Saturday Sweetheart

It's hard to believe that this sweet girl is going to be a senior starting this coming Tuesday. Sigh.

Friday Funnies

This doesn't apply to us, of course. But it was funny, nonetheless. :)

Camp Woohoohaha! 2014

Each summer, since the year before Ethan was born, we've done a little one-day family camp that we named "Camp Woohoohaha!" It's a day that is full of crafts, outside games, and campy sorts of things, like s'mores, hotdogs, nature hikes, and sing-songs around a campfire.

We start the day with a loud rendition of "Reveille" to rouse the troops and get us all ready for a day of family fun. I usually plan the crafts and food, while Stuart usually plans the outdoor activities. Some years we've had to modify outdoor activities due to rain.

We were a little bit late doing our camp this year. Pre-school activities -- like high school soccer practice, school newspaper meetings, college visits -- overtook us, and we found ourselves in a flurry to grab a date before school begins.

So today, we did our annual tradition, waking the kids with an even louder version of our bugle call (since I now have a little Canz speaker). We had two activities to work around, but we used that time for some downtime and filled in with a DVD of Looney Tunes/Tom and Jerry cartoons.

Here are some highlights from our day: Boiled eggs and baked oatmeal for breakfast; a little canvas bag to color and keep our crafts in; an awesome obstacle course; painted garden markers; Cracker Jacks; a walk in the park; Poohsticks; an impromptu visit to the museum, where the kids built structures and saw the mummy; Looney Tunes cartoons; coloring puzzles; decorated notebooks and photo frames; hotdogs and chips and s'mores; a firepit; lanterns; and songs/jokes.

A great way to finish out summer vacation.

We have a few activities to do on another day that we couldn't do today, due to a couple of outside obligations, but that's not a problem. It gives us more time to enjoy as a family.

We seem to spend a lot of time together, but sometimes we realize that we just exist together, passing in our hallways, caught up in our own busyness. Having our little camp helps us to make the time to be together and have fun. Totally worth all the planning!

"This is the day that The Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it!" Psalm 118:24

Here's an album of the photos I took during the day. Enjoy!

Do you have fun family traditions that you enjoy? Share them below!

Wordless Wednesday

Happy National Dog Day

I was a little late in finding out that today was National Dog Day. Hopefully, our dogs still felt loved today -- like everyday.

We have two poochies: Buster Brown, 12, and Gigi, 5. They are both rescue dogs that we adopted from other states. They are both North American Peehounds, which means they are of indeterminate ancestry, though both have Shih Tzu in their heritage. In other words, they're ever-sweet and lovable mutts.

Buster weighs a little more than 30 pounds and has Boston terrier and Shih Tzu on his paperwork. Gigi weighs about 15 pounds and has French bulldog and Shih Tzu on her paperwork. They both have wiry hair and wiggly tails tipped with white. Buster has tulip ears and Gigi has bat ears. They look like siblings and make an awesome pair.

I grew up with English bulldogs, so I love our dogs' smooshy faces and snorts and wiggles.

Dogs are funny creatures.
 
Always loyal. Always ready to give a kiss. Always eager to greet you. Always wagging their tails, even when they don't feel very good.

A good example of how we humans should act?

Happy National Dog Day!

What is your favorite kind of dog?

Do you have a dog or two or three? If so, let me know in the comments. Include a photo, if you can.

Back to School...But Not for Us

So everyone is going back to school today. But not us. (Cue: Nah-nah-na-nah-nah.)

No, actually it always feels a little strange...like we're missing out somehow or like we're supposed to start. We start next Tuesday.

And, for one of our brood, that will be the last first day of schooling at home.

Kinda bittersweet, huh?

It's hard to think that we began all of this with Emily over 12 years ago. She stood in front of our rented house for a first-day-of-school photo and smiled her biggest grin. She wore a cute dress with a white knit top and pink-and-red gingham bottom -- a pink-and-red gingham strawberry appliqued in the center of the top. She had straight brown hair, neat bangs, and tanned skin. And she was so excited! (I'm still amazed the photo wasn't blurry.)

If I close my eyes I can still feel the warmth of that late-summer day, smell the hot macadam of the street, and hear the sounds of the city around us.

"Smile!" I say.

And she does, really really big.

Then hand-in-hand we head back into the house to start our journey of learning together.

Has it been easy? No way. As with most things in life it  has been filled to the brim with ups and downs, moments when we wanted to strangle each other, or hop on the nearest schoolbus (and that was me!).

Has it been worth it? Absolutely. Without a shadow of a doubt. I would do it again. Over and over. I learned so much with her, both educationally and personally.  

...

Sometimes this wing-spreading-letting-them-grow-and-go thing is harder than it looks.

How was your first day of school?

Sweet Sunday

Love this video (which includes the singer's daughter) and the message it conveys! YOU ARE LOVED indeed!!

Update: Saturday Sweetheart

So we drove 35 minutes to see Edward's first-ever away game as a boys' high school JV soccer player, and all we saw was this:

In fairness, we were told the JV team played after the Varsity team. But due to the rainy weather, we think they played them early. Edward did mention afterwards that he thought about calling us to let us know...but he forgot.

Sigh. Oh, well.

We were there. See? *wink-grin*

Saturday Sweetheart

What a difference seven years makes, right? The little guy on the left was 6 1/2 when he first started playing soccer. Now, at 13 1/2, Edward had his first high school game today. He's on the JV team and, while they didn't win, he seemed to have fun.

Here's a little trip down Memory Lane with the blog post I wrote on his first-ever day of soccer back in 2007.

I'll repeat it: What a difference seven years makes.

Friday Funnies (from the 5-year-old)

Two Ethanisms:

The other night, Ethan was praying before our devotions and said, "Help us to apply what we learn to our lives." Afterwards, I asked him if he knew what "apply" meant, wondering if he was just repeating what he'd already heard. He nodded and said it meant "to put something to use." We were all visibly impressed by this, so he fist-pumped the air and said, "Vocabulary for the win!" 

Talking about a musical toy that has a dog sound that you can use instead of the normal musical instruments, Ethan told me that they must have had to use a lot of dogs to make all the songs since "there are 20 pre-recorded songs!" I asked him how he thought they trained all those dogs to sing like that, and he said, "I have no idea!"

Love the innocence and magic of childhood. He never ceases to make us smile and laugh!

Remembering...

This is one of the best ads I've seen in a long time. Advice to new parents...and good reminders to "old" parents.

Four things you give your kids: Time (give it liberally); education (take it seriously); spirituality (make it real); and love (the others pale in comparison).

Enjoy!

Tempus Fugit...Or In Which Time Flies Over the Summer

I suppose it was my own doing, since I was the one who wished for a summer of boredom. Instead, we got a summer of chaos, in which we felt we were only just keeping our heads above water.

I'm not sure exactly what happened.

I remember the feeling of freedom as the school year came to a close. I remember thinking of the possibilities of what we could do...and what we didn't need to do. The whole summer sprawled before us. We talked of joining the pool. I dreamt of leisurely moments of sitting outside and reading or coloring or simply watching the clouds drift by.

Snort.

Today, I returned a bag of summer toys I'd bought at the beginning of the summer. Jump ropes and bubbles and jacks and marbles... I'd had a brainwave in the beginning of our summer break to do stuff -- like play outside -- with the kids. I'd been excited to finally have the time to play again with them. The customer service clerk at Toys 'R' Us asked me why I was returning everything. I told her it was because we didn't have time to use it, didn't really have time to play. She asked me why, and I told her. She assumed it was because "teens don't play," but I told her my teens do...we just didn't have the time due to other activities crowding in.

I felt very sad as I walked to my car. Sure, it felt better to return things we weren't going to use and get the money put back in our bank account. But I felt -- afresh -- the speed at which time is passing. When did I stop having enough time to play with my kids?

That said, the activities we did were fun. Here's some of what happened:

Emi and I did the "Official College Tour 2014" together,  even buying t-shirts from each of the universities. She did some job shadowing for her senior project and held the WWCS birthday picnic and WWCS Open Forum. Edward grew 6 inches and took some more one-on-one soccer lessons and started playing on the high school soccer team. Ethan finished first grade and read lots of chapter books. And I was able to write a ton of stories for the newspaper. We did manage to attend/host some picnics; light some fire pits; and make some s'mores. Stuart completely redid our main bathroom. High-five, Honey!

So all was not lost.

But I won't be lying when I say that I'm almost (almost) excited for school to begin so as to get back some of our routine.

*wink-grin*

How about you? Are you getting excited for the upcoming school year? Do you find that time is flying faster as you get older? Share your comments below! I'd love to know I'm not alone.