Vacation Bible School

Next week Taylor is signed up for VBX (a community service version of VBS for 5th and 6th graders) and Jocelyn and Wesley are signed up for VBS.  This year I didn’t sign up for anything!  I’m going to enjoy dropping off the children and then I’m going to school to work on my classroom, totally uninterrupted by fighting siblings.  Except for Wednesday, when I’m taking Taylor to the orthodontist, and Friday, when we’re leaving for Colorado.  Yikes, that only leaves me 3 mornings kid-free!!

A Trip Down Memory Lane

Mom and I have been meaning to go through her photos for quite some time. The thought of it can be quite overwhelming for some but today I went over armed with my special pencil to fill in names and dates and all of the old photographs from years past.

My mother pulled out a huge bag of photos to start going through. We went through one at a time and identified as many people as we could from her family. Cameras weren’t very popular in England in our family in the early years so there didn’t seem to be too many to go through. We put the ones that we had in chronological order into an acid/lignin free album to protect them from further damage. We marveled at how the family has changed and grown over the years.

We have completed the majority of my mother’s side of the family. Now we’ll be moving on to the pictures taken of our own family when we lived in Canada and on from there. It’s a rewarding experience and I know the children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren will appreciate the work that we’re doing in identifying names, places, and dates to the best of our ability. Going forward, it should be much easier.

If you have gone digital, I encourage you to have information printed on the back of your photographs that includes the people in the photo, a place, and the date is usually already there. Your generations to come will thank you!

Mom with her older brother Derek.

Still de-cluttering . . .

Only this time the freezer.  Of bananas.  I made 3 double batches of banana muffin mix and made at least 7 dozen muffins and 1 big loaf.  I say at least because Jocelyn, Wesley and I had to sample one (or two) after they came out of the oven.  Yum.  And now I don’t have my frozen bananas in the freezer anymore!

The Results are. . .

. . . STILL not in!!!

I submitted my KPA (Kansas Performance Assessment) back in late May for a submission date of June 3rd. I’m expecting my results any day and I’m anxiously watching the mailbox.

What the heck is a KPA? Well, it’s a paper (no more than 26 typed pages not including the appendix) written on a multiple week unit that demonstrates that I have the ability to meet state standards. You see, when you finish your Bachelor’s degree you can only get a conditional license from the state of Kansas. In order to get a permanent license, you have to submit this KPA. (Not like my degree covers any of this. . .) There is a passing grade on this as well, 88 out of 113 possible rubric points.  Of course there’s lots more info on this topic at www.ksde.org.  Hopefully the results come in soon so I can put this behind me and MOVE ON!!!!

This is the Year

A neighbor friend of mine and I have been discussing clutter.  I told her how exhilarating it was to finally go through my storage area and locate the floor.  I must have inspired heras well as she has begun a similar process.  A couple of days ago we were at the pool watching the children swim and she had a magazine article that talked about clutter and had some key questions about how cluttered your house really might be.  Blocking an exit, anyone?  Major fire hazard!

Anyway, this neighbor called me yesterday and said to turn Oprah as they had a guy on there who is a clutter-free expert.  I promptly turned on the television, cancelled Ken’s Jeopardy recording, and turned to Oprah.  It was so inspiring to hear what he had to say and hear about families that are getting clutter-free.   He had some great tips:

1)  If you buy a new piece of clothing another one has to go

2)  Turn the hangers in your closet the wrong way and once you’ve worn the item, turn it around.  If you haven’t worn it in more than 6 months, you probably can do without it.

3)  He challenged us to use the “cardboard box” tip for your kitchen utensils.  Put all of your kitchen utensils in this box.  As you use one, put it away in the drawer.  If you haven’t used the item in a month’s time, you probably don’t need it!

I thoroughly enjoyed Oprah’s show and she mentioned that her O Home magazine was focusing on becoming clutter-free too!

In cleaning out rooms, I’ve also been tackling closets in preparation for the Britches and Lace consignment sale.  Even Taylor go into it today!  We went through his closet and he either kept it, donated it, handed it down, or tossed it.  Handy, considering we bought him some new clothes today!  Now, if I could only get Ken to comply with some of this.  His side of the closet looks worse than mine!

A Trip to the Mall

I actually try to avoid the mall. Especially with 3 kids in tow, all starting their sentences with “I want. . .”. Today I had no choice. After the FL trip I was forced to throw out my Clinique concealer and my Bath and Body Works TRAVEL size cucumber melon hand lotion (they wouldn’t provide me with the little plastic baggie. I thought I had done all right packing just about all of toiletries in the check-in luggage, but no–these were in my purse!). Of course I have since broken out with four different blemishes sprouting on my chin. So off to Von Maur we went (I like them better than Dillard’s).

It was actually quite a successful shopping trip. I managed to get something better than my other concealer for less than $14. I redeemed my coupon for a free pair of panties from Victoria’s Secret (a savings of $7.50–for 1 pair!). After visiting The Pusher, a skateboarding store per Taylor’s request, we headed to the Children’s Place. I picked the right day to go in there. For one, they had cute uniforms for Jocelyn. Then they had just about everything else (not including jeans) on sale for $3.99! I ended up with a bikini, 2 skirts, 1 top, 1 zip-up cardigan, 1 uniform skirt and 1 uniform sweater/shirt combo for Jocelyn, a pair of swimtrunks, a cap, and a shirt for Wesley, and 2 pairs of camo cargo shorts, a zip-up camo sweat top, and a polo shirt for Taylor for less than $85! The kids had a blast cramming into one fitting room and laughing as they all tried on clothes while I ran in and out looking for different sizes! I’ve never heard Wesley actually ASK to try on clothes! Old Navy was next but it didn’t have anything near cheap enough compared to The Children’s Place and we actually got out of Build-A-Bear without spending anything! We headed for lunch at McDonald’s — another treat that would cost me at least a 5K run. (Can you believe a filet-o-fish has 330 calories!?!) Ahhh, good times. . .

Wesley’s Blessing

For those of you that know our Wesley, he is, for the most part, a sweetie. Tonight was no exception. We usually take turns saying the blessing at meals. Since he had been such a big helper tonight by setting the table, putting out plates, etc., I asked him to say the blessing. He said the usual, “Dear Lord, thank you for our chicken nuggets, our salad, our water and our pop (this is not unusual that he goes through the entire menu)”, then there was a pause and he said, “God, I love you. Amen.” I nearly broke down and cried right there at the table.

Lunch Conversation

After church today we were all sitting at the lunch table enjoying Ken’s famous cheeseburgers when Jocelyn announced that she wanted to be “faptised”.  I asked her to repeat herself so she said that she wanted to be “vaptised”.  “Faptised?” I said, then making the f sound.  “No,” she said, “v!  Vaptised!”  Well, obviously she mentioned Baptised.  I asked her if she had accepted Jesus as her personal Saviour and she replied that Ms. Chris was talking about it in Kids Church today but that it was too loud for her to accept Jesus.  Then she said she wanted to do it in our living room with all of us watching. HUH?  I guess we’ll need to have a chat about this subject!

Book Bargains

We love books.  If we had more time to read, we’d have even more of them.  Any of you who have been to our home have seen the bookshelves downstairs overflowing.  And that doesn’t even include the children’s!

Today we were out running errands, buying shoes for Ken and Taylor, bread from the Wonder shop, and we just happened to stop by one of our favorite second-hand bookstore, Book-A-Holic.  Yippee!  In their window they were having a fill-a-bag sale for $5.  Last time they had one of these we hit the jackpot.  Today was the same.  We bought 32 books between the five of us for a mere $5.37 with tax.  Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that’s only about $.17 per book!  And the best news?  They’re doing it again next weekend (and every weekend in July) AND restocking the shelves!  We’re in book heaven!

How many days until. . .

I go back to school?  32.

The kiddos go back to school?  39.