Long days, short years

(disclaimer: For some reason, blogger is not letting me put spaces between paragraphs or photos, so if this post seems like a huge run-on sentence, I apologize! :) We're getting ready to send the troops back to school next week. We did our school supply shopping. On a Saturday, even. And we emerged from Target without so much as a sibling fight or fierce mother-lecture in the loose-leaf paper aisle. I do believe the planets must have been in alignment that day. Or God gave us all extra grace. Hmmm...I'm going with grace. I did give in to one "fancy" notebook each: two Star Wars and a Hunger Games, and one "eraser rope" in lieu of the notebook offer. (Is everyone aware of the negotiating prowess mothers must possess?) We have registered. We have made sure we have at least one or two decent shirts to wear to school (thank you, Grandma!). We have fished the lunch bags out from the back of the cupboard. We still need to empty the last remains of roadtrips and overnights from their backpacks. And we need a haircut or two. But otherwise I think we're ready. By the middle of August, whether we have homeschooled or sent them off to school, it seems that everyone is ready to get back to some structure. We are NOT good about keeping much structure during the summer. Tim and I are both babies of the family and have somewhat spontaneous personalities (read: undisciplined), so we tend to give in to the fun opportunities of summer and its late nights and lazy mornings. But after a while the need for routine becomes apparent when everyone expects to do something "fun" every night and nerves wear thin and I find myself giving lectures about entitlement. :) Still, each year it's hard to let go knowing how quickly the years are going by. Next year at this time we'll have a high schooler. Then in four short years.....all of a sudden the thought of launching my kids from the nest is no longer a distant notion but a much nearer reality. A quote from my dear friend Wendy has stuck with me regarding raising young kids: "The days are long, but the years are short." How true. So after a few of those "long" days, and when I'm longing for a little peace and quiet, I find it very therapeutic to scroll through my Picasa photos and enjoy the sweet moments of fun from the summer. And I'm reminded of how fast it went and how special memories are created in everyday things. Let's see.....there was plenty of baseball......

...birthdays, and the traditional "pretend you're going to devour the cake photo"...

...special projects...we got to help transform one of the kids' rooms at church into a cool clubhouse! How often do you get to paint a ceiling blue? A very serious bunch, as you can see. (umm..no.)

...the annual piano recital...(don't worry, this was taken after. They were all very classy during the program, but to ask for proper decorum for the whole night would just be too much. :)

The annual "Superbowl" between our boys and their friends Micah and Jaden. They take this very seriously, creating their own jerseys with plain t-shirts and sharpies, making trophies..the whole nine yards. (Or 100 yards, I guess). So seriously that Janie (who graciously agreed to be the "press") turned to me at one point during the game and said she felt sorry for us mothers. Ha! Someday she'll know what it is to agree to "just one more t-shirt because I messed up on the last one", and the art of transforming a soup can into a trophy.

Youth trips...this year all four kids got to go to camp. The boys went to their beloved Pine Lake, and Janie went to Camp Red Cloud in Colorado with the youth group. Four all four kids, a huge growing-up experience... (this photo is Janie and her youth group)

"Gaga Ball"....a Pine Lake game, which I still don't really get. All I know is that when my kids play it, they all end up with scabby knuckles. Sound fun? :)

Our friends, the Hammels, took us tubing on their boat again this summer. Super fun, and I still have scabby elbows from clinging so hard to the tube trying not to wipe out on the river!

Baseball games just for fun...for his birthday, Peter wanted to have a baseball game at the ball diamonds. It was during a tournament weekend, so we used the one empty field and were surprised no one kicked us out. We went through an entire bucket of double bubble!

Cousins! Our kids are blessed to have some amazing cousins. This was a visit from the West Des Moines cousins...we also had some great visits from the Fairbury cousins. Lots of sleepovers, late night movies, hikes, trips to the zoo, and ice cream.

There was camping, bowling, lots of swimming, VBS, freezer pops....fun summer memories. Only a few more nights to stay up late before the early mornings and busy afternoons begin again...and we'll see if we can't make this year go just a little slower than last!