No husband = Scrapbooking mania

The husband is on his annual guys camping trip this weekend, so it was just me and kiddos. Well, me and the kiddos and my scrapbook. My 2007 scrapbook. The one that's been calling my name for months and months. Sitting and collecting dust, unfinished. Yep, that one. So this weekend I pulled out the 2007 album and all of my tools and papers and and I got down to business. Fourteen pages worth of business with only 3 left to do!! It feels so great to get this project almost off my plate! Plus I would have felt terrible if I was scrapbooking Christmas '07 when Christmas '08 hit.

Yesterday we had a soccer game and I got to try my camera out on some action shots. I'm not 100% happy with them, since I still need to read that book, but I think I got some good ones! BJ scored 3 goals before running completely out of steam in the last quarter.

Today is rainy and cloudy and kind of nice. We've been playing games, watching TV and just hanging out. No plans to leave the house today and that makes me so happy. So I'll leave you with some pictures from BJ's soccer game and of the pages I've completed over the past few days.

Oh yeah, if you scrapbook, I'd love to hear about your current album. How do you keep up with it? Or do you?

Photo Essay & WW update

It's been very busy the past 2 weeks! I've neglected to post any new photos, and there are lots, trust me!

First, I'll share some photos from our trip to Carlsbad Caverns, NM over Labor Day. Our original plans also included a trip to the Guadalupe Mountains National Park for some hiking, in far west Texas. Those plans were cancelled due to rain, so we spent some extra time at the cavern.

This was the restaurant outside of our hotel! Love the sign. Thinking about using that quote as a tagline for my blog.

The mouth of the cavern. They also have an elevator you can take 800 feet down to the bottom of the cave, but we opted to take the natural entrance which included 1.5 miles worth of switchbacks!
Do you see those people? These pictures don't really do it justice. The entrance to the cave was so massive and it looked like the hole was never-ending!

Me & the kiddos

Some formations in the cave
These were formed from water dripping and depositing minerals over millions of years.
Stalactites and "soda straws"

Daddy & BJ next to Iceberg Rock. Iceberg rock is a huge boulder that fell from the ceiling 250,000 years ago. It weighs about 400,000 pounds (if I remember correctly)
Mia took several naps on our 5 hour hike! In case you're wondering why we were wearing long sleeves and hoods, it's 56 degrees in the cave year round. It sure was better than the 97 outside!
A view from the mountain top at the cave entrance.
And now we're on to BJ's first soccer game for the season. Doesn't he look adorable in his new uniform?
Can you tell he's not touching the ground in this shot? Neither is the ball!

Scoring 1 of his 5 goals!! He's much better this year ;) Mia, BJ's biggest fan!
She was really into the game!

Mommy's girl already lovers her Diet Coke!

Hope you enjoyed my little photo essay!

In other news, today was my 7th day on WW. Tomorrow is the big weigh-in. I feel like it's been a great week. Beth, Crooked Eyebrow and I have decided to start a blog to chronicle our journey. Once we work out the details, I'll fill you in. In the meantime, if you have any blog title suggestions, please share them. We're undecided as of yet, so all suggestions are welcome.

First Day of Pre-K

Today was BJ's first day of Pre-K.

Here's my narrative.

The alarm went off at 6:45 a.m. and I jumped out of bed, no really, I crawled to the bathroom and turned on the shower. Let's face it, even though I haven't gotten an uninterrupted nights sleep in, oh 9 months, I still don't get up at 6:45 a.m., evah! So after I showered and felt more human, I woke up everyone else in the house and we got ready for the drive to BJ's school for his first day of Pre-K!

The drive, did I mention that we live in the middle of nowhere? Well, not really, but close. (By choice, so no complaints, but some people just don't get it. Until they come and visit us. Then they get it and are sometimes envious and other times they just think we're nuts. Which is not the case, I promise.) So back to the drive; BJ's school is 31 miles of hills, winding roads, and hair pin turns away from our house. Exactly 35 minutes of driving. In the grand scheme of things, that distance is no biggie, I mean we drive 74 miles one way to the grocery store. And 72.5 miles to the pediatrician's office. You get the point.

So when we arrived at school, there were picnic tables covered with homemade muffins, breakfast goodies, coffee, and much more. All the children (all 17 of them!) were running around and so happy to be at school. The parents and teachers were standing around getting to know each other and discussing the upcoming school year. BJ was very excited and couldn't wait to show daddy his classroom.

After we visited his classroom and met his teacher and classmates, it was time for the day to begin. BJ realized we were leaving him and he got a little skittish. For a minute or two, I was afraid we were going to have a full meltdown, but his attention turned to his three classmates, all girls, getting ready to say the pledge of allegiance and sing their morning song. Brian and I quietly exited out the back door and not another peep was heard.

When we picked him up, he was actually mad at us. Not for leaving him, but because we were there to take him home. And he wasn't ready! Love it.















After school:


With all the other kids in the school enjoying a first-day-of-school cookie cake!


Here's a little history about the school BJ is attending (taken from the historical marker outside the building):

The first classes in this vicinity began in 1882 in the home of a hired teacher. In 1893 to meet the growing needs of the community, land was provided by an area rancher for a one-room school house. In 1909, wanting to establish a more consistent school system, residents agreed to move the school to the Dee Hughes
Ranch. The Divide Common School District, named for a long ridge that divides
the watersheds for the Llano River and Guadalupe River. In 1936, the district
built the current stone building on the Klein Ranch and named it The Divide School.

The school is as close to a one-room school as I've ever seen. It has 2 classrooms in the main building, one for K-3 and the other for grades 5 and 6. There is a small library and office in the back, and that's it! The Pre-K is in a separate building that was built in 1997.

The most wonderful thing about this school is the feeling of family. All of the families know each other and are so very friendly to us. The teachers are wonderful too. I'm so very excited that BJ has the opportunity to attend this school and I can't wait to get involved with the PTO (first meeting is next week!) and other activities.

BJ's First Soccer Game!

My son, the one that couldn't focus at the ONE practice the team had before playing his first EVER soccer game (EVER!), was practically the star of the game. Seriously. In the league he plays in, and for his age group (4 year olds, even though he's still 3) they don't keep score, there is no goalie, etc. It's basically just for learning teamwork and which way to kick the ball - non-competitive.

So I don't know how many 10s of goals the other team scored since they were awesome (and had apparently been playing since the age of 2! WTF?), but I do know that of the 5 goals our team scored (one of which was in the wrong goal, but hey, that was the coaches kid, not mine!) BJ was the first to score and he scored twice!! After the game, the coach told me how shocked and pleased she was with BJ after his La-La-Land behavior at practice the other day!
So here are some pictures!

And yes, it was totally worth getting up at 6 a.m. and driving over an hour to see my son play in his first soccer game. His dad and I couldn't have been prouder!!