Why I Get "Nothing" Done All Day

If you're a HuffPost reader, you may have seen an article published recently written by Janie Porter of SheJustGlows.com {a blog I happen to enjoy} explaining why SAHMs get nothing done all day. I am one who is frequently trying to explain to my husband why the house looks like a disaster area even though I was home all day. Sometimes I look around myself and think, "GOSH, look at this place! What the heck did I do all day??" And then I remember. I take care of a 4 year old and 15 month old all day. While I really enjoyed reading her explanation of why she gets nothing done all day, there were some striking differences between hers and the reasons I get nothing done all day {spoiler alert: her housekeeper arrived while she was trying to get ready for a play date... that has never happened to me}. And so I was inspired to document a typical day around here and share my own version for what it's worth.

6:30 am - Josh's alarm goes off. It doesn't totally wake me up, but sleep becomes light and intermittent as I hear him up and about getting ready for work. Also, it's sunny.

7:30 am - Josh is about to leave for work and Carsen hears him. He brings her into bed with me so she doesn't wake Reagan. He kisses us goodbye and is on his way. Carsen wants to snuggle. In case you're wondering, by "snuggle" I mean she wants to lay with her forehead pressed against mine and pinch/play with the skin on my neck while she sucks her thumb. Just to clarify.

7:45 am - Carsen is bored of "snuggling" and asks to watch DisneyJr on the Kindle. I hand it to her and reclaim my neck skin. I close my eyes in a somewhat more comfortable position while I listen to an episode of Sheriff Callie in one ear and Reagan stirring around on the monitor in my other ear. If you're unfamiliar with Sheriff Callie, I'd urge you to pull up a clip of it on YouTube and then try to close your eyes and relax while it plays. Doing this in your last 30 minutes of potential rest/sleep for the next 18 hours will help give you the full effect.

8:30 am - Reagan is undeniably up for the day. Carsen jumps up to go in and talk to her while I get dressed, put in my contacts, and brush my teeth. I get clothes for the girls and we head downstairs.

8:45 am - Reagan can not function in the morning until she nurses. She just refuses. I don't even try to do another thing before nursing her, because she's already yelling at me about it before my feet hit the living room floor. I nurse Reagan while Carsen whines about how she's hungry and wants me to feed her first.

9:00 am - Head into the kitchen to get breakfast for the girls. On most days they want some combination of fruit, Greek yogurt, and Cheerios. The order of which varies day-to-day. Today everyone had yogurt first. Since our kitchen table & chairs sold on Craigslist 2 weeks ago, we've been eating on the living room floor. So, we head back to the living room where Carsen feeds herself, and I feed Reagan. I turn on the Today show so I can have a clue what's going on in the world today, and I learn something useless like what's trending on Google.

9:15 am - The girls are ready for their 2nd course of breakfast which today is Cheerios. Carsen asks for hers in a bowl with milk and Reagan gets hers on the tray of her high chair. Since they can both manage this themselves, I'm free to make something for myself for breakfast at this time. I pull out the eggs to make my usual scrambled eggs with parmesan and whatever suitable meat is in the fridge. I also prepare two cups of milk to take out with me for the girls.

9:30 am - Momentarily the girls are finished eating. I wipe their hands and faces, give them their milk cups, and sit down to eat my breakfast. Both girls stand in front of me asking for my food. Carsen asks politely for a "taste" while Reagan frantically signs "eat" while yelling "ee, ee, ee, ee!" and climbs onto my lap. I share a few bites and shoo them away so I can eat. Carsen obliges, Reagan does not.

10:00 am - I manage to finish my breakfast and start hauling all the dishes into the kitchen. While standing at the sink I'm reminded to grab a mug for coffee. I place it under the Keurig and go back to the dishes.

10:05 am - Crises in the living room. Reagan is standing on the couch changing tv channels and Carsen needs help opening a bin of Barbies to play with. Reagan has pooped. I change her diaper and decide I'll try to catch the host chat segment of Kelly & Michael. Carsen is now playing the xylophone and Reagan wants to climb on me.

10:15-11:00 am - We play, dress up, cry, sing, fight, and read books.

11:00 am - I decide it's time to head outside for a little while. I go out onto the deck to clear spider webs from the night before and wipe out the water table. I spend about 10 minutes getting the water table wiped, positioned for maximum shade, and filled with water. Another 10 minutes passes while Carsen uses the bathroom and I get shoes on everyone.

Note: this photo was taken from inside the house after we played, because it hadn't occurred to me to take any photos of our day before this moment. 

11:30 am - We're outside enjoying some sunshine and splashing in the water table. This lasts about 20 minutes before the girls are too hot {bright red sweaty faces} and ready to go in.

12:00 pm - The girls play in the play room while I try to empty the dishwasher. I get about 3/4 finished before my help arrives.

12:15 pm - I notice my coffee cup still sitting under the Keurig awaiting the coffee I never made. I make coffee and join the girls in the play room.

12:30 pm - Reagan is signing to "eat" and wants a snack before her nap. I give her a banana, clean her up, change her diaper, and take her upstairs to bed. Carsen asks to watch Super Why while I put Reagan to bed.

1:00 pm - Back downstairs to make lunch for Carsen and myself. Since we're eating in the living room I let her continue watching Super Why while we eat. After lunch she lays on the couch to rest. I've decided that napping for 3 hours was just too much of her day at age 4. If she's not interested in resting on the couch, it's at least time for her and I to spend 1-on-1.

1:30 pm - While Carsen rests I have a minute to reply to texts, emails and FB messages about things I've posted for sale. I try to get back to everyone and coordinate times/days to meet up, answer questions, etc.

2:30 pm - I retrieve another half a dozen items from the basement that I need to take photos of and post for sale. I work through taking photos first, then start writing up the postings on Craigslist, then add photos and info to my FB "for sale" album.

3:30 pm - Reagan wakes up. She needs a diaper change and we play for a little while.

4:30 pm - We go back outside on the deck to play again. There's more shade in the afternoon so we get close to an hour of outside time.

5:30 pm - Josh is home from work. The girls are happy to see him and are immediately done playing outside. I clean up and drain the water table and head inside to make dinner.

5:45 pm - I prep dinner while Josh and the girls play. Reagan visits the gate in the kitchen doorway frequently to fuss at me and let me know she'd like me to hold her / she'd like to come in to play with the recycling and throw my dish towels on the floor. I simultaneously try to finish my cup of coffee.

6:15 pm - Dinner is ready. I cut some up and take it to Reagan. She's happy to see food. Carsen whines about her dinner which I'm on my way back to the kitchen to get. Josh feeds Reagan while I get Carsen's plate and my own plate ready. I return with our food while Josh goes to get his. Reagan is done with her food first and then proceeds to other family members to beg/borrow/steal from their plates.

7:00 pm - Dinner is finished and I clean up while Josh and the girls play a little more. After cleaning up I join them for some running around and giggling.

7:45 pm - We sit down to read a few books to settle before bed. Carsen doesn't want to read books. Reagan chooses a few of her favorites. Carsen sits down with us despite not wanting to read books and complains about the choices. I suggest she choose a few herself. She goes upstairs to her room and returns with the complete Beverly Cleary collection, Ramona Quimby - Ralph S. Mouse {a boxed set we have for her for later}.

8:00 pm - Reagan realizes someone is on the stairs and immediately wants to go up for bed. She's funny like that. I quickly change her diaper and put her in pajamas. She whines through hugs & kisses as they simply delay her getting upstairs for bed.

8:30 pm - I nurse and rock Reagan, then put her in bed. Josh lets Carsen choose a few videos to watch on his phone while they snuggle.

9:00 pm - I get back downstairs and have Carsen use the bathroom and brush her teeth. Normally Josh does bed time with her while I'm rocking Reagan, but I told him I'd do bedtime for both girls tonight. So I take Carsen upstairs, say bedtime prayers, and again "snuggle" with her, this time in her bed, for 5-or-so minutes.

9:30 pm - I'm back downstairs. This is the hour or so to accomplish anything that hasn't been accomplished today. It's also the only time Josh and I have to spend together without the girls. Much like my time with them during the day, it's hard to choose this time for chores. So, I straighten up a little and check back in with Craigslist/FB buyers. Then we sit on the couch for a little while, chat about things {mostly moving and what needs to get done}, and have a snack.

10:30 pm - It's time to head upstairs. I need to take a shower. Josh gets ready and goes to bed. By 11 I'm in bed myself. Most nights we don't hear anything from the girls, but I'd be lying to say they never wake up - they're kids. This particular night Reagan was up at 3:30 and wanted to be rocked back to sleep. Aside from that 20 minutes of awake time, I started this whole crazy routine over again around 7 the next morning.

So, it's not really that I get nothing done all day, it's just that I don't always get done what other people might think I should. I get plenty of playing, laughing, and caring for children done. I do art, and lessons, and reading. We run errands, attend story time, and visit friends and family. But this is why there is dust, and laundry, and crumbs. This is why some days we look around and every single thing we've done is evident, as well as everything we haven't done. What a mixed up world we live in that we consider a mother spending all day raising and nurturing her children to be getting "nothing" done. Yet the "something" we'd have her do instead is wipe dust off of end tables and fold laundry. Are we serious? If you're asking me, the things I accomplish are far more valid uses of my time as a stay-at-home-parent than if I were doing housework all day. Which of these has more impact on the world? Which of these is a more accurate measure of the person I am? Most importantly, which of these matters most to my family? Sure, a house needs taking care of and chores need to be done. Don't worry, mine get done {and not by a housekeeper}. I find the time here and there to do those things and we're all none the worse because a little dust sat around for a few days. This time that I have to be home with my children is so so short and the most important time of my life. One day when I look back on it, I don't want to remember hours and hours of chores or a sparkling clean house. I plan to remember laughs and snuggles and make-believe and tickles and kisses and dancing and stories. Hopefully I think of all the fun we had and struggle to recall how or when the chores ever got done at all.

How We Handled Our Picky Eater

{Image found here}

Picky eaters. Most parents deal with them to some degree at some point in their parenting careers. That's where we found ourselves with our just-turned-four-year-old over the course of the past year {give or take a bit}. As a little toddler, Carsen ate just about everything we offered her, especially fruits and vegetables. It seems we were sadly mistaken in believing she was just a really good eater, because somewhere in the middle of being 2 she decided to stop eating some of the foods she once devoured. After being such a healthy eater for 2+ years, her favorite foods began to drop off one by one until the only things she really wanted to eat were the dreaded "toddler standards"- hot dogs, pizza, grilled cheese, and chicken nuggets. Gah! How did we get here? And more importantly, what do we do about it??

I was determined not to make a huge issue out of food. My philosophy on just about everything in life is that if you make a big deal out of it, it will become a big deal. So we tried the casual approach. We encouraged her to eat her vegetables but more and more she declined. We thought maybe it was just a phase that she'd move on from, but she didn't. Like any parent I began to worry about her nutrition. She was still eating normal and fairly healthy stuff for breakfast and lunch, but she was eating less and less for dinner and not much in the way of vegetables at all. I also started to worry that she wasn't eating a sufficient quantity of food in those two meals with what little she was getting from her meager dinners.

Well, we all know what worried parents do... Google. Far and away, the most prominent piece of advice we found, both from people we know and the interwebz, was the "one meal" approach. Simply put, you make one family meal {no short-order cooking}, the kids must at least try each food, absolutely no snacking between meals, and no games/tricks/bribery. They eat or they don't. One mom describes looking her 2 year old in the eye and telling her to "eat it or starve" in this article I read, which I personally found heart-breaking. Supposedly this teaches kids to try new foods and become more adventurous eaters. They'll eat when they're hungry enough, right? ...Right??

We tried. We really did. It's no exaggeration when I say that she would eat dinner maybe once a week. She refused every. single. night. Instead of reducing the stress surrounding meal time, our stress went through the roof. Instead of just fussing at the dinner table, Carsen began asking me what was for dinner the minute she woke up from her nap in the afternoon and would whine and agonize about it all the way through meal time and straight through bed time. Every evening became hours of discussion over what was for dinner, what she did and didn't like, whining, crying, and other generally uncooperative behavior. We were frustrated, annoyed, and experiencing tons of guilt. Our child basically never had a bite to eat after her 12:30 p.m. lunch every day, and was going to bed crying and hungry every night. We don't have a lot, but we have enough food to eat. I can't imagine if I had to send my babies to bed crying and hungry so doing it by choice seemed utterly ridiculous and it ripped my heart out. Worst of all, we were getting nowhere with it.

Then one night while I was making another dinner I knew she wouldn't eat, and she was yet again hungry, cranky, and melting down about everything, I caved and asked, "would you like eggies and peas??" She stopped, I swear to you mid-meltdown, and literally snapped back to her sweet adorable self and said, "Yes I would!" Like flipping a switch, our entire evening did a 180. She began cheerfully bouncing around the kitchen. She ate her whole dinner. She played happily until bed time. After struggling for so long, it was miraculous. I decided that night that if she wanted some damn scrambled eggs and peas every night for dinner that was fine with me.

I immediately felt a million times better and swore to never send my child to bed hungry again as long as I could help it. Sometimes as parents we go against our instincts to follow the latest "expert" advice {or whatever "everyone" seems to be doing at the time}. Truly though, if it causes you and your child stress, it's probably not the right thing to do regardless of what any expert says. The more I thought about the hard-line, no-choice, eat-it-or-starve approach, the more insane I realized it was.

• First of all, I allow her to choose what she wants to eat for her breakfast and lunch. How confusing and frustrating it must be for her when at dinner time she's told she has no choice but to eat what I've chosen or go hungry. Not to mention as a child she is unable to make her own food and is completely at my mercy. This is a situation she literally has zero control over.
• Second, "experts" usually advise that in order to get children to cooperate, you should empower them with choices. Let them choose between the yogurt or banana, yellow shirt or blue shirt, hair up or hair down, etc. Yet when it comes to dinner, the expert advice is to allow no choice at all. What sense does that make?
• Third, my favorite, many experts love to base their advice on how to treat children by referencing how we adults would feel when treated that way. So then my question is: how would we adults feel if we were told we had to eat food we don't like and didn't choose, or starve? I think we'd probably be cranky and out-of-sorts, too. 
• Fourth, this approach flies in the face of everything I know about Attachment Parenting, a philosophy I am wholeheartedly committed to.

And so, our new approach is to feed her what she'll eat, among acceptable dinner-time foods {for goodness sake she's asking for scrambled eggs and peas, not candy}. We ask her to try three bites of the dinner I make and then she can opt for scrambled eggs if she wants. We also started a sticker chart and give her a sticker every night she eats all of her dinner. Guess what? We're going on 2 months straight that she has eaten her dinners! So maybe we're not actively expanding her pallette. Neither is  offering food she doesn't eat. She can't get any nutrition from it if she refuses to eat it. She loves fruit, smoothies, fruit/vegetable pouches, and eats plenty of healthy protein so she's still getting nutrients even if she doesn't gobble up brussels sprouts at the dinner table. Most little kids don't love vegetables. I will continue to offer them to her and otherwise feed her the best food she enjoys eating. Like I've said before- the best approach {to anything} is always to do what works for you and your family. The current "wisdom" didn't cut it for us in this case, so we tried something else that did and are all much much happier and healthier as a result!

Anyone else have experience with a picky eater? What worked for you? What didn't?

Keep Calm and Princess On

Our 3.9-year old loves princesses. It started early. She was mesmerized by jewelry before the age of one. Before she knew her colors by name {between 1.5-2 years old} she was consistently choosing pink, yes, choosing. Around the same time, she started asking to wear dresses every. single. day. Then came the discovery of tiaras, and before we knew it we were living with a princess.

You may have noticed that princesses are getting some bad press these days. Some would probably say our daughter has fallen victim to the gender specific marketing of toys and so-called "Princess culture," a device of our capitalist society to keep women in the kitchen where they belong. Others might even say we've dropped the ball as parents by letting this happen. You see, princesses send the wrong message to young girls- that they're helpless and need a man to save them. Princesses don't really send the message that girls should focus on their education or a career either since they generally dance around a castle all day, helpless and waiting for a man. Worst of all, princesses tend to be pretty, wear pretty dresses, and have lots of jewelry {so as to attract a man}. This leads young girls to believe that their value lies only in their physical appearance. 

I don't entirely disagree with those concerns. And yet, we let her play princesses to her heart's content and let her choose pink toys, clothes, shoes, crayons, you-name-it, whenever she wants.

Here are 5 reasons we're going to keep calm and princess on:

1. Princesses have come a long way since Cinderella.

In case you haven't seen a princess movie lately, they're not all damsels-in-distress anymore. In fact, most of the princesses in the more recent movies are the heroines of the story. Carsen hasn't seen most of the princess movies, but the ones she has seen have strong main characters. Anna & Elsa are her current favorites, and if you haven't seen Frozen, you should. Additionally, not all princesses are a creation of the Walt Disney corporation! What?! I know, it's shocking. Seriously though, there is still real actual royalty out there in the world and some of them are amazing role models. The obvious example is Kate Middleton, who Carsen knows and recognizes as a princess. She's certainly beautiful and wealthy and married to a prince. But she's also a good person, a mother, and a great role model. I have no problem with my daughters looking up to her.

2. "Princess culture" and the "pink aisles" aren't a device of evil capitalists, and we're not their victims.

They're a device of parents and the other people who buy toys. Quick econ lesson for ya: In a capitalist system, consumers control the production of goods and services through demand. What people buy is what producers will make. If people buy a bunch of sparkly pink princessy stuff, that's what they'll make. If people buy pink kitchens, and pink baby dolls, and Barbies with tons of makeup on, that's what they'll make. A capitalist (a.k.a. "free") market also means we have the freedom to buy what we like and leave what we don't like on the shelf. So, if you want your daughters to play with trucks and dinosaurs, just walk 2 aisles over and there they are waiting for you. If you want your son to play with a kitchen or doll, just buy him one. It's that simple. Show toy makers what you want them to make more of by buying those toys and leaving the rest. You "vote" with your dollars. Our children aren't victims of evil toy makers. No one is trying to keep our daughters down. They're just doing smart business and trying to make their living like everyone else by giving consumers what they demand. Personally I'd much rather live in that society than one where toy makers make what they think is good for kids.

3. The bigger deal you make it, the bigger deal it becomes. 

Just like when a kid says a curse word, you don't want to make too big of a fuss over it because then they'll just keep saying it. She loves princesses. That ship has sailed. If I were to attempt to dissuade her, point her in another direction, or casually phase out the princesses it will just give them power. It's something she's attracted to, so when I start pulling her away from it she'll only want it more. Allowing her to indulge makes it just another thing we play, like sidewalk chalk and doctor, and much less likely to have some dramatic bearing on who she thinks she should be when she grows up.

4. I have no problem with domesticity, as society seems to. 

Why is it that we're so afraid of little girls playing princess or dolls or kitchen? We're afraid they'll grow up to cook and clean and raise children. God forbid! Guess what I do? Yup, I cook and clean and raise my children. I also have a Master's degree. I'm going to let you in on a secret... education, career and domestic life aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, I consider myself to have the best of it all. I'm doing what is more important to me than anything else in the world- raising my children, and I also have a solid education and degree that gives me the option to work on another passion of mine whenever I'm ready to. Sadly, society today doesn't respect domesticity as a vocation. We place value on high-powered careers above marriage, family and just about anything else. That's what I want to protect my girls from- growing up to feel like motherhood isn't a worthy choice. If they're not a highly-paid, highly-educated professional with a demanding, life-controling career then their life's work isn't valuable. Well, they are my life's work, and there is positively nothing more valuable on this planet or anything more worthy of my time, energy, creativity, or passion. I hope that they'll cherish our time together as much as I do, and that they'll want the same for their own children. None of which means they can't have a career and an education. There's plenty of time for that when babies are grown.

5. I parent, therefore it's not a big deal. 

Yes, if you park your child in front of Cinderella from the ages of 2-10 and never bother to cultivate any other interests or be any other kind of role model for her, then she'll probably grow up trying to be Cinderella. On the contrary, if you actually parent then you probably have nothing to worry about. We talk about and do all sorts of things in addition to playing princesses or babies or cooking in her play kitchen. We read together, we visit friends, we go to the library, we play at the playground, we do all types of art, we play music, we dance and sing, we run, we play ball. She loves many other things, she has many other interests, and she sees examples of strong, intelligent women all around her. I'm not even remotely concerned that playing princess is going to cause her to grow up believing she's helpless.

So, to all the moms & dads of little princesses out there: don't worry, you're not ruining them. Let them be themselves. Let them be little girls. Let them dress up, and dream, and imagine. Let them choose their toys and what color they want them to be, and it's ok if that's pink ;) Girls don't have to play with hammers and dump trucks to know their worth. They just need loving parents. Seriously, the rest is details.

Advent 2013

For me, there is no more exciting time of year than the Christmas season. I've always loved Christmas and do even more now that I'm a mom. Watching your babies experience the magic of Christmas - from Santa, to snow, to the miraculous birth of Baby Jesus - is like nothing else in the world. It gives me some serious warm fuzzies! So you can imagine my excitement each year when it's time to start the countdown. We celebrated Advent for the first time last year when I felt like Carsen was big enough to start understanding that Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus. Of course, even this year she is a little young to grasp the notion of a savior, but I'm happy to start with the idea that we're celebrating his birth.

Last year, I made an advent calendar using some pretty winter cardstock I had on hand, and some leftover Christmas ribbon. You can read the how-to along with our list of Advent activities here. It was really cute, but it got on my nerves a little with the way it was assembled. So this year, I decided to simplify the calendar itself. I still wanted it to be reusable for future years, though, so I used a piece of foam-core posterboard and a pad of sticky notes. I started by making a calendar grid on the posterboard {it was 20" x 30" so I made 4x4 squares and left a 1" margin on each side of the 30" length}. Then I wrote each of the activities on the back of a sticky note - 23 total this year. Since certain activities are better for weekends or some are better for earlier/later in the month, I used our Google calendar to plan out what activities to do on which days and stuck them on the Advent calendar accordingly.

Once all the sticky notes were in place, I just used silver and black Sharpies to write the countdown numbers on them. I personally like to do the numbers as a countdown, although I know a lot of calendars count up to Christmas. To hang it, I placed a command hook upside down on the back of our basement door. Then I hot glued some ribbon to the back of the calendar and looped the ribbon over the command hook. Voila!

 Originally, I had my heart SET on red sticky notes. In my mind, they were everywhere for the holidays. I mean, they're sticky notes... how else would they capitalize on the holiday season?? In reality, I could find them nowhere. It got to be a few days in when I finally decided to just use blue and go with a "winter" color scheme. They're a little too electric blue for my taste, but I feel that I did the best I could with the resources that were available. I did find a pack of Post-Its that were more of a dark blue and they would have looked better, but I couldn't bring myself to spend $8 on a 6-pad pack when I only needed 23 stickies. UGH. I'll begin my hunt for red {or even a nice true green that's not neon!} for next year's calendar promptly on January 1st.

In the mean time, here's our list of activities for this year:

• Decorate the tree and our house together


• Read "The Story of Christmas"


• Make cards for soldiers


• Write a letter to Santa {Carsen dictates, mommy writes. Save it in her baby book!}


• Visit Santa {at the mall}


• New Christmas jammies


• Christmas movie night #1 - Carsen's pick


• Make ice cream cone Christmas trees with cousins


• Learn about the symbols of Christmas


• Make paper cone Christmas trees for decorations


• Visit Valley View Farms {Carsen LOVES looking at Christmas trees in the stores, so this is a huge treat for her}


• Make brown paper garland {like this} for decorations


• Christmas movie night #2 - mommy's pick


• Make gifts for grandparents


• Make & decorate cardboard "Gingerbread" houses


• Go see Christmas lights in the neighborhood


• Read "The Night Before Christmas"


• Make ice bubbles


• Christmas movie night #3 - daddy's pick


• Hot cocoa bar {like the one in this post}


• Make a birthday card for Jesus


• Bake cookies


• Make {prep} a special breakfast for Christmas morning

Some of these are repeats from last year and some are new. As Carsen {and eventually Reagan and any future siblings} gets older there's more she can understand and participate in, so I'll change and adapt what we do each year accordingly.  Some things will probably always be on there like decorating the tree and house together as a family, Christmas movies, baking cookies, and making gifts for grandparents. In the future I'd like to add more service-related activities like volunteering and gathering food, toys, clothing or household items for donations {right now we usually do that around Thanksgiving}.

So far, we have... decorated, read "The Story of Christmas," made cards for soldiers, written a letter to Santa, visited Santa, and gotten new Christmas jammies.

 

 

 

Weekend Humor

Do you ever mess with your kids or spouse to amuse yourself {and others}?? I grew up with a prankster brother and sister, so in our family BatDad is classic humor. My sister first discovered him and shared his antics with us one weekend when we were at my mom's for dinner. As a result, we've all been walking around doing our BatDad impressions to each other {and our kids} ever since.

This is just one of many of his videos. I highly recommend checking the others out, too :)

Summer Recap

I can't believe summer is officially over in two days. Even though it happens every year, I still get a knot in my stomach. I wait so long {9 months to be exact} for summer and then it's over in a blink {3 months to be exact}. It's like saying goodbye to a dear friend you know you'll see again, just not soon enough. Gah.

Sooo, might as well take a look back at how awesome summer was before it disappears for the next 9 months.

We went to the zoo on half-price night!

Went to a few weddings

(Carsen was a flower girl in one!)

Celebrated a few birthdays

Did some crafty things like make our own sidewalk chalk

Did just the right amount of snuggling

Tried some new recipes

Met a new cousin

Went to story time

Hung out at the park

and hung out at Oriole Park

Spent time with Great-Grandparents (Reagan met them for the first time)

Went on an amazing vacation

And Carsen started ballet!

AND since there's one more day of summer, I will add that my family's annual reunion picnic is tomorrow. I can't think of a better way to officially end my summer than a day spent outside eating awesome food and hanging out with my whole family :D

Thirty One

Happy birthday to me!

{Me with my girls at the park this morning}

I've had a relaxed, and blessed day with my sweet little family. What more could I ask for? The celebration continues tomorrow with the rest of my family {mom, siblings, nieces & nephews}. Can't wait :)

She's Three!

Somehow, three years have passed since we welcomed our first tiny little baby girl into the world and officially set off on this amazing adventure known as parenting. I have yet to stop marveling at her every single day. I marvel at her sweetness, her intelligence, her creativity, her silly little sense of humor, her beauty, her quirks, how much she looks like me, how much she acts like her dad, her passion for pink, princesses and ballerinas, her endless energy, and her amazing capacity to love. She's just incredible, and I'm pretty sure I'll never get over her.

This year we celebrated her birthday with two small family parties. We celebrated with Josh's family at our house on a Saturday and at my mom's with my family on Sunday since we get together on Sundays anyway. She was so excited that it was her birthday and all her favorite people were celebrating with her. We also went to the Os game Saturday night. It was her first game of the season and she had so much fun.

 This was an easy DIY decoration - cut the number 3 out of cardboard and glued cupcake papers on it.

 We did an ice cream sundae bar instead of cake or cupcakes for zero prep/baking. It was brilliant.

--------------------

Sunday at Nana's

We did get her a fork to eat with ;)