Summer, that is.This morning we got up bright and early (6:15 am anyone?) and off to school we went. Trent left earliest for Marching Band Practice. I'm not sure he was entirely awake as you can see by the picture below.
Since it was Sadie's very first, first day of school, I made her a special first day of school outfit. I only had to stay up until midnight to finish it. She is my skirt girl - for years she refused to wear pants of any kind, saying "Princesses do not wear pants!" We finally convinced her that some Princesses do and she will condescend to wear a pair now and then. Of course, for her very first day of school she had to have a skirt - and not just any skirt. Oh no! That would not do for my Sadie. She had to have a very special skirt - cupcakes and polka dots and lots of pink. You can't see it because it is under her jacket, the part that had me up really late was actually the t-shirt. I got one of those jeweled iron-ons in the shape of a cupcake to match, because it was supposed to be easy. Yeah, right. It took almost 45 minutes of alternately pressing, cooling, waiting and trying to peel off the cover and repeating this process to get all the little sparkly jewel things to finally stick to her shirt. Yeesh - I think I could have glued them all individually faster . . . but eventually they all finally stuck, save one, and I called it good and went to bed.
School lunches went up considerably this year and with four of them in school, seemed a bit excessive. So we decided to 'brown bag" it. Given it has been many years since we have needed to purchase a lunch box, I was a bit shocked by how much they all cost and how small most of them are! Ten dollars for Care Bears with a cheap plastic zipper that is going to break the first week? I found a few lock down type storage boxes on clearance for $1.50 each (wahoo!) that were the perfect size and with a few of my smallest storage containers we made our own Bento style lunch boxes. When I packed them this morning, I was rather impressed with how nicely everything goes in - neat and protected from squashing. They didn't have handles though and so with some fabric, webbing, and a thermal insulating drape, I made them lunch bags to carry their boxes in. The kids were really excited about them - though, I am guessing Trent won't bother to use his much being in Jr. High and all, lunch bag made by mom - not so 'cool' you know. I found what is called an "ice blanket" that fit well into the bottom of the box and didn't take up too much space. That coupled with the insulating liner out of the drape should keep things quite nicely for the kids. You can see the bags in the picture - Sadie and Garrett are both holding theirs.
Does it make me a bad mommy if I say it was rather nice to put 2/3 of my children on a bus this morning and send them off to school?
I did get teary eyed after the last kid rode away; perhaps that will improve your opinion. So now what do I do with myself? Given that Nathan is currently poking my sewing machine cord into a cereal bar, I am pretty confident I am not going to have to wonder for too long.
Four down, two in four more years to go . . . !
P.S. This last picture made me weepy. ***sigh***
