Life Lately

 I spend SO MUCH TIME complaining about how busy we are, but really? This year’s schedule has been SO EASY to slide into. I complain A LOT about our middle school start and end times (9am-4:25 pm— what the hell), but! Dorothy and Coop leave for the bus the same time I need to take Minnie to school (which is the VERY MOST PERFECT TIME for me to leave for campus), and we don’t even have to RUSH in the morning. A month-ish in, and we are VERY HAPPY and can even open the windows to enjoy the perfect warm fall weather without fearing that our neighbors will hear civil war sounds.

No, those ARE happy faces (they are a tween and teen respectively).

Morning bustling:

Minnie LOVES to putter around with crafts or even leftover papers from school in the morning

She has also been wearing some ideal fits, including her flower girl dress

The evening pick ups are… hectic. That’s maybe one time of day that I am just not loving it. But! I did not expect to love it. Right now, since the weather is so good, we are doing lots of dance studio picnics. And! Since the dishwasher is broken (THIRD TIME IN FOUR YEARS), we have actually been just eating wherever we can that’s not home.

I had to take the girls with me to drive diving friends home on Thursday, which is usually Ben’s job, but he had to be on his campus for a meeting and didn’t come home until Friday. So! We paired the outing with ice cream— so fun!

Speaking of Ben— his campus is gorgeous!

A few more random tidbits:

Car pool faces

Oriental Trading Company— WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE??

These darling mugs are WORTH an early wake time

Toy catalogs are commmmmming!!! Minnie wants a Barbie Dream House- first kid since Jack to ask for it (Jack actually wanted—- and got— the MALIBU dream house, but it did not survive for his little sister to enjoy)

Oh, fall! I love it with an Anne Shirley kind of exaggeration.

YES TO ALL THE COOKIES YOU GUYS.

Look at these cute little LUNCH PACKERS— doing it the night before even

HOCO kid— he went with the same smart funny group of friends he has been hanging out with since middle school, including a girl down the street who was in every single one of his elementary school classes. It’s too cute, really. He’s too cute, really.

All we do is grocery shop, apparently.

 We had a very divide and conquer kind of weekend, which, honestly, is not my favorite. 

The boys had an overnight speech tournament. Cooper had a bunch of sporty stuff. Everyone needed hair cuts. Jack had drivers ed that Ben accidentally scheduled in a suburb 25 minutes away. We had tons of stuff to do for Ben and Dorothy's bdays (I ordered 4 dozen cupcakes for Dorothy to take with the dance this weekend to pass out to some of her team TWICE-- gotta fix that hiccup this week). Just LOTS OF STUFF.

Minnie was wild about making orange juice, but we only had cuties. She squeezed MANY CUTIES, and she maintained her enthusiasm through each one.

Harry watched Minnie, and I got this adorbs picture of them heading to the park

Um. my hair is broken in the humidity.

BEST omlet. 

We had time to make cookies (THESE, double the recipe, triple the chips)

The girls and I went to the zoo while the boys were in Eau Claire, and Ben and Coop were busy with Little league baseball tryouts

And Trader Joes, where the check out man gave the girls bouquets. (And I got 3 easy easy dinners-- stuff for sheet pan sausage and root veggies, a bunch of frozen pizzas with breadsticks and bagged salad, and chicken taquitos that I plan to bake in a dish covered with cheese and enchilada sauce)

While Ben had Coop at the barber on the way to diving while Jack did his behind-the-wheel drivers ed lesson (Harry was at work), I took the girls to Ulta for trims. Ulta is actually a GREAT kiddie hair place-- $25 cuts and they're open on Sundays! (Dorothy usually goes to the same Aveda place I go to, but I forgot to book, and her ends were ROUGH-- and she has to wear braids in 3 dances this weekend, and they'd be even cuter with blunt ends). 

Minnie was excited, obvi

(When we got home, I trimmed that longest back layer, and I stand by the decision).

Prime park weather-- love it so much.

Minnie, Jack, and I walked to another little gem of a park while Ben, Coop, and Dorothy went to Coop's end-of-season hockey party and Harry golfed with a friend.

We grocery shopped in-person at TJ's AND Ben went to our local coffee and cheese place and also picked up a Target cart that was mostly household stuff but also a few food items the other grocery store was out of AND a Metro Market order-- AND WE WILL PROBABLY HAVE TO BUY MORE FOOD BEFORE THE WEEKEND. (And! We wil be OOT for Dorothy's bday over the weekend and are going out for Ben's bday eve AND STILL-- 5 kids! EAT SO MUCH FOOOOOOD).

I feel so relaxed— how long could this possibly last?

We had lovely, boring weekend with kid activities and lots of nothing to do, too. Oh, what’s that? You want to see pictures of this total slice of mundanity? You betcha.

 She was showing off her ridiculous unicorn crocs here, but I like the dress/tights combo. The tights have foxes on the knees, and I am here for them

That feeling when if you want to have leftover pot pie, you gotta make 3 hashtag big family.

Coop went to his first dive meet of the season and got 2nd in 3M springboard and won 1m and platform with PRs.

I HAD to get a pedicure (BEAK FEET). Minnie did not have school for teacher professional develpment. Sooooo, that happened.

One of my fave kitchen hacks 

Date night

Cleaning and killing time

And! A triumphant return to swim lessons after being sick for weeks and weeks!

Yay!

She got out 3 times to pee, and it’s a 30-minute class. LOL LOL LOL.

Ok— that’s all I got.

My huge goal for this week is to figure out the rhythms of my asynch online students and also drink more water. You?