Fall is in full swing.  Along with school for us that means mostly soccer, swimming lessons, and some baseball.  Since both baseball and soccer practices occur in the 5:00-8:00 weekday evening window, it also brings lots of split dinners.  This coming week is particularly bad as we have something that will split us up every night.  Two weeks ago was more normal with only three evenings of activities.

• All the boys had picture day.  It’s nice to get that out of the way early.  Thankfully it wasn’t so hot this year.  Sending them in pants just looks so much nicer than shorts.
• Four kids had swimming lessons.
• One child went to gymnastics.
• Our oldest had three baseball practices and one baseball scrimmage.
• Between four kids we had five soccer practices and four soccer games.  One soccer practice conflicts with a baseball practice so we miss that one unless it rains.  That soccer practice is on turf so it is only canceled for lightening (which we did have one week).
• One kid went to one play date.
• I took the Kindergartner to a birthday party.  I’m not sure who thought these kids would actually be able to paint that tree, but the whole thing went remarkably smoothly.

The last week of September was more challenging as 5th grade math night took our Tuesday and Elementary Back to School night took Thursday.  I was at tag sale setup Friday night.  We had no weekday dinners together.

• Four kids had swimming lessons.
• One child went to gymnastics.
• Our oldest had two baseball practices.  We opted for soccer this week so on the baseball practice/soccer practice day we went to soccer and on the baseball scrimmage/soccer game day we also went to soccer.
• Between four kids we had six soccer practices and four soccer games.
• The kids played with our neighbors.

The twin’s group tag sale was this past weekend; that occupied much of my time over the past two weeks.  I had more volume and more dollars tagged than any previous sale and much of it sold.  This week I’ll be sorting through what I got back to see if it gets saved for the next one or donated now.  Unlike previous sales there were no donation options onsite so everything that didn’t sell came home.

Here’s the first layer of the minivan packed.

And here we are all filled up and ready to go!

Since I know someone will ask – I took out all the seats except the one with a car seat installed.  Yes, taking it out would have made packing easier.  But, I’m pretty good at car tetris and removing/reinstalling a car seat is a lot more effort than removing/reinstalling backless boosters.  Plus, I needed that seat closer in time both before and after the sale.  I still haven’t put all the other seats back in!

Apparently the front seat is bad luck as most of what you can see there – tub, bouncy seat, house, and ride-on – came back.  The swing did sell.  The only other big things I see in these pictures that didn’t sell are the smallest stroller (top in halfway picture), toddler chairs (there are actually two in there), Power Wheels, gate, and learning table.  I was very happy that so many large items sold as they are harder to store.

These sales happen twice a year though, largely because of baseball and soccer, I don’t always participate.