The Dance of Joy

Hooray for me and mom's everywhere! The kids are back in school. I would like to say that I love public school. They come and cart the kids away first thing in the morning and bring them back in the afternoon, educated and fed. What more could I ask for? Granted their school isn't the best and not very challenging so I do try and do a little extra at home, but its not the ghetto and their safe and sound so away they go! Hailey didn't get into afternoon kindergarten (sigh) but she's gone all afternoon while the boys nap. Which means I actually have time to complete a thought and a page of a book. Something I haven't done in months. When my kids are home their is no such thing as alone with your thoughts. Here's some pictures of the kids fun summer. Sorry they are in totally random order. Ah, Hailey the fashion model.

Connor is sitting up and getting ready to crawl. I don't think I'm too excited about that since getting the kids to pick up all of their tiny crap is virtually impossible. There are Barbie shoes and beads hiding all over just waiting for him to put in his mouth. No amount of threatening and yelling seems to matter. I took all the Barbie accessories away months ago yet I still keep finding holdouts everywhere. I tell you those things multiply on their own.

McKenzie's first day of 2nd grade

Hailey's second day of kindergarten. Dave took her to school the first day and in his rush forgot the all important first day picture. Hailey says kindergarten is super hard because you have to sit still.

At the park withEli. Picking up on the ladies I see. We went to Shadle park with Sharon and her kids a week or two ago. The kids had a great time. The girls and Eric playing went something like this "Eric you're the handsome prince and I'm the princess." "No, I'm a warrior and this is our battleship." "NO Eric you're not. YOU'RE THE PRINCE"

He pretended to hate it but I think deep down he didn't mind too much. Greggers was so thrilled to see Eli. He misses his friends so much.

This is a huge playground in Washington Park in Portland. We flew down for the day last week to explore and go to this ballet thing, interesting only to me and McKenzie. Washington Park is huge and has a ton to see. I wish we had more time to explore. Portland has a lot of much cooler stuff than I realized.

The girls at the top of the International Rose Garden in Washington Park overlooking the city.

I took the kids to Kids's Day at Riverfront Park a few weekends ago. They have all of this free stuff you can do set up all over the park. Area businesses have booths set up with free activities and fun stuff for the kids to do like crafts and face painting. Hailey won an Elmo backpack full of Sesame Street toys and felt really special. Afterwards I took the kids to play in the huge fountain in the front of the park. (Yes kids are supposed to play in it) The above picture is the girls snuggled up together in the one towel I brought (saves on laundry if they all share). Funny story about that fountain. Tons of kids run through this huge like 30 feet tall structure. some of them bring swimsuits, some just wear their clothes and deal with the dampness. Well I look over and see some stark naked kid a little older than Greg running around like "Hey look at me" At first I thought he was an escapy but then I saw his sisters also apparantly naked. Upon closer inspection I realized that they were just running around in sopping wet underwear that made it look like they were naked. These girls were older than mine, the oldest was like 9 or 10. I was like alrighty then. Now I had to scope out the parents, surely they were hippies or Europeans (its kind of like how you can always pick the Europeans out at Sandpoint beach because no other self respecting man would wear a speedo to the lake). Nope normal parents, like someone I would be friends with. I had to call someone, alas I only got voicemails so I just left NIk a laughing voicemail about naked families. I wasn't sure whether to laugh or be appalled. For anyone out there thinking "what's the big deal? I let my 9 year old run mostly naked in public all the time." Let me give you a pointer. Put clothes on the kid. It just looks bad. Judgemental people like me think you are a weirdo. And Spokane has a lot of ummm questionable people if you know what I mean.

The kids with their faces painted (you can't really see it but they were pretty proud)

Another randomly placed picture of the Batson kids and mine (minus Eli) at Shadle Park.

We had a great summer. We lived like teenagers. Went to bed super late and slept in (kids too) and were always running around. Hence the lack of blog posts. Fun though it was I was definately ready for school to start. The girls were making me crazy. Dave took the girls to Salt Lake to visit Grandma Huisman a couple of days before school started and they had a great time. Kenzie cried when she had to leave. She doesn't get to see her other Grandma too much. One night while they were gone Greggers and I were in this tiny Greek place grabbing dinner. I was holding him when he said "Mama, let me check your nose." So he shoves his little fingers up there. I thought he meant check with his eyes. I said Gross Greggers and set him down. Tilting his head back he told me to check his now. I stooped down, took a quick peak and assured him it was all clear. He yelled "No with you fingers!" The old Greek guy watching had a good laugh. I'm pretty sure he used extra bleach on our table when we left.