Spice cake batter- add in a couple chopped up apples and bake into cupcakes.  Top with a hearty dollop of cream cheese frosting… thank me later.

That’s some random capitalization for you in the title.  Not quite sure why I typed it like that- but there you go.

So after a super long TWO WEEK summer break my kids are back in school.  Woo?  They’re excited (remember- they don’t know what summer is supposed to be like).

I did the mom thing and made them all line up for a picture on the way out the door.

Cori didn’t have school until 11:15 but she lined up with everyone else anyway.

Then Megan wanted a picture by herself.

Annika thought that was a great idea….

And I strong armed Ashley into one also and she humored me:

We dropped Ashley off first so she could be rid of us. Her teacher is Mrs. Stark. I can’t believe she’s in sixth grade!

Then we took Annika to Mrs. Chen’s class. She’ll spend the first part of her day with Mrs. Chen only speaking Chinese for math, science, healthy lifestyles, and art and then go to Mrs. Olgovie’s class for English and reading and stuff. When we dropped her off Mrs. Chen greeted her in Chinese and they talked completely in Chinese for about 3 minutes- Annika responding to questions in Chinese! I’m continually amazed at this program.

The we dropped Megan off with Mrs. Reukart and talked to her about our crazy ‘no dye’ policy. She was very understanding- even if she was thinking that I’m the crazy mom in her head.

Then I took Cori home to hear her ask 50 million times if it was time for kindergarten yet.

Finally it was time.

Let’s try that again

um… let’s move to the shade

Ugg. We’re late- maybe we’ll get a good one at school.

Cori and Mrs. Larsen (her English kindergarten teacher)

Hmm.. Maybe it’ll be better with Mr. Lan (the Chinese Kindergarten teacher)

Or not. (Don’t worry- he’s older than he looks)

How about if I just take one of her working hard on her first project?

Now she doesn’t go back for a week. Which I have to remind her of about a million times a day…

But once she goes back I’ll have five hours a day!!! Woo! Time for soap opera’s, bon bons and family feud on Facebook all day long!

Remember those long days of summer?  Where you had day after day of ‘nothing to do’ and how great it was?  There was plenty of time and all of your friends were around to ‘do nothing’ with you?

Two weeks of jammed packed fun and my kids are headed back to school. Two weeks isn’t even long enough to get bored.

While I’m thrilled to be sending them it’s a false start.  They start tomorrow.  Cori goes for an hour tomorrow and then doesn’t go back until NEXT Wednesday.  The other girls go tomorrow and then have short days and no school on Friday. Then they go for two weeks and two days before their first ‘break’ when they get four days and three weeks off.

The good news?  Because of Chinese kindergarten I have FIVE HOURS a day with no kids home.  What to do?  I’m sure I’ll figure something out.

I have four girls. We’ve had lots of Barbies funnel through our house (and leave decapitated and in a body bag garbage sack).  I can’t believe I never knew what I just learned today.  I’m going to share the secret of ‘fixing’ Barbie hair. You know how the hair in the box looks perfect?  How if your kids would just leave it alone it’d be fine?  But moments after taking it out of the box (which takes scissors, pliers and a good 30 minutes) they’ve ripped out all the hairbands and usually gotten it wet already?  Then what you have is a tangled, fizzy mess.  I had a Barbie for a cake and it needed a makeover hair-wise.  I wish now I’d taken before and after pictures.  But I didn’t- sorry.  Anyway- I washed the hair with dish soap (Ajax I think) and then rinsed it and then I diluted some Downy in some water (probably 1/3 cup of water to 2 Tablespoons of Downy- but I just winged it) and then dipped Barbie’s hair in the water. It absorbed it really fast actually- and then I gently combed it out.  It very quickly smoothed out and I could ‘do’ her hair- which I used diluted elmer’s glue to hold it in place.  Give it a try- let me know if it works for you!

Okay- that may be a little dramatic- but did I get your attention?

So I was kissing Steve and had to literally ‘come up for air’.  Mostly because I can’t breath out of my nose because I’m so congested.  It shows how much he must love me to kiss me even when I’m sick. Of course by then I was laughing so hard that he didn’t get any more kisses…  so romantic.

TMI?  Sorry about that.

In other news my sister is here visiting and we’re going to live it up at IKEA today.  Crossing our fingers that the kid play place has openings since we’ve got 5 kids in tow (and 3 of mine are at school!)