Paul's birthday/family day

Happy Birthday Paul!

Yes, my dear husband is another year older. We celebrated his birthday on Saturday. First, we took advantage of the beautiful weather and went to Spring Park in Tuscumbia. Paul rode the train with the kids, and then the kids played a while. We ate at a Chinese Buffet. Yum! The kids loved it! Their favorites are sweet and sour chicken, shrimp and rice. Of course there is the dessert bar as well. 

If you look at the third picture, you will understand why we later went clothes shopping for Eliza. She is so tall! Then we went on to Sam's Club and the mall. We never go to the mall, but this was a special day. We even gave each child $10 in spending money, and we let them use it in the candy store. Thankfully they chose not to spend all their money in the one store.

The day was awesome! We actually spent the entire day together! We haven't really done that a lot lately. Enjoy the pictures.

School shopping

Friday, Jane and I took the kids school shopping. Here in Alabama we are lucky enough to have a tax-free weekend to buy school clothes, shoes, and most school supplies. Our list was HUGE, so we started out bright and early at 8:30. Just to give you an idea of just how big our list was I will give you Sarah's second grade class supply list.

3 packs loose leaf paper (wide rule)

Several no. 2 pencils

1 pk. of erasers (that fit no. 2 pencils)

4 glue sticks

Pack of construction paper

3 boxes Kleenex

7 plastic pocket folders

Book bag (we have hers from last year)

Band-aids

1 box quart bags

4 spiral bound notebooks

Small box of crayons (24 ct.) Not any bigger!

Fiskars blunt point scissors (again, we saved hers from last year)

2 boxes of Wet Ones wipes

1 pack of white copy paper

1 small pack of colored copy paper

small pencil box

1 bottle of liquid soap

$6.00 spelling workbook (required)(we buy this at school)

$20.00 donation fee

(appreciated but not required!)

Can I just tell you that the paper products for her alone was over $10.00. So . . .  after our 50 minute drive to the "big city" we began at Office Depot where we found $3.00 backpacks. I thought they'd be terrible quality, but they weren't that bad. I decided to purchase them for 72-hour kits. What a bargain! 

We ended up going to Kmart, TJ Max, Shoe Carnival, Captain D's, Khol's (we ended up getting all their clothes, less one shirt, here), Target, JCPenny's, Aeropostal (Eliza had to buy a shirt from this store), Payless, Shoe Department, and Sears. My kind friend, Fauna, liberated us from Luke around 11:30, and amazingly enough we were home before 7 p.m. It was a long but successful day of shopping. The majority of their supplies have been purchased, and they all found some cute clothes and shoes. The purchase I was most pleased with were the brown and pink New Balance sneakers that Eliza and Leah chose. The playground at the school is pure red clay, and it is brutal on shoes. The shoes weren't the least expensive choice, but they won't be ruined after the first day of school. 

Tuesday night is open house at the school, so we will get to meet their teachers. We are all very excited for school to begin, but unfortunately, Luke won't be going to preschool. Earlier this summer Luke received a letter from his  teacher that explained she won't be teaching. She has gone to care for her aging parents in Oklahoma. I am hoping to find him some friends to play with though. He seriously needs "guy time." 

So this last week of summer vacation I am really going to try to live it up with the kids. I hope to bake cookies, go swimming several times, do nails and cut hair, do a big art project, a science experiment, and have a movie marathon. Those are just my ideas. I need to run them by the kids still. It is their summer vacation after all.