Just when I thought it's been awhile since I've added to my list of "Things I Never Thought I'd Say" I found myself writing a "Things to do" note to my husband saying, "Please get the socks out of the recycling bin." We were folding socks and I asked my youngest to throw away a couple that had holes. He knowingly threw them outside in the recycle bin thinking he was clever and funny. I was not amused. Our recycle bin is very large and I cannot reach the bottom of it so I wrote a note because I knew I would not be thinking about old socks in the evening.
We have survived the beginning of school, and maybe even enjoying it. I went to parents night at school the other day. I have to admit reluctantly, but it was well worth it. :) There are many a crazy parent out there and it was fun to hear them get defensive with teachers for no reason. One parent was upset the children are having a Halloween party, gingerbread house making party, and a pizza party this year- she is trying to teach her daughter "to regulate how much she eats and to eat healthy and does the school even teach kids about healthy eating in health?" One mom was upset with school projects costing so much money- last year her daughter had to build a model of the solar system that cost $60. Where was I? I know Isaac never did any projects like that. He did have a space project to do, but the class was given a list of options with many of them not costing anything. My favorite was when the teacher said for spelling tests those who get 90% or higher on the pretest she will give them a list of harder words using the same principles they are learning with the other words for the spelling test. One father said, while he supports this he thought she should know that his son thought it was a punishment. Another mom piped up asking if the students who get the harder words would also receive "star bucks", the teacher's reward system. Thankfully, she said no. Her point in assigning words is to give all students something to study and learn because she doesn't want anyone in her class to think they already know everything and are done learning; no one is ever done learning there is always more to learn. I was very happy with her answer. Another woman was not and tried to start an argument about that not being fair because it was just summer and she can't get her daughter to spell (a word I don't remember) correctly, and other parents tried to explain the meaning of pre-test, and ...it was interesting. So all in all, I was glad I went. I found it rather entertaining.
We have had some interesting events with school starting so I'm going to let each kid tell there story.
#3 I came to school and did some math and then I went to the library to borrow a book, go back to my classroom and eat snack and sing a song and go back home on the bus. When I get home my neighbor friend is waiting for me in my yard.
#4 I like to play outside. I take my sister to the bus and I take my brother to the bus. I get to have a "playdate".
#2 Hi I really don't have that much stories but I'm on patrol this year but here's my sister
#1 the first day I had to sit in the nurses office because I was not immunized . the second day in my science class room the sewage pipes broke and stuff started coming through the floor so we were in the auditorium. It still smells bad!!! Last, I made it on the crew for the school play!!!YAE!!!
More info: #1 was not immunized because when we made an appointment and went to it for an update the nurse and doctor told us she is up to date and sent us away. It was a tetnus booster, so good grief, did she really have to sit in the office half the day? It isn't like she is going to give that or get that at school, it isn't exactly contagious. The nurse told Brian there were 60 kids in the office for not being up to date, and they told the students they had to stay in the office- no talking, no walking around, no leaving to get homework to work on, no going home. Of course that didn't work with that many people in the office for 2 hours. We ended up figuring out the mistake by Wednesday morning and made an appointment for that afternoon and our daughter was able to attend school.
I was kind of hoping she would be escorted from the building by police in handcuffs because that would make for a great photo- this tiny little innocent girl being forced to leave school for being a danger to her peers.
I should post a link to a healthy immunization chart, but I'll save that for next time.

Tuesday will be the first day of school for us. While I am still slightly in denial, I have to admit it will be a good thing. My oldest will have a bigger pool of people to make friends at Jr. High; my second will have something to do after he has done his chores, practiced piano, and ran laps around the house by 8:30; my third might stop picking on his little brother, his big brother, and his big sister; and my littlest (don't tell him I called him the littlest) will have that alone time he has been coveting this last week that drove him to send himself to bed for a nap. Friday I asked him to take a nap because he was very grouchy. He went upstairs and played with Lego's, singing and talking to himself while everyone else was outside. After awhile I went up and pointed out he wasn't napping. He smiled and laughed and said "No, I'm not taking a nap." I said, "Well, when you're done playing and you're ready to play nice with the kids please clean up and you can come outside and play with everyone else. A few minutes later I went upstairs and he was sleeping like a rock in his bed and all the Lego's were cleaned up.
I was giving myself a slight guilt trip about this summer not being very eventful and feeling like we didn't spend a lot of time doing fun stuff -we never went to the lake or got out the wading pools or went fishing. I felt like my whole summer was spent enforcing chores and doing the job right the first time, not the third time, until I was looking through my pictures and realized we had a pretty full summer of fun stuff. Here's a list of things we did:
Our family trip to Utah(#3's favorite)
swimming lessons and stayed late at the pool once
soccer
football
art lessons and art show
kids made a ramp/bike jump
night games a couple of times
made movies of spring and summer art lessons and our vacation
made a book of numbers with pictures of things in the yard
local kids race (our runner was 5th I think?)
church breakfast and race (our runner was first!)
saw the firetruck at national night out neighborhood party
cub scout day camp
my oldest cooked and baked a number of times (yummy!)
picked cherries
picked currants
fireworks
babysat birds
checked on the neighbor's dog (fed and walked it)
kids hired to water the neighbor's plants and killed some of them because they did it just like they did their chores at home :)
had some new window and doors replaced- still waiting for them to come back and do the job right (just like my kids and their chores)
watched the garden grow
played outside in the yard with friends (#4's favorite)
had Cheetos fingers
painted the front living room, entry, and hallway (finally after 3 or 4 years of talking and thinking about it)
saw our neighbor play the part of the fiddler in an outdoor play of Fiddler on the Roof
my brother and sister visited (#2's favorite)
took our guests to our favorite park and to a new discovery- Big Stone Mini Golf
found frogs in the garden
set up a pulley (I am really tempted to hang my laundry on it, but I think we have the junkiest yard in the neighborhood already and it won't add to the curb appeal- people were mad when someone put up a shed, so I haven't dared hang out my clean laundry)
went to the county fair and demolition derby

Things I wanted to do but didn't quite get to:
Write my "dissertation" on gifted and talented education to the school district
paint the family room and basically redecorate and get rid of toys (NO MORE TOYS FOR CHRISTMAS!)
paint two paintings or three
sew new drapes for the main floor
finish the basement -rotten windows and doors took priority :(
move to a beautiful new house a block over -I should have charged $600 dollars instead of $6 for those art lessons!
open a restaurant in an old mill (I had two possible places in mind) in my parents' town-victims of arson, one a total loss and the other one was sold the day before I had my creative burst of an idea by a historical group who wants to turn it into...exactly what it used to be, a planing mill. How boring. Oh well, Ana's not old enough to legally be head chef yet. Oh, but it would have been gorgeous! It would be old stone inside and out and have a waterwheel on the side and inside would be tables with white table cloths and candles and the chairs would be a honey colored wood, French Provencal ladder back style, and there would be pictures of my favorite places in Europe and America, and there would be music- maybe a live string quartet. All my favorite foods would be served. The menu would be seasonal and food would come from a garden growing in back of the restaurant. And there would be a pond and a row boat and I'd live close enough to ride an antique bike that I don't have to put fresh flowers on the tables every morning. Okay, it's probably obvious why that didn't happen this summer. Anyone with property fitting this description? How 'bout just willing to invest? :) Maybe if none of the fancy house properties down the street sell and there are empty lots they will donate them to my wonderful idea. If any of you want to steal my idea at least let me be in charge of decorating and designing the building.
Okay, so the first 4 I will move to my fall things to do list, along with the other stuff already on my fall to do list.
Ugh. I still need to get my kids haircuts- that might also get moved to my fall list.
Okay, so new fall list:
get haircuts
paint room
sew drapes
paint paintings
Dr. appointments
dentist appointments
fix lawn (dig out yucky grass and weeds)
move sand
take care of garden
patch cracks
"dissertation"
Halloween costumes??
Church stuff/Cub scout stuff
help kids with homework
drive kids to after school stuff
shut off outside water
Christmas letters, cards, gifts
plus the regular laundry, cleaning type stuff

Good luck with your fall lists!