Greatness!

Another perfect day yesterday. It started with a "Drop Over Playdate" (Drop off, but that's how C says it.) with a best friend playing super heroes, pirates, penguins and cars.

There was a little girl, with curls, in a new outfit. 

And it was a good morning. But then, Husband took an impromptu half-day and we went to the zoo in the afternoon! 

The boys fed the Lorakeets. Which is my idea of a nightmare. But they loved it. We spent all afternoon there, saw all the animals. 

And it was great. 

Another perfect day. 

A Pretty Good Tuesday

We are having one of those rare summer days where the weather is just perfect. Fluffy white clouds in a blue sky. Sunny and in the mid to upper 70s.

We went for a walk. We played at the playground. We played in our yard. I got some yard work done and my rapscallions chased each other around. One particular rapscallion pulled my Mother's Day flowers off their plant and that was that. The girl just loves picking flowers. And the dandelions are almost nonexistent so she went for the good ones I guess.

I can't be too mad. And I'm not.

We didn't quite know quite what to make for lunch today. Other than cheese. Because I don't know if I have mentioned it here before or not but cheese is M's favorite food and that is pretty much all she ever wants. So I made banana chocolate chip pancakes, cheesy scrambled eggs and raspberries.

And you know what? Everyone cleaned their plates, which is kind of a miracle in and of itself since that never happens. Really.

 Soon it will be rest time. Which I am looking forward to. After which we are going to head outside again because this day is too gorgeous to let pass us by!

Fun in the Sun

M is going though a pink phase. She will only wear pink shirts. The first thing that happens every morning is she takes a pink tee-shirt out and tries to get it over her head. Usually on top of her pajamas. I tried to put her in this ice cream shirt the other day:

And she threw a fit. Like an honest to goodness fit. Oh I am in for it friends. She is such a spunky little girl, but oh so sweet too. 

I put Jamberry nail wraps on her toes Friday. I had thought about doing them for a while but I wasn't quite sure how they'd go. She actually sat for me really well and let me. She even said "Thank you mom." after every single toe. Oh my heart. I am starting to really appreciate and get into the fun girly things. Like pink toesies! 

In honesty, I didn't prep the nails at all like you're supposed to, I just did a heat and stick then a little filing. I didn't intend for them to last long. (And they didn't, she's already missing 3 or 4 but her big toes have survived and she's very proud of them!) I just wanted them to look cute through the pool party for her friend Brynn's first birthday which was Saturday. It was M's first birthday party as a guest for someone her size. It was a very fun party! 

M and Brynn in the pool. They had a pool, a sprinkler, slip and slide and two water tables. So many awesome water activities and everyone got to take home a cool water shooter! 

C and M eating cupcakes with Mason, who is one of C's best friends and Brynn's older brother. M was really into her cupcake. After every bite she would exclaim that it was "Tasty!" 

The kids had SO much fun that after rest time we put on swim suits again and played in the sprinkler at our house. As it happens, last year C got this Mickey sprinkler ball for his birthday as a gift from Mason. They clearly got one for their house and it was out at the birthday party. C felt that we should break ours out so we did! 

Do you see that our next door neighbor moved Mater in? It's very exciting for our resident 4-year-old and less exciting for me. Our neighbor's son finished his army career and moved back in with his dad. He brought with him an extremely loud motorcycle, Mater and a giant red pickup truck. I hope that he moves on quickly but I doubt it. Until then, at least C thinks Mater is cool. 

Yesterday we all roasted marshmallows over the grill after dinner. It was so fun to enjoy being outside, eating gooey messy s'mores and sugaring my kids up. Then watching them run around and slide all sticky and dirty to burn off the sugar high. Those are summer moments to cherish. 

FOMO: Hamilton

If you have paid even a little bit of attention to theater or Broadway for the past year, you've known all about Hamilton.

If you haven't: there is an extremely popular hip hop/rap musical about the life of Alexander Hamilton. And when I say extremely popular I mean that it is sold out for the foreseeable future. Nominated for a record breaking 16 Tony Awards. Winner of 11. Recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for drama. Face value of some of the best seats are $849. You didn't read that incorrectly. They subsidize some of the lottery tickets that cost a Hamilton. ($10)

It is so popular and so hard to get into that the resale ticket values are at upwards of $1000, and people are paying that. There's a video in which the message is that not everyone wants a baby but everyone wants Hamilton tickets.  Even though it gets weird with the husband (I don't even know...) it is a little funny.

Tomorrow, Hamilton Chicago tickets go on sale. The show will take up residence for an open-ended run in Chicago. Which is awesome. Chicago is a hop skip and a jump for us. It is not a completely unreasonable day trip and if we did stay over it is a far more affordable city that NYC. (Well, it can be certainly.) The tickets that go on sale tomorrow morning at 10:00 CST are for the first block of the show's run, September-January.

I am kind of a competitive person. Tell me I can't have something and I want it. I am a stay at home mom who could very easily set up camp tomorrow at 9:50 and hit refresh until I could buy tickets. But I am not going to. We are not going to buy Hamilton tickets.

And not because I don't want to see Hamilton. I fully admit that I have not committed to loving the show. Husband and C have however. For me, musicals are something I really have to see to appreciate. And there is VERY little video that has been leaked. Almost none. And people, I want to see what the fuss is about.

In the past month I have started to listen to it a little. The album is available on Amazon Prime Music which is great. Prime Music includes X-ray lyrics which is so helpful because I am able to read along with the music so I don't miss anything. (Visual learner right here!) I am currently really really really obsessed with the song Helpless.

And I REALLY want to see this show. But the September/October tickets are almost already sold for the subscribers and groups that have theater pull. Which leaves tickets for November-January. And then there's reality. The reality is the odds of snow or ice or other unfavorable driving conditions is high. Murphy's Law would have it that whatever day we were able to get tickets we wouldn't be able to get to Chicago.

But even though logic and reason tells me I am doing the right thing in waiting for tickets in the future for the open-ended run, I am still suffering from some major FOMO. (The fear of missing out.) The $10 lottery will be a little different for Chicago than it is in New York and it will be done online. So we may try to enter that in good weather times.

Have you seen Hamilton? Do you want to? Are your kids obsessed? C has always loved the Presidents and founding fathers so this is up his alley anyway. Are you going to read the book that inspired Lin-Manuel Miranda to write the musical in the first place?

I am on a waitlist that is HUGELY long for it but I can't wait to get my hands on it. I hope it will tide me over until I can get to see it. The show is going to start touring as well soon so maybe it will be near you in the coming years. It's a revolution in the theater world about the revolution of our country. Kind of awesome. And definitely giving me FOMO. 

Happy Father's Day Weekend!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Father's Day weekend. We had a super low key weekend per Husband's request. Lot's of outside play, swimming in the back yard pool and fun! C got a hair cut, which ONLY Husband was allowed to accompany him to. Because believe me I tried to get him to go with me a few times this past week since he was about two weeks past when I would have normally taken him.

We love our pool! $25 of fun, we bought a pretty big one so that we could all get in and swim. Totally worth it because we had a great time. Going to the pool here would be $18 a pop or $9 in the evening, and don't get me wrong, we will still do that too, but the backyard pool is awesome for the "cool off in the afternoon" kind of days.

Standing in the sun to warm up. 

I am a bad wife and did not take the requisite "dad with his kids" picture, but our children have been not so cooperative with pictures lately so it probably wouldn't have worked anyway. But even without a picture we love Husband and he is a great dad to our kids. We are very lucky. 

My dad, who by the way is AWESOME is on a fishing trip right now so I didn't see him. But we made him an awesome sign and sent him a picture of his only favorite two grandchildren. And you know, we also sent him two really nice ribeye steaks for when he gets back from his fishing trip. 

In cute things the kids have said lately:

M cannot say "thank you" yet. So she says "No please" instead of "no thank you." It is absolutely darling.

Last week we were watching the Tony Awards and there was a scene from Fiddler on the Roof. (One of my favorites!) So C was watching with us and Husband said right at the beginning, "There's the Fiddler." We watched the whole wedding scene and then as it was ending C said, "Where's the roof?" I died.

Anyway, I hope you had a glorious weekend and celebrated the way the father's in your life wanted.

Good Times are Here Again!

Oh hey. Remember when my internet sucked for most of Lent? Well, my friends yesterday I got to make the phone call I've been dreaming about making and cancel CenturyLink. Well, to be fair, I had to pretend to be Husband which was actually very funny because you know Denise did not believe I was Scott but couldn't actually say anything to the contrary. Especially in today's climate and that I could verify the account because I am not a moron.

But my friends, my fiber internet was installed yesterday afternoon. Everything about this is better. Including but not limited to the fact our appointment was for 1:30 and Brian showed up at 1:15. I can't even comprehend how much better my customer service is going to be based on the people I've met and spoken with, but I am pretty sure I can guarantee them a gold star and a Christmas card.

In case you weren't sure if I was serious, I did a little speed test while I had all my internet options available still.

This is my CenturyLink Internet speed:

 

That is 0.54 Mbps. Dreadful.

When things got really bad, we would switch to the air card on Husband's work computer. It made watching Netflix bearable.



Here we have 8.11 Mbps. Still not super but again, it beat not having internet.

But my new super fancy, no data caps, in the ground fiber cable that will not slow down no matter how many people use it or if it's raining etc.




Well then. Hallelujah! 47.27 Mbps. And it is everything I wanted it to be. Netflix is clear and fast and doesn't stop to load every few minutes. I can be on the computer at the same time we are watching Netflix. We can SKYPE while Netflix is on. Skype isn't a bunch of pixels.

Life with internet is good.

Strawberry Saturday

Saturday morning we were all up bright and early. This is not my preference for a Saturday. but it was going to be HOT and those strawberries weren't going to pick themselves. We had kind of a trek, as the strawberry patch we had been going to the past few years, put an age restriction on picking and made a rule about making picking appointments.

So we went to a patch about an hour away. All they do is strawberries. And they love kids.

And it was great. We beat the heat. We picked almost 23 pounds of strawberries. The kids did great. They stayed in the rows and only picked berries that were red. M was a little champion. She was such a good helper. They had these little baskets and she filled that thing several times. Granted one of the times she ran down the row and they all went everywhere.

But nevertheless, we had a good time. On our way back we stopped at a local food truck we just read about in the newspaper, called Load of Crepe. They have crepes and Liege waffles (made from dough not batter) and I happen to love crepes and waffles. Sticking with our theme we got two strawberry and vanilla cream crepes. They were great.

,

Later on Saturday, after everyone had taken a nap we had a lovely dinner. Husband had done a favor for someone at work and they bought him a 10lb prime rib!! Holy shamoly. We cut that thing up into three pieces, and froze two! We enjoyed a delightful prime rib dinner with sweet potatoes and bread. Then followed that up with an Angel Food Cake with fresh strawberries. 

That is the Saturday dreams are made of! Our Sunday was equally low key without much to tell. All in all, a great weekend. 

7QT: When Nothing Is Really Going On

one. So last weekend my mom and I went to see Me Before You. It was fantastic. Until the last 10 minutes in which I cried my eyes out. Morally, I am against the whole thing (go read the spoilers, I'm not going to be the one who drops that for you.) but so were most of the characters in the movie actually so there's that. And for what it's worth, I love a good cry movie.

My mom hated it. I loved it. I want to see it again. I spent this week reading both books. Well, I spent Monday reading Me Before You (making the bad life choice to stay up way too late) and Tuesday/Wednesday reading After You. It makes me love the movie even more.

two. I have one of my book clubs this weekend. We read The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry. I really enjoyed this book. It had a lot of good stuff going on but was a quick read.

It should be a small little group at the dinner so hopefully a good discussion! 

three. In the life is not always peachy keen side of things, my FIL has completely forgotten C's birthday. He hasn't acknowledged it at all. Not by phone, text, a card, nothing. At first I was giving him the benefit of the doubt. For whatever reason, his family isn't big on the postal service and just likes to give things when they see you. But then Husband saw him. (And got the gift from his brother at the same time.) And nothing. Not even a question about how his party was. There's really nothing I can do about this, because reminding him will make it seem like we're just after presents and I honestly don't want whatever they'd pick out to live in my basement for the next year or so. But that's weird right? To just completely ignore one of your grandchildren's birthdays?

four. It is going to be HOT this weekend, so the inflatable swimming pool I ordered will arrive just in time. Our old one sprung a leak. I have great fears that this new one is actually going to be too big but we'll see. I also got some sidewalk chalk. I actually detest chalk. Just  the feel of it in my hands gives me goosebumps and makes my teeth hurt. But I have every intention of forcing my kids to play outside everyday if it's not raining and giving them some options of stuff to do seems pretty reasonable.

five. In Scentsy news, the scent of the month for June, Blue Raspberry Ice is amazing. It's light and sweet. Usually the sweet scents are overpowering to me but this one hits the nail on the head.

There's also a new shark buddy just in time for shark week. That's pretty cool. 

six. M has hit the dreaded Why? stage. I don't think C ever got that. And I don't even know if she actually is asking Why? for an answer or if it's just her go to response. But all day long that is her response to anything said to her.

seven. How do you get your kids to eat meat? I am totally serious. Any and all advice is welcome at this point!

Linking with Kelly and her band of people who write quick takes. Happy weekend!

Problem = Solution

I keep seeing articles about the "Millennial Mom" and how they want everything RIGHT.NOW! And things like Amazon Prime Now are going to be the downfall of society, or at least small businesses. I can see where they're coming from. But I'm just going to come right out and say it. Amazon Prime Now is meeting a legitimate business need that isn't being met by brick and mortar stores. 

You see, society has created wonderfully safe car seats that take a little effort to get kids loaded in and out of. But society has also deemed parents neglectful if you leave your child in the car for any length of time by themselves. 

So I can't even go inside a gas station to pay. I can only pay-at-the-pump. Unless I want to unbuckle two kids, hold their hands, buy an item or two and then load them back into the car. Or I can order a gallon of milk to come to my house and go through the drive-through for a beverage. There is nothing quick about the quick errand today. There is nothing convenient about the convenience store either.  

And yet, I think this is something that is going to be corrected. Not a return to being able to leave kids in the car for a few minutes, that ship has sailed I am afraid. I do think that soon, Walgreens or someone will hop on board with this trend, and create online ordering and carside-to-go/pharmacy drive-through pickup. For when your kid has the stomach flu and you just need some Pedialite and Clorox Wipes. No one wants that kid in the store anyway. Or when you're out and about and the sometimes inevitable car nap occurs. 

In the mean time, I wish there was a window cling that normal safe moms would have on their cars. Kind of like the Scruff McGruff house designations, you know, the safe house anyone can go to if they need help? I would love to be able to park next to another "safe mom" who could stand next to my car while I run inside to grab the tortillas I forgot, then reciprocate because she needs band-aids. 

I'm just saying, even a Sonic-Like drive-in store would be welcomed. "I'll have a pack of baby wipes, a gallon of 2% and a box of cheerios." Then a slightly disgruntled teenager can roller skate the stuff out to me. 

There is an actual problem with a legitimate business opportunity solution here folks. Now if I could only get someone will deep pockets involved. 

Last Day of School!

Phew. We made it. School is over. (Okay, technically we are having a party on Thursday evening but no one has to plan that we just show up to the restaurant.) 

Here's to summer! We have a park play date tomorrow to kick us off on the right foot! 

It feels like school lasted forever, because it did! We started with our little homeschoool preschool coop last April!! My guy was at the very end of being two and he's at the beginning of being four now! Look how he's grown! I can't handle that. 

But onwards and upwards, we are headed to "big school" in August and he cannot wait. Until then, I am just going to embrace summer!!

It's JUNE!

Oh my goodness everyone. It's June. 2016 is almost HALF over already?! Can you stand it? I feel like this year has gone really fast.

In adulting news, we are getting a new roof. Soonish. We've had lots of estimates and picked a roofer. We've picked a color and all that. We just have to schedule the installation. And pay for it.

I am still waiting to feel like I've got it all figured out. But... I don't. So I just look up what to do. :) 

Some people say "Fake it 'til you make it." I say "Research the heck out of it because even if you're wrong you can back up your opinion and actions with valid arguments." 

School is nearly over, which is awesome and so summer begins. We are making a family list of things to do to celebrate summer! The list isn't complete yet, but I am anticipating a lot of fun to be had. It will include things like berry picking and the new trampoline park.