Friday

Happy Friday!

Is been a long, fun week.
Daniel was off work on Monday but has not gotten home from work any earlier than 11:00 every night this week. This makes for a long week for all of us. But we did a lot of fun things and it was a good one overall.

Today Daniel didn't leave for work until 8:30 so that he could hang out with the kids.
Once he left, the kids and I took our time getting ready for the day.
London wanted me to paint her nails. I was sort of impressed because usually she wants whatever color I have on, but today she wanted to pick her own colors. She went with lime green and hot pink. So fun for summer!

We had lunch with a girl-friend of mine, whom I've been friends with since the 7th grade. She's about to have her first baby and it was so fun seeing her pregnant. She'll be a great mommy :)

After lunch I took the kids to Bonkers, this HUGE jungle gym  play place.
It was on their summer to do list.
When we lived in Lewisville, before London was born, we used to take Dylan there all the time.
We would go in the evenings when there was hardly anyone there and Daniel and I would climb all over with him. He loved it. I always think I should take the kids, but its sort of out of our way and we just never get around to it. We went once when London was a tiny tot, but I think that's it since we moved (over 4 years ago!). Dylan was so excited to go back. He remembered it well. London had no memory of it and was just excited because Dylan was.
 (you can look back at our last visit here if ya want)

Dylan was all over the place with excitement. London was very unsure of it all.
She kept asking where the little kid section was.
I went up with them until London was more comfortable.
Then I sat and watched them for a bit.
They do have a toddler area, but London didn't want much to do with it because it was "Three and under" and Dylan couldn't play with her in there.
It was so lound and crowded that I was pretty sure that I would actually be bonkers by the time we left.
We only stayed about an hour. My nerves couldn't handle any longer.
But it was a fun hour (for the kids anyways)!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On our way home the kids decided they wanted to spend the night with my mom. I love having her live so close to us and that we are a such a tight knit family! I dropped them off and then had a little shopping time at Target. I planned to come home and super clean my house, but I got distracted looking at bookbags. For real ya'll, it is crazy how much time I'v put into the search for the cutest bag. I think I found Dylan's. I'm still on the hung for London's.

Cheers to the Weekend!

Thursday

Last night I let the kids stay up until 11:30 because I've lost my mind.
And because that's what time Daniel got home for the 2nd night in a row and they wanted to see there Daddy before going to bed. How do you say no to that!?
I thought they might sleep in.
Wrong.
By 7:30 they were both in bed with me.
Daniel had already left for work, so all breakfast duties belonged to me.

After breakfast we hung out for a little bit and then headed to our local water park.
Dylan was thrilled when we got there and almost immediately  ran into one of his good buddies.
It worked out really well that he could ride the big slides with his buddy while London and I played on a very near by baby slide and kept our eye on them. I say "our" because London is quite the little mother hen.

We had a great time and stayed for about two and a half hours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We got home around 3. We pretty much just vegged out for the next couple of hours.
I did a little house work, but not as much as I should have.
We colored and practiced writing. London is working on perfecting writing her name. And Dylan is working on a little cursive. We played chase and had a tickle-war.
Oh, and we all three jumped on my bed. Just because.

I had a children's council meeting at church after supper.
Since Daniel was working late I had to take the kids with me. I was so happy when London replied to me telling them we were going to the meeting with "Yay! CHURCH!" I'm so glad they like going to church. Several of their friends were there, so it was like a play date for them.

On that note. Here's my little rant. I love to volunteer. I feel like serving is my spiritual gift. I love, love, love sitting on the Children's Council at church. I love sitting on the PTA board at Dylan's school. I love helping in the classroom. I love being room mom, which I have done every single year for Dylan. I enjoy all of these things for so many reason. The fellowship with other moms, the involvement in things my children are involved in, and the joy that I get from helping others. But here's the deal. I feel like every year I bite off more and more. Usually I take the summer off and by the time school starts I'm ready to load my plate right back up. But for some reason as we were talking about all the areas that need volunteers in the meeting, areas that I would usually jump in head first, I just felt so exhausted. Like I really just wanted to curl into a ball and take a nap right there in the meeting. I don't know what my deal is. I just feel burnt out. I'm hoping I can shake this and that I'll be rearing to go by the time school starts. I know you can't do everything, but I have my list of things I really, really want to do. Or at least I want to want to. Does that sense?

Kids went to bed at a much more normal time tonight. 8:30.
I can't wait to tuck myself into bed shortly.
So glad tomorrow is Friday. I have fun plans for the kiddos tomorrow. 

Wednesday.

I have to say, blogging everyday is not for me.
I have to drag myself to the keyboard.
But I set a goal, so here I am. And I really think it will be neat to look back in a year or more and have a window it what our day to day life was like, and hopefully the kids will like having this also.

Daniel woke up with the kid and spent the morning hanging out with them.
He didn't get home until about 11 last night, so they hadn't seen him since he left for work the day before. The long hours that are sometimes involved in his job stink, but I'm so grateful for the flexibility in when he can go into the office. He woke me up just in time to walk him to the door and send him off to work. What a good hubby, huh?


I made a smoothie (which is my usual breakfast) and took a few minutes to check in on all my social media sites and then got myself and the kids dressed for a bike ride. We met our neighbor-friends outside and they came with us. Its always more fun with friends!
On that note, Dylan is really has entered that phase of constantly wanting a friend to be with him.
I totally get it and can remember very well being that way myself. We do play with friends a lot, but I also want him to be content when its just our little family. We'll be working on that this summer.

After the bike ride, we had a pretty bland morning.
The kids played in their playrooms,
Dylan read two chapters in his book,
London and I watched the dance portion of "Dance Moms",
I cleaned up around the house,
rotated laundry (but didn't fold it... oops!),
had lunch and just bummed around.

Then my mom called and asked if she could come do a craft with the kids.
You don't get any better than that on the grandmother of the year front!

She brought over those beads that you make patterns with and then press with the iron.
I don't know what they are called, but I did them when I was a kid.
I've never done them with the littles before but they loved it and it was so, so, so good for their motor skills. We'll be doing that again, for sure!

When they finished their craft I laid both of them down for a nap.
My mom and I enjoyed some girl time for a bit before she headed home.
I joined the kids in la-la-land for a nap and we didn't wake up until 4:30!
Oops!
By the way, its 10:30 and night and they are both still awake.
That's what happens when you take long, long naps late in the day.

By the time we got up from our nap, it was time to start thinking of dinner.
Right as I was starting to figure out what to cook, Daniel called to say he would be working late.
That's when I decided it was a pizza sort of night.

The kids and I grabbed pizza and took it over to our friend's house so we could swim too.
They swam for over an hour. You would think that would help them tire out for tonight, huh?

By the time we got home it was past 7:00.
During the school year my kids get in bed at 7:00.
Last summer I push back bedtime to 7:30.
This summer has been crazy, with them getting in bed at 9:00 or later.
Its been fun and we compensate with naps,
but I bet its going to be a bear getting them back on schedule come August.

For the rest of the night, the kids indulged in screen time. This means TV, Video Games, computer, phone games, or any entertainment that has a screen. My ideal day involves no more than a couple hours of screen time, but some days that's just not the case.

Tomorrow I have to fold and put away all that laundry and then we might hit up our local water park.

Happy Wednesday.

Tuesday

When I woke up this morning, I didn't feel to terribly well.
Luckily, Daniel's car wasn't done being repaired so he was still home.
So I went back to bed and didn't get up until almost noon!
I can't even remember the last time I slept in for that long. It was amazing and I woke up feeling much, much better.

As soon as I was up we were out the door to pick up Daniel's car.
Then the kids and I went to our friends house to swim.
I sat at the edge of the pool for a bit and watch in awe.
I can not believe both of my babies swim independently without floaties!
The last time I was able to sit outside the pool and just watch was the summer before I had London and Dylan had just started swimming really well.
I can't believe this is the phase of life that we are in.
London is the same age now as Dylan was when I was pregnant with her.
They are both so independent and both so much fun.
I say to them almost everyday, "I'm SO lucky to get to be your Mommy"
and I hope that they know that I really, really mean that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After swimming for long while, we ran home just long enough to get dressed and then headed to our library.
Dylan and several of his friends took a class on how to draw cartoons.
Dylan did a great job. He's so creative, so I knew this would be right up his alley. I would love to find a real art class to put him in.

London and all the other little siblings playing in kids area. London spent 80% of her time there playing with the puppets, 10% on the computer and the rest with our little baby friend.

We came home and had dinner. I cooked tacos, per Dylan's request.
I always give myself a little pat on the back when I cook a full meal while Daniel is working late.
Its just so tempting to say "oh, its just the kids and I... I'll order something in or throw together a sandwich."
Surely I'm not the only mom who's like this?

After dinner we went out and enjoyed a perfect summer evening with our neighbor-friends. We played outside for about and hour and then cam in and got ready for bed. Dylan asked me to cuddle them on the coach, so I put a movie on and did just that. Here's another bad-mom-confession. I'm not the best at sitting with the kids to watch a cartoon or movie. I'm so bad about turning on the movie, cuddling for a few minutes, and then sneaking my laptop out and "sitting" with them while they finish the movie. But tonight, I made a conscious decision to stay present with my babies and cuddle them, rubbing their backs, twirling their hair and giggling along with them.  I'm so glad that I did. All the sweet cuddles were worth more than anything else I could have been doing.

Both kids are asleep on the couch,  my talk shows on playing in the background, and I'm catching up on everything on the net right now. Pretty fabulous.

Monday

Like I said yesterday, my goal is to blog every single day this week. The point is to record an average day and not just catch the highlights of life. This is really for my "journal" and most likley not interesting to anyone else, so feel free to ignore :)

Monday:

Monday, the kids and I all slept in.
My kids rarely sleep past 7:30, so 8:00am is considered sleeping in around here.
I think it was 8:30 though, which is like the jack pot! :)

We hit the ground running because we had a play date that morning and we also had to take pick Daniel up from the car repair shop. We ended up being a tad bit early for our play date, so I laid out our picnic blanket and handed the kids their books. Dylan really, really struggled with books and reading and then in the middle of first grade something clicked and now he's reading like a champ and loves books. I can't even tell you what sort of joy this puts in my heart!  London loves "reading" her books too. She has a few books that she has memorized and she will quote each page as she flips through the book. Others she either just looks at the pictures or makes up a story of her own. I'm crazy about the next couple of pictures.

 

 

 

Once our friends showed up, books were down and kids were flying threw sprinklers.
Both of them had friends their to play with and they all had the best time.

 

 

We have 40% chance of rain almost everyday this week. While we were there it started sprinkling. The kids had played for a while, so we packed it in and headed to lunch. After lunch I took Dylan to get his hair cut. He got a cut totally different than his usual. I like it a lot, except that it makes him look so much older. I can't believe it but I totally forgot to take pictures.

Daniel called and asked me to come get him to pick his car up so that he could take it to another mechanic. He wanted a second opinion. By the time we were done with that it was about 2:00. I put the kids down for a nap and laid down to take one myself. What is better than a nap in the middle of the day, especially on a hot summer's day! The splash pad must have worn them out because they didn't stir until about 4:30.

I took them outside to play with sidewalk chalk, since the weather was nice and "cool" at about 90 degrees.
Poor Daisy even got colored with chalk. 

 

 

We didn't last too long outside because as it turns out, 90 degrees is not very cool.
My mom came over and cooked us dinner because 1.she is awesome and 2.we had missed Sunday dinner the night before.

Right before she arrived, we heard back from the second mechanic that the repairs on our car would cost just shy of $1,000 dollars. If that doesn't slap you with a bad mood stick, I don't know what would.  I tried really, really hard to shake my terrible mood because in the end there wasn't anything we can do about the repairs other than fix them. "No use crying over spilled milk" is what my daddy would say.

We had a delicious dinner and then a great visit with my mom.
When she left, London and I walked her out and noticed that there were TONS of grasshoppers in our flowerbed. I caught one for London and she went crazy over it. Giggles everywhere. We must have spent at least half an hour out there catching grasshoppers. The boys even came out to enjoy them for a bit.
Its the little things that make kids happy.

 

 

 

After all that fun with our hopper friends, we got kids ready for bed and let them watch a few more cartoons.
Daniel and I laid on the couch the rest of the night.

And that was our Monday.