Face painting

Brayden's last day of soccer was Saturday, so there was a big party at the park. We waited for about 40 minutes in a long line on a very hot day to get their faces painted. It was worth it. The kid's faces looked great. I had them put little flowers on Sasha since I didn't think she would sit still long enough to get her face painted. She liked the flowers. I brought all three out to lunch with me while Ray did some work around the house later. Right before we got out of the car Brayden started cleaning off his face with some wipes. He said he didn't want to scare anyone at the restaurant. Brookelyn had to clean her face up too since Brayden did his. Instead of kids with neat face painting on them, I had kids with badly smeared paint all over their faces, arms and hands. They didn't really get totally clean until bath time before bed.

Inside pictures

I know we have a lot of nuetral colors in the house. I wish I was good with decorating, but I'm not, so I just go with what makes me comfortable. Warm colors. I still have to buy a new comforter, the one we have is from Vietnam Quilts. I love it, but it is small for our bed and we need a prettier one. Easier said than done, I have no time to look for a comforter. I didn't take pictures of Brayden's room, Colton's room or Dakota's room. We still have to hang up a couple of pitures in Brayden's room, I couldn't get a good angle to take a picture of Colton's room, and Dakota's room still needs to be painted. We let her do whatever she wanted in there so she did a lot of drawing and panting on the walls. I plan on painting it a grey/blue. I took a color sample from Restoration Hardware yesterday. We also have an office/library but that is the messiest room in the house. I spent today going though paperwork for all five kids. I bought five 2" binders and sheet protecters and then spent the day sorting getting them together. Now each one has a binder of things I have saved for them over the years (report cards, birth certificate, doctors notes for apointments, various certificates, a few papers they have written...Tonight after I made the kid's dinner, Colton and I went to College Night at his school while Ray stayed home with the little ones. I won't go into detail about what this place looks like, but I will say that from where I am right now I can see that every single toy was dumped out of the toy bin and not cleaned up.

Inside of house

House pictures

I finally took pictures of the house. It looks really good-that is, if you see it immediately after the cleaning people have been here. I mean immediately. Within a few hours someone has spilled something on the floor, toys are scattered and STUFF is everywhere. Luchboxes, paperwork, toys...I try to clean as I go and I always clean up before I go to bed so I can start the day with a clean house (I am a little weird about it), but it really is amazing how fast we can trash it. Oh well, I do like seeing the matchbox cars, little shoes and toys. I know this stage won't last long...If you look at the land right behind our house you can see a lot of stakes. They just planted a bunch of little trees since all the ones that were there before had been burned by the big fire last fall. It is really starting to fill in, but a big hill next to it is still pretty barren. I remember both hills being full of huge flames when we were packing up our things to go.

New Job

I started working at a new job this week. It's actually the perfect job for me. I will be working two days a week at the school that Brayden, Brookelyn and Sasha attend. I will be doing various projects at the school, both in the preschool and elementary. I worked there for almost nine years and left right before Brayden was born, so is isn't as if I completely starting a new job. I am actually there a lot since I am in charge of the PTO, which I really enjoy. I know the kids like having me there. The best thing is that some of the projects involve me being there and some I can do from home, but overall I can make my own hours. Seriously, how great is that?! I really, really like the school and know that my older kids got a great education there. I want to make sure that I am as involved at the school as I can be for my younger's kids sake. I am also still doing some work at Ray's office and am in charge of our rental properties. It is actually a lot to do, but I think it will work out well if I keep organized. I can only really get things done if I make a list every morning and work to get the things crossed off. The truth is, I would be at the school anyway, so now I will get paid for it. Also, I really enjoy the feeling at the end of the day that I have gotten things accomplished. And speaking of getting things accomplished, we still haven't put the house on the market. We all spent the weekend deep cleaning it, which means by the end of it, there were piles everywhere. We still have a lot to do, but I will have it looking good enough in a couple of days. It is pretty amazing how much work it is, considering we keep it pretty clean and organized. Or we try to anyway.

Halloween

We had a great Halloween. Brayden was Superman, Brookelyn was a pink fairy princess (emphasis on pink) and Sasha was a cowgirl. Actually, Brookelyn started out at My Little Pony, but took it off outside before she got into the car. Luckily, I had kind of expected that and had brought her other costume with us. Sasha was a ballerina in the morning at school. It was a little cool in the evening, so she wore a cowgirl outfit so she could wear long sleeves. There was a parade at school in the morning and then we went trick or treating with both of my sisers and their famlies. I think there were twelve kids and five adults in our group. Brayden and Brookelyn loved it. Sasha liked being part of the group and eating the candy, but really didn't want to go up and trick or treat. We did it at a few houses and then just carried her around. She loved being with all of the kids, but there were a lot of scarey costumes so she held on tight to us. I normally don't give my kids much candy, but I let them eat whatever they wanted on Halloween. They kept finding candy all weekend, so I gathered it up on Sunday night and told them they had eaten it all. Luckily, they haven't asked again since.
Dakota came home to ceebrate the holiday with us, which was great. Even Colton walked around with us as the kids trick or treated. It was really nice to have them both there with the little ones. All three little ones spent every moment they could on Dakota's lap for the entire weekend. She loved it and so did they.