Good-bye School, Hello Summer

1. So it's Saturday afternoon, and I was just sitting down to write this post when I realized my darling husband, who left at about 7 this morning for a weekend full of VW shows, took the camera with him. So this isn't going to get posted until Monday, because he won't be back until late tomorrow. Ah, well. Happy Father's Day to him.

It was such a busy week around here that on Monday, I did absolutely nothing (beyond the necessary feeding, clothing and herding of the children on and off of their buses) because it was my last chance to be completely lazy before summer vacation started yesterday. Although, so far, they have been fairly happy and cheerful and played together for long periods of time without incident. Even if it doesn't last, it's a good way to start the summer.

I read Baby Blues every day and this week it was particularly appropriate:

2. Tuesday the great baking adventure started as I was making chocolate chip oatmeal bar cookies for all of the aides and it's a tricky recipe to multiply or make in anything other than my pyrex 9 x 13" pan. But I needed 16 small pans of them for all the aides, therapists and bus drivers who worked with Alex & Miranda's. I bought pots of miniature roses for Miranda's teacher and case manager and hydrangea planters for Alex's teachers and case manager.

Here are the flowers on their way to school, shoved into the foot well of the passenger seat:

This is only 2 of the planters; there was another one in the back seat. Costco had really nice hydrangeas this year.

I also printed nice cards for everyone, which Miranda and Alex did sign. It was a 3 day adventure and delivered to the schools in batches but it all got done by Thursday afternoon, just in time for my brother Jonathan to stop buy in between a conference and his flight back to California Friday morning.

3. Now it's Monday morning and I really need to get this blog posted!

My brother came to visit Thursday night. We picked him up at the Trenton train station about 5:30 pm and took him back about 9:30 the next morning, but it was still great to see him.

Miranda and Jon were battling with bubbles, chasing each other around, trying to land their bubbles on the other person. It was really funny, but difficult to photograph.

4. Miranda "graduated" from preschool on Wednesday afternoon. I have a few mediocre pictures to share, but the only one that came out well was of the party afterwards, with chocolate cake on her face. Not surprising, really.

The ceremony was cute and I think Miranda was the only student who only had one family member attend (me). In my opinion, it was a whole lot of fuss over not much, but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

That's my girl. :)

5. I've been stitching a lot in the evenings, while watching the whole of the Marple series. I only have 3 episodes left. The women playing Miss Marple are excellent, of course, but it's also wonderful to see favorite actors like Benedict Cumberbatch, John Hannah or Phil Davis be excellent in period pieces like this.

Here's the progress pic:

The more I work on it, the better it goes. But it is a lot of half-stitches. All those angles look pretty on paper but are difficult to reproduce in real life.

6. Here are all of Alex's wonderful Angry Birds plush toys:

The next teeth he pulls out will bring him the helmet pig and the orange bird. Our collection must be complete. Funny boy.

7. And here's my flower bed, looking cool in the fading light of day:

Must run off and do Monday things!

Here's Jen.