Monday, August 23, 2010

Happy birthday, little man!

Today is Zachary's first day of fourth grade, and also his ninth birthday. Yes, he is the youngest one in his grade level, but he does well in school, and was ready to start kindergarten...


Anyway, we have a tradition around here where we take a picture of him on his birthday, holding up the corresponding number of fingers to his age. Here are the ones from the last four years. The ones before that are on an external hard drive, and I am too lazy to go and search for them. Enjoy!



9th birthday-2010

8th birthday-2009

7th birthday-2008

6th birthday-2007




Monday, August 09, 2010

Miscellaneous Ramblings

Wow, it's August already. For our family, that means the fall birthday bonanza has begun. We have my brother-in-law, mom, and my son in August, my mother-in-law, dad, me, and my daughter in September, and our anniversary is in October. Some years I'm better at buying cards on time than others. I suspect this will be one of the latter. Can I use an insanely busy school schedule as an excuse? It will have to do for now. I just used the rest of the Christmas stamps to mail Zach's birthday party invitations. That is how often I mail things; every single bill is paid online, and if correspondence doesn't happen via the computer, it doesn't happen around here anymore.

Anyway, as of tomorrow I will have been off school for three months. What have I accomplished? I've done some cleaning and organizing, catching up with old friends, lots of reading, both of books and blogs, lots of cooking, and not as much crafting as I would like. What I would still like to accomplish is to put together a meal-planning binder (it's currently in its early stages, and I still can't figure out the best way to do it; help!), cook some meals to have in the freezer, plan both kids' birthday parties, make some beaded pacifier holders so that I have something to sell in my new Etsy shop, and start an exercise plan. Nothing big, right?

I really would have liked to have taken a summer vacation this year. Instead, I am having to live vicariously through my Facebook friends, and their vacation snapshots. Darren has a work project that will consume his life until December, and he is currently in Mexico City for the second time in a little over a month with that project. The kids and I did get away to Louisiana for almost a week, and were able to spend a week with my sister and nephew, and that was a lot of fun. Two two-year-olds is exhausting, but at least they got along really well. There are some photos on my Flickr page from the visit.

Has anyone else noticed that the light outside has visibly changed? I know it's still hot as Hades outside, and our grass has turned brown in the past two days, but the sun is sitting a little lower in the sky. I get giddy with excitement when I realize that fall is just around the corner, and every year I wish that we lived somewhere that had more seasons. One of these years, I am going to take a vacation up north during the fall, and get to see the gorgeous leaves, along with the other stereotypical things that I have pictured in my head as what fall really looks like. I hope that I have some free time this fall to enjoy the time of year.

I cannot believe that my little buddy starts fourth grade in two weeks! He turns nine on the first day of school, and this is his last year of elementary school. I realized the other day that Zoe will start kindergarten the same day that Zach starts junior high; wow! Of course, my cousins in Baton Rouge have me beat: they have a child starting college, high school, and kindergarten this year. No lie.

Be back soon...