How I could truly use a vacation and am trying to win one for our family...

This is my entry in the Just Ask Bucket List Getaway Giveaway. Just Ask offers a breast and ovarian cancer screening and is encouraging people to share 15 things that I want to enjoy in my lifetime as a reminder to be aware of my health. Want to enter? Head over to TodaysMama.com to get the details.

Share your list and you have a shot of winning a trip of a lifetime. The grand prizes are:

A family vacation of a lifetime to Universal Orlando® Resort.
A Las Olas Surf Camp Safari
Ski Lessons and stay at Park City Mountain Resort

And fifteen things from my bucket list (in random order):

1. barefoot water ski off the line (don't laugh...*only just* need to get back to marathon fitness level, and then some)

2. own a boat for the family and take the family out regularly (which would also help with number one)

3. spend a month one summer with my children living on someone's farm so we can understand what that is like

4. write a book

5. get my house as organized as it was 6 years ago, just before Little Mommy was born

6. speak at an EFY, or a women's conference, or something similar

7. learn to play the guitar

8. put on a concert with our family (when they're older)

9. learn how to drive a stick shift

10. go to bed before 10 PM every day for a whole month (I can't imagine how awesome I would feel for doing this)

11. take my kids to see Cats and Wicked and Les Mis

12. learn how to make my own bread

13. decide what I want to be, career-wise, in my post-young-children-who-are-home-all day season of life

14. write a song

15. go on a cruise

Leave me a comment with a link to your bucket list if you decide to enter.

Why I should draft all permission slips

The Actress forgot to bring home the permission slip she needed for school so she could work with Skittles during science. I told her not to worry, that I'd make my own:




I give express permission for my daughter [the Actress] to experiment with Skittles at [the Actress's] Elementary. She may touch them, smell them, look at them, listen to them, and taste them. She may put them in water, vinegar, Sprite, juice, or any liquid substance known to be safe around fifth grade students. She may cut them up, twist them, group them, number them, name them, or photograph them. She may not, however, put them up her nose or in her ears.

Signed:___________________________Date:_________


I expect to be asked to draft all future permission slips. I thought of some better ideas after dropping the kids off to school, like permission to hot glue a Skittles mosaic, but I'm still pleased with my first draft written seven minutes before we needed to leave. Good thing the Actress's teacher has a great sense of humor!

First Days

First days seem forever ago now for the older three. The younger two didn't start school until 2 weeks ago. At any rate, is it too early to be counting down to summer?


The Actress, Fifth Grade


The Artist, 3rd Grade


Little Mommy, kindergarten


Max, 4's preschool class


Princess, 3's preschool class


The preschoolers together. I love how Princess admires Max. They are such good buddies.

How could all of my children go to school now? It's so cliche, yet so darn true: they just grow up too fast.

And then the summer was over

School starts in only three days.


My third daughter goes to kindergarten and my fifth goes to preschool (provided we find potty training success in the next couple of weeks).

Next year I will have a middle schooler.

How often do I wish I could freeze my children as they are, in their sweet innocence at a time when the center of their world is our home and our family?

Maybe when they're gone more I'll make more time for writing, but in the meantime, I'm off to make a birthday cake and enjoy the company of my wild bunch.

Best day ever!

1. Dave mowed the lawn, and edged, and pulled some of our biggest weeds. This was HUGE.

2. We went swimming as a family and no major tantrums! Plus, Dave got to be there and we biked.

3. We rode our bikes to a local restaurant for dinner, which was way yummier (and more expensive) than expected, but so much fun! The place we planned on going to was closed, so we went to this little italian place instead. It was shockingly upscale considering its location between 7-11 and a liquor store. Who knew? Classic kid moment: When I asked Max whether he wanted pizza or pasta he answered, "Pizza with no leaf on it." Um, what? "There was a leaf on the pizza in the picture in the window." Still don't know what he saw.

4. Dessert at 7-11. Tried the Dove Magnum ice cream bar. Yummiest ice cream bar I've ever had. Creamy vanilla ice cream dipped in chocolate, THEN caramel, THEN milk chocoate. It was so amazing.

5. Rode home after 10. The kids THANKED us for taking them and went to bed. Okay, the little one still screamed about some random thing, but the others were pretty cooperative.

6. Really what made this day the best was having all of us together (Dave included) both working and playing and getting along. It doesn't get any better than that.

PS The photo has no connection to this post other than the fact that it, and this day, were awesome. (I didn't have my camera along on our outing.)

Can you find the sleeping princess?

Though she cannot yet read, this little two and-a-half year old (she'll correct you if you forget the half) completely obsesses over books.


LOTS of them. Big piles all over the house and Suburban. And she screams rather loudly if you try to empty her bed so she'll fit better. Tonight, she even discarded her comforter in lieu of another pile.


And she likes Barbies too, both dressing and undressing them. Unfortuneately, she has only mastered the undressing part.

Fingers crossed that these early signs lead to college scholarships and an A in anatomy rather than a starring role in an episode of Hoarders.

Ten by the Fourth starts tomorrow...

If you're on the fence, I say go for it!!! We'll let you join up to a week late, but why not start tomorrow? See the details in my previous post, with one amendment: if you would prefer I hold your cash rather than a check that works too!