Girl's Weekend

 Last weekend Ingrid and I had girl's weekend.  Brendan left on Friday morning to take Otis camping up north, so it was just us gals until Sunday afternoon!  I picked her up from school and we went to McDonalds and got a happy meal.  We did puzzles and played games without a little brother stealing pieces and putting them in his mouth.  We went to dinner Saturday night and got frozen yogurt.  Just the two of us, out on the town.

 

In all reality is was not as fun as I thought it would be.  I never realized how much Ingrid and Otis play together.  I focus so much on the bickering and hair pulling (Otis has a death grip!) that I don't realize how much they actually keep each other entertained.  Ingrid would get bored really easily, she wanted me to play non-stop, where usually she can find something to do no problem.  We had a good time, but we definitely missed the dudes.

 

The reason we didn't go with them was because Ingrid's school picnic was that Saturday.  She really wanted to go, and since she just started there, I thought it would be fun to meet other kids and let her run around.  It was pretty fun, they had a few bounce houses, a little station to make bracelets, a hair spray station where they sprayed you with colored hair spray, which made me sick just being a little down wind from it.  There was food and popcorn and sno-cones. 

 

She loved the race bounce house!  It was a little obstacle course, going through a tunnel, over a little wall, up a ladder thing, and down the big slide.  She would've stayed on that thing all afternoon but it was so fun there was a huge line all day.

Can you tell she liked it??

 

We had fun, but we sure did jump on the guys when they came home and gave them both big hugs and smooches.  I kinda like my family!

It's Still Summer!

I always hated the first part of September, where you had school and you wanted to wear your back to school clothes but it was still in the 80s and you had to make do with your old summer shorts.  It's still like that here, it was super hot and humid yesterday.  So after school we got out the pool and the kids had fun jumping and splashing.  It's still kind of summer, and that's okay.  We'll have plenty of extremely cold, wintery days ahead of us, I will enjoy this while it's here.

First Day of School K4

Today was Ingrid's first day of K4.  She bounded out of bed at 6am asking if it was time to go yet!  I know it will get old, and she won't be so helpful, but I have never ever had her so willing to get dressed and eat breakfast in the morning!  Usually she wants to do things her way, she balks whenever I ask her to do anything, but this morning it was "Okay, mommy!"  Let's see how long this lasts, right?

I cannot even tell you how much better I like this school she is now at.  Last year I walked into a cafeteria of crying and screaming kids, this year it's a playground full of parents I know, happy kids running around.  I did see a few criers, but not as many as last year.  Plus the drive to school is about ten seconds on streets where people actually follow the rules of the road, unlike last year where I was in the hood and I'd be surprised if half the drivers actually had their licenses.  No kidding.

So this year starts off well.  I am so happy to see Ingrid so happy!  She's a little nerd, just like I was!

doesn't she look so tiny by her huge school??

My Weekend Alone. And then Labor Day Crazies.

Saturday morning Brendan took both kids with him to the cottage.  I stayed home.  I seriously felt like this:

I had SO MUCH FUN being by myself.  I went to the bathroom alone, I finished my own food without anyone coming up asking for a bite.  I cleaned my house and it stayed clean.  It was amazing.  I rearranged furniture in the living room and Ingrid's room.  I made the kids new buntings for their rooms.  I came to the realization that I will never paint Ingrid's room, so I may as well just deal with the green since her stuff goes.

 My days were so relaxing.  I could read, watch whatever TV I wanted.  I went to the antique shop, I had dinner and drinks with a friend, I took naps whenever I wanted.  It was so nice to catch up on me.  I hate when people talk "me time" but for real, after dealing with kids nonstop for days on end, it was really quite nice to remember I used to love reading on the couch in a cleaned living room, and that a bowl of Ben and Jerry's is a nice way to end the day.  (Okay, I admit, there was no bowl, it was right out of the carton...)

And then they came home.  I was immediately put back into my place as mom, doer/cleaner/helper/fixer.  No more relaxer.  They are so lucky they are cute, they don't even know!  We had friends over for Labor Day and cooked out and ran around in a sprinkler and tried to stay cool on the hot humid day.  It was super fun.  Otis did not want me taking pictures, but I thought this was a good representation of how crabby he can be.  He was yelling at me not to take his picture.  HA!

And now we have one more day until Ingrid starts school and we have no more slow paced mornings, where we have to be out the door by 7:30 instead of getting to lay around in our pjs.  Bummer.

Felt Dolls

Yesterday in a burst of creativity, I finally made some felt dolls for Ingrid.  I'd seen on mamasmiles and it looked super cute.  Ingrid has the magnetic ones from Melissa and Doug, but I have so many felt scraps that she loves to play with, I thought I really should try to make some of these dolls.

They were a hit!  I drew out a shape onto cardstock paper, along with shapes for pants, shirts, and dresses, and then we used those as templates for the felt.  I made different hairstyles, bows to put in the hair, and we had random scraps that Ingrid used to add to the shirts and dresses.  It was super easy, just took some scissors and a bunch of felt.

 Of course I couldn't just have them sitting around in a ziploc bag, nor could I have Ingrid putting them on another scrap of felt.  I had to make a little carrying case, with a pocket for the clothes, right?  Of course.  So I put two pieces of cardboard in between two pieces of felt.  I'd put on a name tag on the front, then a pocket on the inside first, then I sewed everything up into a little folding book.  Portable and functional! 

 They do not look as fancy as some I've seen on Pinterest, but Ingrid loves them anyway.  She has seriously been playing with them nonstop since I made them yesterday while Otis napped!  And that, my friends, is a thumbs up in my book.

Rainbows, Bruises, and Siblings

We had a gorgeous double rainbow the other day.  You can't see the other one that was above this, but it was amazing.  It happened right after I put Ingrid to bed, I got her up from bed and she was all confused.  "Why did you wake me up to look at this?"  I thought she'd love it, I was wrong I guess...

Otis and I were playing ball the other day and somehow he face planted on the sidewalk.  Again.  I honestly do not know how it happened, one minute he was laughing and dancing, the next he was splat on the concrete.  His nose got a bit beat up...again.

Yesterday we did some painting early in the morn.  Otis is entranced by the finger paints, but he doesn't quite get that it goes on paper.  He also got one of the dot paints (like a big Bingo marker) and had a big smear of purple all over his cheek for the morning.  Apparently they don't wash off.

After painting we went outside to get some air before it rained.  We found all sorts of ways to get dirty before 9am!

 



Summer Fun at Gramma's

Last weekend the kids and I traveled to Michigan to visit my mom.  We were supposed to take the ferry, but got a call at 4:30am saying the waves were too big and the ride had been canceled.  I was pretty bummed, as Ingrid had been begging to go on the boat for a long time, and I would much rather have puked for two hours on a bumpy boat than driven the almost 7 hours it ended up taking us...But it was not meant to be, so we packed up the car and took a road trip instead.  And honestly, the kids are so good in the car, it wasn't that bad.

We got to my mom's in the afternoon and the kids were free to roam and run and not be in a car.  The next morning we started out with a breakfast picnic.

Followed by running in the grass.

The weekend was full of fun things.  We visited the horses in the field and at the stables.

 We took a paddleboat ride.

 We played a lot at the little beach.  Ingrid and her cousin played "gardening" for hours, and also "making chocolate milk" both of which were basically making mud. 

 And no trip to Miss Wendy's is done without a trip to Tiny Town.  This place is amazing.  It's two little kid sized cabins filled with kid sized furniture and dishes.  Ingrid LOVES it there, and Otis had his first chance to play there as well.  He seemed to like it but the kid sized dishes are vintage china dishes, so after breaking a cup, it was a small plastic cup for him!

 It was a perfect weekend, the only thing better would have been if Brendan could've come with us. 

Nostalgia

We found a DVD of old videos of Ingrid today.  She was so small and such a little smartypants!  It made me realize how much I miss hanging out with her.  I love Otis to pieces, but I forgot how nice it was to have one on one time with Ingrid.  She is so emotional and sassy lately, I forget how sweet she used to be!

Anyway, got me thinking of babies and them growing up and how on the one hand I'm glad to be done with bottles and sleepless nights, and on the other hand that means no more squishy 6mo olds with their two little teeth and big chubby cheeks smiling at you.  So I will just look back at pictures instead, that's more economical than having another one, right?

Our Weekend

It was a birthday party filled weekend here.  Brendan's birthday was yesterday, so we had cake for him.  Then our friend Junie turned two and we went to her party.  And then Brendan's parents came over to celebrate his birthday with another cake.  Sheesh, a little birthday overload!

Fun pictures from this weekend--spaghetti night messy faces:

 Ingrid's amazing vintage dress we got awhile ago.  She is too funny--when I told her she was going to wear a party dress to the birthday bash today, she cried and cried and cried, swearing up and down the dress was too tight and she hated that dress and she wasn't going to wear it.  Then she went up to her room, grabbed the dress I wanted her to wear and said "Please, Mama, can't I wear this one?"  I do not know what goes on in her head but she can be so dramatic sometimes!

After his nap, Otis was also quite dramatic.  I was napping and woke up to hear Otis screaming like crazy.  It was his frustrated-nothing-is-going-right-for-me scream, and it was all because his pasta wouldn't get on his fork right or something like that.  It's tough to be a kid.

And lastly, I caught the kids jumping from coffee table to couch this afternoon, giggling like crazy so I couldn't really be mad.  As soon as I saw it probably wouldn't cause a trip to the ER, I let them at it while I took pictures.  So cute to see them getting along after a day of them being pissy with each other!

 And now it's FINALLY bed time and I can relax and get some more bibs done and watch Downton Abbey on Hulu.  Yay.

Favorite Things To Do

Around these parts, our favorite things are:

Coloring (with or without pants)

Eating ice cream

And making play doh.

It's been a great week so far!