her teacher

i guess i deleted the picture with mck and her teacher on the last post. here she is with mr. shelby, her homeroom teacher. isn't he a cutie?

school days

warning...picture overload!
these 2 pictures are from meet the teacher night on friday. mckinlee learned she has mr. shelby for homeroom. this is her first time to have a male teacher, but i think she is ok with it.

today was the first day of school. a lot of mixed feelings--so sad summer is over, but glad to get back into a routine. (when you have little kids, summer seems to go on forever. when your kids go to school, summer comes to a screeching halt!)

i had told mckinlee i would wake her up no later than 7 this morning so she would have time to do everything she needed to do without being rushed. i staggered to the shower at 6:40 and raced to get my clothes on and makeup done before she woke up. (no, i do not usually do this...but since i was walking in with her, i figured i should look nice.) i was about done when she walked into the bathroom fully clothed. she said she was a little nervous and couldn't sleep, so she got up early. she was dressed, had made her bed and when i walked into the kitchen, she had fixed her lunch and gotten everything ready for her breakfast! wow--what a kid!

so we had plenty of time for the required first day of school pictures.

please excuse my hair...didn't quite get that done yet.

i love how her school really makes the first day special. they roll out the red carpet (the red plastic as mckinlee says), teachers are lining the walkways welcoming them in, they have video going recording them as they come in. it's really neat!
standing by the 5th grade star (i can't believe i'm even writing that--i can't believe i have a daughter in the 5th grade!)

dropping her backpack off and coming to homeroomon her own...
then several of us moms went to a back to school breakfast. i don't think we knew how to act without kids everywhere!

i've got a ton of pictures from our trip to post...will try to start doing that tomorrow.

au revoir

we are headed to the...

will have a ton of pictures to post when we get back!

mckinlee's first concert

last month, mckinlee got to go to her very first concert...demi lovato! i don't think she had any idea what to expect, but she had so much fun!
these sweet girls invited her to go with them. ani and ursula are in our congregation. they and their mom and dad will all be starting their first year of regular pioneering in september. they are part of the persian group in our congregation and as funny and sweet as they can be!

i thought mckinlee got some pretty good pictures.

a couple of funny things...demi forgot the words to one of her own songs and had the audience sing along as she remembered a few words at a time!

ani was telling me this later: at the end, she announced she had a special guest. they got so excited thinking maybe taylor swift or someone like that would be there. it turned out to be demi lovato's little sister who sang a song with her onstage. thrilling, huh?

so i think mckinlee really liked going to a concert and will be glad to go to the next one. (i'm trying to get tickets to taylor swift when she comes in september, but they sold out in a matter of minutes--oh well!)

in other news...mckinlee and i meet sheri and brooke tonight so that mck can stay with them a few days before going to the grandmas. and we leave sunday! i still have so much to do. will try to post once more with pictures from last weekend when mom and danielle came. we had fun!

just stuff

we've been having fun at home this past week. monday after our company left it rained all day long! my favorite kind of day for sure. anyway, mck & i stayed home all day and made cards, played games and watched a couple tv shows. we had such a good time~when i was putting mck to bed she said, "today was such a good day." sweet, huh?
here she is with all the cards we made. this was like the 10th picture i took because lately anytime i take a picture, she blinks. so this was as good as it was going to get!

here i am with my cards

a friend of mine here got me this stamp the other day (which was so sweet of her!)

so mckinlee decides she can use it and just not put ink on the letters of my name! pretty smart of her, i thought.

usually wednesday is our swimming day. but with the weather being so cloudy, etc. we all decided we would go skating instead. we have this old skating rink here that totally reminds me of the one i used to go to in waco when i was a kid. after 3 hours of earsplitting music and 2 daycare camps that upped the occupancy in the skating rink to close to 500, we left and went to braum's.

these are a couple of finds from joann's i got the other day. all their vintage line was 70% off! i just loved these 2 things~i have no idea what i'll do with them though. maybe use them in the scrapbook room for storage.

chris had a suggestion for dinner the other night. (i'm all about someone other than me coming up with dinner ideas!) so he wanted mixed greens finely chopped, thin red onion, avocado and bell pepper (i got orange--so colorful!) and grilled shrimp. it didn't sound too great to me. for some reason, shrimp is starting to make me naseous. i've eaten more scampi than i care to admit, but i guess actually cleaning the shrimp beforehand has something to do with it. that and i can't forget a quote i heard that someone said shrimp are the ocean's cockroaches! ok--enough with all that. so the dinner didn't sound real great but, hey, i didn't have to think of it. so we started chopping. we seasoned the shrimp with blackening seasoning and chris just sauteed them on the stove. i had made homemade salsa. so we made our salads and poured the salsa over it. (i actually mixed mine with a little ranch.) let me tell you...it was delicious! good idea, honey!

mom and danielle are coming today to stay for a couple days, so i will have pictures and i'm sure a funny story or two in a few days!

weekend recap

...so i stayed home while everyone went to hurricane harbor. which turns out was just as well. when they got home, they said they got to ride one ride! and they stood in line forever just to do that! by the time they got there, hardly any chairs, tables, etc. were available. chris said he was so glad i didn't end up going--he wouldn't have wanted to hear me complaining! who, me? ha ha! he said he'd never seen so many tattoos and belly button piercings!!

when everyone got showered and changed, we went to the mall to eat at cheesecake factory. (after MUCH discussion--we had told the girls we'd go to the rain forest cafe, but the wait was going to be over an hour and the only reservation they had was for 10:00. so we finally convinced them to go somewhere else.) while we waited for our table, we went to barnes and noble to look around. i just love being surrounded by books!

mckinlee and brooke had a good time piling up books and reading on a little stool in the kid's area.
then we got our table and ordered. i just love this place. they have the biggest menu of any place i've ever eaten at!

i got the the 4 seasons pizza. it was delish! tomatoes, artichoke hearts, wild mushrooms, goat cheese and prosciutto. yum-mo! then tiramisu for dessert. oh. my. goodness. heavenly! we didn't leave until almost 10:30. we all never eat that late, so were all pretty tired and stuffed.
(i have no idea why chris is holding up a bottle of tabasco!?!)

so that's the condensed version of our weekend~we had such a fun time and can't wait until they come back again~

inspiration...

here's what i did while everyone was at hurricane harbor. i picked one stamp set, one set of papers and went to town! i have not had much desire to scrapbook or anything lately, but the other day i went over to a friend's house and made cards and i guess that inspired me because today i actually wanted to do something creative!!
don't look too closely, you might be receiving one of these sometime!