A Pretty Awesome Life

Some photos from a recent trip to a family museum in Rockford, Illinois:

The museum was running a special travelling exhibit about pirates. The girls made their hats along with treasure maps, pirate flags and other fun things.


Train Conductor, Alyssa.

Veterinarian Duckie.

Multi-sport athlete, Emma.


Panning for "gold."

Alyssa and Rebekah were fascinated with the TV News channel they had set up there, they loved doing their version of the news. I think I see some future weather girls.

When they finally turned the studio over to Emma, I was expecting her to have a turn at some news stories. Instead, they put in this crazy background slide for her. Being her usual go-with-the-flow self, Emma giggled and pretended to bathe.

The longer we stayed there, the more absurd the news coverage became. Poor Alyssa here is trying to run a legitimate newscast and Rebekah just wants to smile and wave and throw kisses to the camera.



They had a really neat outdoor play area too.


Last week, I was proofreading a paper Emma had to write telling all about herself and I loved the first paragraph. It warmed my heart:

Hi, my name is Emma Sachs. I am 10 years old. I was born April 12, 2003. I live in -----, Wisconsin. If you don’t know where that is, it is south of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I live with my mom, dad and two sisters, in a very nice and peaceful neighborhood. I also have a gecko. My life is pretty awesome.

Such a sweetie. We think she's pretty awesome too :-).

And speaking of awesome, Rebekah is having a belated birthday party here at home on Saturday. Anyone who knows my husband knows that Saturdays in fall are College Football Saturdays. ALL.Day.Long. In planning for this party, we assumed Iowa would be playing an 11am game, possibly, but less likely, an evening game. Well it turns out, now that we have scheduled a party for 2-5pm, they play at 2:30 pm. Just in time for 12-15 little girls to be jumping with reckless abandon in the purple princess castle bouncy house we'll have. Dave was already on the fence as to how much princess bouncy house fun was just too much, and when he saw the schedule for the game he said, "I'll just have to leave my car on the street. And if I have to leave, I have to leave." Awesome. Be thinking about him during the game.

Where does the time go? An attempt at an update...

Hi, it has been such a while since I've posted that the format of flickr {where I upload my photos so I can get them posted here} has changed slightly. I kinda had to click here, click there to re-familiarize myself with what I was doing, and it was just a funny reminder of how quickly things change. I regret that I have gotten so far behind in writing anything here, but I can't say I regret having a mostly computer free summer. I am reluctant to give up on the 365 photos, but it seems that whenever I try to back track and share photos from weeks ago, is when I fall even further behind. So while I will likely share photos from over the summer at some point, I am not sure yet how detailed and thorough I will be with actually trying to "catch up" on summer.

We are two weeks into the school year, so some first day of school photos seem in order...

The girls were so proud of their new backpacks, thank you G&G! Ka'iulani found the perfect peacock feather pattern, and the baby had been talking about a Hello Kitty backpack for a couple of days when Grandma surprised her with one. The girls decorated them with pins from our summer vacation to Disney, so I would say they are complete!

I cannot believe she is in her final year of middle school! Alyssa recently found out she is cast again in A Christmas Carol at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater. We are so proud of her and gearing up for that busy season!

She spent the summer outgrowing every pair of shoes she owns, even skipping over entire sizes and she is just barely shorter than me now. We're talking like less than half an inch...I'm hanging on to my height advantage as long as I can, but I am afraid my days as the tallest lady in the house are numbered.

And this one is in her last year of elementary school...seriously, someone teach me how to slow down time. After spending most of last school year dreaming about her 5th grade year in which she was certain she would have {and love} the same 5th grade teacher Alyssa had, Emma ended up with a teacher that is brand new to our school this year. I don't think she has ever been so excited about a teacher before! Her new teacher is diabetic and she came home the first day of school a brand new expert on diabetes, telling me everything from her new teacher's health history to healthy glucose ranges to how he tests his blood sugar, his current blood sugar levels that day in class, what to do if something ever happened etc. I think it is going to be a great year for her, and I am thankful she ended up in the class she did.

This little one is off to a good start in second grade. She must be having a growth spurt too because she is finally looking at least a tiny bit bigger than the new K4 and K5 students who are just starting school. Rebekah has the same teacher Alyssa had when she was a fourth grader, and this is our first time having the same teacher for more than one of our girls. He was a wonderful teacher for Alyssa and we know Rebekah will learn a lot this year!

She turned 7 on August 16th, and her favorite thing to tell A and E now is, "I'm not six anymore, I am seven now, and I know stuff!"

A photo from the second day of school.

Waiting for their morning bus, which two weeks into the year is still at least 20 minutes late every morning.

Dave had to get a new car in June, and the old blue one stood parked in our driveway for most of the summer because he was having a hard time wanting to get rid of it. It was the first car he had ever bought, and we have driven all over various parts of the country with it, so even though it wasn't worth anything anymore, it still held sentimental value. It's gone now, but at one point Emma suggested we dig a hole in the yard and put the car half in the ground, half sticking out so we could enjoy it as a yard ornament forever. Thankfully, the idea didn't sound wonderful to Dave, or else I would have a picture of that to share.

Instead I have documentation of the first time I have ever worked a lawn mower ~ EVER! I wanted Dave to have time to attend an event for the girls' school this evening, and I figured I knew how to vacuum, so how much different could this be? It wasn't really as terrible a job as I have made it out to be all these years, but I am grateful that Dave does it every week instead of me :-).

And here are the girls last Friday morning, our first chilly morning of the school year. It was like fall suddenly came in and flipped the switch to cool. But it gave the girls an opportunity to wear their cute, new sweaters from Grandmommy and Granddaddy, thank you so much! They are from littlemissmatched, a store that Emma fell in love with at Downtown Disney {her first day of school outfit from the photos above is from there too. it's reversible which ranks high in her outfit selection criteria}.

I hope everyone is enjoying a good start to a new school year. And with this update I assure everyone who has asked me, that no, despite my last posts in July (that were about things that happened in May), I have not abandoned this little blog.