Alice Answers Her Birthday Survey: 10-years-old!

We are several days past Alice's decade celebration, but today we completed her birthday survey! (After she finished her "lots of things" that she was doing on her computer.)

I am 10 years old.
My favorite color is:pink 
The coolest person on earth is: everybody
The thing I do best is: being chill (as she dabs)
If I could change my name, it would be: mutti jr.
My favorite toy is: everything (my usb fan XD still chill)
When I grow up, I want to be: a cat human with yin-yang powers that can turn into a cat and has wings and 2 tails and ears (still chill)(E)
I like to watch: youtube(still chill)
My favorite song is: imagine dragons(EEEEEEEEE)
My favorite book is:Geronimo stilton(chilllllllll)
3 words to describe me are: a thing alright chill funny(ish)
When I was little, I used to: drink from a baby bottle like boss baby
My favorite season is: Christmas
The food I like most is: Mint chocolate chunk ice cream 
One food I really don't like is: melted cheese
My best friend is: Willow
For my birthday I want to: pwn n00bs XD
My best memory is: CHILL

I love how much her answers have changed since her first survey! Can you tell she typed her own answers this year? lol.

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you can check out her answers from last year here.

First Day of School

This morning we were all up early, ready to start a new school year!  Alice and Emily had so much time they were able to knock out their piano practice before school.

Alice was protesting because I kept asking her to put back on her glasses.

We always walk on day one, and will probably walk the rest of this week at least.  I carried the water bottles in a backpack of my own, so that their bags were a little lighter.  They had delivered most of their supplies to the school at the open house.

Since William is starting first grade, he received his schultüte this year!

The twins were the first two ready, so they had time for some extra pictures.  I apologized to their current, possibly temporary, teacher this morning; Grace and Juliet decided to be twins (lol.)  Matching dresses, pants, socks and shoes. At least they had on name tags?

Singing the twentieth round of Itsy Bitsy Spider for the morning.

At the school, the big girls and William lined up and were ready for a great day.  Juliet was brave and followed her teacher, but Grace almost made me cry.  She was in absolute tears, and when I picked her up I could feel her sobbing in my arms. = (  One of the specialist and I finally convinced her to go down and say hi to William.

I caught the specialist in the hall later, and she said that the tears had abated by the time that they made it down the hall.  I didn't dare go peek, but hopefully she had an awesome day!  They had a boo hoo & woo hoo reception after drop off. It was nice to chat with some other moms to take my mind off of leaving.  This was the first first day of school, ever, that I left by myself.

On that note, it's now time to go pick up my dear ones!

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Some outtakes from this morning:

A Nice Improvement

This is the latest post in the series of William, grace and Juliet's journey with hypophosphatasia.  And now adding Emily to the list.

Just a few short weeks after Emily's trip, we found ourselves back in Grand Rapids for a scheduled visit with the Ophthalmologist, this time with Alice and without Daddy and Emily.  

Preparing to go is always so colorful.

They are continuing to monitor for pressure on the optic nerve.

But William and Juliet received excellent news: they no longer have to wear their patches!  We had been quite consistent with it all summer, so this was a nice pay off. = )

They will return in 4 months for a routine follow up.

We went to the outdoor pavilion to eat our lunch, and they played for a while before getting back in the car to make the drive home.

It was a much less emotional trip for me than the previous one.  I'm not looking forward to October's visit though.

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<what happened previously
what happened next>

In Between

Summer has been filled with visitors, trips, parties and fun.  These are the small things that we've done in between everything else.

For fourth of July, the twins wore some big bows, and we grilled some hot dogs and steaks.  We heard lots of fireworks, but didn't travel to see them.

A Sam's Club trip with the four here at the time.  Lunch, then grocery pick up.

Billy found a new joke to play on William.  First, you take a picture like this.

Then you find a victim, and pretend to make the person disappear.  You take another picture that looks like this:

But when you show the "magician" the picture, you show them this one.

You also have to pretend not to see or hear the person.  The twins kind of ruined it by running in and "finding" William. = )

Our living room floor is the best place for a nap.  Make sure to get as close to your sister as you can though.

Took the four that were here to Kroger for a handful of items.  They bring money just for this purpose.

I won a minor prize from the BATYOT event!

A trip to Carl's.  They have 4 small carts, which worked out this time, in Emily's absence.  Everyone wants to push an item around.  ; )

The twins are happy to have Avia back!

The finished product of Haley & Chris' hard work, and my slight contribution for my mom's birthday gift!

Now that we are in August, I feel the summer slipping quickly away, both in time and temperature.  Hopefully the next two weeks will linger.

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More Summer Chores

I was working on my list of Summer Chores, though admittedly, the past two weeks I've not made any progress.

But, when I was still knocking things off of my list, I painted the bathroom!  

The paint looks good now, the trim not so much.  That is certainly a task for another day year though.

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The siding on our front poarch was looking very dirty.  I grabbed a bucket of water, a ladder and some rags.  It was not a diffuclt task.  I even had some helpers.

Juliet only lasted until she saw a spider.  Emily and Grace helped me a little longer than that.

No one else even noticed, but I see a remarkable difference.  Something that still bothers me is some ancient sticky string(?) that is on a few panels.  I've tried soaking it, goo gone, nail polish and scrubbing bubbles to no avail. Next up is vinegar, and then toilet bowl cleaner, when it bothers me enough.

Soaking it:

The final completed chore was washing the shower curtain and cleaning a heater for the bathroom.

I see the improvement in both, though I realize I may be alone. = )

Hopefully I will have time to do at least one more before the kids head back to school.  But I may want to wait on some of them, so that the kids are back in school?

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Murder Mystery, Year 2

This summer, we were able to once again find a night when all three of our families could take a break from a crazy summer schedule and go solve a mystery at Cheateu de Reims in 1937.  

From left to right: A Feisty German Business Woman, A Secretive Retired British Soldier, An Up and Coming Interior Designer, A Brilliant Eccentric Scientist, A Mourning Lady of the House, and the Promiscuous Estate Manager.

Preparation for the party actually started the night before.  I was delighted to have an opportunity to use the Demitasse cups gifted to us by my Grandma Sondra.

My Counter and Refrigerator were both full!

Billy helped me ready everything outside.  The kids table was covered by the canopy, but the lights & curtains in the tree took the longest to install.

It felt like it took forever, but the guests finally arrived, and the party began!  Jessica, Jared, Deb, and Matt brought sustenance for our 13 children!

We set up a game of croquette, but we didn't end up playing.  Our children had fun hitting the mallets on things though. ; )

Once they were fed, the tall ones took some pictures for us. = )

It was finally time to start our game.  Reading is a big part of this game.

And so much laughter.

The game took a while, with several interruptions, so we ended the game reading by candlelight.

Just before the solution came to light the batteries in the tape player started to fail, making the narrators voice sound slow, comical and distorted.

Once we made our accusations, it was revealed that    *      Billy        *   did it.  Again. 

This is another annual event that I thoroughly love.  I feel so fortunate to have found a group of people who are willing to take the time dress up, and play along!  Can't wait for our next one.

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*The text here is white, if you want to see who is responsible!

Click here to see last year's fun.