Living in Georgia

 Ah lacrosse season, and the return to my happy place! This past weekend was Jack's first game.  It was supposed to be Wyatt's first game too, but the other team couldn't make it so it's postponed until a later date. But he was able to amuse himself with his skateboard and the younger sisters of Jack's teammates. We've all been together now for so long that it's like a big extended family!!  Sometimes Ethan joins in on the running around and playing, and sometimes he just wants a quiet place to watch his iPad. He did enjoy hanging with the dogs that showed up with a family.  This year Jack was selected to be the Team Captain. He didn't want it, at first, as he didn't want all the attention on him, but I think he's warmed up to it.  Here he is as a midi. He really wants to play the X position for Attack, but he's one of the better players and they need him here. And he proved himself by winning several of the fac

 Jason will have to give up his company car soon so he found the perfect replacement -- a Jeep! He grew up Jeeping so he's been wanting one for a long time.  We took the boys out for frozen yogurt the day we brought it home to celebrate Jack's birthday and then went for a little off roading ride. Who giggled the most? Ethan! But the other two had fun as well.  Until we got stuck!  Jason decided to go through a section of the road covered in tall grass without checking to see what was hidden underneath. Turns out there was a ton of mud. Who would have thought, since we haven't had much rain in the area and are actually in a drought. But there you go. So he started digging us out while we waited for a fellow Jeep friend to come help us out.  Ethan and I stayed in the Jeep while the other two boys help Jason, as much as they could. Can you see all that mud? We finally got out (and giggled all the way home) but the moral of the

 I've been itching lately to declutter and get rid of a lot of unnecessary junk in the house. While killing time waiting on Ethan the past couple of weeks I spent some time wandering around Target getting ideas. This was my first project - the silverware drawer. As you can see above it was a mess.  So much nicer now!  Next up was the master bath. I had too much stuff cluttering the bathtub. I really want more of a streamlined look. I added a little shelf to the wall and was able to remove a bunch of stuff from around the sides and clean it up a bit.  And added this photo of the boys when they were little and in the tub altogether. The other two photos are of me and Jason the week before we married. We were babies ourselves!!  A much cleaner and simpler looking tub.  Look at my cute photo bomber!! We had kept the dog kennel here when we needed to crate Bandit but since he hasn't used it in over a year it was definitely time to get

This has been the strangest start to the new school year for me ever... Jason and I left town on the second day of school for a 10 day European trip (I'm waiting for him to send me all his pictures before I share our trip with y'all) and then I missed another 10 days with Ethan (details below). So, in the meantime, here are the pictures of life between our return and now...  Right before we left for Europe, we had some new neighbors move in a couple houses up from us that had a little boy right around our kids age! Finally! While we were gone, our kids became fast friends so since we've been home there has been a lot of this happening again - kids filling up the cul-de-sac playing. This is exactly why we bought this house.  We brought back a few treasures for the boys from Europe, including this little soldiers from a castle on our way into it...  And these crossbows from our walk down the hill from the castle back to our bus back to the

 August 1st always seems so early for the start of school because it is! I know I'm a broken record when it comes to school start dates and vacations but I really wish we had at least another week or two in August. But, alas, here they are, ready for the new school year.  Wyatt started first grade and actually let me take his picture in the classroom.  Jack started fifth grade and his last year in elementary school. Where, or where did the time go? And Ethan started 2nd grade. Back in the special education classroom as we don't have much of a choice in our area. I will fight for him to be in general education when I think he's ready but the problem is he does so much better in a smaller classroom setting and that just doesn't seem to be an option around here. But as long as he's learning and able to get out and do stuff with the general education kids that's the best I can hope for. For now!