Who Done It, Take Two

Russell and I hosted another murder mystery party (adults only), since we had a grand time with the last one. The girls went over to the Austins to play and we had a bunch of grownups over at our house to be silly.

It was a 1950s theme:

You can't tell, really, but I found 4 inch heels at Goodwill... I wore them a teeny tiny bit because they made my feet hurt. (So that's why I don't wear high heels...)

We got the whole crew together to take a picture before we started playing...

(Back row: Russell, Me, Debbie Haslam, Kirk Haslam, Kelly Dumler. Front Row: Andy Headley, Stephanie Headley, David Dumler)

And some pictures from the game itself:



We had a blast. (Now to get some new ones, so we can keep doing this.)

There is Too Much Estrogen in My House

At least this weekend there was...crying, pouting, tantruming, excessive blinging. *sigh* Look at me, look at me, look at what I'm dripping with: little girls!

The rest of the week, however, was our usual busy school selves. Some highlights:

Monday, there was a fourth grade parent meeting (at which I learned -- not related to the fourth grade meeting -- that they're hiring at my favorite bookstore across town... sigh... if Kristen were only the one starting Kindergarten this year...). I went, listened to the 4th grade teachers talk, and got to listen to Caitlyn's for a 1/2 hour. She talks fast (you think I talk fast...), and she'll be a tough teacher for Caitlyn, but a good one if Caitlyn will work. I like teachers like that.

Tuesday, we had our first Girl Scout meeting. Since the leader is the mom of Caitlyn's best friend, and because she's short a co-leader, she begged me to help her out. So, I convinced her to move the meetings to the second and 4th Tuesday, and voila! I'm a Girl Scout co-leader. Whoopee. Still, the first meeting went well. I should be able to make it back from Megan's piano, drop Megan and Kristen off at home, and then make it to the meetings on time... and the Girl Scout girls (all 14 of them) were good, too.

Wednesday and Thursday were mostly uneventful....

Friday, Russell and I had another one of our murder mystery parties. We shipped the girls off to the Austins (we owe them BIG time), for the evening and had a group of adults over at our house. It was a lot of fun -- the game itself wasn't as much fun as the Chinese one a couple months ago, but the food was good (if I do say so myself) and the company was good. And the girls were good -- they went to the park and saw the fire at the Keeper -- too. A good evening all around.

Saturday, Russell came home from the farmer's market with some peaches... so, we canned peaches. Whee. And Russell declared tomato season over and yanked up all the plants. It's just been too cool at night and not hot enough during the day (can you believe that? We've got September weather here... we're also betting it won't last!) and the tomatoes were rotting before they ripened. Sigh. At least we got quite a bit canned before they went south for the winter. Caitlyn and Alison went to a Primary activity (and had a grand time) in the morning, too. Then, in the afternoon, we went out to Eberley farm to go to the annual Friends University faculty-staff-family thing. We know the farm really well, though this year there was a paintball range which Megan and Caitlyn really liked (they shot paintball guns at targets), and Alison got to go on the big zip line (a tire swing on a cable across a ditch)... I even ventured over there to watch her (I haven't in all the years we've been going -- this is our fourth! -- been over to see the Big Dipper), and had to cross a suspension cable footbridge over a creek. Um... I think that's the last time I go over there! Still, it was fun.

Today's been good. Church was nice -- talks about fasting in Sacrament meeting (and a lovely musical number) and then we got a spiel on adoption and LDS Family services in our joint Priesthood/RS meeting. Haven't had that since Jonesboro, so it was interesting... And then we had Molly O'Hara -- she's new in our ward -- over for dinner. She's a smart, fun lady, who was just taken with our girls. We'll have to have her over again, sometime.

And that's about it for our week. Have a great one. Happy September!

25 Things About the Week

1. I love having the kids in school.

2. Not because I don't like them around, but because I'm terrible at self-imposed deadlines and do much better when someone else sets a schedule (hence my love of the library!).

3.Now that we have a schedule, things are going quite well with less tantrums and complaining.

4. Additionally, Alison and Kristen play much better together when there are no older sisters around.

5. However, Kristen didn't have as much difficulty adjusting to being the only kid around as I thought she might. She just went along with it.

6. Everyone's first days went without a hitch. Caitlyn and Megan had grand days, and Alison -- surprisingly -- did, too. She thinks kindergarten is okay.

7. It's good to know the name of the boy if you're going to kiss him during recess. (When Alison came home on the second day announcing that she's going to kiss a boy, we made that a requirement. His name is Jackson, by the way.)

8. Every middle school experience needs to have a year with less than stellar teachers. Right?

9. The open house was on Thursday; her teachers seem nice, but nothing super-great. Like her math teacher though.

10.That said, Megan's math teacher from last year requested Megan as a proctor (teaching assistant).

11. That means she gave up Spanish, but she didn't mind. Proctoring is more fun.

12. The basement stays cleaner when everyone's gone to school. Just so you know.

13. It rained a lot. A lot. But a nice side effect is that it cooled down.

14. Which made going to the pool yesterday a bit dicey since the air was warm but the water was COLD.

15. It means that our tomato and cucumber plants are dying and the canning is winding down.

16. It also means that we've been able to turn off the air and open the windows. Heaven.

17. Megan and Caitlyn are social butterflies; we hardly saw them all weekend!

18. Caitlyn had a birthday party sleepover Friday night and then went and saw the play High School Musical 2 with Merry on Saturday.

19. Megan went to a friend's house for a sleepover on Friday night, and then had a Beehive class party all Saturday afternoon.

20. However, she got in trouble because she didn't ask if she could sleep over, she informed us by leaving a note... and we bungled the whole thing, too. Being a parent of a teenage girl is not fun sometimes.

21. We had the missionaries for dinner (well, not them, we had salmon burgers. But they came over to eat with us.)

22. It was actually relatively calm since Caitlyn and Megan were gone, except Alison kept calling one of the elders "Freakish Giant" (well, he is 6 foot 8 inches tall), and we had to remind her that not every elder likes having a nickname.

23. The laptop died on Monday and had to be taken to the shop.

24. I didn't think I was addicted to technology, but I guess I was wrong: it was hard living without a laptop... remembering how to share the computer and all that.

25. Doing the letter in this format is harder than it looks!

Have a great week!

First Days

School started this week! *confetti and cheering*

Megan flat out refused to get her picture taken ("If you take one, Mom..."), but had a good first week. Her teachers aren't as fabulous as last year, but they're good, and she's in classes with many of her friends again, which is nice. She also got requested to proctor (that's kind of a teaching assistant) by last year's math teacher (go figure that!) and so she dropped Spanish and is proctoring instead. That makes her happy.

It was pouring rain Caitlyn's first day of school:

She's had a grand week, too. Loves her teacher, loves her class, is bubbly-talky-happy every day after school. Fourth grade is fun.


They stagger-start the kindergarteners, and Alison's first day was Wednesday. (She requested the braids!) She was a bit nervous, but there was no tears or clingyness the first day, and she was all excited and happy in the afternoon, too.

I guess Kindergarten is fun, too.

Kristen and I have had a good three days, too: we play, we run errands (which is SO much easier with only one kid!), we walk to and from school to drop off and pick up Alison twice a day. It seems like it'll be a good year.

Low-Tech Twittering

That's our whiteboard.

Actually, Caitlyn kept her status updated for a couple of days: "Caitlyn will clean her room on Saturday." "Caitlyn will clean her room after going shopping with Dad." The one up there, and "Caitlyn has finished cleaning her room."

And so, Megan had to get in the act. I suppose if Alison and Kristen could write, they would have twittered, too.

Packing it In

So... I know many people who drop by here are on my weekly email list, but I've been thinking that it might be fun to post the week in review for those who aren't. Feel free to skip this if you've already read it!

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We tried to see just how much we could squeeze into the last week of summer.

On top of all the regular stuff -- piano, library, play group, and the like -- we managed to go to the pool twice, the lake once, the park once, have one sleepover, one school open house, one birthday date, and several play dates. So, the answer is that one can actually squeeze a bunch into the last week of summer.

Monday, Russell and Megan went out on a birthday "date". I'm not doing parties for her again until she's 16 (maybe not even then... we'll see!), so I decided (and then informed Russell) that the girls need to go out on birthday dates with their daddy. :) They went to Cold Stone for ice cream, Borders (because that's just who they are), and then to Star Trek at the discount theater. It was a good date. The other girls and I hung out at home -- I think we may have watched something. We've been trying (!) to get to bed earlier this week so getting up tomorrow morning won't be such a shock.

Tuesday was library day (we went swimming on Monday, too!). I think we did something else in the afternoon, because Alison has taken to asking "are we doing anything interesting tonight?" and "are we going anywhere today?" The girl needs to go to school!

Wednesday, Megan and Caitlyn got invited to go to the zoo with some friends... I had just come back from exercising at the Y when they informed me of this, or we all would have went. So, they went and had fun wandering around the zoo, and I took Alison and Kristen to the pool. We had LOADS of fun. Alison has recently discovered she's tall enough to go down one of the big slides, but she's too afraid to go up the stairs by herself. And I wasn't going to drag Kristen up the stairs just to climb back down. So, Alison didn't get to go down the slide. She was very disappointed, and has been bugging me about the chance to go back. Thankfully, we'll have a few weekends to do that.

Thursday... we picked up Megan from a sleepover (the YW had one at a leader's house) and then went to the park where we mostly just lay in the shade complaining it was too hot to move (really, it wasn't THAT bad). We came home and Megan crashed for 5 hours (she said they were up until 4 a.m.!) and we had the Austins over for a cookies-and-fun playdate. Then Thursday night, we packed up all the school supplies and headed over to Peterson to meet the teachers. Caitlyn was very excited (she hounded the mailbox looking for the postcard from her teacher) because she got the teacher she wanted: Mrs Harmon, who does plays! She also seems like a really nice teacher. Caitlyn doesn't have any of her friends in her class (though she does have her old nemesis, Nick... which made me laugh: that's the third year!), but she's excited still. Alison was a bit shy at first when meeting her teacher, but by the end of her visit she was running around the room, exploring. Hopefully, that means when she starts on Wednesday, it won't be so bad. Crossing fingers, knocking on wood.

I got a call Thursday night from some friends who were planning a trip out to the lake (there's a lake? In Kansas?) and did we want to come. Of COURSE we said yes... so, Friday, we packed a picnic and headed 30 minutes west and had a grand time swimming and playing and eating and talking. The kids stayed in the water for the whole two+ hours we were there... we'll have to go back a few times next summer.

Yesterday, I was just planning on it being a lazy day -- partly because Russell was gone all afternoon doing school stuff, and partly because I had fallen on my run Friday morning and skinned my knee pretty badly (it still hurts), as well as twisted an ankle. I didn't want to do much of anything. But... Alison came up begging and pleading, and so I loaded the girls up in the car, and we headed out in the heat to go to Botanica and see the butterflies. We lasted for an hour or so... then we got TOO hot and so headed back in. Oh, well. It lasted for a while.

Today... I got released! From all my callings. And called to be the ward organist and choir pianist. I'm not going to miss the 7 year olds, but I think I am going to miss being choir director. A number of people came up to me and said they were sorry I was released. Sigh. I couldn't be choir director, though, without a pianist, and my pianist is now our Relief Society president and can't come to practice... Can't have a choir without a pianist.... There needs to be more pianists out here. Someone want to send a few from Utah?

And that's about it for us. School starts tomorrow for Megan and Caitlyn, on Wednesday for Alison. I'm excited, even if the girls aren't! (Poor Kristen won't know what hit her...)

Have a great week!

Summer Adventure #6 (Lake Afton)

A bonus adventure!

We got a call on Thursday night: a group of friends was going to celebrate the last day of "summer" with a trip to Lake Afton. I'd never heard of it, let alone been there (who knew there were lakes in Kansas?), and since the admission was only $3, I figured what better way to spend the lazy Friday-before-school-starts with a group of friends at the lake.

I was right: we had a blast!

It was a bit chilly when you first went in, but we all acclimated quickly and had a grand time.


Well, Kristen was hesitant at first...


but eventually, she got in and had a blast, too. My camera batteries died, or else I would have gotten a picture from when she was REALLY playing in the water!


One of our friends had brought a boogie board, and Alison was the one who had the most fun with it...

Especially when she could get someone to pull her around!

The "big" kids had the most fun with water fights, mud/sand fights, wrestling, and goofing off.






It was a grand afternoon (the two hours we were there just FLEW by!), and yeah, we'll be going back next year.

Now the Girl Turns 13

Megan's birthday this year, like so many years recently it seems, was spread over the course of three days. On Saturday, I took her to a cosmetology school -- it's the feeder for some high-class salons and spas -- for a facial, manicure, and pedicure. I didn't think to bring the camera (though I remembered a book!), so we missed out on getting pictures of her actually getting the services. Needless to say, she was very, very happy with them.

Then, Sunday after church, we had a little "party": she opened her four envelopes and one present and we had cake and ice cream.

Kristen and Alison played "mail carrier" and gave Megan the envelopes:



In which were gift cards and money. Hooray for being a teenager!



The one present was a pair of earrings that Alison suggested we pick up at the farmer's market. Alison even picked them out. (I picked this picture so you could see Megan's oh-so-pretty nails...)

I just liked this one.


And the cake she really wanted was angel food with cool whip and strawberries. It's a bit late in the season for that... but we indulged her anyway. Besides, how often does a girl turn 13?

Then, last night, she and Russell went out on a date. They got ice cream at Cold Stone and went to see Star Trek again at the pink Palace... and didn't get home until late, late, late. (Good thing it wasn't a school night!)

It was a good birthday!