Date night with Drea

This Friday was date night with Drea. My kids are so different sometimes that its awesome getting one-on-one time to remind me of that fact. It gives me a chance to treat them differently (in a good way) and not always lump them together.

Drea wanted to go to the Poky Dot. Mainly because she was reminded of the restaurant last week when I asked Charlotte if she wanted to go there.  She likes the Poky Dot because it's fun, whimsical, and has food she likes. (This is in alternate to Charlotte who couldn't care less about any of that stuff and doesn't really love the food.) Drea loves lots of different places and would enjoy just about anywhere. As you may have noticed by Charlotte's date night post, she has specific tastes and specific places she likes and is in the mood for. 

We had a great night. We went to paint pottery first at Mountain Creative. I knew she would love to do that....she's been begging me to take her there for quite awhile and after I took Charlotte there on her date, I wouldn't dare take Drea anywhere else. :) 

It took Drea a good deal of time to choose what to paint. Once she chose her subject (the mermaid) her creativity started blooming. We were picking out paint and she was asking for all of these variations of colors and I asked her why she needed 3 different yellows. She said "It's to make highlights in her hair, Mom."  She practically could have added a "duh" after that and I would have understood. So it took us a couple hours to paint our creations (I made a wine stopper) and the detail she put into hers was incredible. I love her little creative mind! Makes me so proud!

Then we went to eat and for dessert we made s'mores at our table! It was so cool.

The simple things in life

I've been trying to enjoy more of the simple things in life. I get so busy and task-oriented that I forget to do this.

I had a tea party with the girls for dinner on Monday night. They loved it!! They were very surprised because I got everything ready while they were outside playing with their friends. It was nice to just sit and relax with them and enjoy them.

Yesterday while working outside at my brother's, I was in a lull sitting on top of the ladder waiting for someone and I happened to look up and notice how amazing the clouds were! It was just one of those days where the clouds look like giant cotton puffballs that make amazingly beautiful shapes. It gives you a sense of how small you are and how small our problems are because you can actually see how gigantic these clouds are compared to you. I just sat there and enjoyed that for a few minutes. I love moments like that. And truthfully any moment like this that I actually focus on and enjoy is a WIN for me. It's so easy for me to get wrapped up in busy-ness and never take any moments to enjoy the simple things in life...so when I do, that's a WIN for me that day.

I finished my "You Gotta Love..." doodles the other day. This is a design I saw and wanted to do it for myself. I drew "You Gotta Love" in the middle of my paper and then all around it I wrote different things that I enjoy. For me, it's a way of learning about myself and remembering the small things that I enjoy in life. Then when it's not a great day, I have a quick list of things I know make the day a little bit better. Of course, there are way more things than I have listed and specific people I haven't added but this is still a good start. There's a picture of this below.  There's another lesson in this activity for me....not worrying about perfection in what this looks like but just enjoying what is on it. I'm really enjoying learning more about me!  (I want to make one of these for each of my kids with qualities about them around their name in the middle. Maybe I woul djust put it in their baby books. It would be a cool thing for them to have forever.)

One day last week when the girls were at their dads, I didn't have anything to do when I came home from work. Well, scratch that....I had a million things to do....mow the grass, clean the house, do the dishes....but I knew that I needed some time for me. It was beautiful outside and I really wanted to sit outside and enjoy the sun and read a book. I don't have any chairs on my deck and the only chairs I have inside are straight-backed, not-conducive to relaxing outside chairs. So I just went out and sat on the top step on the deck and layed back across the deck. Before beginning to read, I just layed there and looked up at the sky. I tried hard to think of nothing (lol!) because I overthink everything in my life and I just try to get my mind to stop sometimes. I digress....I enjoyed the warm sunshine on my face. And there's just something about laying parallel to the sky and watching the clouds go by.  Then I grabbed a pillow and my book and laid out there and read for an hour or so. It was awesome! I call that another WIN for me! I'm growing so much and learning to slow myself down enough to enjoy my simple pleasures!

Date night with Charlotte

Andy and I are starting date night with the kids in which we take turns getting done one on one time with the girls. I've been trying get us to do this for awhile and now we have built it into our schedules! I get so excited for this. I have trouble with attention and focus sometime so this really helpful because I can connect more with my girls.

 

Charlotte is Charlotte. I have get done thoughts on places to eat. She wanted Subway. Well, she wanted McDonald's...I vetoed. I reminded her that at subway she usually just gets ham and cheese in a bowl and chips. She said yeah, but it's the best ham and cheese in the world.

 

Then we went to Mountain Creative, a local paint your own pottery place. She was so excited to pick out her own piece to paint. I helped her paint hers instead of painting my own (since she picked a pretty expensive piece).

 

Then we went to Gran's to visit with cousin Theo (oh yeah, and Papaw, Grandma, and Kareen) and then topped off date night with a visit to Dairy Creme Corner.

Here's a couple pictures: