The End & The Beginning

The last day of school...ahhh...one of the highlights of childhood. Our boys woke up excited and ready to be done with school! Braylen didn't need a backpack--just a pen in his pocket. I watched him walk away with his friend Matthew much like I watched them walk away on the first day of school. Wasn't that just last week?

I think I get bigger smiles for the LAST day of school picture
than I do the first day of school picture!

Since we've had a whole week of summer vacation already, I'm feeling pretty good with our new routines. Our mornings are blissfully slow. Sometimes I bring the boys with me to run errands, sometimes I don't. We play Monopoly--I wonder if this particular game will ever end? :) Kaleb's been listening to lots of Adventures in Odyssey episodes on the computer. Braylen and Aaron prefer to listen to Hank the Cow dog stories. Star Wars: Clone Wars cartoons from the library are an obsession with all 3 boys right now. This love affair with Star Wars spills over into their play time, which is great. They spend hours playing with Star Wars toys and even some homemade creations they've made.

When someone is bored I give him something to do. Derek is good about helping me come up with ideas to keep them busy when they say they are bored! So far our garage has been swept out, clutter is picked up, and the lawn is mowed. I'm working on setting up their chore charts for the summer. That starts after Memorial Day, so this week is pretty much a freebie for them...unless they say they're bored. :)

Here is the beginning of our summer together, told through pictures of course...

The kids slept in the camper parked in our driveway to celebrate the end of school.
Kaleb gave us this calendar he made in 4th grade, and we discovered he's really
good at writing poems! I will treasure this gift. :)

We camped for 2 nights--not in our driveway. :) Aaron and Derek cooked some bacon
over the fire. Yum! We met some of our friends at the campground and spent the day fishing
and visiting. The boys caught little fish with worms, but at least they caught fish!

Back at home, Derek and I gave each other our anniversary gift a little bit early:
a fire ring in our backyard! Our family in town came over for our first fire.

Aaron is my eating machine these days. Here he is watching our supper cook in the oven!
Is this like watching paint dry?

Throwing their socks onto the spinning fan; Aaron worked up such
a sweat that he went shirtless. Then we played more Monopoly
and Derek came home to find Aaron sitting at the table without his shirt. :)

Believe it or not, I don't go through my day with my camera around my neck. It's just close by at all times. With so much going on, I've learned this lesson: if I don't have a picture of it, then it didn't happen--because I will never remember it otherwise!

One more thing before I end with a couple of funnies from Aaron. (who else?) Braylen is getting TALLER! Almost overnight it seems. Yesterday we stood back-to-back and I discovered that the top of his head comes to my eyebrows. Wow! I wonder when he'll pass me up?

Two little quotes from Aaron:
"Sometimes I wonder how I'm ever going to live without you." Be still my beating heart! :) He said this to me while we cooked supper together. I wrote it down right away and want to remember it forever. He went on to say, "I mean, I'll need things like silverware when I have to live in my own house. How will I get all of that stuff? How will I know what I need?" What makes an 8 year old boy think about things like this? :)

"Mommy, I wouldn't know what 1+1 equals if you weren't here, because I wouldn't be alive!"
Silly Aaron! :)