DENIAL

So we're moving tomorrow. I'm still not really dealing with it. Over the past two weeks I've been adopting several effective coping skills such as emotional eating, stuffing my emotions and lying to myself. I keep telling myself, We're not moving that far way...I'll probably be back every weekend...yada yada. But here's the deal. My whole daily routine will be shifted. I've spent the last two years dropping my kids off at school and then dropping in on one of my sister-friends. We spend the day goofing off and occasionally sweeping or feeding our children, but mostly just "folding laundry" (translation: laughing hysterically at the trashy day-time TV shows...and secretly getting sucked into them.)

I was trying to explain to Lars on the way home from church today that it's different this time. Somehow the bonds I have formed here are deeper. Maybe because my friends and I have kids that love each other too. Or maybe just because we've spent ridiculous amounts of time together bearing our souls and our spirits, laughing and crying, canning and cooking, crafting and TP-ing, partying and pulling juvenile shenanigans. Whatever the reasons I'm going to miss my friends, are the same reasons that I love them.

Thank you inhabitants of Monmouth for making the last two years of my life the best EVER! I'm going to go lay down in the fetal position and cry now.

Worst Birthday Ever

Heidi turned 2 on August 31st. The girls kept asking if they could make posters and decorate the house. I had already packed all the construction paper and markers and pretty much the only thing left to decorate would have been the stack of boxes in the living room...so I said no.

We spent the day packing and playing with friends. The crowing event of the day was returning the school supplies we had bought for the girls for their old school and re-buying their new list of school supplies for their new school. During our shopping, Heidi grabbed a roll of Scotch Tape from the school supply isle and was pushing it around saying, "Choo Choo Train!" I thought, What the heck? It's her birthday! So I bought it for her.

Happy Birthday Heidi. You deserve much more, but you're two, so I know you'll forgive me. (I didn't even get a single picture of the kid on her birthday...she still looks a lot like the pictures we took on Monday.) ;)

p.s. I would have been racked with guilt if this were my first child...

Sam Case Elementary

Naomi in Oregon
Yaya
Naomi
Heidi
Naomi, Leah, Yaya
On Monday we also enrolled the girls at the school in Newport. Apparently the school is K-3, so Leah is the big dog. The office ladies were very nice and helpful but they weren't exactly thrilled at our address dillema. Currently we have a Monmouth address, then we will be temporarily be living in Waldport until we find a place in Newport. So I had to fill out a transfer request from Monmouth, but then they wanted me to enroll the girls in school in Waldport and then do a transfer to Newport.

By the time this all came up I had already been there an hour filling out a stack of paperwork as tall as Heidi, so I was "done". I just told them as politely as I could muster, that I wasn't going to do it. I would just keep my girls out of school until we had a permanant address rather than putting them in a different school for two weeks and then transfer them. After my blatant refusal, the office attendants promised to "see what they could do". So hopefully when we show up for school on tuesday, the girls will have a place in class :) Otherwise it's an extended summer vacation for us. I think Naomi would be the only complaining. She's the only kid I know who actually counts down until summer vacation ends and school begins. Honestly, if I didn't (vividly) remember giving birth to her, I would swear she was not my kid.

Anyway, we walked around the school and played on the playground. By the end of the day, both Leah and Naomi decided it would be a nice place to be. :)

Mr. Wight

Lars making an embarrassed face that I was taking pictures
His ghetto building behind the high school that his classroom is in
Naomi and Yaya testing out the desks
Leah and Heidi
Heidi inspecting the book shelf. It's pretty sturdy.

This past Monday we went to Newport with Lars and got to see his new classroom. While it looks rather "special" from the outside, it's pretty nice inside with his own office and everything. It was exciting and surreal. Lars is excited to get teaching. He finally got his class rosters and there are 31-38 kids in each class. I guess in October the district is going to re-evaluate the need to add another section of english to reduce class sizes. I say, save the meeting and use common sense...but I'm just the wife.