Hello

Ten points if you can figure out what I went to a Halloween party as:

Checking in

I'm sorry my blog posting has slowed to a trickle! Here's what's going on here...

- I can't remember if I posted about it on here, but I recently joined a team of three girls who took over the children's ministry at church. It is going fine and means just a bit more work each week than usual. Team leading has its benefits (less work for everyone) and its drawbacks (things slip through the cracks when each person thinks one of the others is going to take care of it and/or sometimes one person seems to do more than the others).
- I'm still working one day a week at the graphic design studio in Long Beach (Vision Design Studio) and also from home. It's still going well and I enjoy it. I'm not really a proofreader anymore (though I do help with that sometimes); now I'm a "special projects coordinator." I help coordinate one of the big ongoing projects (i.e., as soon as the June project finishes up, we have to start preparing for the September project, then December, then March) our company does for our biggest client. I like it.
- The children are all doing well at school. I think Nate is fitting in better in class now that he has been there a while (it's the same class, same teacher as last year). Lucy loves 1st grade. Levi is having the kinds of adjustments you would expect from a child starting school for the first time--figuring out how to get along with new children, how to deal with kids who are sometimes mean, etc. It's all going very well, though.
- We are going to Virginia for Christmas. Yay for solidified plans! :)

Now we're off to AWANA!

Virginia wedding

We had a lovely and very quick weekend in Virginia for Heather and Greg's wedding. I'm so happy for them!

Part of the rehearsal dinner setup at Mama and Daddy's house:

Brunch at Hanshill:

Squirrel hunting in the back yard:

Levi loved the clip-on tie we borrowed from Hallie's boys:

Tractor ride:

I didn't take one picture at the wedding!

This week

A pretty bloom from our back yard:

Some Lucy art. This is Jon and her:

A shirt I love from Anthropologie. Out of my price range so I just tried it on and keep checking for a sale. ;) I also bought some fabric to try sewing my own rendition.

An unsatisfying house project: peeling and sanding all the doors and trim in the house (last year's painter used latex paint over the existing oil-based paint, which peels away at the scrape of a fingernail) so I can repaint them with oil-based primer and white paint.

Levi tonight

Some pictures

From Nate's homework last week. I love it.

Lucy painting on Sunday.

Family movie at the dollar theater. It was so fun!

Sea lavender (aka statice) in my back yard. Yay me!

The next stage

I'm sitting alone at the computer at home. Quietly. With a clean house. I have never, as a mother, uttered those three sentences together.

We are in the second full week of school, and things are going well around here. We're settling back into the school routine well, and all the kids are enjoying school. Nate was excited to get back to see his teacher (same teacher as last year) and was excited about some of the special things about 3rd grade. This is the first year they do an overnight field trip (camping--in May). Lucy is loving 1st grade, as I knew she would: all the things she wanted to do last year she now gets to do (knitting/hand work, Spanish, more painting and art, etc.). She also is excited to read. Levi is adjusting well to school, though I can tell he's tired. He came home on the first day and said, proudly, "Mom: I didn't punch ANYone."

As for me, I'm enjoying the quiet. Last week was a busy week with not much time at home, so today is the first day I've actually had more than an hour or two here. Now that I've done all that was on my list (it was a pretty long list!--but work gets done quickly when you're by yourself) and am waiting for the last load of laundry to finish drying, I'm kind of in between thinking about a) starting some sort of sewing project or b) just letting the clean house stay clean.

First day

Camping

This year's camping trip wasn't so much camping as it was luxuriating. We all rented cabins that had AC, refrigerator, stove, full bathroom, bunk beds, queen bed, DVD player/TV, etc. The campground had playgrounds and a pool, and our cabins came with free use of the pedal boats. It. was. great.

Enjoying summer

The rush to the start of school is upon us, so we're soaking up the last couple of weeks before September 4. We go camping next week!

I sewed!

Last night, I made two new pillows with a favorite fabric I'd been saving. I like them!

The high dive

A friend lives in another section of Irvine and has access to this fun pool with two diving boards. The first time we went, Lucy almost got enough courage to try the high dive, but then the pool closed for private swim lessons and we had to leave. This week, we went to that pool again. The big surprise was that Nate was the first to jump off the high dive! Here he is on his first jump (and there's also Levi doing a little flip from the low board):

Lucy got to the end of the high dive board at least ten times and had to turn around and climb back down. Then she finally jumped; she ended up jumping at least 10 times after that. Levi climbed up once and turned back around, but he climbed up again and jumped. He jumped off only twice because he said it was just too high. Here's a video of one of Lucy's jumps and Levi's second jump (it's pretty long because Levi lingered for quite a while... haha):


I need to remember to turn the phone sideways when I take videos--sorry!