These are a few of my favorite things...

Things in the new season are going well, we're all settling into our new routines. We continue to stay busy, with school, dance & exercise classes, soccer games and other activities. Like so many other people, fall is increasingly my favorite time of year. I don't know if I can pinpoint why... some ideas off the top of my head:
Foliage - Such a dramatic and beautiful change of the weather (yes, even the rain).
Beginnings - a new school year, new football season and even some new clothes and blankets to keep me warm.
Food - my favorite foods are soups, holiday turkeys and pumpkin pie.
Holidays/Birthdays - it's crazy at our house this season... between Halloween and Christmas we have all the holidays as well as the girls' birthdays. Chaotic but wonderful!

So here are some highlights as my favorite season begins:

The girls always start off the school year at the annual school jog-a-thon



My cousin got married for the first time at age 38 - since their ceremony was in Bora Bora, and he lives in California, there was a reception here, given by my aunt and uncle. I was able to meet his wife and see him for the first time in about seven years. Here he is with his bride:

Here are my siblings and cousins, striking the same pose (by age) that we have since we were babies:


This last weekend was my 20-year high school reunion. Wow, that makes me sound old! I didn't want to go, but was glad I did. It's funny how my memories of high school tend to center around 5-6 mean girls, instead of the other 500 really nice people I went to school with for so many years! Here's just one picture with a few good friends that I haven't seen for a while:


Coming up in the next few weeks, we'll have the aforementioned birthday celebrations, more soccer games, holidays and, of course, Croptoberfest in Sunriver. Another reason why fall is one of my favorite seasons!

Somethin' to do Today

So today was the first day of school for my kids - couldn't have come too soon. They have been at eachother's throats lately... despite being busy this summer, they needed to be around different kids and have different distractions. Having said that, today I experienced something new to me - both kids gone all day. Exciting and scary all at the same time.

My friend Sandra forbid me to do housework on the first day of school (yeah! thank you friend!) but I do have a gigantic list of projects to do and today I thought I'd work on an easy one. I uploaded 300 pictures to the Creative Memories photo center to be printed. That's right, I haven't printed pictures since Christmas. Even your friendly neighborhood consultant is behind on her scrapbooking! I've had enough pictures to keep me busy with projects, so I haven't needed to print anything out, but today I worked on this (and some laundry... sorry Sandra!)

So here's what's been going on with me lately:

Heading off to school today, my youngest was hoping her teacher would call her "Jungle Girl". Maybe it would have helped if she had actually taken the cat to school.

What a big girl - a 1st Grader now!

My 3rd grader has one of her best friends in class - poor teacher!


I spent last weekend on the set of a movie, in which my husband is assistant director and co-producer. Some of my friends got to join in on the fun of being "extras"! I played a "mom" (big stretch)... Here are some photos from Saturday:

The director, Devon, setting up the scene for my friend Julie (who played a doctor) and Jen (who was a detective... check out the heat she's carrying!)

Cousin Jodi played a nurse:


My oldest daughter had a sad week last month - her Betta fish died. Here's our burial of "Sparkle" (she just couldn't flush him). My youngest is giving some type of euology, I think:


The girls and I spent 5 days at the Oregon Coast - was originally to be a family vacation, but above-mentioned film resulted in absent daddy. No worries, it was a great, relaxing time for me and the girls, a nice way to end the summer: