cleaning

We have been on a cleaning frenzy.
We cleaned the house for the first time in August.... on August 31.  It REALLY needed it.  Probably needes it again by now, but we'll attack it again another day.  We all six clean together and the whole house gets done in no time.
Last week Saturday, we also attacked the van.  Truthfully, Anika attacked the van.  We spent 2 -3 hours on it.  Inside and out.  Wash, wax, tires, rain x, the whole bit. Mike, you would be proud.  We did everything but shampoo the carpets!
We've also been attacking the drawers.  Taking out what doesn't it, going through hand me downs to figure out what does, buying new shoes and soccer cleats.  I think everyone does that this time of year.  I got rid of at least 10 bags of clothes to various places and took in about 5 from people at church who's daughter is just a size above Jessica and Maria. I LOVE getting rid of stuff, but I also love hand me downs.  At least I got rid of more than I took in!
I've officially caught up on blogging. I'm not sure when my next post will be.  I guess we'll have to wait for something exciting to happen.
Today all four kids had their first fall soccer game.  Jessica and Maria are playing on the same team and their shirts are bright pink.  They call themselves the Flamingos.  They won and Jessica scored a goal.  Brandon's team won and he scored a goal.  Anika's team won and she played very well.  I only got to see Anika play because of work.  Not so much fun.  But it was a beautiful sunny afternoon sitting in the grass watching her play.
And tonight we celebrated by using some ice cream coupons at a local store.  Quite fun.  And they have raspberry chocolate chip ice cream, so I'll be going back!

Grocery List

We have a white board in our kitchen.  Anytime someone takes the last of something, they are supposed to write it down on the white board so I remember to add it to the grocery list.
Any guesses as to what Jessica wants me to buy next time I go to the store?

Love that girl.  And yes, I bought salami for her on my next trip! =)

Twinkie

This is Twinkie on a milk weed leaf.  We have four pets currently: Twinkie, Flower, Bob and George II.  George I met an untimely death on the way into the house.
Twinkie was this small, Bob was even smaller.  They need new leaves every morning.  At least one day, they eat a whole leaf - like corn on the cob.  You can literally watch them grow.  Its so amazing.  They get to be about 2 inches long  and they start out so itty bitty.

Then they make this cool green chrysallis.

And then you get to set a beautiful monarch free.  

We still have 3 green chrysalli hanging out on our counter.  One isn't looking so good, but we'll hang on to it for awhile before we give up!

Its brought back lots of memories of where we were at and what we were doing last year at this time.  Our belongings were all packed into the garage. We had plastic containers on our immaculately clean counters holding small caterpillars and every time there was a showing Stripey and Stryper (our caterpillars last year) either got stuffed into a cupboard, set in the garage with all the stuff, or brought with us to church, a friends house, or wherever we ended up that night.  It was crazy, and seems oh so long ago.

Brandon still calls them callerpittars.  Love that.

Labor Day

We had an amazing Labor Day.  It was beautiful sunny weather and a great 'end' to summer.  We attended the Labor Day parade and came home with PLENTY of candy.  I commented on how the whole parade was different union workers (teachers, state, pipefitter, etc) and I never knew their were so many unions.  Then Matt reminded me it was a LABOR day parade and I felt silly.  All the unions had a rah rah meeting after the parade at a nearby park.  We met up with a family from church for the parade and they all had a good time.

people I know from the Y handing out pencils

the candy bags

We came home for lunch and soon Aunt Kathy and Aunt Mary arrived and we were off for our friends that live on Lake MI.  It was gorgeous.  Just the right amount of breeze and waves and warm water and sand.  The water was so clear and refreshing. We had snacks and drinks on the beach, we flew our kites, we played with the tubes and the boogie boards, and then went back up to the house for ribs and corn on the grill.  Such a yummy and fun evening.  The kids all shot the pellet gun at the target, too.  Always something fun to play with at their house!

First Day of School

August 29 - Wednesday - 7:30 AM
We had a half day last Wednesday, and a full day on Thursday.
Today they went back for more.  Maria goes back for her second day tomorrow!

Here we are - ready to go, and outside the school. 

The first day was August 29, 2012.  As Brandon said, Our first, first day of school here!  

The school houses rooms for kids once they are potty trained through 6th grade.  This year, they moved the 7th and 8th grade to the high school.  I am quite content that Anika will be in a self contained classroom and that she is not the guinea pig at the high school for the new incoming middle school students!  Maria's best buddy did not come back to school this year so hopefully she makes a new friend!

And now the paper work, schedules, home work and a whole new form of chaos begins!

The Packing of the Backpacks

Usually we have our backpacks packed and ready to go by the end of July.  This year we bought the supplies, but I just didn't take the time to do the backpacks until a few weeks ago.  And my what a night it was.  Anika gets quite excited about the whole process. She likes to be ready!  They had a great time picking out their supplies at Meijer and then we laid them all out on the table and went through the class lists and packed each backpack one by one.  We brought all their stuff in to their rooms on open house night.  That was last week Monday - the 27th.  AND - there was ice cream!  So, we got to meet each of the teachers, drop off their stuff, and get a bowl of really yummy icecream.  I chose chocolate monster and Maria chose birthday cake.  Good stuff!  We picked up the information packets about each classroom and were on our way home.  Ready for the first day of school!

Michigan Adventure

That's the name of the amusement park that is 20 minutes away.  Its very much like Valleyfair.  And we had a great time, quite possibly one of the best family days we have had since moving here.  We were gifted with tickets from friends in Minnesota. We contemplated asking the park if we could post pone them until next year because Jessica and Maria would be taller, but we were warned they would probably say no, so we went with it.  Turns out Jessica is 48" with shoes and Maria is 47 1/2" and most of the workers didn't even measure them!  You have to be 48" to get on the bigger rides, and they let them go!  Maria got stopped before getting on the swings, which brought on tears, because that is her FAVORITE ride.  But we waited a few minutes and the worker changed and we tried again!  This time she got on!  She and Jessica were also denied a few rides in the water park, but without shoes they didn't make the 48" mark.

We were there from opening to closing and rode almost every ride, some twice.  There was no one there, and many rides we waited less than 5 minutes to get on, even the big ones.  It was great.  We were there while some other friends were there and they said they had never seen it this dead.  So now we're not sure we should go back - it will never match up!  But, I'm sure we will.  It was just too much fun!

The White caps game

The Whitecaps are the Class A farm team for the Detroit Tigers.  One of the rewards for summer reading program here was free tickets to the Whitecaps game.  You had to choose between three dates, all Sundays, and the game starts at 1 PM.  So we knew we would be late, but we chose the one that worked the best and went with it! We were so late we didn't even have to pay for parking.

It was a fun time.  They have funny stuff in between each inning, all the seats are close and quite nice and there is just a fun atmosphere.  

BUT see those dark clouds in the left of the picture.  They held LOTS of rain.  We had brought umbrellas so we stuck it out for quite awhile, but finally they called the game and we left.  Anika was totally drenched and I was pretty wet by the time we got back to the van.  But we had a fun two innings, got a nice family picture and memory, bought some ice cream in a plastic helmet and some cotton candy, and headed home.  We bought dippin dots and cotton candy like we usually got to do at the State Fair!

And we decided it would definitely we a nice adventure to try again next summer!