Back to School kick off...

 Happy First Day of School 2012

Sunday night we celebrated the start of school with our last "Burger of the Week" for summer.
Yep, all summer long we have made a different hamburger each week. The boys in this family love them some red meat... and this mama eats some occasionally to combat exceptionally low iron. Except steak. I cannot do it. It makes me gag to even think of eating steak.  The best I can muster is tacos, chili, or an extremely well done burger here at home.
So here is our last burger of the week:

It was an onion ring topped burger with "special sauce"... think bloomin' onion at outback. I even made the onion rings, and they were delicious! Just dipped them in flour and then buttermilk to coat. Yum.

Poor Alden said, "Mom, does this mean you are never going to make burgers again?"
Not exactly bud... :)

Then we sent off some paper lanterns in the sky. I told the boys to write down (on the lantern) a favorite memory from summer, a prayer for the upcoming year, or just draw a picture if they wanted. I saw this on a wedding photographer's blog, and loved the idea, so I found some lanterns online and knew I wanted to use them for our last night before school.
The wild boys absolutely loved this, and I was pleasantly surprised at how big the lanterns were, and how high they flew. Micah said, as we launched the second one, "These better not start a forest fire." Oops, I never thought of that... but no worries, they did not!

It was a super fun night to get us in the mood to start school. As we watched the boys chase after the last lantern in the shot above, I leaned back into my Micah's arms, and he said, "Look, those are our boys. Aren't they amazing?"  Yes, yes they are...

Back at it...

Wow, last post was June 6th, and here it is the end of August.
My hiatus was intentional.
I wanted to be more here for my boys this summer.  Yes, HERE. 

Not looking down at my phone.
Not sitting at the computer editing photos for hours.
Not reading blogs, or facebook.

I wanted to be here.

Here reading books.
Here playing games.
Here watching goofy movies.

I did ok.
Yep, just ok.
I like to play draw something on my phone. (don't judge)
I like to read blogs about home renovations, and crafts and such.
I like to search for vintage goodies online.
I like to look at photos and read book reviews and put things on my "to read" list.

So, I wasn't perfect. I didn't go for the ever trendy "unplugged" because I knew that wouldn't work for me. There were some mornings when I just let the boys watch Phineas and Ferb whilst I drooled over home projects I'll never be talented enough to pull off.   It really wasn't until this week that bickering started in a fashion that made me cringe and say, "when does school start???" So I would say it was a success.

We have been crossing things off our summer list "like a boss"... isn't that a new cool saying? "Like a boss"? I have seen it places and been confused. I mean, you can peel an orange "like a boss" and workout "like a boss". The two hardly seem comparable, but maybe the boss is SO trendy and cross over, it applies to everything. I am a nerdy mom, so I would say something lame like "we did it with gusto".

So, welcome back to the world little blog o' mine...

and I love this... it was on pinterest... like everything else in the world.