First days of school

This past week hosted the beginning of new eras in our lives. Drea started 3rd grade and Charlotte made her official school appearance in kindergarten!

Drea has always liked school but this is the first year I have actually heard her truly excited to start learning not just excited to see all of her friends. She said she couldn't wait to get back to learning fractions (yes, she's my kid who lives math so much it's actually exciting!)

Charlotte wasn't exactly excited about school but was ready to see some of the friends she made over the summer at kinderkamp. She would have preferred summer lasting months longer! But it had to come to an end and my baby started school!

Drea's first day of third grade!

Charlotte wanted in on Drea's first day pics. Kindergarten in our county starts a couple days later do the big kids have a chance to get into the swing of things before you throw the newbies into the mix.

Charlotte's first day of kindergarten!

And of course, both of them again.

Charlotte with her backpack like a big girl!!

Both of them being silly and showing off their backpacks.

At the school, ready to walk in. My big girls. 

Lastly, we always take the kids out to eat after the first day of school. Their choice: The Golden Corral. This is like their favorite place to eat. I've probably said it before but I think it's because they have so many options. Kids are picky so a smorgasbord of options where they can find quite a bit of their preferences makes their day. Plus, the cotton candy and ice cream helps! 

It struck me as funny when I looked at their plates after our first trip to the buffet. Check it out: 

Drea's plate: bits of random items she likes....a small slice of watermelon, pepperoni, little steps of tortilla chips, a roll, a piece of bead, and don't forget the small bag of oyster crackers that are just above her plate. She's so cute! :)

And then there's Charlotte's meal: noodles, green beans, corn, and a roll. I don't know why the way they easy so differently tickles me but I love their differences. They are so cute! I do not love these differences on a typical night of dinner at home! Lol! If I just served bread or rolls, they would be set! 

Oh, I forgot to mention that Charlotte found her bff, Poppy, on get first day of school. She was so excited because we didn't think they were going to be attending the same school. Here is a picture of the two of them enjoying their first breakfast at big school together!!

More vacation pics

I completely forgot when stating in my last post that my favorite part of the vacation was the tour boat that my real favorite part was our bike ride. Well, ok, maybe I have 2 favorites. Or if I'm like Drea and Charlotte "Theyowhl ahhh my fvwavorwites!"...in the words of Charlotte.

Here are some other great pictures. Below is Charlotte enjoying the lake and beachfront and then both of them running around in the water and sand, and then another day at the swimming pool.

 

 

 

Below are pictures from our infamous bike ride. We rented a Surrey (I think that's what they are called) and thought we would enjoy a nice, relaxing bike ride. Seriously, every time we drove down to the beach we saw all of these people on surreys looking like they were enjoying the little trek down the sidewalks and the breeze in their hair. THIS WAS NOT THE CASE. This was hard. Hard. We were pedaling like our life counted on it. Trying to get five of us up the smallest of inclines was a feat meant for the road runner apparently and not 3 overweight adults and an eight yr old! lol!!!

 

This picture was one of the evenings Bob and Drea were looking for beach glass, I think. I really like this pic.

 

 

 

Vacation

We went on a mini vacation....a long weekend to Presque Isle, PA with mom and Bob.

We had a great time. The girls wanted to be in the pool or at the beach every waking minute. This didn't bode well for them since there was a bad storm approaching when we got there. The picture below is our first opportunity to go swimming. I believe it was 9 am the next morning!

After their morning swim, we decided to take a ride on a tour boat. I probably enjoyed this the most out of everything on our trip. I loved sitting back and relaxing and just enjoying the cool air, the wind in your hair, the beautiful scenery, and the fact that my children had to stay in one place for the whole ride! Lol! Here are some pictures of our tour:

This was my favorite because I'm not sure I've ever been that close to a sailboat sailing through the water. (Not sure I've ever been that close to a sailboat at all but definitely not one in all its majesty fully taking in the wind and commanding the water.) Loved that!

I will post s couple more things from our trip later.

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:

What a wonderful....

....Summer it's been so far! We have been super busy but loving every minute of it!

• I took the first day of summer break off with the girls and we spent the day with Kareen and Theo. We worked out, went to the library, and to the pool. Even though it rained some while at the pool, we really had a great day!
• Then the first weekend of summer break we participated in Relay for Life Friday night and helped raise money for cancer research. Then we babysat Theo on Saturday and Charlotte had her friend Poppy over for a play date. I took them to the new splash pad and then we went to Nunnie and Bob's for Alex's graduation party. Then Sunday we went swimming at Jennifer Dalton's house and then went to CiCi's pizza and Sweet frog! Two of our favs!
• This past week the girls joined VBS at the Nazerene church next door. I have a friend who goes there and she invited the kids and the neighbor kids went too. They ended up knowing lots of kids they know there.
• Our summer gymnastics session is in full swing. My girls take a break from dancing every summer and do gymnastics. They love it! I really enjoy getting to watch them do all of the different events at the gym. And of course, they always love the treat afterwards...usually Rita's or Sweet Frog.
• I took the day off last week and although I helped do some work at Chad's house, the girls got to spend time with Nunnie and Barret and then we went for a dip in the Stevenski's pool.
• Drea and I had a date to go see "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer." And first we went to eat at Wings Ole. It was a nice evening and Drea's 2nd time seeing the production! She was mostly excited about getting to give the star of the show a hug afterward.
•  Saturday we went to the Painter's pool to celebrate my cousin Andrew's marriage. The girls were probably in the pool for 4 or 5 hours straight. They are like fish! Charlotte is learning how to swim so we had fun working on that and Drea had a blast playing with her cousin Ansley all day!
• Sunday we spent the day with Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Bri on their boat out on Cheat Lake. It was beautiful! I was thrilled at how relaxing it was. Those are moments when I truly feel God's presence....when you look out upon this beautiful earth that he created with all of it's grogeous trees and peaceful waters. I sat with Drea on my lap (shielding her from some of the bumps from the wakes) and closed my eyes and felt the wind and sun on my face and thought about how blessed I am. This is what I've been talking about....it's only June 24th and I feel like we've had such a wonderful full summer already and I'm grateful for that and then Sunday just spending a beautiful day in the presence of God's beauty with my children. Lovin it!

And yes, my kids pretty much live in their bathing suits all summer. Oh, to be a kid again!

Order

 

 

I HAVE A SLIGHT OBSESSION WITH ORDER.

I realize this as I go to add a contact into my Gmail contacts list and I have now spent probably an hour trying to merge contacts, delete contacts, fill in blanks for contacts, etc......  and I have yet to put in the new contact....my original mission. I don't like blanks. If I have an excel spreadsheet I'm creating at work, I need information in all of the fields. If there are a bunch of holes, your eyes don't flow through the rows and columns smoothly (well, my eyes at least.)



See, your eyes stop on the one turned the wrong way. Your eyes don't naturally flow down the stack.

I know I get more like this depending on whats going on in my life. There are moments when I don't have time for obsessing and then moments when I don't care what else I get done because it will feel great to get this one thing in order.

The word "order", in this sense, could be equally exchanged with the word "control." Sometimes bringing order to something that seems out of control brings a small peace to life. Even something as simple as my contacts list....which by the way, I didn't feel like it was out of order before I looked today...I didn't care that there were tons of double contacts and blanks for names and old emails....I didn't even know it was like that. So it wasn't bothering me. I wasn't obsessing over it..."I really need to get my contacts list organized soon!" Nope. But when I saw some things that bugged me and started making some changes, I realized that it WAS something I could bring order to and a project I could COMPLETE.

That's why I mention what's going on in the rest of our lives. I have MANY, MANY things out of order in my life currently. (That's a whole 'nother blog post.) I have MANY things I can't control. (That's a whole 'nother blog post.) I can't delete, merge, fill in the blanks and add to my life until it looks ordered in an hour today. I can't control the details because many things are outside of my control. BUT for a couple hours in one day I can gain order in an irrelevant place that I wasn't planning on focusing....and you know what?...That's ok. There are fair worse things I could obsess about.

You would think that my house would be perfectly clean, straight, organized and wonderful. But it's not. As I mentioned, there's not time to obsess about everything and I understand that. It depends what bugs me at what moment....and I should add, creativity and design scream order to me at times. For instance, check out the picture below. These book shelves are not in order. But they are organized by color and sorted in a way that is asthetically appealing to me and therefore speaks order to me.



Anyway, I'm going to go add that contact to my list now. And then when I'm done making my changes, I will sit back and look at this beautiful;y ordered list with practically no blanks or doubles and breathe a nice sigh of satisfaction. (I know...I'm weird.)