My very youngest is in the process of phase-in to all day kindergarten. Over these first two weeks, she’s slowly working her way up to being at school for an entire 8:00am to 3:00pm day. I’m working up to that too. It’s strangely quiet here. She knew I’d miss her, so she made me this Perler bead heart.  She gave specific instructions to “kiss it when you miss me.”  sigh. She is so much older and wiser than her five years.

Speaking of which, we are huge fans of perler bead crafting around here.  All three of my kids (and many of their friends) enjoy it, with the added bonus that it’s a pretty fabulous hand-eye coordinating activity too. If you’re not familiar, Perler beading is where you design a pattern on pegboards (like you see above) placing…

..plastic Perler beads on the pegs. Then, a responsible adult covers with ironing paper, irons  and the beads magically melt together. Finally you take the creation off the mold, iron the other side and there you have it…a piece of art. Kisses optional.

All three at the same school. It seems surreal. My youngest in kindergarten?! When did that happen? Back when they were babies,  I remember staring blankly through a fog of total exhaustion hearing people say, ‘Enjoy it…they grow up so fast.’  At the time, all I wanted to know was how many more pounds/how many more weeks before this child sleeps six hours in a row?! Now look. I need a bullhorn to wake them up some most mornings. I blinked and here they are. So the start of every school year marks a bittersweet celebration. Of course you need cake and ice cream for that.

A back-to-school cake has become our tradition. This year, I decided to create a notebook cake. In the past, I’ve done a pencil, a chalkboard, a minivan carpool (super ambitious year) and an apple.  There is no better way in our opinion than to rehash first days over cake and ice cream.

This notebook is spiral bound. Quickly I might add. This is one very busy notebook factory. Speaking of which, I need to get back to my homework that includes filling out a couple hundred forms that I’m pretty sure multiplied last night while we were sleeping. Here’s to another school year.

In the Bahamas loving the color combinations.

On a girls weekend in Columbus with Chicago and serious shopping.

Appreciating food that looks and tastes like summer.

Sorting one billion legos by color (I’m not even kidding.)

Painting winterish snowpeople when the temps went into the 90s.

In and out of pools watching my three strengthen their swimming skills.

Traveling to Hogwarts at Universal Studios (seriously amazing….this needs its own post.)

At the beach enjoying the sand and the waves.

Working on my new website with Christine and Anna. It’s finally up! (Thanks ladies!)

So there in a nutshell, are some of the highlights of my summer.  School starts this week. I never planned on such a long hiatus from blogging, but summer got in the way. (I’m blaming summer.) I’m back now…really…and hopefully, all posts will not take quite as long as this one, once I learn how things work over here at WordPress. Let me know what you think of the new look. Thanks again Christine! I’m totally loving it.