Reasonable? Ha!

Forget getting to bed at a sensible hour. It's already 1:30am, I have to be up by 6am, and I still have tons to clean up. Ugh. The kids are both sick (runny noses, dry cough, P's sounds like croup...) and my throat hurts. We'll be "that family" on the planes tomorrow. Prayers and positive thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I'm a little airplane now

We'll be little airplanes tomorrow as we head to PA for JoAnn and George's big day on Saturday. Today is full of errands, laundry, last minute food preserving, and hopefully a reasonable bedtime. We'll be back on Sunday so you'll have to wait until next week to hear from us again. Have a great weekend!

Success!

She did it! Madeleine completed her first day of preschool :) Despite Ms. Nancy having to pull a screaming Madeleine off Justin, Madeleine had a great day at school and wasn't too thrilled to come home with Parker and me, especially when she found out she'd have to wait until Friday to go back. I was told she cried and whined for 2 minutes, said she was all finished, and wanted to go do some art. That was it. Unbelievable, right? Sometimes Justin and I doubt the way we've parented her because of her ability to "freak out" for extended periods of time but it seems like we're doing a relatively okay job. I'm sure Friday morning will have another short meltdown but that's to be expected. As long as she loves being there and says she wants to go back I'm happy.

Countdown to school...

Madeleine will go to her first day of preschool tomorrow. Yikes! Justin's agreed to take her--I can do shots and the like but saying goodbye on the first day of school would wreck me. We've casually talked about school over the last few days but hopefully not enough to get her too nervous. She has been telling us she's nervous because she will miss us but she understands that there will be lots of other kids there who will want to play with her and that makes her excited. She also gets that I'll pick her up before lunch so she doesn't have to spend that much time there. I think Parker's going to feel short-changed because he's stuck with ol' mom while Maddie gets to play with tons of other kids; I'm curious about the kids' reaction when they see each other tomorrow afternoon.

One thing that has permanently changed: remember this kid?

Madeleine can now attend school without the crazy halo of fuzz surrounding her head. On my last trip to see Katt, my hairdresser, she recommended a product called Deva curl to help control Madeleine's curls. She told me to fore go shampoo and simply rinse her hair with water, use the Deva conditioner, only rinse some of it out, and let it air dry. Here's the result:

Two little bobby pins to hold her bangs back and she's good to go! I'll keep working on figuring out how to style it but it is pretty hard to get a 3-year old to stay still for mom to "fix" her hair. In her mind it doesn't much matter because she'll be wearing a bike helmet most of the afternoon to ride her bike :) How time flies...

Telling me off

After a slightly rough evening, Madeleine sat me down on her bed this evening saying, "We need to have a talk Momma. Sometimes when you make me mad I don't want to listen to you. I understand that you have to take special things away when I don't listen but I'm just a little girl and sometimes I'm a big girl and I'm okay with that." Despite the slight lapse in linear thinking, she constantly impresses me with her ability to articulate her feelings and the reasons behind them. She is one cool kid who knows how to knock my socks off.

The hunt is on

Labor Day weekend doesn't just signal the end of summer; it ushers in hunting season. Justin has spent the last month practicing shooting his bow, preparing for this day. Although he intended on going out last night, he delayed until after dinner this evening because we're just too much fun to leave :) He'll hunt tonight, tomorrow and through the afternoon on Monday in the same place where he saw a grizzly last year. He's much more brave than I could ever be, however, we did buy him new bear spray this year which provides some comfort. There's always hope he'll bag something opening weekend but it's probably just the first of many outings. I'm hoping to use the unsupervised time to wreak temporary havoc on the house doing lots of laundry, cleaning, and canning while, of course playing with the kids. We'll do our best to have lots of fun...it's the last weekend before preschool! Yikes!

Family "hike"

Justin took a long lunch Monday so we could hang out on Waterworks Hill, the hiking area I frequented when we lived on the north side of town. I used to hike this area with Madeleine and Maggie a lot shortly after we found out we were pregnant with Parker and I quit working, beginning my quest to find all of the wildflowers in my Montana wildflower book. Waterworks Hill is home to the elusive bitterroot, a favorite, and this gully is covered with yellow balsamroot and purple lupine at the beginning of summer. All that to say, I really like this spot.

Despite our efforts to entice the kids to hike, we ended up dragging/carrying/distracting them with "how many grasshoppers can you chase" most of the way. At least it was sunny and Justin could be there with us.

Distracted again. This time they found sagebrush. Sometimes it'd be nice to be that short and see the world in it's grandeur.

Then again, sometimes we'd just like to get a little exercise. *sigh* There's always tomorrow...