paperWORK

School starting means that the paperwork is starting. SOOOOOOOOOOOO MANY papers will go in and out my doors for the next 10 months... incredible really. So we have systems to make the paper work instead of making me work. Of course, this is how the paper works at my house, you may have it working differently, but if you are still working the paper, these tips may help.

Tip #1 No piles, just places.
Don't pile up the papers. Go through them as quickly as you can (most of it can be recycled immediately) and then put the remaining papers in their places. We have these handy dandy slots for each child right by the door (still don't have their names on them) and the kids can fit homework, library books, papers of all sorts and sizes inside. I also used magnetic paint so if there are papers that need immediate attention or forms/notes to be brought back to school I can use a magnet and put it right on that child's slot.
Tip #2 Select the Savers
Most people either save too much or too little. It's a very personal opinion of how much, if any, of your children's art and school work you choose to save. My kids have the option to shred or hang their artwork. Occasionally I intervene, but they're pretty good at making the choice. Sometimes after things are hung they are done with them too... and we can mail them to Grandmas or recycle.
Tip #3 Organize What You Keep
Again, you want the paper working, not you. I have three stackable bins (need to find a fourth still) where I throw papers and school work that "may be keepers." These are then gone through at the end of the school year and organized into their school books (which I'll go through later). Each child has a bin, and I quickly date the papers if they aren't already and toss them in (or have the kids do it).

I have a "home organizer" binder with tabs for important items that I keep in my kitchen with the cookbooks. One section is "school info" and I keep important documents, class lists, teacher contact info, and those parent homework helps under this tab and in a section for each child. This is an easy place to go to for those items and they don't risk having something spilled on them on the counter or refrigerator. However you choose to do it, organize what you keep.



Tip #4 Put your children in charge of their memory keeping
Finally, the school books that I use to store all the children's report cards, class pictures, and random pieces of art and school work. I've seen so many ideas of how to do this, but the key component for me had to be that I could put the method to work and my children could be the ones to keep it up. It felt like a monumental task, and slowly its become quite manageable. I bought those big white binders that are on sale at school shopping time and also a bunch of page protectors and dividers. So far, we've been able to get four grades/years out of one binder. I have a few different "interview" or "favorites" pages that I have the kids fill in or sit with me to answer, they get to scrapbook (or simply paste together) a page with their class picture and current picture and spelling of their name, and then we sort through the pile from the stackable bin and choose items to put in page protectors. This is where time is your friend, and artwork or tests that used to seem worth keeping forever have usually lost a lot of their charm! Leaving this job to the end of the year is a great way to look back, but also means that less is saved. The dividers separate the grades and also have pockets for report cards or random items. It's not a perfect system, but it works and the paper and the kids do most of the working. (At some point we should put their names, grades on the outsides of the binders!)



Good luck this year! And share any and all tips you may have to help us all out as well.

Fresh Start

Miss J is in 5th Grade this year! Next year she heads to middle school. (I never went to middle school. For some reason middle school really scares me.) She was all about her outfit, as usual, even though it was a warm day, she picked the double sweaters on top and jeans to go with her flats. This girl is now over 5 feet and wears the same size shoes as I do - a large women's 10! I still think of her as my little girl and wonder how on earth the boys will survive without her to take care of them at their school next year... and look how grown up she looks with her friends! Beautiful girl, inside and out I tell ya.
Mr. T still loves him his collared shirts, but threw on a pair of shorts he found on the floor of his room before I made him select a pair of clean, folded ones! I love how he wears his pants and shorts so high and also his socks!!! (Looks a little British, eh Dad?!) This boy is smart and popular and was excited for the first day of 3rd Grade!!! (How did this day come? Wasn't he just home for kindergarten?!)
Little E didn't want to get out of bed the first day. He openly said, "I refuse to go to school and you can't make me." Mr. Man's response was to call his friend who is a police officer and have him escorted to school. My response was to ignore it and get him through the motions and to school. Once we got to the playground he was off and I didn't even get a goodbye hug. I love his recent style. Long hair, which he is still growing, but I forced him to get trimmed just to clean it up a bit. He's into vests these days and is usually sporting his cowboy boots. With the glasses, he reminds me of the Beatles! It's all of his own accord, and check out the attempt at NOT smiling!
I mean really...

Then there's Little J. NOT THRILLED about going to preschool. Even though it's only one day a week of formal preschool this year, and the rest of the time with me at home. This was the best I could get of him... another day. According to his teacher, he fared quite well, but oh the tears that were shed!
It's a fun time to take a picture of what my kids' ages and stages are, and I had to record it. Tomorrow I'm going to share how I organize all of their school stuff... since this fresh start always requires more organization as well.

First Day of School

...more details to come...

Who's YOUR teacher?

Thursday was the meet and greet for the children to go meet their new teachers. School starts on Monday here. Up and down the neighborhood, phone calls coming in, and throughout the halls I heard time and time again, "Who's YOUR teacher?" Truthfully I asked the same thing to several little kiddos, trying to narrow down who would be in my kids' classes and also because it seemed the practical quick question to ask after not seeing some children all summer long. Asking about summer would take far too long, but a "Who's YOUR teacher?" could be accurately answered in two short words and then the conversation easily dismissed.

Even though school hasn't even started yet, just knowing WHO the teacher is has seems to determine for many children what type of year they will have. Either s/he's "mean" or s/he's "nice." And as I listen to all these kids around comparing, complaining or congratulating on teachers, it seems there is a common theme: food and treats. One teacher gives out jolly ranchers when you turn in your homework on time. Another hands out chewing gum when tests are taken. And still there is the teacher that tosses candy when a question is answered correctly. It appears that anything can be overlooked when there are treats involved.

Our little neighbor girl down the street was slightly disappointed not to get the teacher she wanted... the pretty one who dresses nice. One of my own kids was mostly interested in the fact that his three main friends are NOT in his class this year, but instead are all together in another class. Friends are a big issue, I'll grant him that. But still the "who's your teacher" destiny determiner seems rather lacking in value.

Nobody wants to be the teacher nobody wants, the strict one who keeps children on task and doing their work. And yet, I struggle that I'm not hearing things like "she's a really great teacher" or "I learned so much from him," or perhaps even "she made science so much fun" when children are speaking about the "good" teachers. Remember my dream for my children's teachers?

Hopefully parents are not so shallow in their perceptions and preoccupations about the teachers, but at least I've learned how to be a good teacher as far as the children are concerned. Oh yes, I'm going to be the teacher who brings donuts every Friday!

Da Museum

Straight out of the 50's! The museum we went to on our camping trip was so different from any museum we'd been to before. There were the regular no-touch exhibits which we bored the kids through and then there were plenty of hands on and outdoor exhibits to explore as well.

What kid doesn't want to climb on old army tanks and helicopters?

There was basically an antique town set up with old building to look at and explore. This dentist office was slightly scary, and I wish I'd thought to take a picture of the old salon that looked more like a torture chamber with electric shock therapy available upon request.
And I fell in love with this old mailbox. Seriously. The colour alone is fabulous, now I just need to think of a place for it to go in my home... and a big bribe for the museum...

It was a great way to spend a hot afternoon and totally worth $2! Again, we'll be back I'm sure.

Camping Again

We had some bad news the other week that made for a grumpy Mr. Man (all is well, no worries). It was just days before we were set to leave on another camping trip. We had made reservations and it was going to be quite a drive up to the lake, because Mr. Man can't fathom camping without a lake (yes we miss the Great Lakes so much!) As we packed up and prepared to go, and then on the 5+ hour drive, Mr. Man kept saying how he hoped this camping trip and location wasn't like the last one or we were just going to turn around and come home. I prayed to God that it would meet his expectations and we could all relax and enjoy our time. This trip was above and beyond what we expected and it ranks right up there with some of our best camping trips EVER. And this gorgeous man couldn't have been happier either... which helps a lot!

{yum}

The lake was divine and our campsite was basically a resort where you sleep on the ground. There was a great pool for the kids, a hot tub, playground, basketball court, movies to borrow, showers and flushing toilets (totally resort camping) and even electricity so we could keep our new electric cooler running without ice and let the kids have a lazy afternoon with a movie. The town near where we camped was super cute and full of fun little activities too. We spent $2/person on admission to the funnest museum, had ice ream almost every night and even ran into a safety fair where the kids came away with all sorts of bells and whistles, and got to ride horses too.

We found a cute little beach with a great dock, did lots of bike riding and just R.E.L.A.X.E.D.

On the day before we packed up to leave our great campsite, we rented a boat and went boating and tubing. Way too much fun, and memorable as a storm picked up at one point and we HAD to finish our trip to the island in the distance!



I think we will be going back here again and again. Now we're preparing for our last week before school starts and busy painting and doing all those last minute to-do items that are sure to be ignored once we get ourselves on a schedule again. However, we do have one more over-nighter planned when Mr. Man's brothers come for a visit next weekend. Hopefully our camping experiences are on an upward trend.

Good Morning

I went with the otmile and fruat. Yum. Breakfast in bed is always a pleasure.

My Baby Turned 4

It seems almost surreal that my baby is now four. That means that more than four years ago I experienced a bed rest pregnancy, it means that four years ago my brother was in a critical car accident, it means that four years ago I was a hero and gave birth (LATE) without an epidural. And it means that four years ago we added the final member to our family and the sweetest little character you can imagine!
The real joy of Little J's birthday this year, amidst his typical excitement, was the excitement that was shared by his siblings! They were overjoyed to celebrate with him and watch him experience the delight a birthday brings. I loved that each gift they gave him, he would declare "I've been waiting for you to give this to me! Thank you!!!"
A favourite treasure was his suitcase. Something each child gets around this age. And perfect since the next day we left on a big camping trip.
And my boy who can spend hours playing playdoh, was more than thrilled with his Transformers playdoh set that actually transforms the molded cars into the guys! I love this picture, because these two have so much in common and are both equally enthralled with the new toy.

The birthday boy requested he spend the day at home. At first I was bummed. But after a trip to his favourite donut store, we spent the day together at home: playing wii, playing with new toys, jumping on the trampoline, reading books, and he even got me in the hot tub (usually I don't like to go in with the kids - way too much rambunctiousness!) Then we got ready for his birthday party with his four friends (though he insisted that with him it was five so that there were more boys than girls!)

It was a superhero party.
And after making their own mini-pizzas, the kids decorated their superhero capes (Little J picked out the colors and ~gasp~ I made the capes). My best idea ever, to keep my big kids from taking over the party, was to put them each in charge of a game. Miss J ran the batcave game where she hid glowsticks in the Harry Potter closet for the kids to find. Mr. T was in charge of "leaping building in a single bound" where he had piles of bean bags on the trampoline for them to jump over. Little E did "batman batman who has your cape?" a twist of the classic game from my childhood. And since they all wanted to help with the villains game, everyone helped the kids squirt the villains with silly string! They were great helpers. The usual dinner, cake and ice cream, gifts and ta-da he had a perfect little party. He was quite the happy birthday boy, once he woke up from a late nap that we had to rouse him from just as the guests were arriving.

I'm glad I have this little superhero in my life, even if he is no longer my favourite age!