Camp is here!

My 4 year old is flying the coop for a few days this week and she couldn’t be more excited.

School has been out for her for almost 2 months now and she is tired of me.

And well…I hope she has a good time.

When getting ready for her camp, which she is THRILLED about, she asked me a few questions:

“What bag am I going to put my sleeping bag in?

You don’t need a sleeping bag, I’m picking you up after lunch.

Sad face.

“What pajamas am I going to pack?

You don’t need pajamas, I’m picking you up after lunch.

Sad face.

“Do I change clothes there at night?”

You don’t need to change your clothes, I’m picking you up after lunch.

Sad face.

I have a pretty good feeling there will be a lot of crying when I pick her up after lunch today.

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Our Daily Schedule

I know it’s summer and it’s supposed to be a carefree anything goes time but I need to have some sort of timeline for the day.

Here’s a rough sketch of what our day usually looks like:

7:30 – 8:00 Wake up and eat

9:00 Swim practice

10:30 Snack

11:00 Play a board game as a group

12:00 Eat lunch

12:30 Play

1:00 – 2:00 Quiet time – reading, playing in room (Mommy’s time on computer)

2:00 – 5:00 Play, pool, movies, friends, tv, games, video games, errands

5:45 Dinner

I am totally open to this being flexible but at some point of the day MOMMA NEEDS HER QUIET TIME.

Before the kids are allowed to do anything tv, computer, or video game related they need to do their chores.

They already bring their dishes to the sink, bring their clothes to the hamper, as well as other tasks so the chores I’m talking about are extras.

Having a simple chart has made completing chores no big deal. And let’s face it, there’s only two chores per day per person.

Is it a fancy chart that involves stickers, puffy paint, and ribbon?

H*LL no!

It’s written on paper each week by me and it works just fine.

Take a look at last week’s chart:

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The big exciting change on the chart this week is that there are no chores scheduled for Saturday. We are usually exhausted from day long swim meets so I figured what’s the point.

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Don’t worry, I’m not finished filling this weeks out yet. But I think you get the idea.

Do you have anything that’s making your summer a little easier?

Growing Up Too Fast

The other day I noticed the house was quiet.

As a parent you dream about these moments but when they occur you just know someone is up to something.

As I walked into my bathroom to investigate, I saw this…

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I sneaked back to grab the camera and only managed to catch her fleeing.

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“What were you doing?”

“I was trying on your nipples.”

I’m trying to decide whether the next 14 years will go slowly or very quickly with this girl.

Personal Stylist to Preschoolers

There are children in preschool who dress one hundred times cooler than me.

Cute little capri pants, newest JCrew sweater, and the shiniest little flats.

At times, I want to steal their wardrobe. However, I think the 3T cardigan might look a little off on me.

The thing is though, I’m not sure preschoolers should look like a littler version of their moms. How easy is it to climb the jungle gym in patent leather flats? Do you really need that jean jacket when playing in the sand?

I think there must be some tough mornings for preschoolers and their mothers.

And in this house, it’s just not worth the battle.

Caroline chooses her own outfits and I’m okay with that.

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Most of the time.

This little diddy was by far her most inventive.

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Yep, she’s rockin’ stripes, leopard, and polka dots.

She even insisted on doing her own hair.

 

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As we were walking into preschool on this particular day a parent said, “Ahh, looks like she won the battle today.”

Actually there really is no battle.

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What’s happening is individuality and confidence.

And smooth mornings.

We Were Saved in the Pantry

After dinner the other night, the kids were amusing themselves with something so my husband and I went on a hunt.

“We need dessert. We need dessert.”

And then we spotted it in the pantry.

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“Eureka! It’s a miracle!”

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Do you see it? The mother of all hidden candy?

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Cue the angels singing.

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Oh yes we did find that hiding.

Bless my children and their complete failure to remember they have any holiday candy three days after they collect it.

Swimming Girl

In May, when the water was cold, & I didn’t really want to get in the pool, I swam on 15 different days.

Why?

Let me show you why.

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“Mommy, can we go to the pool?”

Gets me almost every time.

The kids are finished school today as of 3 pm so I’m pretty sure my 15 days of swimming in a month will be doubled this month.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Saving Money & In the Red

Like many of you, our family is trying to save as much money as we can.

So one of the ways we are saving money is by using our library.

Of course, I’m always skeptical about how much we are saving when I have to fork over the cash for late fines but nontheless, we are using the library.

After spending about an hour perusing books last Saturday, we decided it was time to go.

After all, we had to get home to start making our homemade calzones…saving money everywhere people!

As we all gathered around the automatic checkout machine my husband bent down to pick up some books that had fallen to the ground.

As he did, his glasses fell off.

I turned when I heard, “No, don’t step back! No! No! No!”

Crunch.

And then I might have heard a few curse words.

In the library.

My husbands glasses were crushed.

We tried not to be angry at the child who stepped on the glasses (the 11 year old!) but as we were driving to the mall that night to order new glasses, driving past our neighborhood,  we might have said something along the lines of, “Well, Dad needs new glasses because you stepped on his and completely broke them.”

Probably not our best parenting moment.

But after a few of us, who do not need glasses, proceeded to try on every pair on the store, we felt a little better.

That and dinner at the mall.

I’m Pretty Cool to a 1st Grader

As part of a writing assignment, my first grader needed to come up with 5 adjectives to describe me.

I’m going to admit, I was a tad nervous while he was writing and chuckling to himself.

But in the end I was the one chuckling to myself when I read through the list.

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Epic.

It’s a 1st grade thing.

And just to clarify…it means I’m super cool.

431 = 8?

Just in case you thought I had it all together…

I present to you my son’s birthday cake…

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And no, he’s not the world’s oldest person…

just completely forgot about candles until it was time to light them.

I’m Back & Thankful

Well, I didn’t plan on  being away from here for a week but that’s just how things turned out.

My husband and I were furiously finishing a project I had said yes to (more tomorrow) and only finished about  30 minutes before the completed products were due. Nothing like cutting it close here 🙂

A week ago the awful tornado in Moore, Oklahoma struck and killed so many.

The following day, the meterologists were telling us to expect huge storms with tornadoes a real possibility. Needless to say, everyone around here was on edge.

Before school, the kids and I brought a mattress downstairs and placed it by the tub. We then practiced getting into the bathtub and placing the mattress on top of us. It wasn’t exact but we did the best we could.

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We also gathered bike helmets, important papers, a first aid kit, and a pair of shoes for everyone. We always have our bike helmets handy when it’s tornado time, in case things start to fall on us. It’s probably silly to have them but it always makes me feel better knowing they are around.

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Around 1 pm things started to get rainy. At 2 pm Caroline and I headed over to the elementary school because the wind was picking up and really raining. Apparently, every  other parent had the same idea since it took me until 2:30 to get the boys. By this point it looked like a hurricane outside and my middle one started to cry. He was saying, “The tornado is going to get us.”

In our run from the school to the car we got soaked so everyone changed clothes once we got home. We turned on the tv and ate ice cream. Hey, it seemed incredibly reasonable to me, if the power goes out, the ice cream will go bad. Hence, we must eat the ice cream. After all, no one was in the mood for a frozen tuna patty so we went with next best thing.

I sent the kids to play while I continued to watch the weather reports on tv. All regular programming was ignored for constant weather reporting which just added to my nervousness.

Thankfully, there is no big ending to this story. The weather passed us by 4:30 pm, my husband came home at 5:30 to ask if it had even rained at the house. I will disclose here that I was ready to slug him at that point as my nerves were just about shot. We had frozen pizza for dinner, again ignoring the frozen tuna for something better, and continued on as normal.

Everything was normal except for the fact that my  four year old whining,”I wanted the tornado to come,” and I was busy pricing portable storm shelters online.