They're Too Cool For School

The second week in August is a hard time to go back to school. The girls are always excited and ready anyway. I thought Kara would have a hard time getting up at 6 every morning, since last year she only had to get up that early every other day. But it hasn't been too bad, and she almost never runs late. I suppose it's easier to get used to a schedule that is consistent. 

I walked her to the bus on the first day, and all of the other parents were there too, so I don't know why she was annoyed. But she did not want me to walk her down the next day. She asked me to stay in the house, so I said I'd walk half way to where I could see her get on the bus. We finally compromised that I could stand on the front porch. Sheesh, these kids... She hasn't been kidnapped yet, so I guess it's going okay.

Off to middle school!

The little girls got up much earlier than needed because they were so excited. That left us plenty of time to curl Kiersten's hair. Now that I see the picture, we'll have to do it again soon, I forgot how adorable it was. 

Evie was pretty excited to have the same teacher that Kara had for 2nd grade. It's the first time any of the girls have repeated a teacher. I just hope her teacher wasn't expecting a calm, quiet, math-loving bookworm like Kara. I'm never quite sure what to expect to hear from Evie's teacher at that first parent teacher conference.  I don't think anything would surprise me unless I heard she's very quiet and organized. 

She really wanted to take an umbrella to school. There was rain in the forecast, so I let her take it along.

These kids are all getting so big! We'll be 4 fewer at the bus stop next year. Maybe we'll have some new faces around by then.

We got a new bus driver this year. The girls were kind of sad, but they have warmed up to the new driver. She seems very nice. The timing is slightly different with having a new driver, but we've gotten used to a slightly adjusted schedule. We get 4 extra minutes in the morning now before we need to leave. 

It did in fact start raining after school. The little umbrella Evie had didn't help too much. I should have brought one of our large golf umbrellas, but I didn't expect it to start pouring like that. Kara was surprised to see us come in just soaking wet. Evie changed into pjs before I could get a picture of them. 

It was a successful first day back.

They wanted their picture taken again the next day before school. Mostly Kiersten wanted the picture because she is so proud of that little jacket. She saw it at the store a while back and really liked it, but it was too expensive. When she went on her birthday shopping spree, it was discounted some, but she still decided it was more than she was willing to spend. So when we went back to school shopping and she found it for $4, she was over the moon, and didn't stop talking about her amazing find for days. All the bus stop parents got to hear about it. It was definitely not jacket weather, but she just had to wear it anyway.

I have seen this fox in our yard plenty of times, but finally had my phone handy to take a picture. I wanted to show Ben how large it was. 

I thought she was posing for me. 

But it turned out she had spotted a rabbit. Which she did catch. Don't leave your cats outside neighbors.

Soccer Stars

Evie and Kiersten are playing soccer for Twin Oaks Christian School again this year. The first few practices are always rough when it's hot out, and everyone would rather be at the pool relaxing. 

Evie really wanted to try goalie again. But I think it's just not for her. She has a hard time staying in the goal and paying attention. It's better for her to be off chasing the ball. 

It is cute to watch her try. 

Maybe she will make a great goalie someday. Who knows? 

Kiersten played a pre-season tournament. It was only 3 games within the span of a week, so not too bad. We only had about a 30 minute drive for the games. 

They definitely got in some good running!

We had to wait around at the end for them to get their medals. 

Is it horrible that I don't even remember if they got first or second? I do remember they had to wait for the outcome of another game before they would know, but I guess I didn't care too much, or I would remember. 

We have an awesome group of sweet girls. They play so hard. 

She has so much fun, and loves doing something you couldn't pay me to do in such warm weather. She's a great sport too, always gets back up when she falls, and runs her hardest.

We took the girls for frozen custard at Ted Drewe's to celebrate Kiersten's soccer greatness since we were nearby. 

Kara was happy to get back to her martial arts. She felt rusty after having *GASP* 2 months off. She begged me to let her attend through the summer next year. We'll have to see what exactly we're doing travel-wise, because I don't want to pay for it if she's going to miss half of the month anyway. She just became a second degree brown belt on Friday, and has at least 4 months before she's allowed to test for first degree. After that, I think she has another 9-12 months before she can take her black belt exam. 

Here is some edible art courtesy of twizzler pull and peel and my kids. Isn't that fun?

Pool Parties and Back to School Stuff

The girls had such a fun summer. It was kind of sad to take them to all of the back to school nights/activities. I love spending my days hanging out with them.

I had to get a picture of how we take the rainbow unicorn to the pool. We have to stuff its head down through the sunroof, and then the girls hold onto the handles. The best part is that the wings flap as we drive. There is a reason that it made as few trips to the pool with us as it did. 

We tried to get in as much pool time as we could as the summer began winding down. It was hard with soccer practice starting and back to school stuff, but we did have some nice lazy days left. 

Kara got to bring all of her school supplies and set up her locker ahead of time. The 6th graders have the short lockers, but it works. She was so excited to have any locker at all. She was kind of annoyed to have to wear her TKD uniform, but I needed her to be ready to go. Also, I'm pretty sure this is how she basically dresses every day anyway. I guess she'd normally have shorts instead of the uniform pants, but baggy t-shirts are certainly her thing. 

She set it up pretty no-fuss. I offered to help her with decorations, contact paper, etc., but she just wanted to be low key. She said if it's a lot of work setting it up now, it will be a lot of work taking it back down later. I couldn't argue with that. I'm sure once Kiersten is in middle school I'll get my chance to do some more exciting decor. 

We had to rush from Kara's back to school thing to Kiersten's soccer practice. I dropped Kara off at home on our way so she could get picked up for Tae Kwon Do. Practice was horribly hot and humid, so we stopped for some refreshing slushies afterward. 

We couldn't let summer roll away without a few more trips over to the North Pointe. Since the pool at the indoor Pointe was closed, we were able to use our membership to get in free of charge, so had to take advantage. 

Interesting flips were attempted. 

The climbing wall was slipped off of multiple times. 

And Evie rode the water slide 80,000 times!

I let the girls use some of their allowance on snacks. Everyone got dippin dots, which I feel are a major rip off. The girls are still impressed with them, so whatever. 

It's such a fun place, and even when we don't get in for free, still totally worth it for the price. 

For our neighborhood adults only pool party there was a Mardi Gras theme. At first I thought, "blah", but when I was telling Ben to wear purple and green, he decided that sounded like the Joker to him. So I thought I should dress like Harley Quinn. I didn't like any of the Harley Quinn costumes we saw, so I got a "Mardi Gras jester" costume, and then just did my hair in pigtails and drew a black heart on my face. We didn't want to get crazy with makeup for a pool party. I just wore my bathing suit underneath because it was wretched hot in that thing, and I knew I wouldn't want to wear it for very long.

I also wore a Mardi Gras mask to be more in theme, since we were taking some liberties there. I hated the pigtails so high, but Ben insisted Harley Quinn would not wear casual, low pigtails. Boo. The mask also made my face super sweaty, so I wore it mostly up on my head. 

Fun in the photo booth. I was glad I thought to bring an extra dress, because once I'd been in the pool, there was no way I was going to struggle back into the costume, fun as it was. 

These hooligans did not get a normal picture. Every single one, someone has to be acting up, haha. 

You can't see Ben's batman tattoo well, but I crossed it out with a sharpie and wrote HA HA HA on his arm. We thought we were pretty clever. It was a fun night. The food was good, and we danced plenty.

Summer- I miss you already.