Back to School time fears

With the school year starting next week I thought this would be a good time to talk about my fears and concerns for the coming year. I know I really shouldn't have any fears by now. School should really be old hat for us, but it just never seems to happen that way.


Let's start of with my girls. They are starting freshman year and I've spent a fair amount of time on the phone with the high school. Most of that time has been asking questions to figure out what we need to register Duckling for school.

After not so great 8th grade year out in Wisconsin; we decided to have her move back with us and go to school here. A long story for another time.

Very Inspiring Blogger Award

About a week ago I was nominated for two blog awards by Serenity Raven of The Domestic Pagan. Thank you very much for nominating me for these awards! Now I get to spread the love and give these two awards out to others!

One Lovely Blog Award

About a week ago I was nominated for two blog awards by Serenity Raven of The Domestic Pagan.  Thank you very much for nominating me for these awards! Now I get to spread the love and give these two awards out to others!

M is for The Morrigan

Letterbox carving/stamp of The Morrigan
from the Warrior Women II postal

The Morrigan was the shape-shifting Celtic Goddess of War, Fate, and Death.  Her name is interpreted in various forms..."Great Queen", "Phantom Queen", or "Queen of Demons."  She was said to hover over battlefields in the form of a raven or hooded crow.  She frequently foretold or influenced the outcome of a battle.  The Celts believed that, as they engaged in warfare, the Morrigan flew shrieking overhead in the form of a raven or carrion crow, summoning a host of slain soldiers to a macabre spectral bane.  When the battle had ended, the warriors would leave the field until dawn in order that the Morrigan could claim the trophies of heads, euphemistically known as "The Morrigan's acorn crop".

~Earthy Mom

Crafting with my boys ~ Rain sticks

My rain stick.  I colored a white
strip of construction paper to add
to my decorations.

I've recently began pinning on Pinterest and have found lots of great crafts for the kids to do.  The boys and I made rain sticks the other day.  It was a relatively simply craft for us and lots of fun. 

I have been saving paper towel tubes to use for crafts and they came in handy.  I also had lots of strips of construction paper left over from a Girl Scout craft. 
We glued the strips of paper around our paper towel tubes to decorate them.  Then we taped on construction paper that was cut in a circle at the bottom of the tube. 

Ahh Summer camps

I managed to have three of my four kids at summer camps for the exact same two weeks.  It was a really nice break for me and I was able to get alot done around the house. 

Cookie as a Bunny

 The first week Ladybug and Cookie did a week long theater summer camp at a local theater.  The camp is call Summer on Stage and is run by Missoula Children's Theatre.  Ladybug has been doing this camp since she was seven years old and it was Cookie's first time. 

Fun on the Fourth

We've been very busy and I almost forgot I was working on this post about our fourth of July fun.

Despite the clouds and possible rain, we headed out to the beach like we do every fourth of July.  Unfortunately we didn't make it to the beach in time to enter the sand castle contest.  The kids were a little sad, but they got past it.  I think it helped that I decided to get in the water with them, which I rarely, if ever do. 

Crafting with the kids ~ napkin rings & cloud dough

Duckling's napkin ring

We decided we needed to make some new napkin rings for our cloth napkins.  Several of napkin rings we made almost nine months ago have seen better days.  Which makes sense since we used paper towel rolls and yarn.  Because the kids have really been enjoying painting, I decided to go with painting wooden napkin rings.