Summer's End.

Let me start with exciting, life-changing news: Bethany started preschool this week!!!
(Don't think this is life-changing? If you had lived in our house this summer while she was bored to death, despite my best efforts, you would agree. Poor, bright girl! She definitely has a hunger for all things learning, all things busy, and all things...not mom and brothers day after day!)

So, the last couple of weeks were full of anticipation, sickness, and more work around the house in connection with The Summer of the Second Move-in.

I could probably do something creative, but as has become my signature blog-style this summer...
Here are some pictures to tell you all about how we spent our last couple of weeks of unscheduled, restless, summertime. :)

This is how Bethany arrived at the office door one evening after she was supposed to be sleeping. I think I had been out working out and JC snapped this beauty.
PJ's, dress-up beads, and -yes - tights pulled on over pajama pants.
Never a dull moment.

When the house is all cluttered from closets having been cleaned out, toys gone through, etc. our scattered toys get a little overwhelming and hard to play with. So, we start focusing on dress up.
Ben sticks mostly to hats.
Please note that he is also holding the string of his birthday balloon. I told you.
Also, pleast don't note all the clutter on the floor in the playroom.
Some days (or summers) are like this.

Bethany convinced James to dress up to dance with her.
Somehow, music usually accompanies dress-up.
Much to JC's relief, James has started choosing the boy dress-up clothes (more often than not) now. Here he is a cowboy. They are so cute.

Um. Precious.
(Especially the part where she is clearly the instigator of this and he is just kind of standing there taking it.)

Our trusty ol' ballpit got a leak in it and all the air kept coming out. After patching it a couple of times and still waking up to a deflated ballpit/swimming pool, JC decided to replace it. So, here is how we used the old one for a couple of days. The kids were kind of sick anyway and doing a lot of laying around, watching movies, etc. So, it became a pillow pit.
I rather enjoyed this.
I wish we had one always.
To eat grapes and watch movies in.

SO, I hit a big milestone in my organizing/unpacking/cleaning a couple weeks ago and finally the only closet I had left to clean out was the BIG one under the stairs.

My parents' house has a closet under their stairs that keeps on going and my family calls it Narnia.

Mine can't be Narnia because it doesn't have the little door leading to the extra space/foreign land.

Perhaps it will just be The Cupboard Under the Stairs. Still a cool reference.

Anyway, here is a glimpse of all the stuff I was wading through and dealing with as I cleaned it out.

All of that came from here. And needed to be organized. So I worked on that.

But then if you actually walk into that closet, you discover this off to the right:

Which, after an hour or so, turned into this:

How much do you love that space? I love that space. (We all know Harry would have loved that space.)
Someday I will utilize it to its full potential.
Moving on...

Just a shot of Ben in the disheveled playroom, on the disheveled couch. Holding his balloon.
He wasn't feeling well this day and requested "Toy Story" repeatedly until I finally caved.
Definitely worth a little extra tv time to get this shot.
And, of course, for him to feel all warm and cozy watching his favorite movie holding his treasure.

A few days later, it RAINED.

The heavens be praised, it rained.

Unfortunately, Bethany had been up much of the night before with the stomach bug. All she wanted to do was lay on the floor. Not be held, not snuggle up on the couch or chair. Lay on the floor. I think she liked the cool breeze coming in from the balcony door being open while the boys and I played in the rain.

Here, Ben had had enough of the rain (had started to not feel well himself...was up the following night with the stomach bug) and he and JC cuddled while Bethany held her spot on the floor.

James and I continued to enjoy the rain. It came down HARD for a while.
We hid out under the stairs.

Where I enjoyed this view of the wet world.

And he colored, with wet sidewalk chalk (the best kind), on the porch railing.
I would love to have some sort of rule about this...like, "no coloring on the house"? But, he was enjoying it so much and, really, what does it hurt?

Over the next few days, the kids worked on getting all the sicknesses we'd experienced recently out of their systems. And we had a lot of down time. A lot.

Here is a new favorite past-time.

SesameStreet.org

Wowie, does this hold their attention. A little too well sometimes! I usually use this as a way to get dinner prepared and limit its use to that time of day, but we used it a little more while not feeling like doing much else.
You can see how the office has also fallen victim to my household overhaul. Yes, those are piles of papers. And, yes, I for some reason feel the need to draw attention to them.
I will also draw attention to the fact that I thin they (kids, not papers) look really cute sitting together in the office chairs.

Then, it was officially time! The first day of school!!! We were all excited!!!

Little Miss Bethany, all ready to go!

A blurry picture of the three of brothers sending her off.

And some more cute shots of the special morning...

She did awesome! Eased right back into her class, was excited to be with her teachers again...the boys seemed to remember the old routine of dropping her off, then coming back to play/let mommy clean the kitchen, get lunch ready, go back to pick her up, come home, eat lunch and move on about our day! I remembered it pretty well too. I think we thrive on a schedule.

This weekend we worked on some more organizing of stuff.
Just too much stuff around here!
Bethany climbed back into the Cupboard Under the Stairs to help JC with something.

Then Ben wanted a turn. This sure looks like a fun...concrete...playground!

Here's a good story: The other day, I'm getting the kids set up to play with some playdough. I get them each in a chair at the kitchen table and head to our crafty/activity closet to get the necessary supplies. I heard some commotion, then Bethany saying "Ohh JAMES." then "Mommy? You better come see this! It's bad." Nobody was crying so I didn't go running or anything but I made my way back into the kitchen expecting to see my grocery list torn up or maybe some crayon on the wall. (I really can't think of a wall in my home that does not have at least some crayon on it)
Nope.
Instead, I find Bethany with humongous eyes, pointing silently to James...who is silently frozen in a pose that was clearly the end result of slamming his water bottle (the metal canteen one) down on our table top.
Our glass table top.
Now, the actual table top itself is not glass. The whole table is made of wood...but it's a soft wood, so after many many dents caused by little forks being slammed down on it after just the first couple of days, we decided to get a glass top to protect it for a few years until the kids could be trusted to not...destroy things...
Um, yeah, well, the plan wasn't foolproof apparently.
Luckily, nobody was hurt in any way, I just got them out of there and kept them out of there...nothing went flying, we just had a cracked table top on our hands and I didn't really want their hands near it. But it was definitely ruined.

Definitely.

Here is JC in his valiant clean-up efforts later that night!
I have to mention this awesome knife he had that was just right for this job. It actually has a point or a pick or something (I am hardly knife-savvy) on the handle just for breaking glass...or breaking ice...? But anyway, he went to work and thanks to that, his studly ways, my mom's contribution of a box, and our trusty ol' Kirby Vac, the kitchen was again a safe place to be!

Good bye glass top. Hello, gorgeous black-stained wood ready to be dented!
We'll just be going for the distressed look.
That's pretty "now," right?

Anyway, with clutter, stomach bugs, balloons, first days of school, that story, and this picture that Bethany took on our camera a long time ago when I was sick that I happened to stumble across tonight,

We kiss the summer goodbye!