Anna's Birthday Party

We had a birthday party for Anna last weekend.  I was very nervous about it.  I'm not good at birthday parties and get really stressed about them.  There aren't many good birthday party venues in our town either so we planned to have it at our house.  This was soon after school starting, our epic summer full of vacations and our eclipse trip.  And the house was pretty messy.  So first I had to clean it...not all of it.  Just the downstairs.  Then I told Anna none of the party guests could go upstairs 'cause it was too messy.  She promptly announced this to all her guests as they arrived.  I was embarrassed but no one went upstairs so it was O.K.  Here are Matthew and Anna getting ready for the party.

I completely cleaned the office because it is on the first floor and has GLASS DOORS!!  Now I'm wishing I hadn't let Scott talk me into the glass doors 'cause everyone can see in there when they come in our house.  Just turning off the lights and pretending the room isn't there doesn't help.  So I cleaned it up.  It took several hours.  I wished I had taken a before picture because there was stuff piled over all the table tops and boxes all over on the floor.  It still looks pretty cluttered (in my defense that box in the corner is all party supplies and the vacuum isn't normally there - I had just vacuumed) but this is a VAST improvement.  And that is Emma/Snow White playing on the Rock Band drums.

Now the kids can use it for school and its our homeschool pre-k room again.

Scott and the kids helped me clean the rest of the first floor and we happily closed Matthew's bedroom door.  Hide that mess away.  :)

Anna all ready for her party.

This was sort of a sleepover themed party but it wasn't actually a sleepover.  Anna is always wanting a sleepover but I don't want to have one so this was a non-sleepover.  I had lots of activities planned.  First the girls painted pillowcases.  They were really into it and spent a lot longer than I thought on that.  I think we did that for a good 45 minutes.  We also ate pizza just before that.

I took lots of photo booth pics of Emma while they painted.

Emma feeling pretty comfortable

After that we did a game where the girls put make up on each other blindfolded

That was a big hit (thanks Angie for the idea)

We played a few games.

One was wrapping each other up as mummies with toilet paper (to see who could get wrapped the fastest).  Toilet paper is a sleepover staple.  This turned into a crazy toilet paper fight so we got out the glow stuff (a little early) and had a glow/toilet paper dance party.  The girls loved it even though it wasn't that dark yet.  Before we knew it we were out of time.  The girls had fun with all the activities.

Toward the end we had a piñata.

All the girls looking for some candy

Then sang to Anna and decorated cupcakes.

It went well and I was so relieved when it was over.

We didn't get to a lot of my games so here is Grant doing his own cup stacking (a game we didn't get to)  at the end.  Did I mention I was relieved when it was over?  ;)

A few days later we ate the last few cupcakes and gave Anna some presents.

We had been traveling on her real birthday and I didn't have her presents there with us.

So she had plenty of birthday party fun this year.  Happy Birthday Anna!

Eclipse Trippers

Oh, the eclipse.  I hadn't heard a lot about the eclipse down in NorCal.  No one was talking about it.  No one really seemed to care.  I wasn't planning on trying to go see the eclipse at first because the path of totality was 11ish hours away from us and for the kids it would be the third day of school.  Then I happened upon this article.  Basically it says "close" for an eclipse is not close enough.  Get to the path of totality!  So we headed to Oregon.  Scott was supportive of my plan to go even though he would have to miss another day of work.  It was totally inconvenient.  The kids had started school only two days before and would have to miss the third day of school (and possibly the fourth if traffic was really bad).  And we had just gotten back from vacation on Tuesday night, school Thursday and Friday and then left for our eclipse trip on Saturday morning.  The kids were quite road weary by then.  Matthew especially didn't want to go because he had perfect attendance last year and this would ruin his chances this year.  We told him we were sorry, but that he was going.  :(

I ordered eclipse glasses online a month or so in advance.  Scott gave a few away because people in our area started caring about it more a couple days prior but there were no eclipse glasses to be had by us.  Glad we ordered some.

The drive up to Oregon on Saturday was a little heavier traffic than normal, but not too bad.

We stayed with Scott's parents Saturday night.  They entertained the kids most of the day Saturday while Scott and I ran some errands.  Where they live was 99.7% of totality, and had I not read that article I would have thought that was close enough.  But it wasn't in the path...close but not close enough.  Originally I was planning to just drive south on Monday morning and hope we could find a parking lot to park in near Woodburn or Salem.  But my sister's father-in-law lives in Salem and generously let us stay with him, even with our whole brood.  So Sunday night we drove down to Salem.  Traffic to Salem the night before was not too bad either.

My sister's in-laws were so nice and welcoming!  They had snacks and soda ready for the kids and made us waffles in the morning. 

We're all ready to see the eclipse!

Seeing the moon start to cover part of the sun through the eclipse glasses was cool

That's my sister's father-in-law in the background.  He got some nice pictures of the eclipse.

Thank you Ivan for having us!!

It was a beautiful clear day.  Not a cloud in the sky.

It's hard to take a selfie with eclipse glasses 'cause you can't see anything.

That's my brother-in-law's brother.  He gave the kids all little Legos for the ride home.  

The kids were thrilled!

Crescent shadows

Here is the thumbnail sun just before totality

And then THE BEST PART:  TOTALITY!!!

It seemed to happen pretty quickly after that

It got darker and cool

As the eclipse moved into totality you could hear gasping, shouting and cheering all throughout the area.  I'm not even sure where those other people were or how close they were to us.  It was like we could hear the whole town gasp.

Then this amazing hole in the sky

This picture is terrible (taken with my phone) and in no way does justice to what we saw.  And even the really nice pictures you see (like from NASA) that people got of the eclipse don't quite do it justice.

I am not exaggerating when I say it was one of the coolest/most amazing/jaw dropping things I have ever seen.    We were watching that thumbnail until it slowly moved into totality.  It was amazing how much light that sliver had still been letting through and then how much darker it was during totality.  You can't see the corona through the eclipse glasses, it's not bright enough, but it is safe to look at it with the naked eye (only during totality).  The collective gasp and the cheers are something I'll always remember.  It was so cool.  I guess there aren't that many things in life anymore that just make me gasp, or shout out, "WHOA!" but this was one of those things.  It got as dark as night.  The temperature dropped.  It was amazing, beautiful, moving.  And it lasted two minutes.  I'm really glad we got to see it.  It was worth all the trouble.

And yes, we sat in a considerable amount of traffic driving back south.  The worst of the traffic was between Salem and Eugene and then it lightened up a bit.  It took us about 14 hours to drive what would normally have been 10 or 11 hours.  So it could have been much worse. One of our friends  from church went to Eastern Oregon and got home about 6 hours after us.  They had worse traffic coming that way.  We were home in time for all of us to get some sleep before heading into work and school the next day.  Matthew only had to miss one day of school.  On the drive home Matthew said he was glad we took him out of school for the eclipse.  He said it was worth ruining his perfect attendance.  I'm glad he thought it was worthwhile.  It was.  Maybe we'll go see the next one in Texas.  Who knows. 

Back to School

We've been gone a lot this summer and we barely made it back in time for school to start.  We had one day between getting back and the first day of school.  So we spent the day unpacking, doing laundry and getting back into the swing of things.  First up: exercise.  Emma lifted weights while I ran on the treadmill.  These pictures turned out a little blurry from the treadmill.  Glad she wants to do some strength training though.

We did some last minute back to school shopping

Some people are even starting to think about Halloween around here.

Anna wore this dress when she was about that age.

See Anna in it HERE.

Emma told me she needed a crown

I did the best I could on short notice...it was a rush job

We've had to take away John's police costume temporarily because of malfeasance.  

We'll see if he gets it back before Halloween.

We went to the schools in the evening before the first day to see the class lists.  Everyone was having fun running around.  Then John threw Grant's flip flop over the locked fence.

Guess he's not getting that police costume back today.

We got to one of the schools a little early so we had to wait a few minutes.

Our soon to be 5th grader!!

And here are the kids on the morning of the first day of school  Matthew is going into 5th grade, Anna into 4th grade and Grant into 1st grade.  Anna and Matthew go to the same school this year for a special program and Grant is at the neighborhood school.  I've requested to have him transferred to the same school as Matthew and Anna but they don't approve those kinds of transfers until after school starts - usually in the first two weeks I hear.  Grant used to go to school with Anna and even though they fought a lot, I think he actually misses her.  I wanted to transfer Grant 'cause I wasn't that impressed with our neighborhood school and it was a big pain to drive kids to two schools each day.  I know I will have to deal with that next year anyway with Matthew going to middle school but they are still all in elementary this year and it would be nice if they were all at the same school.

But on the first day I took Matthew and Anna to their school and then drove across town to Grant's school and walked him in.

Grant was accidentally put in the wrong class on the first day.  He was put in the Spanish language dual immersion class.  He didn't know anyone 'cause all his friends are in the standard class and he ended up crying a lot of the first day because the instruction was mostly in Spanish and he couldn't understand what was happening.  The other kids in his class were in dual immersion last year too so knew what to expect while it was new for Grant.  Here he is putting on a brave face before class.  I talked with the office and they moved Grant to a regular class in the middle of the second day.

Grant ready to start school

The first day when I picked him up he told me he cried "so hard" for me most of the day.  :(

But the second day, once he was in the right class he told me how much he loves his teacher and that he will cry if he has to move to Matthew and Anna's school.  Hmmm...so we'll see how this all works out.  Still waiting for the district to approve his transfer.

Then I took my two little guys to Costco.  The most peaceful grocery shopping trip I've had since June.  But it wasn't that peaceful.  I think John is entering into a rebellious phase.  Hoping I can steer him out of it quickly.  He likes to run all around the store and won't come when I call him...and he encourages Emma to join him.  I had to make them ride in the cart.

I'm so glad when Daddy comes home.

Everyone was excited too see Dad and tell him about the first day

Grant using Instagram while we wait for the bell on the second day of school.

When I picked him up on the second day he told me how much he loves his new teacher (in the standard English instruction class).  He told me they have a rat in their class named Lily and he got to pet it and that his teacher is so funny and that she calls their small classroom groups lions and tigers and bears which he says is "awesome."  So he is really pumped up about his new teacher, which is great.  But we are planning to move him to a new school.  Hmmm....I hope it all works out for the best.

 So summer was great and now all the activities are starting up again.  Matthew has scouts and he and Anna both want to be in the school play.  Anna wants to join STEAM club (Science Tech Engineering Art and Math) and will probably have activity day girls soon (when they get a new leader).  And she and Grant have soccer coming up soon too.  That might be all the activities I can handle to start.  We'll see.
Matthew loves his 5th grade teacher and is having a great time so far.  He gets to do the morning announcements for the school over the intercom for a few months.  Being a 5th grader has its privileges.
Anna's teacher is new to the school - taking over after Matthew's old teacher, the beloved Mr. H., retired.  It sounds a bit dramatic to say I was "devastated" when I found out he was retiring, but he was a great teacher...and I was kind of devastated.  But I've gotten over it now and Anna's new teacher seems like a good fit for her so far.  So the year is off to a great start.

And while the kids were at school on the second day I was getting a root canal.  It went really well but I felt pretty puffy and sore for several days.  Oh well.  I'm grateful for modern dentistry.  Here's a puffy selfie.  The root canal was on my left side (right side of this picture).  I notice it.