Happy Monday!

So you know, in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, when Tula's brother Nick comes in the morning of the wedding and says "Hello ladies, fresh baklava!" Well... even if you don't, this past weekend was the Greek Festival in town and I just finished my last piece of the fresh baklava. It was, no lie, the best baklava I have ever had. I am fairly certain I need a Greek Grandmother in my life to feed me.

Well, that is one thing that makes me happy. I cannot believe that it is already Monday! Time is going warp speed right now. M and I had music class this morning which was even more fun than last week. I am really looking forward to seeing how she grows throughout the next few weeks. It really is so nice to have her explore the museum and being the boss. She so rarely gets to make the decisions when she's with C.

Mondays are library day at preschool. Last week, even after much discussion about the very topic, he brought home a book we own. Oh well, he was so excited about it. My guy loves books so so much. He was very concerned however that the Librarian said "Mo Williams" instead of "Mo Willems." Which is kind of hilarious to me. Anyway, this week he brought home "Chicka Chicka 1 2 3" and that is a great choice for him because at least we don't already have it!

In other things that currently make me happy, the Vikings beat the Packers in their first game in the brand spanking new stadium! (Sorry Marie but I have a feeling Mr. B agrees with me!) I honestly wasn't expecting a win because as a true Viking's fan it's best not to get your hopes too high. (Especially with Teddy Bridgewater out.) But they pulled it out and I was SO happy. I still am. Though I haven't heard about Adrian Peterson yet and seriously I hope he's okay.

I say this about 15 times a game, but I really like their helmets. They aren't as shiny as the other teams and I just really like them. 

Well that's about all that's on my mind today. Happy Monday! 

What's New?

Woah Nelly. It has been over a week since my last post? Oh goodness. This whole "finding a new rhythm" thing is more work than I anticipated I guess. I have still yet to find that sweet spot between leaving the house to early and "stress me out late." I am sure I'll get there however.

M started her art class last Friday. It's the same class that C took all of last year practically. She is very proud of herself for being big enough to actually take the class. She loved it. It's super low key and that is how I like it. It gives us something to do without little stress.

We also went to the drop-in music class at our little family museum. Again, it used to be something I did with C. This is even more low key than art because you don't even sign up so we can go or not go as we like. But we will almost certainly go more often than not.

I am not one of those moms that subscribes to the "get dressed and feel better about your day" philosophy. I am a "if I am comfy I automatically feel better and if there's no bra required all the better" kind of gal. So if I have to get up, dressed and out the door four mornings a week you better believe that we are going to do something while we are out! So art class, music class and errands it is!

Yesterday, M and I went to the post office, then the park, then I swung through the drive-through to get her a "dough-it" from my pals at Dunkin' Donuts. It was kind of the perfect morning and somehow turned into the perfect day too. So... go us I guess. That's always nice.

I know I have written before about how much C just loathes writing. He had his first "homework" over the weekend. He had to cut out pictures of things that started with the letter A, write the letter a both upper and lowercase and that was it. The cutting went well but it was pulling teeth to get him to write the letters. I don't know who was more frustrated honestly. Yet today, we got a jump start on letter B before this weekend's letter book work and it was relatively pain free with fairly decent uppercase Bs.

So hopefully this weekend won't be an epic battle of wills to write the letters. Or maybe it will be just as bad, but here is the photographic proof that he can, in fact, do it. 

That's about all the stuff going on in our world. Not much it seems. But that's okay. Have a great Wednesday!

Read To Your Children

2016 has not been a good year in terms of celebrity deaths. But this one, stings a little more than most. 

Sadly, Anna Dewdney passed away over the weekend. Who? The author and illustrator of Llama Llama Red Pajama and all the other wonderful Llama books. 

She has asked in lieu of a funeral service that everyone read to their children. A simple request that I will have great pleasure in fulfilling. 

Reading aloud is not one of my favorite past times. We have LOTS of books and I swear we read daily, but maybe not as much as I could/should. As it happens, the Llama Llama books are among our favorites. I rather enjoy reading them and the kids love them. 

Plus, hearing Miss M say "yama" is one of the best things ever. So there's that. 

I am sad that there will be no more Llama books, but I am thrilled that we have wonderful books to remember Anna by. 

The Thing About 30

Welp. Today I turned 30. Woah. I don't feel old. And I am really not freaked out about it. I know a lot of people stop aging after 30 but I am holding out until next year because, 31 is the golden birthday year for me and it would be a real shame to stop before hitting that milestone.

This was 10! years ago!! Turning 20 and I was so excited to no longer be a teenager! (I would wait until midnight and open all the presents my parents sent with me to college.)

Anyway 30 arrived just as you'd expect. With a husband who went out to get doughnuts and orange juice, assuming the kids would stay asleep and of course they didn't.

But the day was sunny, which after ALL THE RAIN we've had lately was great! Wednesday is C's day off from school so it was so nice to have my guy home. It was my own little birthday present honestly. We had a play date with his friend Marlee. She is moving soon and is at a different preschool. They have Fridays off so the potential for future play dates is shaky. It was a wonderful morning.

The afternoon brought Husband home early and he mowed the lawn.

Clearly I am ready to be 30 because you have NO idea what joy I got out of my lawn being mowed. All the previously mentioned rain meant that it was practically the rain forest with a machete out there. Now it is short. I am very happy. Plus for about two hours our lawn looked significantly better than our extremely lawn-obsessed neighbor's did!

C was insistent that I have decorations for my birthday and while I hadn't planned on decorations years ago my mom gave me this Madeline crepe paper and some napkins. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to use it. Very me.  

Husband and I went out for dinner by ourselves and came home for cake with our kids and Kathryn who was nice enough to watch them.

Dairy Queen ice cream cake is wonderful! It did not disappoint! One candle for each decade. And what would a birthday be without presents? I got a few books I am excited about and will be getting a FitBit when it arrives to replace the one that won't turn on. *whomp whomp* 

But the other highlights are my new carpet cleaner! 

And my new drying rack! 

Because there's 1001 uses for a drying rack. (Swimsuits, snow gear, blankets, regular laundry...) And I didn't have one and I have wanted one for a long time. 

Yeah, I am making 30 look super exciting over here folks! I hope you've all had a wonderful end to August!

First Day of 4-year-old Preschool!

"Bye Mom! See you back here in a little bit!" And he was off.

He was so excited. He was ready. 

And you know what? We all survived. 

I figured out the "honored tradition" of the car line, which no joke was my number one stressor about this whole thing. It was less chaotic than I anticipated.

M had a perfectly fine morning and only asked where C was 25 times. 

C had a wonderful time. He had goldfish for snack, read a book about a raccoon who was sad about going to school, (The Kissing Hand) and played outside. According to his teacher who put him in the car at pickup, he got a little nervous towards the end of the day, no tears, but just wondering how much longer school was going to go. I'd be lying if I said I'm not a little happy that he missed me too but still had a really good time. 

I consider all of it a success. We celebrated the first day with a special lunch from "Old McDonald's" and everyone is happy. 

Preschool is off to a good start! Let's see how tomorrow goes! 

Better Stuff!

Holy cow! It's been a week since I posted. I wish I had some good excuses but really we've just been living life and enjoying C's last few days before school starts. Actually, that's a pretty good excuse. Spending time as a family is always a good excuse.

My parents visited this past weekend. Which was swell! Really, it was the perfect weekend. Topping it all off was that Husband and I bought a new mattress!!

Husband not-so-lovingly refers to our old mattress as a baguette pan. He's not wrong. But it does make me laugh. When we were first married we had a double bed. When I was pregnant with C, I got fed up and bought a bed, with a frame, box spring and mattress for like $400. So a super nice one then. I kid. We've hated it for years but there's always something more pressing right? Anyway, we bought a new one and it was delivered this morning!

It doesn't look like much, but that is a new mattress and new pillows. I am looking forward to rest time!

We also seal coated the driveway over the weekend. I've wanted to do that for a long time now and it looks so much better!! So if you factor in our new roof, August has been pretty good to us and making our house feel better. And also curb appeal.

Most of the houses in our neighborhood have concrete driveways/parking areas. But ours is asphalt. The other asphalt in this picture is the alley. Our asphalt was rough and hadn't been seal coated potentially forever but definitely in a long time. Luckily it doesn't suffer the same treatment as the alley so no major cracks or problems. 

The schools around here started this week. Our school gives a little buffer between K-8 starting and the preschool so C's first day is Thursday. We unpacked his backpack last week. We picked up his school bag from the embroider yesterday.

Several area preschools give the kids canvas tote bags to decorate instead of using backpacks. I admit to being a little disappointed by that fact but I am over it. We could decorate however we wanted to, and for me that meant, taking it to be embroidered. Puffy paint is not my forte.

So we are ready. He has a new first day of school shirt. Because it's hot here still and he isn't going to wear fall/winter stuff yet, but the first day calls for something new. So a new shirt it is. He is very excited about it and preschool in general.

That's what's going on in our world.

Awesomesauce!

So yesterday was Husband and I's 6th wedding anniversary! Which is pretty awesome. We celebrated by going to see "Bad Moms." Husband had free movie ticket vouchers he got from doing someone at work a favor and I am on the movie theater's weekly coupon email list. So for the two of us to go see the movie with a large popcorn and pop was $7.55!

We enjoyed the movie. It is ABSOLUTELY rated R and mostly for language. It isn't really my kind of humor, I am not super into broad comedy, but the theater seemed to like those parts. The message of the movie was good though! And the last bit after the movie ends was so special. I may have actually teared up. (I totally did.)

We also had a candlelit pizza dinner, at our house, after bedtime because the movie went way longer than we thought it was going to. (So many previews!) By the time it was over we were getting awfully close to bedtime. C doesn't usually nap anymore which is okay but that means when it is bedtime he is DONE.

This morning C had a dentist appointment. His first one with a cleaning and everything. I was super nervous about it because his last few appointments haven't been super stellar. And I'd be lying if I told you he brushes his teeth every night without incident.

But it went amazing. No crying. No problems. Just clean teeth, a new Minion tooth brush, some toothpaste he is pretty excited about and two stickers. So I guess watching all the youtube videos about going to the dentist paid off. And he doesn't have to go back until February so that's awesome.

We played outside today! Which was glorious!! It was a long week without being able to do that because of the roofers. We so enjoyed our time out there. I walked around with the metal detector just to double check but they did a pretty good job. A few scattered wood pieces but nothing major.

I have Philly Cheese Steak fixins' in the crock pot, ran the dishwasher, a load of laundry and managed to mow the backyard right before it rained! Plus I was able to catch the women's gymnastics beam final live, which was everything good.

Now that it's aired. I love Simone but she herself says that beam is her hardest event. Laurie is so sweet and she performed SO well at trials. She wasn't given the chance to compete for the all-around and I am so excited for her to have shown her stuff.

It gets me all feeling the heck yeahs!