewide sale, and organizing files and creating new previews and detail shots for a couple of former collab products I decided to rerelease. I haven’t had the bug to design anything new in ages; I seem to only be able to think in scrap mode these days.
Kaylee took a picture of me with this little toy “camera”.
I knew I’d been feeling older lately…
:)
After taking a summer hiatus from walking, I’ve started taking a leisurely stroll after Matthew gets on his bus. This again is the pond at the park. Very peaceful and pretty in the morning light.
I hadn’t noticed this carving in the concrete under the little footbridge before. Makes me wonder who TJT is/are, and what they’re doing now, 35 years later. :)
Relaxing right after school... Kaylee’s shoes… and her legs over by my shoes. :)
This is the sweet version of Kaylee’s “Mom, go away” face. I was trying to get some pictures of Matthew and Kaylee working together at the kitchen table, but every time I came over, she stopped and picked up her paper to hide it from me. She was working on a drawing and wanted it to be a surprise. :)
A very windy “cold” front blew through, flipping our little yard umbrella inside out. Looked like a giant striped flower. The wind shifted and blew it back to normal a few minutes later.
Seems weird to talk about a cold front in August, but the high the day before was 108°F, and the high the next day was 85°F, so I guess a 23° drop in temperature counts. It was a very welcome drop!
Another school year gets underway!! We start off with the traditional photo by the front door.
Since Matthew is in middle school, he now rides a different bus and is on a later schedule, but he wanted to come to the bus stop and wait with Kaylee. She was a bit wound up. :)
Love these shots of them watching the sky, …
looking at…
the fluffy pink clouds that they insisted I take a picture of. :)
Kaylee’s bus arrived right on time (with the same driver she had last year), and she was off!
Back to the house to chill for a little while, and then it was Matthew’s turn. The driver was taking down everyone’s names, and the bus is packed, so it took a while to get everyone loaded, but they made it to school on time. :)
Here’s hoping for a wonderful school year for all of us!
I took the kids shopping at Target for some school clothes and a few odds and ends that weren’t included with their school supplies. I once again had cam-nesia and forgot to take pics until we were leaving.
The parking lot was really REALLY bright.
Since I was pushing the shopping cart, the pics are taken with one hand from cart level without looking at the preview screen. (Not that I could have seen anything on it in that light anyway.) I was pretty impressed that I actually got the kids (mostly) in frame. LOL
Future’s so bright… and the kids forgot to wear shades. ;)
Matthew’s “final” for his summer project was to perform a magic show for us. Kaylee decided to help out… she made him a poster and composed a song that she sang as his opening act. :)
Matthew then proceeded to astound and amaze us with his act. :)
Kaylee was the selected audience volunteer.
I love the look on her face. LOL
Wonderful show, Matthew! :)
Here’s the other side of Kaylee’s poster. :)
I’m sure it will be a priceless collectible once Matthew becomes a famous magician! :)
We went to Kaylee’s “Meet The Teacher” session at the school. After checking out her classroom and meeting her sweet new (very new – her first year teaching) teacher, we wandered down to the gym to check out the activity info and such. The PTA was giving out free ringpops to the kids, which turned their tongues and teeth some rather interesting colors. I love these evil faces they made for me. :)
I actually did remember to take my little camera to the school with me; I just didn’t remember to take it out of my pocket while we were there. You would think that by Day 232 the whole picture-thinking thing would be a little more ingrained in me. LOL
One of the projects we tackled over the last month or so was to gradually begin sorting and organizing a bit in the kids rooms. We barely made a dent.
I was hoping the kids would be willing to part with a large percentage of the masses of toys they hadn’t played with in ages. Instead it mostly ended up with them rediscovering toys they’d long forgotten they had.
For Matthew, this resulted in a war game involving a rather interesting mix of characters…
The mighty Transformers took on the “evil” Patrick in his Crabby-Patty-mobile. The battle raged on for quite some time. I never did find out who won. LOL
Kaylee wanted to pose for her own blurry photos, so I indulged her. Here are a few favorites. :)
“Look, mom… no arm!!”
“I’m me-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-lting!!!”
Faster than a speeding locomotive!"
The look on Matthew’s face, combined with the lens distortion of the extreme close-up, totally cracks me up! He was feeling a little goofy and playing around with trying to balance himself across two balls.
He didn’t manage to hold it for more than a second or two at a time. I don’t think he’s quite ready to go on tour with the circus. ;)
This was Matthew after his very overdue annual check-up. At 5” (78th percentile) and 80.6 lbs (39th percentile), he’s officially on the tall and skinny side, but still in a healthy range. :) He had to get two shots. Fortunately, we didn’t know ahead of time, so he didn’t have a ton of time to get nervous, although he did manage to somewhat freak himself out about it during the 2-minute notice he did have. He did fine once we got started though.
I can’t remember why Matthew was so mopey that afternoon, but I don’t think it actually had anything to do with the doctor’s appointment. (He probably just wanted to play more video games. LOL) He does need to go see an eye doctor soon though. The quick screening they did showed him to be 20/20 in one eye, but 20/40 on the other. He generally sees fine for whatever he needs to do, so I’m not sure what they’ll do.
While we’ve seen lots of pictures of Kaylee’s summer project, there haven’t been any of Matthew’s. He’s been learning magic! But he’s been practicing in his room, away from prying eyes. On this particular day though, he was wandering around practicing his “rope through the neck” trick. He’s gotten pretty good at it!
For some reason, it doesn't bother me at all to see Mark do this trick, but it absolutely gives me the heebie-jeebies to see Matthew with that rope around his neck! Must be that protective mamma instinct. At least he hasn’t shown any interest in becoming a death-defying escape artist!
Mark had the kids help him out with a run-through to check the timing on a magic show he was going to be performing in a couple of days. In spite of the absolutely riveted looks on their faces in this shot, the kids really did enjoy the show. :) (My timing was not so good – I missed the best photo ops, since I was busy in the other room. LOL)
[The actual show went great! :) ]
