Things that fall. . .

Sara is loving the kindergarten project "collect fall". She is constantly out in the backyard with a baggie picking up all the fall.
And I love it when she tells me the story of how the tree feeds the leaves, and then, in fall, it stops feeding the leaves, and the leaves die, and then they fall, and then the next year they grow again. She's a believer in miracles.

Such a joy to be SAHM. . .

I got to tag along on the kindergaten "P" picnic today. Each kid had to bring a food item that began with P to contribute to the feast. They love telling what they came up with, and it was all pretty tasty! What a beautiful fall day for a picnic!

Pringles, popcorn, pumpkin cake and cookies, pineapple, plums, pears, pb & js, peach jellies, pb cookies, pickles.

. . .and back to reality:

Homework. Monday, we hit the ground running and the kids were literally at it for an hour and a half. I'm very proud of them! They have a lot going on and they work really hard and still manage enthusiasm. Currently, we have an extra-curricular after school every day, but Friday. Ballet classes, singing school, violin, and football. Yep, football. More on that coming soon!!!

Oh wait! Did I say summer was over?

We managed to score another 90 degree day this month, and amazingly, it landed on a Saturday! I'd been watching the forecast all week, just waiting for a thunderstorm to appear over the perfect sun, but it never came! So Saturday morning we packed up our little boat and headed for Lake Chotcolet, or something. (I actually can't even begin to remember how it is spelled and I'm simply too lazy to google.) Hayburn State Park. It was the perfect place for the day. We were almost completely alone on the water, and it was still and glassy. Just the way we like it!
And I believe it is safe to say, that's it for the year!

Cherub sleeps. He was pretty much out by the time we made it on the boat. He'll come with us next summer. . .

Kayte's new room!

Loving how the tan color mixes with the girly pink. So grown up!
(Sara's room is still needing a guy with a drill, and that guy is super-busy right now. . .we'll get to it soon! And the boys, well, the boys room needs some work too. Whew. My to-do list is growing!)

Pirate ships!

Will built the sail on his :)

The Fair!

What a beautiful fall we've had already! We had perfect weather for the Tilt-a-Whirl, piglets, and elephant ears!

Sara loves the animals, and Will wanted us to buy a duckling. ($5 each!) I'm not sure what the poor thing would've done when our pond froze over. . .

Joe was super-big and took the boys on the tilt-a-whirl :)

Ed was going to take Kayte on a super-crazy ride until someone puked on it. . .later they went back and there was a guy there discussing big things with another guy who was toting a bag full of screwdrivers. (Yep, worst-case-scenario kicks into overdrive. I can't help myself.) It was possible that my look of terror convinced Kayte to skip that one. There's always next year!

The kids only went on 2 rides each, but that managed to take quite awhile. . .

I love taking them on the Ferris Wheel! Such a classic!

Finally we headed to the music, and dished on a great big elephant ear. They played my very favorite music, and then we drug our very tired kiddoes home to bed. . .the next morning they hopped right up! It was their annual trip to Silverwood with the grandparents! Always a hoot!

Best kids ever.

Ben:

After what appeared to be a very successful turn on the swings at the triangle park last night, Ben runs over to me and says, "It's so fun to be awesome."

So true, Ben, so true.

Ack! Virus!

I don't know what it is. I only know one path for getting my pics uploaded from Picasa onto my blog (if there are more than four per post, which, of course, there almost always is.) But it is causing an error saying my disk is full. Which might very well explain the snail's pace I've been forced to work at all last week. So, until the resident engineer shows up and has time to address this little snafu, I'm pic-less. Which is pretty much the whole point of this blog.

Oh, if only I were born smarter. Thank heaven I married well.

First fire of the season. . .

A mulled cider candle, a can of cold caffeine, a used paperback, and a super-cute boy to wrap up the day with. . .and yes, in my mind, he's still the 22 year old I fell in love with :)

Saying goodbye to the summatime. . .

We got the boat up and running with one 90 degree day to spare. . .we've only managed to get out once this summer before it broke down, and it took us a bit to nail down the problem and get it taken care of. So we ditched all our regular after-school responsibilities and took it out on the Snake for one more glorious day of summer. It was the best. The kids could not get enough of the rocket, and I have to say that is my favorite boat investment yet. You literally cannot get tossed from that thing. We've tried and tried and tried. A mama's dream, for sure.

Beautiful sunset to boot.

And yes, our family can now pack away an entire family-sized bag of doritos. Oh, how the teenage years are gonna cost us.

Will was pretty brave, and after the first 1/2 hour could even keep up with Kayte's level of complete fearlessness.

Buh-bye summer. We are gonna miss you.

Life, it's a moving target :)

Kayte finished up her Latin homework and is chatting with a friend in her very own bedroom while listening to Shania Twain on her princess radio.

Will was fretting since he didn't have a friend to play with (like Kayte) so I told him to go play playmobile with his very own brother. They hurried off in cahoots to their room and Will is asking Ben, "do you want to start my bed on fire, or yours?"

If you are missing Sara, she is tripping around on her tiptoes in the local studio with other teeny ballerinas. . .

My new little niche.

In all the room-rearranging, I managed to carve out a little spot of feminine, just for me.
Joe brought home that beautiful bouquet of fall last night, and whipped us up a pot of his famous potato soup. And so we have officially declared it fall!
Now, when the temp manages to drop below 60 at night, we will break out our first fire of the season. . .I love September!

The day the cell phone died.

So our house is yes, still on the market. Apparently, we had a showing scheduled from 1-2 today. The realtor left a message regarding this showing on my dead cell phone this morning. So yes, I didn't get it. Even if my cell had any signs of life, it wasn't likely that I would've gotten it. I didn't actually touch down at all today. Until 1. I'd gone to put my feet up for a minute. The kids were sleeping in their new rooms. And suddenly I hear a puff puff noise, like a tired little Ben struggling to make it up the stairs. But no. It was the sound of an elderly man tuckered from the trip into my kitchen. His wife. And their realtor.

I don't know about you, but for me a showing is like preparing for a speech in front of a large crowd. It takes a lot of time and care to make sure that everything is ready and absolutely perfect. Every i dotted, every t crossed. Having an unannounced showing is like being totally unprepared for a speech in front of a large crowd (and because it is your house, and therefore very personal) you look down to see that you also forgot your pants. Perhaps you think I exaggerate? Get up, right now, and walk around examining your house. Check the trash, go through all the cupboards and closets in your house. Are all the toilets flushed, seats down? Perhaps you don't have toddlers? I haven't actually made a speech in just my underwear, but considering the shade of purple I am, still now, an hour later, makes it hard for me to think I could feel more humiliated. Just sayin', it's not the way my mama raised me.

Moving Day?

. . .not exactly. It was long past time to separate the boys in the house from the girls. Thus the massive explosion in my living room/dining room/laundry room. Joe and I spent a full eight hours moving furniture and purging junk and cleaning closets and vacuuming baseboards. We finally had the furniture in place by 9:30 so the kids could go to bed. . .and then it was another 3 hours spent in the living room getting that in order. It occured to us that the kids spend so much time with school and extra-curricular activities, that they didn't need tubs and tubs of toys. So we scaled it down to the very favorites. This will also mean a lot less time cleaning their rooms, which I think we can all appreciate!
I'll post the shiny new rooms as soon as I get some pictures on the walls :)

Shoulda had my Wheaties. . .then gone back to bed.

Yup. It was that kind of day. I got myself into a fender bender. . .that nearly turned into a hit and run. I didn't know there was even a car behind me until she honked at me as I drove away, and when that didn't catch my attention, she got out of the car and yelled at me. Of course, I couldn't blame her. It was bad manners on my part. But I honestly didn't know I'd touched her. Evidence on both of our cars proved otherwise, although my car was only barely scratched, it didn't even cut the surface of the paint. On hers a little dent. Things gently snowballed from there. I couldn't find my shuffle on the way to the gym, so I grabbed Joe's. I didn't realize it was dead till I was standing on the treadmill. The girl next to me was watching "Sons of Guns" and there was no Musak playing in the background for some reason, just on this particular day. Then I cut my finger when I was lifting weights. Smudges of blood everywhere.

This blog is not a history of our lives. In a good history book, you get to see all the blood and gore, the arguments and foolishness. This is the Casebolt Family Highlight Reel. It doesn't cover everything. You wouldn't see a picture of me giving my kid the stink-face on a highlight reel. . .unless it was for entertainment value. I just wanted to clarify. In case I start going on and on and on and on about how fabulous I think all my favorite people are. Here on this page, you will only see the good stuff. The stuff I want my kids to remember cause these days won't come again. I will continue to be a sinner in 20 years, so will they. Hopefully they will all be more mature sins, but sins just the same. . .and we won't need a record to remember that we did them all before.

A hot shower, a cool jeep ride, and a frosty margarita. . .that oughta turn things around!

Hee hee.

Joe went on a little backpacking trip the other weekend (yes, without me!) and he packed his bag without my supervision. Now, I was raised on backpacking and I've learned from the very best. And so I fancy myself a bit of a connoisseur when it comes to this sport. Granted, it's been at least a decade, so I realize I might be a bit behind the times. But I do know that this is way.too.much. And way too heavy!
But he's a strong boy and he insisted that it was more important to him that he have all the fishing gear he needed than to lose a few extra pounds off the top.
Well, he went and he survived! And yes, even impressed me, just a little :) Next time I wanna go. . .and maybe I can talk him into packing my sleeping bag (he's not likely to notice 4 more pounds, right?)

I'm in love. . .

Picked this little gem up over the weekend. Photo on canvas. My favorite art medium. My very favorite city.
Heaven!

Sara swims!

Yes she does! I was at the pool with the kiddies tonight (Joe was jetting out for some hands-on 'research' for findfish.com) and I was just kicking myself cause I didn't bring my camera, cause the kids had all kinds of last things they wanted to do before the end of swim season, which included Sara swimming! I caught her doing it at first face-down, just swimmin' along like it was no big thing, and later I asked her to show me. So she flopped over on her back and just floated and swam, and it was just so cool! No swim lessons! Just lots and lots of playing around this summer!

And, this really shouldn't be a footnote, cause it is actually big enough for it's own press release: Kayte jumped off the diving board for the first.time.ever! And then the 2nd time and the 3rd time. . .I thought there would be a lot of deliberating at the end of the board (as has been the case in the past) but no, she just walked right to the end and jumped!

Will wanted to want to, but he's just not there yet! He's the one I always say "Be brave" to, just 30 seconds before I have to holler, "Be CAREful!"

And Ben. I'd like to have had my video camera on Ben tonight. That kid just squeals and giggles the whole time. He stands under the waterfall and just holds his face right up in it. And he hollers all the way down the little big slide. And sometimes he acts like there is a little imaginary friend just egging him on. He'll turn purple, but he's always the last one out of the pool.

Yep, it was a photo kind of day.

Whew.

Upper, downer, upper.
It's been a crazy week.

Kayte performs.

Kayte had a chance to get up and play a song in front of Katie's other students this week. She was pretty nervous. It's been a long time since she has played for someone other than Joe and me. But she is doing really well and we are really proud of her! I can't believe what she can do. . .at 8! And I'm pretty sure Joe and I didn't pass on any musical genes to make it easier.
I love love love to hear her play. . .

Little bud

So this is who I spend my days with:

I couldn't find him the other day when I was getting ready to run out and get Sara from school. . .and here he was waiting for me.

He's taken to wearing a cowboy hat and boots (with soccer players on them) around town. Let me just say, it is a huge hit with the ladies. Especially in L-town where they grow cowboys. I couldn't make it down a single aisle in the store without some lady coming up and fawning over his extreme cuteness.
I can't say I blame them.