Evan has recently picked up a new word. Her vocabulary is expanding rapidly. That’s exciting, but this newest addition is of the four-letter variety and it does not make me happy… at all.

Keep in mind that this is a word that her Daddy and I rarely use and we desperately try NOT to teach it to our children.

Yet, she says it over and over again now, daily.

I suspect she picked it up from one of her big brothers, each of whom should know better than to teach her such a terrible word. Besides, it makes her sound like the seagulls in “Finding Nemo.”

The worst part? She doesn’t even use the word correctly. In fact, the cell phone she carries around the house belongs to me, not her.

So, her use of the word “mine” is not always spot on.

I’ll forgive her, though. There are worse things she could be doing.

Here she is at the park earlier this week.
Yup, you guessed it… She claims this slide
is all hers, too.

Our house is fairly small, but our family and dogs are not.

We have two… dogs, that is, not families.

The first is a police canine German Shepherd and the other is a Boxweiler. (That’s a cross between a Boxer and a Rottweiler, for all of you out of the loop.) The point is that our dogs, like our family, require a lot of food. We buy in bulk across the board.

But, where to store 44 pounds of dog food at a time in such a small house? And where can we do it so the kids don’t play in it?

Taa-daaa! My solution was something like this. It’s actually a hamper, bought from a local discount department store (whose name may or may not rhyme with schmal-mart). It’s lined with vinyl, so the smell of dogfood in my kitchen isn’t overwhelming.

The one I bought has a faux woven fabric covering it and even has a cute rope handle. It’s so unassuming that it sits in the corner of my kitchen and just looks like an oddly vertical basket. But it was so much cheaper! (I think we paid about $15 bucks for ours five years ago.)

So, our pet food is easily accessible without sitting in a huge bag and without taking up valuable garage space. For the most part, the kids stay out of it, too… Though I have caught Connor sitting in it recently, but we won’t get into that now. Otherwise, hiding my dog food in a hamper works for me.

Want to read more ideas that are way more brilliant than mine? Head on over to the Works-for-Me Wednesday list at Rocks in My Dryer.

Next week we’re slated to officially begin our lives as a homeschool family. We plan on doing it pseudo-year-round, so I’m trying to squeeze every last drop out of summer this week.

I took the kids to a secluded park today. We’d not been to this one before, but we’ll definitely be going back. It was quiet and just the right size for my kids. Plus, there’s a walking trail around the small playground for me. Ahh!

Something about the artist in me just can’t pass up a chance to take photos of the kids at a playground. Maybe it’s the bright colors, or all the clean lines, or maybe just the free-spirited moment of it all. Whatever the reason, here are my wacky kids today:

Ferris enjoyed just being outside, but she also
liked the shady spot we found for her.

Evan still loves swinging, but relished the independence
of climbing up and down the playground steps
all by herself. There’s a reason we call her “Monkey.”

I had a bit of trouble getting Connor
to do anything but swing, so this was a rare moment.

Brady, who refers to playground locations by color,
really enjoyed scaling on the “ramoon” (maroon) mini climbing wall.

Here I am with my new Kindergartner, Andy.
Not many teachers get to kiss their students.
By the way, I scored major cool points with the boys
by wearing a baseball cap today. I hadn’t done that in years.

In a rare moment, I got them all to sit still:

My stair-stepped blessings.

Yesterday was one of those days. Thankfully, today is much better. But yesterday, whew! Let’s just say I’m glad it’s over.

It started like this…

… and ended with a migraine.

I’m so thankful that God’s mercies are new every morning.

Over at Rocks in My Dryer, Shannon’s hosting a fun haiku-writing contest. The prize is a whole bunch of cool stuff, but I only entered because I thought I had a unique idea for the content. Anyway, her contest required us to “write a haiku commemorating the whole back-to-school thing.”

Here’s what I came up with:

Rookie homeschool mom
Students don’t like new teacher?
“No soup [lunch] for you!”

So, what do you think? Am I the next poet laureate?

When you desperately need to do laundry and just can’t wait to play outside, wear Daddy’s firefighter boots.

Pants are optional that way.

Here’s reason #515I love my husband: He’s just plain funny.

Tonight during our spaghetti dinner, I asked each of the boys what sport they’d like to compete in for USA in the Olympics. (We can dream big, can’t we? They’re only 2, 4 and 5.)  They each gave me several answers and changed their minds a lot, but no one gave me the answer I was hoping for.

“No one wants to be a gymnast?” I asked.

Without missing a beat, my silly Nate piped up, “Don’t worry, honey, Evan can compete for China in four more years.”

So, watch out gymnasts! Our fearless baby girl Evan is London-bound in 2012!

Remember this photo? She was just 12.5 months old here
(back in February ‘08.) She’s a fearless little thing.

Being a graphic artist, I’m a font nerd, through-and-through. So, this quiz really cracked me up. Give it a whirl.

You Are Palatino

You consider yourself to be creative and artistic.And you’d like everyone else to know it!You take design and aesthetics seriously. You like everything in your life to be unique and beautiful - but never gaudy!

…Just up to my ears in planning the maiden voyage of my life as a homeschool mom. Please forgive my absence. I’ll return soon.

Due to the Olympic Fever that’s hit our home, the boys have been exposed to new aspects of sports.

We’ve been swimming before, but they’ve never seen Mommy or Daddy do competitive swimming starts or flip turns. (I wonder why?! )

I won’t even begin to describe their fascination with parts of gymnastics. I’m just thankful that they can’t reach the rafters in the garage.

Anyway, the swimming thing hit new heights this week when Nate and I witnessed our boys trying to “take their mark” off the arm of the couch and dive onto the cushions. We pretended not to notice because it was oh-so-funny. We let it go, while wathcing out of the corner of our eye(s) again and again.

I suppose doing this in just their underwear was their nod toward Speedos.

We finally had to stop them when Andy and Brady decided to race and start off the “blocks” at the same time. Being older and wiser, Mom and Dad knew that their couch cushions  pool wasn’t wide enough to catch both of them!

Thankfully, they never tried it from opposite ends of the couch.

FYI, I really wanted to post photos of this Olympic event, but the aforementioned team “uniform” prevented me from doing so.