Let the games begin!

It's funny because in some ways I look at our summer as pretty low key with no real vacations gone on and no planned activities, and yet on the other hand I felt PLENTY busy.  We signed on our new home Wednesday June 26th after much anticipation and moved in that night.

We love our house!  We pinch ourselves daily and are so grateful that we are here.  It's a beautiful home with all the things we picked ourselves, but when it comes down to it, it's the room to spread out from one another, a finished basement where the kids spend a lot of time playing, and all the storage that makes me happy.  Oh the storage!  When friends come to see the house they may think it strange that we walk around and ooh and aah over all the storage, pointing out our pantry and all the closets.  It's fantastic.  In fact many of my kitchen cabinets are empty and many many shelves in the closets as well.  The kids closets are basically bare and I love it.  Of course everyone always says that "we will fill it up", and of course I take that as a personal challenge to make sure that never happens.  If it does, then we will inevitably have too much stuff!  I already have a large load of clothes and a few things I just don't want anymore to go to D.I. so thankfully we aren't packing in a lot of extra stuff yet.

As I sit here and type this I am 36 weeks 1 day pregnant with a large baby...so they tell me...and so does everybody else as they see me walk around these days.  So just being so pregnant has put a slight damper on our Summer activities this year.  We have kept to a nice schedule and the neighbors probably think we never play with friends since we had our daily "quiet time" almost without fail.  How am I supposed to keep with these kids in the heat, in my huge state without a little break each day.  Thankfully Jane also still naps every day, bless her soul, so it has worked out for us.

Speaking of the neighborhood, we also are loving that.  We living on the corner end of a cul-de-sac and  it's great.  We have great neighbors.  Most people are similar to us in age with some obviously younger and one couple right next door that are early empty nesters, but we still really enjoy them.  The area is quiet and safe enough I can send the kids to play down the street and I'm not worried about them.

We also so far have a great ward and I'm so thankful for that.  I am now serving as personal progress leader in the YW.  I'm excited about it, but admit that it's WAY more than I originally thought it would be.  Rand was just called to be the ward mission leader and apparently there are a lot of non members, part-member families or less actives around so there is work to do.  He's excited about it and I think he'll do a good job.

Tomorrow is the big day... school starts!  I can hardly believe it.  Usually I may feel a bit sad and tomorrow may be a bit emotional for me as the kids start yet another new school.  This new start of school with technically be the 4th for Ethan in the last 3 years.  Yikes!  Good thing they are good at transition and learning to go with the flow.  Jane also starts school tomorrow which I didn't realize until her open house this morning.  I thought she started Thursday, and for some reason the fact that she starts tomorrow has made me a bit more sad to see my "baby" be a big girl.  She has been wanting to go to school, wearing her backpack for a year though so I think she will love it, and truthfully I think I will love it too, at least once I get used to the idea of her being gone two mornings a week.

Our Fall is going to be incredibly busy with activities galore.  Ethan is doing another season of flag football, hopefully without injury this time around, and also piano lessons.  Anna will have 3 hours of ballet a week and piano, Kate is starting with just one hour of ballet, but add in scouts and activity days and we will be plenty busy, especially when the baby arrives.

I have missed having a history of the things we are doing and hope to be better about "journaling" our goings ons but once baby comes I'm sure my times will be even more limited.  For now we are happy, healthy and feel very blessed with all the good going on in our lives.