Rebecca turns 13!

It says this was in 2001

2010

While it doens't seem possible, today is Rebecca's 13th birthday.  I can't believe that I am now a mother of a teenager!  Even though she was eight days late and decided to jump start things while I was doing laundry at a near by laundry mat she has been a joy to have around. 

There is not much planned for her today in the way of celebrating.  We have already been out to eat for her Birthday dinner, had a birthday dinner with the Lofgreen family, she went shoppping with Grandma Lofgreen on Monday, and she is planning a party for Saturday. 

Back to school time!

Yes, it is that time of year again!  Time to send the big kids back to school.  (Actually today is the start of the second week of school.)  Rebecca is in 8th grade, Savannah is in 6th grade, and Joe is in 3rd grade.  The kids all have mixed emotions about going back to school because they are not returning to the same school they left.  (They all appear to have survived the first week ok.) 

Dad made a job (and career change back to the education field) and since he will no longer be heading to work in the direction of the kids' school they will be going to the school by our home.  While I am glad that I will no longer have to spend 2 hours a day in the car getting the kids from school, I have my own mixed emotions about the switch.  I am excited that I can be more involved in their education by being in the school to help out more, but I am nervous about the quality of education they will be getting.  We attended Meet the Teacher night but were only able to meet Savannah's and Joe's teachers.  While the teachers seem like they will be great our previous experiences with this school and district have been less then desirable.  I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and hope they don't let me down.

Kiley is going through her own adjustment period now that the kids are back in school.  She doesn't know what to do all day long and is constantly asking if I will call her friends and invite them over to play.  When she has friends over she is good for about two hours then she gets bored and doesn't know what to do.  I was hoping with the kids back in school I could reinstate nap time but that is not going so well and the problem is that she really needs a nap. 

Sarah continues to be cute little Sarah.  She is just over 10 months and crawls but not like normal babies.  I have never seen a baby move like she does.  She scoots around the floor on her bottom.  I don't know what to do with her.  She now has her two bottom teeth in and appears to be working on the top too.  She eats lots of table food and not so much baby food. 

As for me I am here everyday with my two little ones and my computer.  As long as I have some kind of connection to life outside my front door I should be ok.  I am still working on my picture taking skills and my photoshopping skills.  I am proud to say I have learned how to do a few new things in each area but I will have to continue to work on both. 

We're going back, back, back to school again!

Pack Rat of What?

First a quick update on my previous post about hobbies/talents- I have checked about many books for the library and read though them.  I think I understand what I am reading on how to take a better picture but I am not always sure how to transfer that over to my camera.  Yesterday I took my camera outside and played around with the different auto settings.  I think I like what I got.  (You have to check out FB for some sample pictures).  I am still working on the whole Adobe Photoshop thing, but in my mind if I learn to take better pictures first I wont need to Photoshop very much.  I will keep playing there.

Ok, so this has been the last week before school starts and I have been doing the deep after summer house cleaning.  That means cleaning out the kids' closets, under beds, in drawers, and all other hiding places I can find.  While cleaning the thought occurred to me that everyone must be a pack rat or hoarder of something.  As I helped clean out the bedrooms I learned-

• Rebecca and Savannah's like to keep all kinds of trash, Dum Dum wrappers, broken crayons, dried out markers, broken jewelery, and stuffed animals.   
• Little Joe also like to keep all kinds of trash, old school papers, and tiny useless toys.  (I am not even sure where the toys come from.
• Kiley and Sarah's room as been the catch all crap room for years.  It houses everything that I don't know where to put or think I will put it away later.  There were a couple of donate to Goodwill bags, lots of bags and boxes of clothes that are either too big for Kiley or Sarah. I am proud to say that I got everything put away.
• As a family we have (the first things to come to mind)- outdated computer games, pages and pages of usernames and passwords to various websites, and cassette tapes (we lack anything to play them with).  I am sure there is more.  While cleaning out the girls' closet I came across two boxes.  I knew exactly what they were, 14 years of church magazines.  As I looked at these boxes I asked myself why I was keeping these magazines because if I really needed an article or something I could get it from the computer.  I keep these Magazines because my mom does.  Well, I decided since they were not getting used much there was no reason to keep them but I could not bring myself to throw them all out.  So to help myself out I kept two Magazines from each year- the May and November issues of The Ensign (there are the conference issues).  So now I have a half box filled with General Conference talks going back to 1997.  

I am sure that everyone reading this has something that you just can't get rid of.  What do you find your family pack ratting or hoarding?