Autumn Fun

Our last few weeks have been packed full. My youngest sister Erin, her husband Bridger and their cute little guy Forest moved to the Portland area. We've been able to spend a couple days with them and look forward to holidays, hikes, bbq's, zoo trips, coast camping trips etc. It is exciting to have family nearby again!
In between helping them move in, wood cuts, huckleberry picking and awaiting harvest to resume, I decided to start decorating for fall.
My fall decorating ended before I changed out our cherry blossom twigs. I have looked all over town trying to find a fun fall idea for the giant vases. We may glued orange and yellow tissue paper on twigs if I can't find anything better.

One of the hard thing about living with my mother in law is working around and with all of her many nick knacks. A few things I decided were too springy and was able to put them away. I think the Asian vases are too huge to try to move. I'm not too sure which season the Buddha statue would look best in. He too is quite heavy and I haven't been able to figure out a place I can move him without hurting any one's feelings.

Bringing Bling to Lunch

Last year Abby and Michelle picked out the same backpacks. At the time it was no big deal, Michelle kept her backpack mostly in her room and Abby's was kept downstairs with her school stuff in it. Fast forward to this school year. The backpacks were still in good shape, so we decided not to buy new ones. The 2nd day of school I put Abby's lunch in Michelle's backpack. Abby was called to the office to switch lunches with Michelle. Michelle didn't realize they were the exact same lunch. I had planned to buy new lunchboxes, since ours were smelling pretty funky. While debating whether to buy spider-man or insulated boxes, I had the thought to iron on the kids names. I zipped back to the craft section and found some fun iron-on styles. It took a bit longer than the instructions to get the letters to stick, the flap is quite thick and took a while for the heat of the iron to get through it. After putting the kids names on the lunch boxes I then put an A and M on the two girls backpacks. Now each morning I just have to match the right name to the right initial-way easier than guessing. Today was day 2 of my brilliant plan, in my still sleepy state I was able to quickly get the right lunch to the right backpack. Plus the letters are still attached and the kids thought they were very cool.

1st day of School

The big three.
Michelle-Kindergartner and her super fun teacher Miss V.
Peter-2nd grader
Abby-4th grader
Cristine-preschooler

School started for us on Tuesday. Everyone was so excited, me included. Michelle and I hung out together before class started, while Abby and Peter were off to greeting their friends. We read a couple books in the library as we watched all the kids running around. She then told me that Abby said she could not say "hi" to her when they saw each other around the school. Is being in 4th grade like being in middle school? I told Michelle it was her job to wave, shout and hug her big sister whenever she could. The house was so quiet when I got home, then it was almost tomb like after Cristine left for preschool.

Everyone likes their teachers and enjoyed the first couple days. Abby's been busy with homework. Today they took money for hot lunch since we were already running a bit late. Here's to a great school year!