It's My Party

I am 33 today. Woah.

And man did I party like a true adult. No really, I did.

Kathryn Whitaker's book was released yesterday and I was reading along then became obsessed with the idea that I needed to clean my oven. So we acquired some Castile soap and got to work. Check it out!

That one spot on the bottom is where the finish is wrecked. But Kathryn's magic solution worked a treat! Plus the Castile soap has worked its magic on a bunch of other stuff around the house and it looks like we haven't even used it yet.

Do you watch This Is Us? Well, the Big Three are ALSO 8.31 birthday people and the show sent me a present! For real!

And here I am joining Team Pearson to celebrate our birthdays! (Rainbow cake was chosen by M.)

My wonderful family took me out to dinner at "the kangaroo restaurant" aka Outback. And we had an awesome time. 

I opened some wonderful presents. Including this cord-free vacuum! It will make me hate vacuuming the stairs a million times less. In fact, I did it today and it's going to be amazing!! 

 C picked out a book for me and M picked out these flowers for me. Sweethearts!

I got some gifts from my parents too and all in all, even though 33 was primarily a "get the house clean" birthday, I loved every second of it. Cleaning got me so jazzed! 

I love my birthday! Have a great long weekend everyone. 

And She's Off!

Today it was finally her turn. She was beyond ready and so so excited. She has lots of friends in her class and I am sure the day is going to be wonderful!

I am sure you can't guess from her outfit what her favorite colors are? I am so proud of my little girl. She had no cares this morning and went right in to play in the big housekeeping area.

So now the school year is really off and running! I can't believe it. It still hasn't completely sunk in. I am sure I will get there though. 

A Bug.

Once upon a time, okay it was Saturday. But stories just begin best with a good "once upon a time" don't you think? Anyway, it was a beautiful day!

M and I went on a special girl adventure in the morning. While we were doing that the boys were at Barnes and Noble on a boy adventure.

We were trying to keep the weekend before school started fun but low-key. So we made popovers. And we went out to dinner. But really early so it was really a "linner."

In the evening we decided to take the kids to a parking lot to ride bikes. The parking lot we go to is about a 3-minute drive. (We live on a BIG hill on a busy street so it isn't safe to ride there yet with kids who can't bike well.)

On the drive, M FLIPPED out.  She was screaming about a bug. "A bug! A bug!" There was a housefly flying around in the car but she was way way way overreacting. I mean, we sometimes get a stray fly in the house. But then we got there and she was totally fine. The kids biked. Husband and I walked and talked. I left the door of the car open a time or two to let the fly out if it wanted.

And after some good solid bike riding, M declared she needed to use the restroom. The porta-potty was removed for the school year and so we had to go home. And M freaked. She started screaming about how she wasn't going to get back in the car.

Husband had to scoop her up and force her into the car. All the while she was top-of-her-lungs screaming. It's a good thing we were by ourselves because you would have thought we were kidnapping her.

The whole drive home (three minutes) she is flailing and wailing. Shrieking "MOMMMY!" over and over again. I am holding her hand. Husband and I can't stop laughing about how ridiculous it was. C was in full sensory overload and was half crying half laughing too.

Once we were home she declared she was never riding in the car again.

Sunday morning came and we were getting ready to go to church. I follow the kids and Husband to the garage. M starts crying softly about how she does not want to ride in the car. I opened my door and sat down... right through a giant spider web.

And in that moment I just know. I eyed Husband. I ever so slightly moved my sun visor. And there's a fairly sizeable spider hiding in there.

I get out of the car immediately telling M she was right. We walked into the driveway and I apologized to M repeatedly. Telling her she was right. That there was a bug in the car. Husband dispatched the spider. M is smiling and still teary eyes but was overjoyed to be vindicated.

Had M said there's a big old spider in the car we may have been able to solve that problem sooner but she didn't and we didn't. But still, lesson learned for me. Out of the norm overreactions warrant investigation. I should have checked for more than just the fly to see if something else was the matter. Or asked more questions.

Next time I'll do better. Hopefully, also next time there won't be any spiders in the car.

Excited

Yesterday C brought this home from his first day of school. 

Last night I felt... "exited that I sang." 

Which means "so excited that I sang." 

And he wasn't kidding. Sunday night we had to go back into his room to tell him to go to sleep because he was singing too loudly. 

But nevermind that. He wrote a pretty decent sentence. (Passing over the fact the kid refuses to write lowercase "d"s which is his teacher's problem now, the missing conjunction and letter "c".) Apparently, most kids just wrote one word so I am personally excited that he pushed himself. 

And check out that drawing. It's not scribbled. And his room isn't set up like this anymore, his bed is turned like how it is in the drawing. But this gives you an idea anyhow. 

But he added the colors of his walls, himself, walrus (of course) and even some of the cars from his sheets. Plus music notes.

I totally get that this may not seem exciting to you on any level. But last school year C was very much a "do the bare minimum" kid. And I know it's only day one but I am pretty psyched this first-day art was above and beyond that. 

And He's Off

It's like Matthew West says, "Here goes nothing! It's Day One..." 

We are ready for school and other than the rain cramping our style a little, C was pretty excited. I am so excited for my guy and I am hoping and praying for a wonderful year!

End of Summer Adventure Pt. 2

So on Sunday, I gave M "Princess Leia Buns" and we took a little field trip to Minnesota's Largest Candy Store. I had never been there before but I knew where it was. I was NOT expecting it to be THAT big or as crowded as it was.

I caught this rare moment where this aisle wasn't packed. But they were ALL packed. The building was a series of rooms and the entire store is longer than a football field. They had so much candy. 

And Anna and Elsa were there too. 

Rapunzel was also there. There were a lot of characters and details and fun things to do inside. You could spend time just only looking at the space I think. 

Outside is the Guinness Book of World Records Largest Puzzle all put together and behind glass. Well, it said it was Guinness Book approved but I just googled it and it seems like it keeps getting beat so I think this maybe was at some point.

Monday we went to visit my Grandpa at his assisted living facility. Then we went to lunch at Chick-Fil-A and to another park. This is a park next to my old elementary school so we went there a lot. (Different from Friday's school park but right next door.) As it happens this is also the park I worked at in summers through college and grad school so it was fun to take the kids. 

We, like my childhood friends and I, used to eat picnics on this big rock. On lunch trips to the park, we would fight over who would get to eat on the rock. It was fun for me to take the kids and get their pictures on the rock. 

Tuesday we headed back home, but not before we had a pit stop on the way home at the SPAM museum. Which was a ton more fun than I was expecting. And it's free! There was a "time yourself canning SPAM" area. In the time we made one can, the Hormel factory made 343. 

We found out how many SPAM cans tall the kids are. 

The kids played in this little barn area. It had slides and punching bags, trampolines. It looked like a lot of fun. The kid's area also had a play kitchen and farm area but they were quite crowded and my kids didn't want to go try them.

In the international area, they had information about SPAM around the world. I would love to stop back in when hopefully it wasn't as crowded and maybe with another adult so that maybe we could take turns actually reading some of the material. 

They also had "Spamples" and it happens that apparently my kids really liked it. It was their first go around with it. 

Luckily, after we left, we had an uneventful remainder of the drive and arrived safely home. 

End of Summer Adventure Pt. 1

The kids and I are home again from our end of summer adventure! It was a wonderful trip in which we somehow did a lot but not all at the same time. Is that weird to say? I feel like it is. We did something every day and had a lot of fun, but there was still quite a bit of downtime and relaxing. So that was great.

On this trip, M was my roommate. And that was interesting. Every night I'd come in and she'd have made herself comfortable in the weirdest ways.

The first night I went in and found her with her legs sticking off the end of the bed. Because why not?

On Friday we went to two parks and a little library. Do you have a lot of little free libraries by you? We have a few, but my parents have a TON. Which is good because going to them is one of my mom's hobbies

The first park was my old elementary school playground. And wow is it ever completely different. I mean, that's good, but also weird. This climbing dome is awesome. I've been wanting to get one for our yard and this just confirmed that want. 

The second park was really two separate areas. They have a traditional play area, that M is standing on. But then they have a "natural playground" which is basically cleared out woods with sticks, rocks, logs, and downed trees to really explore. 

C could have spent ALL day there. He loved it. He kept referring to it as playing "like the early humans." Which cracks me up. I wish we had something like this in our area. I hope the next time we go to visit that we can go back and let him spend a long time there. We were shocked there wasn't anyone at either park. (My mom was shocked at how much stuff was left at the parks. I was less surprised by that.) 

Saturday was fairly low key but lots of fun. M made cookies with my dad. She loves to cook! 

We went to get a bundt cake from Nothing Bundt Cakes (so tasty) and next door was this giant blow-up panda. M loves Pandas. They are her favorite and she was delighted to take a picture with it!

We also went to the book store. C's favorite place and he got to pick out two books. M picked out one as well. 

So see, nothing was too busy but we still did stuff every day. Lots of fun! I'll tell you more tomorrow!

Membership Fun

So last Monday we went to one museum we have a membership at. Then last Tuesday we went to the botanical center we have a membership at. Wednesday was our 9th anniversary and Husband took the day off of work. The weather was AMAZING so we decided to go to the zoo. (Because we have a membership and the zoo is included but we hadn't actually been yet.)

Then because we were feeling a little bit plucky we decided to hit the last museum in the bundle so we could use all of our membership benefits in one week. (Really three days but in my head, I was saying a week.)

We didn't stay there too long, there were a lot of summer program field trips and we were tired but we played everyone's favorite things for about an hour and went home. Because it's free so who cares if we don't spend all afternoon? 

More Summer

I am sorry it's been so quiet here over the last week. The kids and I are on an adventure trip for this last little bit of summer. Sure, I have now committed to my school mornings wake up time. (Because let's be honest for a minute, my kids have never once done anything resembling "sleeping in" and they rarely stay up late.)

But we are going to just cruise through this week, enjoying every second. We've got some fun stuff planned. We've got some nothing planned. Life is good.

See you soon!

Fun!

Yesterday afternoon we went to the museum to play. It was rainy and so pretty crowded but I had told the kids we could go there days ago so we were going. I was shocked, truly, at how naughty some of the kids were being and how their parents did not care!

I am all for experiencing life and trying things, truly. But some of the things the kids were doing was causing damage to the equipment. Like the egg conveyor belt. You move the eggs from the chicken coop into the grocery store. 

But someone had shoved a chick stuffed animal, a wooden cupcake and wooden slice of cake in there and so the eggs couldn't go in. Luckily C and I were able to un-wedge them to get it working again. There's a similar activity with the fake corn going into the processing area. And there was a family that got some of the cans from the store jammed up there and the mom was just sitting there watching. 

Again, I am all for experimental play but sometimes you actually have to parent. I for sure told a little girl she couldn't put a potato down the egg belt a few minutes after we got it un-stuck. I said, "Oh, you don't want to do that, it will get stuck." And she said "Okay!" and went to get eggs. No harm or trauma. 

We also went into the maker space and the kids made these: 

So that was kind of fun too! Today M and I took a friend of hers to the botanical center for one of their preschool classes. They learned about dirt. 

We colored! 

Read a story about dirt. 

We went outside to collect dirt. 

That we turned into paint, which was very messy but a surprising amount of fun. 

Then we got cleaned up and made dirt cups. There was even "mud." (Chocolate milk to go with it.) 

Of course, when class was over we had to feed the fish because that is the best part of a visit if you're my kids.

And we took pictures by the pink and purple flowers for my girl who loves pink and purple.

And today is National Left Hander's day so C and I will do something fun to celebrate that this afternoon. It's a special day after all!

So that's the fun we've been up to this week so far.