keeping my word ...

the title sort of says it all! 

and yet, it tells one nothing!!

well, here it is:

Annicka has decided to return to public school!

yes, this is the girl who has told me for two years that she was "never going back to school"!

funny how things can change - and knock the socks off of mamas!!

and as much as I was looking forward to having my three oldest home with me,

and for that matter Zoey in the mornings before preschool - and as much as I was excited

to have less schedules trying to mesh up ... I always told Annicka that the

school thing was her decision!  she is the one that begged to homeschool ... and I was

thrilled to have her home!  and now, she is the one saying she wants to

go back, and so she shall.  I really can't blame her either - I told her I wanted her to

start thinking about returning for high school (honestly, at this point, all the

demands of homeschooling through high school just sort of terrify me) and she said she'd

rather go back this year, so she'll at least know people for high school.

good call.

I agree.

but I'm gonna miss her!!

these photos are from our Oregon trip!  

but they were taken in Washington - lol - at my friend's house!

(as you can see, my friend was also snapping a pic)

I had my friend fix up Annicka's hair for the photo shoot we were doing,

I love it when I can see her beautiful face - usually her hair is hanging all over it!

so, now it's looking like it will be me and the boys!

Zoey will be with us in the mornings and then go to preschool!

it's sure to be a busy year!!!

in order to ever get all these (literally hundreds) of photos to the blog I may have

to do as I've done here and just plop them on - with zero editing!

not sure I can quite stand that ... but with everything there is to do these days,

the blog may get pretty quiet!  we shall see!!

home, sweet, home ...

we are home!  we had such a great time on our Oregon trip!  it was amazing to get to see my parents, my friends, and a couple family members too!!!  on my drive home I really reminisced over the good times and laughs I shared while there!  it is truly bittersweet to be home ... I sort of got in a groove at my parents house and now I had to re-adjust and figure out what life at home looks like now!  after all, we've been home a mere four days since summer break truly began ... and there's so much change in store with keeping three of them home this coming school year!  I am overwhelmed with all I need to do, perhaps that's also why I didn't particularly want to return - lol!  anyway, our travels were awesome (funnily enough, our timing was nearly exact both going and coming home - basically 9:10am to 6:50pm ... on the way there we stopped for picnic lunch & potty, gas, and one "emergency" potty - on the side of the freeway, haha; on the way home we got gas then ate at a McDonalds across the street - and that was our ONLY stop!!  yah - my kids must be amazing!!!) and our time was precious!  I have over 800 pics between my camera and my phone (many of which were shared on instagram/facebook) ... so now the blogging begins ... well, we hope - haha - we'll see!

just so I don't leave ya with nothing ...

so here it is!  this is the one that will be going on my wall!

I attempted a photo shoot -again- while at my friend's house ... 

she was an awesome helper and got my kids to smile!

it was still somewhat chaotic - her sprinklers kept coming on randomly ...

the kids would scream and get up, running off -

then we'd have to get them all re-situated, it was sort of comical though

and we all got many laughs from that!

in the end, perhaps it's really more an issue of my own photography skills ...

but for now it is what it is and this is a pretty good pic!

good enough for now, anyway ...

and good enough as a current photo of all four of my kids for my living room!!!