First day of school

This year school began on a Monday much to the dismay of my children. But come what may and love it.

Years ago I remember a woman from my Stansbury ward detailing the cost of having 3 kids in high school at the same time. I made a mental note and realized that many years down the road I would be in the same boat.

And here I am with a senior, junior, and freshman. Ah, this was Kiersten's LAST first day of school picture. I see many more LAST things to come this year.

The idea of a free education is so foreign to me right now. If it's not the school needing money than its the kids fundraising at my door for all their various clubs. It only cost me $850 to get my three into school. It could have been much worse if Drivers Ed were part of the equation.

As my neighbor and I were walking the other day, we discussed the public school system in our country and both are of the consensus that organized sports should have no place in education other than a PE class. But we both know that will never fly. Too much emphasis on trophies and not enough on education.

Ash is 6th grade. Swim big fishy. And Alex is 1st grade. Swim faster than the big fishy. Somehow I never imagined this day would come where all my kids would be in school for the entire day. I'm loving the quiet mornings.

And this morning I finished a book titiled Simply Tuesday by Emily P. Freeman. Make sure you get that P in there because another of my most favorite authors is Emily Freeman whose writing style and genre is very similar although I doubt they even know the other exists.

You want a little taste of what I've been reading this week. Well, here ya go:

It’s easy to fight for a cause when the stake are high – freedom, rights, life or death. It’s way harder to fight for moments, to fight to see meaning on a Tuesday afternoon around the homework table. Because at the end of it you don’t have anything to show for it beyond a kid who has finished math worksheet and let’s be honest, who cares much about that? Yet if the world gives it such attention, maybe we need to crane our necks away from the cities of the world and force our attention to the benches in our own front yards. I don’t mean we have to create meaning and elevate each moment to the level of The Most Important Thing Ever. The truth is, the moments may be boring. In the scope of life, they may not have much impact on the course of things or the decisions we make. But learning to live well in ordinary time isn’t a call to elevate moments; it’s a call to draw close to Christ.

Kind of goes along with our school theme for this post. Another little phrase I'm gonna borrow from her and add to this blog is "These are the days . . . ". I've been ending my blog with Good Things going on in our live at the moment, a kind of gratitude list. Well, I imagine this could very well incorporate that and many more things, more of the ordinary, day-to-day stuff that I tend to forget about.

What's going on in my yard

Well, about the only thing really blooming right now are these volunteer sunflowers. I'm knowledgeable enough to know in the spring what they are and not pull them. You can't get anything much better than this that requires absolutely no water and no maintenance.

These are the days of . . . 

*little boys who are so excited for school and who tell their mom how important it is to go to "back to school" night even though she was not planning on going (she went . . . for him). ALEX

*a daughter who is so diligent and committed to her cross country team that she gets up early to run, runs during her Running for Life class, runs after school for practice, and cools down at night with a 2 mile run. Okay maybe she is just crazy. KIERSTEN

*having a child (ASHLYN) remind you of the tradition you started many years ago of giving each child a candy gram for the morning of the first day of school and you realize it's Sunday night and school starts in t minus 8 hours. Yep, this mom came through albeit it was more at t PLUS 8 hours.