Category: life

I know, I know. We’re ready to greet June and I hardly mentioned April, a big month for our family, on the blog. I think after it all happened, the birthday parties, Easter, and everything in between, I was done with even thinking about April. There are a few  April pictures sprinkled in here – to give a taste of what’s to come – because there were milestones and happy times that aren’t worth forgetting. 

On the days that we don’t have school to rush off too, we stay home. Today, for example, we thought we were going to go to the park first thing, but then one thing led to another and we’re now planning on heading out after Audrey’s nap. Speaking of Audrey’s nap, she has been falling asleep while we walk her to Dolly’s new album, Blue Smoke. It’s amazing and Audrey hardly lasts two songs before she’s out. 

We’re home with not too much on the schedule. Winding up the school year for Maggie, I’m looking forward to having her home. On Wednesday we had my mom, brother, sister in law, and father in law all here….kind of busy for a Wednesday, but the girls had fun. Like I said, we’re here….

Blah. Pictures from May and a few from April. Can you spot the one of Maggie opening a gift? She was pumped and I had to let a bit of my parenting ego go….more on that later. 

 

Give me some popsicles, some water to let my girls splash in, and a few squirts of sun screen and I’m happy and pretty content. We’ve been living outside, and I say that with not much of an stretch, because Audrey’s been taking her morning nap in the stroller while we walk and her afternoon nap I walk her outside until she conks. (Still nursing, but trying to cut down a bit…hard) Anyhow, our backyard has been a splendid place to be, even with the discovery of the Rue Plant that caused horrible rashes on both girls’ legs.

And it seems, after six years of being in our home, we’re’making friends that actually live nearby. We were on an evening walk and a little family that recently moved to our ‘hood noticed us and flagged us down to introduce themselves. We stayed talking in their driveway while Maggie played with their daughter. But then two things happened:

1. We got invited into the backyard to see their chickens…..which was SO great because I love farm-fresh eggs…..but real chickens terrify me. Like make me sweat, similar to how I feel about rats.  So, as the chickens ran wild and Maggie and their daughter fed them a leftover taco, I had to play it cool. But…

2. When we decided to go on an evening walk, I changed in to a pair of jeans that I haven’t worn in ages….and I think I realized why when the zipper kept going down. And the tank top that I was wearing wasn’t long enough to cover up the zipper. And I had a really, really weird bandana on my head because I hadn’t showered in a long time (grooooossss). 

I tried my best to act cool with the chickens chasing me while Barry talked to the dad in the front yard and I wrangled the girls and tried to keep my zipper up  in the backyard. 

It was all sorts of awkward. 

Like a horrible first date. 

And then we realized we stayed too long because Maggie did the potty dance and we had to go inside their house to use the bathroom….and by that time Audrey was back in the stroller and I was hoping that the stroller would block my zipper situation. 

I’m not entirely sure that it did.

And it reminded me of the time that Barry’s brother saw my 9months pregnant butt…..

They gave us their contact information and asked us to get in touch anyhow. 

Barry and I were glad that we didn’t seem too nerdy to be friends with…..

and I’m planning on donating/burning those jeans before we invite them over. 

Time to get the shorts out anyhow. 

You know that phrase ‘burning the candle at both ends’ and how it pertains to doing too much or being too busy? Well, I think our little family has been buring the candle at both ends. And this weekend came as the biggest blessing because our plans changed and we just stayed home and the weather cooperated for us to be outside. I tend to get a bit panicky when we don’t have some family time that isn’t rushing from one place to another, and I found myself high-fiving my inner planner when we just decided to be home and get done what we could between games of chase, puzzles, reading aloud, etc. 

On Friday, the girls and I had a fantastic beach date with our A-Town crew to help celebrate Thomas and Gavin both turning four. It was a fun, mud-covered affair and I’m always thankful for the other mothers and their children….we scoop up each other’s babies when they fall down, make sure rocks aren’t eaten, and embrace our fractured conversations. Sometimes those playdates are my saving grace, when the weeks feel long and the days longer. And having that time on Friday was a great way to start the weekend. 

When Barry gets home from work and we do the playtime-dinner-prep-bathtime-bedtime-shuffle, there isn’t too much time before we’re needing to get to bed ourselves becuase we’ve got a chirping alarm clock each morning insisting we get out of bed (and she’s a cute alarm clock, don’t you worry) and start the day. And our life has been like that, just blowing by with hardly a moment to have a real conversation about things that needed to happen. 

And then this weekend came and we realized that we were wiiiiide open with no plans glaring at us from the calendar, nobody coming over, nowhere to go….just our little family. Barry got to go paddleboard, I got to break a sweat, cars got washed, the garden got weeded, house vaccuumed, and, most importantly, we got time as a family just to be home with the girls getting our undivided attention. Stopping chores to play is so easy when there isn’t anything on the calendar. It was fantastic and so needed. Last night, after I gave Barry a haircut and everybody got bathed, we went on a walk through the neighborhoods around our house. Maggie rode her bike and Audrey watched from the stroller, never once letting go of the ball she brought with her. Barry and I shared monitoring privileges of either Sydney or Maggie, but got to talk between it all and watch our happy kid bike along. 

By the time we got home, it was well past ‘bedtime’ and typically we’d be trading weary glances over the heads of our tired children. Instead, we were all refreshed and ready for the bedtime routine. There were no tears, the pressure to ‘put the house to bed’ slowly slipped away, and that candle that we’d been burning, at one end of another, quietly stopped burning as quickly.