Last week the kids went back to school. The earliest day yet, they've gone back. And now I have three kids in three different schools. Kyle started middle school this year at Palmer Junior Middle School (or PJMS), Alex started the third grade at Sherrod Elementary (3rd - 5th grade), and Sara started first grade at Swanson (K - 2nd grade). With Sara I don't have too many worries, but with Alex and Kyle, it makes it all the more real that they are growing up soooo fast. My mother-in-law always told us that before we know it, they'll all be in school and we'll have gotten past all the baby/toddler stuff and we'll start realizing that we actually have less time until they're grown and out of the house than it's been since they were born. It's not that I didn't believe her, it's just that the hard truth of that hasn't hit me until now. They're turning into such wonderful PEOPLE, and I just hope that we've done and will do the best things for them.

Garage sale finds...

So there was a garage sale in the neighborhood last week and I couldn't pass up a couple of neat finds. One was an old wooden chair and the other was this handmade wooden tool box. It's just so authentic & rustic looking. I ended up removing the THREE layers of material covering the seat of the chair, sawing a hole in the center of the wooden seat base, dry-brushing the entire thing with white paint, and putting a potted plant in it. It's now part of my front porch decor. As for the tool box, I haven't come up with anything yet, but I'm still in love with it!

Stoned squirrel incident...

So we had this incident next door today... a small red squirrel was eating some of the poisonous red mushrooms that were growing in my neighbors front flower bed. At first it was kind of cute, she was taking pictures and the squirrel kept coming back for more chunks, and then hauling them up the tree to stash in it's nest. All of a sudden it started acting really crazy and running all around the grass where we were standing. We decided that the squirrel was having some hallucinogenic reaction to the mushrooms and was posing a threat to the little one's playing outside. Being the good boys that they are, Tracy's son, Hunter, and Kyle got their air-soft guns out and we had them "put it down." It took a bit, and finally Kyle had to get his Red Ryder to finish it off, but we put the poor thing out of it's shroom-y drug- induced misery. All's well that ends well, as they say. And we can all sleep better knowing the thing won't be getting into our garages and causing havoc.