This year for her birthday, Jessica asked to be able to re-decorate her room (well, okay, DECORATE her room--we hadn't done anything to it yet).

 Her lucky friend G is here for the weekend, so she gets to help!

This is all Jessica's design, so I'm excited to see how it turns out.  I'll post pictures of the finished room when its all done.

Another car shot.  Are you sensing a theme to my life right now?

This time, I was taking Jess and her friends to a high school football game.  Tonight, I turned down the volume on my iPod so I could listen in to their conversation about who is hot, who is not, who is talking to whom, who is not.  I secretly loved every minute of it, and kind of wanted to park the car and follow them in so I could be a high school girl again for tonight.

But I didn't.  I had to go home and do the dishes.  Being a grown-up is over-rated.

Well, I'm kissing my Tuesday and Thursday nights good-bye for the next couple of months.  All three of my boys are playing soccer--on three different teams, of course--and they all have practices on Tuesday and Thursday nights.  Luckily, the starting and ending times are staggered, so I don't have to be in two places at the same time, but it does mean I am driving pretty much non-stop for two hours.  I drop off Pepper, drop off Adam, drop off Luke, pick up Adam, pick up Pepper, then pick up Luke with barely time to breathe in between.

At least I have my iPod to keep me company.  There is a great deal of singing at top volume.

Last week, a Costa Vida opened up near our house.

In Brad's words, now we won't ever have to move.

First day of school...blah, blah, blah...

Luke, second grade

Adam, seventh grade (don't worry, I made him comb his hair after this was taken)

Pepper, ninth grade

Jessica, twelfth grade

You can see that we didn't buy any new school clothes.  The kids don't care and neither do I, so why torture ourselves?
(sorry Haley--I know you just gasped in horror)

I thought this was going to be my favorite thing about today:

We went to the high school today, and Jess took Pepper around to find all his classes so he'd be ready to start tomorrow.  She even showed him which table she sits at during lunch so he'd come find her and have someone to sit with.

But then, this happened while I was cooking dinner:

 This is in the running for My Favorite Moment of the Summer.

Our girl is home!!!!

You should have seen this dog run frantically for her as soon as he heard her voice in the house.  He was skidding all over the floors like a four-legged maniac in his rush to be reunited!

She was pretty excited to see her "Boo-Boos", too.  I'd like to think she missed me as much.