pears, ugh.

we had so much fun picking pears.

and, i waited anxiously while they ripened on my laundry room counter.

and, todd and i stayed up one night to can pears together.

guess what?

i HATE pears.

our pears had little white worms in their cores.

NASTY.
not all of them... but SOME of them... enough of them to make me squirmy...
ugh.

i sliced through two worms and saw the guts spilling out and i was FINISHED.

(No, i didn't get a picture... gross!)

my poor husband had a choice-- finish the pears by himself or throw them away.

ugh.  isn't that horrible for me to admit?

pears have been giving me the heebeejeebeys.

ugh.  i just got the shivers just thinking about that night.
sometimes in a marraige, a girls just got to draw the line.
i wash windows and toilets and have lots of babies...
but, I DON'T DO WORMY PEARS.
i just can't.

i hope i get over the pear creepies...

until then- my husband still has a counter full o pears to can!

have a great weekend! 

i really like school.

jakob- 7th grade, leah- lady bug pre-school, lily- home
(leah does get her hair fized before school starts-- but lily wore her pjs all day long!)

i know it's only been a few days... but i do really like school.

Here are 10 8 things i love about school.

1. i LOVE making lunches. 

when i was little i always got free lunch.  i envied the kids with lunches from home and cute little notes from their moms and stickers.  now that i'm a mom, i LOVE putting little surprises in my kids' lunch sacks (mainly cute erasers) and i love writing them embarrassing notes with a little scripture or reminder for the day.  today i cut their salami into hearts.  i LOVE it!

2. i LOVE seeing the clothes they pick out.

as much as i'm a fan of school uniforms, i do love to see the different styles my kids choose.  Ellie is so opinionated and randomly fashionable and very non-gym appropriate.  anna is just like me, very neat and very classic- i always smile at her clothes.  drew tends to be more conservative by nature, and he dresses WARM (i continually have to remind him it's not great to wear long sleeves with shorts).  jakob is very confidant-- today he wore a cookie monster shirt and he kept telling his little sisters he was going to gobble them up.  i LOVE their unique personalities.

3.  i LOVE driving them to school and picking them up.
it is SOO fun for me to talk to my kids on the way to school when they are full of anticipation for the day.  and, i love the ride home when i get to hear them clamoring to tell me things that happened.  jakob laughed and said, "i can't believe i almost forgot to tell you... today i locked all my things in the WRONG locker."  It was unlocked when he stuck his things in it and then he and his friends tried hundreds of times to open it but it wouldn't work.  They finally realized it was the wrong locker and had to get the counselor to open it for him.  What a funny first day story!! 

4. i LOVE teachers.

i love hearing about the things they are learning, and how much they love their teachers.  Leah said her teacher was, "Just like a good mommy."  I thought that was cute, because her teacher seemed on the stricter side to me.  i love hearing other people who love my kids and know my kids.  when i asked if leah was good, she said, "Oh, of course,  She's a doll."  !!! I hope she always feels that way.  And, I got a sweet note from anna's teacher who said, "I love her already."  And, ellie told me five times that her teacher has a privacy box where she can write him a note if she wants to and tell him anything.  She spent quite some time last night writing a note to her teacher for the privacy box... she told him she wanted a different group to work with in group time because her group all watches rated R movies.  drew was so excited to tell me that i have HOMEWORK, i have to write an essay about him that is less than a million words long.  i LOVE teachers!

leah with mrs. bonnie.

5.  i LOVE having all day with my little girls.
oh how i love having my big kids gone for a chunk of time.  my house is quiet and slow.  my little girls become front and center in my life.  little kids and cleaning a house are great pairs.  they are so cute following me around as i do my chores.  they find great joy in folding washcloths or pairing socks while i fold the laundry, washing mirrors, cutting the tops off the strawberries, counting the apples at the grocery store.  oh, and the joys of nap time... we get to read as many stories as we want, and EVERYONE lays down for an afternoon snooze.  it is so fun having little ones to focus on during the day... and so fun when life gets noisy again after school.  i LOVE the variety that school brings.

6.  schedules.  shedules.  schedules!

i LOVE the routine that school brings.  how i miss my monday, thursay laundry days during the summer.  shopping on tuesday.  pizza on fridays.  morning scripture time is so much easier to do when it is part of our morning routine.  piano practicing... chores... i LOVE the structure that school adds to our day.  (Yup, I'll get sick of this by next spring.)

7. school supplies.

i LOVE them.  and, i love watching my kids get so excited about crayons and mechanical pencils.

i love seeing the folders they pick out and how they organize (or don't) their back packs.  so fun!  i have a great job!

8.  problem solving.
drew says, an hour before school starts, "Oh mom, i need gym clothes.  A shirt with my name on it."  tah dah...  it's fun for me to do small things to alleviate stress for my kids.  i found ellie's lunch left in the car, nad just dropped it off before i went home.  tah dah, problem solved!!  today, i need to figure out a french horn for jakob- i love to problem solve (most days).  [i think it's easy for me to love this stuff because my husband is home and usually huffy about these surprises... i love being the one who just makes everything better with a smile!]

cute boy... not so cute mess on the counter behind him.  can't wait till i can cross "organize craft room"  off the list!

9.  i'm sure i could think of 2 more things to make it an even 10... but my time is up!

life is good.

my house is quiet.

i have big plans for my day...
hope you have a great one!!

first day.

my kids were at school all day, and i still didn't get the laundry finished.

hah!

actually, i didn't even start it until after they were in bed.

we had a good first day here.

jakob and leah start a day later than the other kids... so we'll see their first day tomorrow!

ellie- 3rd grade with Mr. Holroyd

anna, 4th grade with Mrs. Rutledge

drew, 6th grade with Mrs. Thompson- homeroom

cute kids.

sweet teachers.

yes, i even took a picture of drew's teacher.

when we pulled up to the middle school he asked, "are you going to walk me in?"

i said, "if you want me to."

he said, "sure."

he gave me directions to every class he had that day from his scrupulous study of the map.

i told him i was going to bring my camera to take a picture of him with his teacher.

he siad, "really?  i guess that's fine."
{i love that drew saved his black vans for school... they are $6 Target clearance shoes, but he would only wear them in the house so they would stay nice for school. the night before school i saw him cleaning the bottoms with a baby wipe. sweet boy.}

i could tell drew was nervous, because he was acting confidant.

i cried walking out of the building.

(i have a tendency to get teary in kindergarten and middle school...  funny huh?!)

i LOVE these kids.

a lot.

jakob and i went to breakfast with two of his friends and their mothers.
i love how he always wants to share his food with me, "you can try this mom."
and how he asks, "can i try your hash browns?"
and how he offered me some money to pay for his milkshake.
(he ordered a vanilla milkshake and pancakes.)
he's a good kid.
this year i have 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, preschool, 3 year old and active baby...
speaking of firsts... 

 check out that-- FIRST ponytail.

she's a cute little bugger.

today, life is good.

and tomorrow, i'm going to finish my laundry.

it's going to be a fun year!

uphill.

i read a great quote last night, that reminded me of our search for waterfalls.

"If you are on the right path it will always be up hill!!"

Elder Eyring's mother

{you can read Elder Eyring's talk, "Raise the Bar" here} 

we have been hiking a lot lately.

we realized that if we are looking for a waterfall, we will need to climb a mountain.

isn't that just like life?

today, our school starts.

today, i am climbing a bit of a hill...  we are busy and life is full.

it is just as it should be.

have a great day!!

land.

tonight i am tired.

our days have been so full.

i have a list of 20 blog posts to write and for each post i have around 92 pictures to sort through...

we have been busy soaking up life.

i have blackberry juice in my fridge waiting to be made into syrup.

i have pears that are just about ripe on the counters in my laundry room.

i have buckets and buckets of apples that we picked on Saturday morning- for applesauce (we may have picked them a little too early?!)

tomorrow we are heading to a picnic-- we're bringing orange homemade ice cream (recipe from the coxes) and a fruity salad (recipe from the nelsons).

i didn't go grocery shopping yesterday, so Todd is going to go bright and early tomorrow so our ice cream will have time to freeze... (ugh- still not used to small town shopping- i feel like i never have food.)

tomorrow night we're having a special "back to school" family night...

tuesday is the first day of school for my 6th, 4th and 3rd grader.

i'm taking my 7th grader out to brunch with a couple of his friends... his school starts on wednesday.

oh how i'm craving the schedule of school even though i KNOW i'll miss the carefree days of summer after one week of school lunches and soccer practices!

last week a friend invited us to her home to pick blackberries. 

 

they have 75 acres.

a pond.

a tree with two swings.

barns, a plane, dinosaur bones (her husband is some kind of paleontologist).

baby collie dogs.

and blackberries galore.

as we let our children play day turned into dusk.

they ran and picked and swung and rowed and i kept thinking "this is life."

if i had a million dollars i would buy LAND, beautiful land.

i would have a modest home surrounded by acres of beauty.

for sure.

eve's first food-- fresh picked blackberries.

but, today i don't have 75 acres... so i'm thankful for friends.

oh, life is beautiful!

the handmade birthday party.

at leah and lily's party, each of the bigger kids were in charge of a game.
jakob made the pinata...

ellie made "pin the tail on the dragon"

anna helped with the pinata and did musical papers...

and drew blew up 25 balloons for balloon volleyball.

we had peanut butter and marshmallow circle sandwiches with sword toothpicks and finger foods (grapes, olives, cheese, pineapple, and watermelon) and fruit dip (strawberry cream cheese mixed with marshmallow fluff)... simple and easy to eat!

so fun!

i really like my job.

aren't birthdays great?!

ghetto-ish wedding/birthday cake.

leah wanted a wedding/birthday cake.

with an A on it.

because A is her favorite letter.
obviously.

i tried.

and, i'm not in the cake decorating business...

just in case you were wondering.

ps.  the cakes BOTH stuck to the pan so they were kinda smashed back together under all that icing.

guess what?

the kids didn't care.

and leah was excited.

and ellie says she wants a wedding/birthday cake for her birthday.

leah says, next year she wants a B on her cake... so she can go in order.

makes sense?!?!

birthday invitations on a balloon.

 it's leah's birthday... she's 5!

i'm a bit crazy-- have 20 kids coming tomorrow morning!
(20 kids are for both leah n lily)

so fun!