The last Tuesday of Summer (according to the school calendar)

Today was a busy day the kind you come home from and you can barely function, because taking all of your kids with you FREAKIN' wore you out. I knew it would be a big errand day because so many things to do kept piling up. Plus I like to get it all done in one day because I know there is a very good chance I won't want to leave the house again for a long time. Besides on big errand days I neglect cleaning and laundry and that usually takes a while to get under control again. Who am I kidding? It is never much under control.

Here's how today went down: Ran 6 miles,made breakfast, cleaned up, cut my boys hair, cleaned that up,bathed them, went to Great Harvest (I was starving from the 6 miles),The Quilt Shop (it was next door), Micheal's (scrapbook paper is 25 cents right now), back home (to give Ed some food),the Libraray (our books were due-plus we shopped around), the bank (deposit a check), the Post Office (mailed Breaking Dawn to my MIL), Costco (looked for new pots n'pans for my birthday- more on that later), Sams Club (to make sure they didn't have better pots n' pans than Costco), then to Walmart (for the items I DIDN'T need 37 of).

I am now too tired to post about any of the things I have been needing to, but hope this might help you to see what the heck I have been up to. Its different stuff everyday. Obviously all of us get so busy in the summer with the kids home that we don't have energy to blog! If I haven't been on your blog too much lately please know I still love you and I will be back. School starts Monday... I will miss my kids and miss getting sleep. There are a couple things I won't miss namely fighting (it hasn't been THAT bad) and constant messes (although I actually think it might be Sam's fault and HE isn't going to school.)

Speaking of Sam-- he wanted to go to Sam's Club today, even saying "we going to my cwub?" still I am not convinced that he really knew what it was. Maybe he did though because we were at a stoplight and he saw Home Depot and he told me "oh Home Depot." How many 2 year olds know Home Depot? I guess for him if he is leaving the house (especially if its with Daddy) he has a pretty good chance he is going to end up at Home Depot. He is usually really easy to take and a lot of fun so Ed and I take him whenever we run somewhere- even for a minute. Today however he was almost souly responsible for my head being about to explode. I bet he had between 1 and 5 fits per store! He has to do EVERYTHING himself and refuses to sit in the cart lately.

We watched the movie "Penelope" as a family the other night. We all really liked it. However there was a witch in it for all of like 2 minutes that terrified Alex. I knew as soon as I looked over at his face that we would be having sleep troubles. That night he wouldn't go to bed in his bed and settled for falling asleep out in the hallway with the lights on. We put him in his bed when we went to bed, but he returned to our room and slept there during the night. The second night he stayed in his room during the night but still insisted on falling asleep out in the hallway. Tonight (night three) I put my foot down and said buddy you can't do that anymore, you've got to move on and we talked about it all. He wouldn't let me go and begged me to lay with him for just a minute. I was afraid if I did that that he woudl start to expect that every night. Still he looked so scared and I felt bad for him, so I laid there and talked to him for a few minutes which really did help him. When I am in my kids bed I see the room from a different perspective. Hoping to get him to see his room as not scary at night, I said to him "you have a pretty nice room." He said "thanks." Then he said "I like how the walls look purple at night." Me: "yeah thats cool." Him: "and like the sky in the day." I thought to myself about how I am so exhausted at night all I want is to get them in bed and go unwind. This made me realize that I was missing out on knowing some really special things like what he likes about his room at night. I have a brother that had these old fashioned looking soldiers on the wallpaper in his bedroom when he was little. My mom shared with me that she thought it was sweet because he had once told her he liked them because he felt like they were protecting him. So go ask your kids tomorrow what they like about their room at night-- you might learn something that you will remember even when you are 80 with fondness. He is about to lose some teeth and can barely eat apples, but manages somehow. It is a fun age. Oh also when he watches the Olympics he says "I just need to practice a little, then I can do that." This is while guys are placing their bodies parallel to the ground on the ring in gymnastics, or flinging their bodies around the uneven bars, or while Phelps is beating another world record. It is so cute how kids are so confidant in their abilities. I think what it is, is that some of those athletes make it look so easy.

Something about Ashlin real fast too. She knew for for 2 weeks she was suppose to write a note to a teacher or grandparents or her parents so she could pass it off for Activities Days. Every couple days she would talk about it saying she needed to do it but never did- taking resposibility since only she was there to get the assignment and I knew nothing about it, it was hers and she was reminding herself -a very good thing. So today she knew she had to do it because they were meeting again. So she did it and the sweet girl that she is, she wrote the sweetest note ever and left it on our bed. She chose to write to her parents- even though we stink. She is more than I deserve as a daughter sometimes. She has to start school on a new track which means a completely different class of students than her past 2 years. She might possibly not know anyone in her class. She told me she wished I could come with her the first 2 days of school. I can tell she is nervous and I wish I could. She just memorized the 13th article of faith, with no help from me. Once a month they get a cookie for each (up to two) articles of faith they recite to their leaders after church. This has been an excellent incentive. It is harder for Alex (he's 31/2 yrs younger though) but he gets it eventually. Sam just smiles and looks cute and copies whatever they tell him to say while jumping up and down (his own addition) and he gets a cookie. Ashlin is totally into the Olympics. She watches them with great interest and is her Dad's best company during to watch with. (I like it too, but I am always doing other stuff as well as watching.)I don't know how better to describe Ashlin, but I just know with her I hit the jackpot.

Ok none of it was fast, but I decided a little way in that I would just make this a journal entry. Sorry if I bored you out of your mind!