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.

A Bright New Year

The girls were excited to start a new year of school today! As we pulled up to her school, Alyssa practically jumped out of the van while it was still moving and I hardly saw the two younger girls once we got to the elementary school playground.





For the first time this year, I really thought I was okay with school starting, I didn't have that super sad first day feeling until I came home and looked at these pictures that we snapped right before leaving this morning. Where did my tiny girls go? I can practically see them packing up for college and moving into dorm rooms in these photos...

I was happy they were so excited to hit the ground running, and I can't wait to pick them up this afternoon and hear all about their first days!!

Fast Forward

When we returned home from Hawaii I had the best intentions of getting caught up on all the posts that I drafted and then "left behind" on vacation. I got so busy with back to school stuff that I never got even close to catching up, and realistically I could probably blog for another entire month about the month we were there.



Last weekend I back dated a couple of posts about Rebekah, because I wanted them to reflect the actual date of her birthday, but I think now I'm just going to go ahead and fast forward. There is still lots of Hawaii stuff that I'd love to write about and share, so what will likely result will be a mix of some postings that are current and others will be about things we did back in August during vacation. Just to explain :-) ...



Vacationing for a month at a time is really the way to go...I wish we could manage to get away for that long every year, but that's just not possible (Alyssa and Dave had a very funny conversation about this truth). It makes getting back into the swing of a regular schedule challenging, but that's really the only downfall I could think of. I came home feeling refreshed, almost ready for the girls to start school (which I always dread) and I was really motivated to re-organize all of our closets and the girls' bedrooms. It's been a very slow process (frustratingly so), and still a work in progress, but I think I'm finally simplifying everything (one tiny corner of a closet at a time).



A picture for my parents of the girls in front of their favorite breakfast restaurant on Oahu. We didn't eat there, but it was neat to see their new location.



Skipping ahead to September 1st...the girls' first day of school in 6th grade, 3rd grade and K5. And so far the school year is going well for each of them!



And this is September 7th, their first day in a new MPact class for Wednesday night church. I am so excited because Rebekah is in my class this year. I started teaching the kindergartners when she was just a few weeks old and it seemed crazy far into the future when she would be one of my students...doesn't seem possible that time is already here. The first Wednesday of class, completely unsolicited on my part, she came up and sat in my lap while I was reading the story, and the second Wednesday, also without my prompting she began a very dramatic re-enactment of the story while I was reading it. So the good news is that we're both very excited to be spending Wednesday nights together, the bad news is that the teacher's kid is totally the naughty kid in class :-)