"I sure hope school doesn't get cancelled because of the rain!"

The quote in this post's title is from E2B.  No, my boy - despite the heavy downpour (and the teachers losing a few days of preparation last week courtesy of power outages after Hurricane Irene), the first day of school will NOT be cancelled.  We awoke this morning to significant rainfall, but not even that could diminish the excitement of the first day of school for these big kids of mine.

I posted here last week about our back to school rituals and asked for some help in coming up with a fun treat to share at the bus stop in the morning on this first day.  You all shared a lot of great ideas both here and on my personal Facebook page and I ended up giving these "chalkboard cupcakes" a try.  Instead of a traditional cupcake, I made applesauce muffins with cream cheese frosting so I could pretend that they were not completely unhealthy.  Unfortunately, the rain was absolutely pouring down come bus stop time and it wasn't feasible for kids who were coming out at the last minute (to avoid being soaked) and juggling umbrellas to also eat a muffin.  Luckily, I had plenty of cookie "chalkboards" that weren't needed for muffins, so I just passed those out instead.  After dropping a few off at school for the kids' teachers and the wonderful administrative staff in the front office, I put them back in the fridge to save for our after school ice cream social.

I started out trying to write things like math problems and names, but when it took me obnoxiously long to do so - and my hand starting cramping - I decided that one letter of the alphabet per cookie was just fine. 

As I've mentioned before, virtually all of my children's clothes have been purchased secondhand.  Whether from thrift stores, yard sales, consignment shops, or hand-me-downs, I have done very little retail shopping for their clothing. For pennies on the dollar I am able to buy high quality items that are in great shape and - as an added benefit - I find it hard to get too worked up about clothes getting ripped, stained, or otherwise roughly worn during the fun - and messy! - days that grace this period of childhood. The one regular exception that I make to this avoidance of retail is for the first day of school.  Because I purchase ahead by a size or two when I thrift, I usually have a full wardrobe ready to go for each child at the start of each new season.  As a result, I don't need to buy a bunch of new clothes at the start of school (or any other time of year).  But for the first day of school, as part of our back to school rituals, IronMan and I take the kids out to pick out one new outfit.

Check out this dynamic duo!

Dark and rainy?  No problem!

Of course, despite the hiccups in my plans for the first day back to school, a rainy day has certain undeniable advantages...like puddle jumping.

After school the kids eagerly descended upon our annual ice cream social after getting off the bus.  Of course, this event works best when held outside in warm, sunny weather.  But the kids don't seem to mind hanging out inside our garage on a cool, wet day as long as ice cream is involved.  I'm happy to say that they seemed to enjoy the muffins, too.

May you have a joyful day...happy Tuesday, friends!


"An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest."  ~Benjamin Franklin