Days with the Dorans

Well, if life hasn't gotten good at throwing us monkey wrenches... on the first day of school we had NO POWER! So we got ready in the dark, I had to manually get the garage door open (thank goodness I could), Jeff ran to get breakfast but that was a challenge because everywhere around us was out of power too. Apparently the only places WITH power were the schools we go to. Good news- we at least had water! I would have been freaking out if I was still at my parents' place and had no water on top of everything else. I know... first world problems. So while Sean and Zach are on new adventures and new schools, it was Joey that got to me this morning. I couldn't believe that it was his LAST first day of school (I'm counting school as K-12 obviously). It feels like just yesterday he was off to kindergarten and here we are... They had a senior sunrise thing at the high school but Joey said, "Why in the world would I want to get up any earlier than I already do?" Joe...

  Shopping for a homecoming dress is never easy. Last year we went the Amazon route which was awesome. We started that way this year but nothing fit right- it all seemed too big and it was too late to get anything else so we ventured out to the stores. That's was an ordeal in itself because most of the stores we looked at did not have dressing rooms open and I was not about to buy a dress that Ali couldn't try on. We finally had some luck at David's Bridal. There weren't many people in there and nice, big fitting rooms. We were able to Facetime with my mom too so she could have a vote in which dress Ali picked. This dress was the winner! She was super comfortable in it and bonus... it has POCKETS!!! We also got another dress that was cute (WLN colors and pockets) for perhaps graduation or a banquet or something. I have to say though- shopping was fun. And we are NOT great shoppers but I loved this time with my girl and definitely look forward to doing it again (for the ...

As strange as it is to think that Joey is a senior, Zach is in high school, we have another big change which may feel the weirdest- I don't know... I no longer have ANY kids in elementary school! That's right! Sean is off to middle school! Unfortunately, Sean's middle school is under construction so the first time he goes there it will be on his first day of school! Not going to lie- I (mom) feel a bit of anxiety about that since I had taken Joe, Al, and Zach on their first registration where they walked their schedule for the first time... opened their locker, etc. Well, of course we could not walk his schedule since we weren't in the right building but he did get his schedule (none of his besties in classes... ugh) and his picture taken. It was not bad since Sean can take the strangest of pictures! The good news is that the registration was at the Bigs' school so we DID get to practice opening lockers! In fact, we opened Ali's with ease, and then Zach's an...

Joey has been pretty sure that WMU is the school that he wants to go to but we've been trying to get him to tour other campuses. He has no desire to visit MSU (which is weird to me since his best friend goes there) and Oakland U was hard to get a tour so we'll have to wait on that one. We did manage a tour with Grand Valley State University. The neat thing is that one of Joey's good friends (Katie) was moving into her dorm that day so after our tour, we got to go and see her for a little bit. I was actually AWFUL at taking pictures until the very end which is dumb because it was a beautiful campus. Our impressions were it was very new and small. Ali really liked it and Joe asked lots of questions of our tour guide so I was really curious and wondered if he now thought he'd be a Laker... After we left the tour guide, I said, "So, what did you think?" Joey said, "I think it's really nice here but I'm a Bronco!" To that Jeff fist pumped the air ...

  Just because I love these two!

Jeff and I were excited to head north and see Abby and Mary perform in Frankenmuth. They have the most beautiful voices and we had time in our schedules so met Jim, Trish, and JD up there too. There were foodtrucks and later the Mary's boys came up so they could see and hear their mom and aunt play together! I took some video but with street noise it didn't turn out that great. That just means that we'll have to head up again for another show! And we got some awful news from Chris. I don't know if I had mentioned it here or not but she was diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian and stage 3 breast cancers last November. She's such a fighter though. Jeff and I had seen her and her boyfriend Ken a couple weeks ago when they were in town. We met them for dinner and it was nice to see her. Sadly though she got some awful news. This feels so surreal and she is going to fight until the bitter end but when I saw her post this, reality just hit and hit hard. I just can't imagine...

I'm excited that the kids are going back to school and that they'll be together (3 of them at least). High School Registration was today. Joey went and got his picture taken after XC (not bad for being sweaty and gross), Ali went at her own time, and I went with Goose. He got his books and schedule and in typical Zach fashion was pretty chill about everything. He never seems to have anxiety about stuff - either that or he hides it really well. It's weird going back after a year off with Covid. I'd say more than half of the people there didn't have a mask on which seemed crazy to me. One of the photographers felt the same (we had a mini conversation because I was masked in my "fully vaccinated" hat). Although I didn't go with Ali, she got her schedule and ID too. I'm so very proud of all our kids. Proud of how well they are doing and that they seem to be in a good headspace when there's so much chaos around (or maybe that's just me...)

Let's face it~ I already have a gazillion pictures around my house of my amazing kids but the pics I like on my mantel are traditional school pictures and this was Joe's last one- (the top picture is his school ID after cross- kinda nice not to have to come home and shower before registering). And for those pictures, I wanted a suit and tie. Joe looked so handsome and the photographer went on and on about how photogenic he was and it took all of two seconds to get the pictures because he really is an easy kid to photograph. Of course the dog had to get in there too- I was thinking I should get pictures of him running, in band, in his varsity jacket- but then again, I already have all that (thanks to a mom who takes amazing pictures). So the only pictures I really ordered for my house, were these pictures! Well, one of them. I still can't remember which. I guess I should look on my mantel. I of course took another poll for opinions and the one that "won" was also J...

I should probably do a proper before and after- and I will, but for right now, I'm just playing catch-up. After my laundry room mini make-over, I wanted to do something to our kitchen too- especially add a backsplash. My friend Shannon's boyfriend, Jeremy did the work and he also fixed my lights and some nail-pops in my walls! (He's amazing... but I'll go over that another time). After Jer did an amazing job on the backsplash, I needed to paint, so I went with gray- but if you give a girl a paintbrush, she's going to go nuts so this table that I hate... I painted it. It's darker than the walls but I like it. I am a girl of hand-me-downs and have never bought a table. This used to be my parents' table but now it's ours and we've had it forever so it's really old and cruddy. i painted darker than the walls though it's hard to really see. I also got some new accents~ The sign above the door says, "Love lives here."  We also got this ar...