Mamma Vintage: Ready . . . Set . . . Go!

Well, there's good news and there's bad news. I'll start with the bad . . .

A few weeks ago, I was running low on space for photos in my Google Picasa account that is connected to Blogger. Jason and I tried to remedy this, but in doing so, we have disturbed the link to each and every photo from the past three years. Thus, rather than my beautiful pictures showing up, a big, ugly, black box with a triangle error icon appears.

I am pretty sure we have figured out what we did wrong and I am pretty sure it won't happen anymore. But the only way to fix the photos that are already up would be to go through each individual posting, remove all of the photos and then re-upload them. Well considering I had over 300 photos on my blog, that will not be happening. I wish I had the time for that, but I don't. I wish I was a professional blogger with an assistant to help out with technical difficulties, but I'm not.

What's most upsetting is that I have envisioned our kids, years from now, being able to browse through the postings I'd put together during their childhood, reading my words about motherhood and seeing the photos of themselves I'd chosen. This idea is somewhat tainted now.

The only good that comes from all of this is that it motivates me to write more and post more photos to replace the ones that are lost.

So what's the good news? Well, you may recall that in a recent posting, I said that particular day was kicking my butt. Well, today, I kicked the first day of the school year's butt :)

I don't like to brag about myself and I hope that I am correct in the feeling that I don't do it often. But today, I rocked.

Our Volcano. Note the poor soldiers dying in the lava. Aaaaah, boys.

The boys and I have been looking forward to this day as I had planned some fun things for us. The boys got to choose what we had for meals: fried eggs for breakfast, hot dogs for lunch and roast chicken for dinner. Beyond the regular lessons for the day, we also built a volcano and baked pumpkin bread.

The self-portraits. They are pretty funny just as themselves, but adding to the humor is twofold: 1. I put them on the wall in their artwork frames before the glue was really dried, so glue trailed down Joshua's forehead and along the side of his eye. On the pinkish paper this looks like blood, making his portrait to look a little gory. 2. Veronica looks as these hanging in the kitchen and immediately begins laughing.

Today was Noah's first day of kindergarten. I feel as a homeschooling family, some of the school rituals can be lost. I will never watch teary-eyed as my kindergartner gets on the school bus for the first time. Of course, I'm okay with that. But some of the milestones can get overlooked if I don't create traditions for ourselves. Today, the boys made self-portraits, we took a "class photo" and measured their heights on the wall. We baked together, ate meals together and snuggled on the couch as I read about the fall of the Roman empire. The boys spent the late afternoon running through the sprinkler. Not too shabby.

Our Class Photo :)

Noah, completing workbook pages

The laundry and the dishes got done, the house was not a mess, I had time to read more of Mockingjay and for dinner I roasted two rosemary and lemon stuffed chickens, butternut squash and zucchini. I am tired, but it was a very good day and a great start to the school year.