A Camping We Will Go

Between school and church we have several campouts scheduled in the next month. We used to have a nice big 3 room tent but we lent it to the same friend who recommended the renter for our Fort Collins house and after asking several times for its return we consider it a lost cause. So today I was at the flea market/warehouse sale where I pick up things for Ebay and I scored this nice tent for $15. Now we have two of these smaller tents which should be able to house us decently on camping trips. The kids are going to try it out tonight in the yard.

I also scored a lot of nice kids' books so if you need to add to your library check out my Ebay listings!

Quirks

Corey, whose spelling is atrocious, also has a quirk about words. Her latest- refering to the parent luncheon tomorrow is to call it a parent lunch-out! I guess she hears lunch-in and twists it around!

More Pix

The spring photos came back from school last week. At $40 per package and 4 kids, I just returned them. Today the school secretary handed me a package- all the photos! They gave them to us without charge (a 'scholarship'). How nice was that? Especially since Eli did not get a school photo in fall (still not sure how that happened as he was there that day).

Family Portrait

We had our photos taken for our church directory. In addition to the 'free' (plus $15 shipping and handling fee) 8x10, we got a 2nd 8x10. It's been some time since we had a family portrait done and I hope the kids will cherish it some day. Naturally getting 4 kids and one tired mom to smile together is tough - so this is what we ended up with! The one for the church directory has Eli looking mischievous and Kim looking a bit more Madonna like. I guess that's representative of both of them.

Spring Cleaning

As part of our downsizing and spring cleaning I've had the kids go through both their closets and their bookshelves (toy boxes are next) to weed out things they no longer want. I'm listing both books and clothes (some) on Ebay and we have a big box of things to donate. I was surprised at how many duplicate children's books we had - some adoption/Chinese related as we might already own one and then be given one as a gift, but also other books. I think it's a result of me buying bulk collections on Ebay!

As for me, I'm tackling paper which is a much more laborious task than clothing. I cannot believe how much paper I've dragged around with me through multiple moves. Back in the days before internet I used to clip magazine articles on things that interested me so I had file after file titled things like alternative medicine, herbs, politics, headaches, animals, people (mostly stuff about Harrison Ford, but I had coverage of Princess Diana's wedding too- oh my that was long ago and the person that collected those things isn't the same anymore). In the interest of time I just chucked it all into the recycling bin without leafing through each folder. I need to buy a new shredder (mine mysteriously disappeared from our house) and clean out all the old files with financial/personal information in them as well.

Moving, if done right, really is a good curb on packrat tendencies! If you don't sort and toss during packing, you do upon unpacking. Better the former though otherwise you'll regret the time and money spent packing and moving what is essentially rubbish!

Insanity

We are going to host a sleep over tomorrow. Three girls- ages 6, 9 and 12. So tomorrow night there will be 7 children in this house with me. Saturday morning I'm sure I will be checking into the closest padded cell! Eli might want the cell next to mine- or maybe not.

Artists

I have a number of artists in my family. My mom, both brothers and my sister (check out the link to Sleepy Cat Studio) are all artists. Like music this is a talent that skipped me, but I'm happy to say seems to have been passed on to my daughter Kim! She's obviously influenced by the anime/manga art that is everywhere these days (at least I hope that's the influence and it wasn't those awful Bratz dolls with the big heads).

This one is a self-portrait.