2017–week 27

monday: another week of kids bowl free!

tuesday: layla marching in the bothell 4th of july parade with the gym.

and a whole bunch of pics from our party.

corn hole tournament.

the winner of the corn hole tournament, AKA “the great cornholio”.

fireworks.

finishing off the pyrotechnic portion of the evening with sparklers for all the kids.

wednesday: bonez needed a day to recover from the party.

thursday: hike with kids and dog at paradise valley.

saturday: we had to get dave this shirt. LOL!

also saturday: date night in snohomish.

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first day of school

so, we started school today. this is a big deal because it is OUR first day of official homeschooling. you know, here. at home. most everyone reading this is already aware of the fact that shane has been homeschooled since first grade, but that he has spent the majority of that ‘school’ time, with my mother as his ‘teacher’. this was a fine arrangement, she was willing and more than qualified, and he was learning. but for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being my mother’s current cancer issues, it had become clear that it was time for me to take over. AND,with layla being 4 now, i really wanted to do a little bit more preschool stuff with her. being a little bit of a chicken flake, i (with much urging from my loving husband) decided the best route to go would be with a packaged curriculum. i figured it would be the most time-effective way to cover what we needed to cover, and be somewhat dummy-proof, but at the same time, having the option to supplement with as much

project life–week 18

the three amigos… this trio of the neighbors’ poultry is always in my parents’ yard. and spark way too many “why did the chicken cross the road” jokes. these are the two lilacs I gave my mom for mother’s day two years ago. last year, only one bloomed. looks like this year, both will have some nice flowers! when I get to the bottom of a bag of chips and they’re too small to effectively scoop up salsa, I just dump them in a bowl, pour salsa over them, and eat the whole delicious mess with a spoon. not ashamed. dave got himself a new set of bike tools. everyone had to check it out. first grade music concert. micah had a solo! saturday baseball fun. pitching, homerun derby, bouncy houses, dunk the coach… and of course, eating kettle corn and horsing around.

Micah’s Birthday

This kid had the audacity to turn 13 yesterday… As was expected, I was a bit of a hot mess about the whole affair. Here’s his “last day to be 12” photo. He ran out of fingers a couple years ago, so taking a page out of Shane’s book, he borrowed a couple of feet from the cat to make 12. But, not too old to choose Lucky Charms for his birthday breakfast. He got his happy birthday facetime call first thing and got to open his gift from Gramma and Skip while they watched… He’s had a boom box on his list this year. You might remember that 2 years ago, it was a Walkman. The obsession with 80s audio continues. Gramma found this one and it seems to fit the bill. Looks totally retro, plays and records tapes but also has radio AND a USB port so he could use some modern tech with it, as well. So, he spent the morning taking advantage of the birthday allowances of not having to do his weekend chores and lifted time limits on video games… all while listening to the radio or one

my vacuum cleaner sucks!

no pun intended… i’ve had this vacuum cleaner for almost 6 years. i’ve been ready to be done with it for about 5. i have the dirt devil ‘jaguar’ bagless vacuum. we only paid about $75 for it at target, which, in vacuumcleanerland, is not very much. still, it’s $75. i tried to find a picture of it on the dirt devil website, but apparently, they no longer sell it, which is probably a good thing. so i had to take my own picture, which is probably better anyway. if you think it looks a bit ‘off’, that’s not just the perspective of the picture. it is a bit off. about a year after getting this vacuum, the latch that keeps it standing upright broke. so, any time you want to NOT be holding onto it (as in, any time it’s not in use) it has to lean against something or it will fall over. ANNOYING! but livable. and then, more recently, THIS happened: that’s a picture of the bottom of it,from the back. note the missing wheel. yup. a wheel broke off. so now, when using the vacuum, if you wan

how to clean your room

i was discussing this sort of thing w/ my MIL recently and she said there were some books she had when the boys were young that explained things to kids that adults often tell them to do w/out giving them explicit instructions. so i thought about it and decided to write my own. i mean, really, if i expect shane to clean his room, i ought to tell him HOW i want him to clean it, so he knows what i expect. so i wrote them out. keep in mind, these are 9 year old instructions. they would have to be adjusted accordingly. i actually don’t expect him to do much less than i would expect of myself. (bummer for him!) How to clean your room: strip your bed. put all dirty clothes in the laundry basket put all clean clothes in the closet or dresser put all shoes in the rack on the door. pick up everything off the floor and put it on your bed to sort. start by throwing away anything that’s trash. return anything that doesn’t belong in your room to where it does bel

rachel's continued ramblings

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