A Picture Update: Summer 2020 Week 8: Happy Birthday Auntie Cat!

First up- Happy Birthday Auntie Cat!  We love you and hope you had an amazing day!

As for this week, it went so fast!  Here are some scenes from Monday:

After lunch on Monday we went to visit Boom and Mila!  She was adorable, of course.  And she likes to look at her cousins for pictures, just like Lucy does!

She's a sweet and happy baby.

Later Maya did some "dog training" with Luna on the deck.  

On Tuesday we got a trapeze swing for the swing set and Chris surprised me with a massage appointment. It was delightful, and my hair was crazy because she did a head massage too. 

The girls spent the day with G-ma and Pa.  They went to the beach, played Legos, visited a museum and had a picnic!

Then we had a Hamilton watch party!  The girls watched the first half with us, and we went on a walk before their bedtime.  I have seen it at least 4 times now and it is amazing every time.

On Wednesday there were dentist appointments...

...and the meeting of Hugo the Chihuahua and Luna the Lunatic!  The Held girls came over to play in the back yard and Hugo came too. 

Luna actually did really really really well.  It was exciting that it went so smoothly.

A restaurant near our house has a socially distance patio open, so we decided to try that Wednesday night for dinner.  It was nice to go out to eat for the first time in about 4 months.  Maya was super crabby at first because she wanted to stay home so she could eat a BUTTER BAGEL.  But as you can see, she perked up. Later we took a family walk/scoot/ride.

If you missed my post yesterday, click here! We had a super fun adventure day.  Click here for some video from Fawn-Doe-Rosa.

This morning we walked to the park.  Somehow I always end up being some sort of jungle gym, even at the park! 

G-ma picked up the girls this afternoon for a sleepover! They did some nature exploring and Callie became a nature photographer (see the pic of the bird!).

Chris and I are having a date night that consists of our favorite Indian Food and an Avengers movie in our basement!

Click here for some videos from the week.

I’ll leave you with this comic that G-ma sent me this morning. It could not be more accurate for my life right now. 

Have a lovely weekend. 

Summer 2020 Day of Fun!

This morning I texted Hanna asking what they were up to.  The girls woke up feisty and by 9am were already bored out of their minds.  She responded "How do you feel about a day trip?"  And I said "I feel GREAT about a day trip!"  

So we made plans to meet up at 11:30am, then all piled in my car and headed 1.5 hours away to Fawn-Doe-Rosa and Taylor's Falls.  Uncle Dan was our chauffeur, Hanna, Mitchell, and I sat in the backseats, and the girls sat in the WAY back seats.  It was a blast!

Fawn-Doe-Rosa is a wildlife educational park, where lots of deer, goats, ducks, etc. wander around.  We got a bucket of food and deer came up to us right away!

There were other wildlife behind fences.

Toward the end we wandered over to a big pond to hang out with a few more friendly deer.

Then we got an ice cream break before heading to Taylor’s Falls for hiking and rock climbing.

As you can see, Mitchell was a big fan!

In a time where there is so much going on and so much to think about, it was so nice to drop everything and head out on an adventure for a day!  

Click here for some funny car videos!  I have another video that is taking FOREVER to upload, so I'll do that tomorrow. 

Timehop Tuesday

Ooops! I got all these Timehops ready at like 9am and never actually put them on the blog until 9pm. 

Enjoy!

Can you figure out who all the babies are??

In Training and Unlearning Weeks 6, 7 & 8

Happy Monday!  

I officially completed my 6.2 mile race this morning. 

Hooray! My training has ended (for now- though not my unlearning), and I have decided to donate the last $50 to Beacon Interfaith Housing.  It is an organization that our church supports, and it is the organization that my family volunteered with this past Christmas season.  

From their website: 

For Beacon, we don’t just see it: we’re creating it. We look at the full picture. A community where every person has a place to call their own that they can afford. A community that makes sure resources and caring advocates are right there as people seek stability and next steps. A community where families have neighbors to walk with them when they lose their home. A community where people of faith raise their voices to challenge injustices and shape systems that work for everyone.

I have been thinking about the upcoming change of seasons with so much angst and anxiety...thinking about going back to work (whatever that may look like) and the girls going back to school (whatever that may look like) is stressful.  And I'm a person who has so much privilege.  The idea of having to worry about finances, housing, food, etc. on top of the health and safety of my family would be so overwhelming.  

I'm grateful to organizations like Beacon for doing the difficult work to make our communities better and safer for everyone.

To wrap up, here's a link to each of the resources I found and donated a combined total of $145.85 to:

Week 1: The Black Voters Matter Fund

Week 2: Migizi

Week 3: Brown Sisters Speak

Week 4: The Conscious Kid

Week 5: Fair Fight

Weeks 6-8: Beacon Interfaith Housing

Thanks for coming along on this journey with me.  

Weekend Wrap-Up

Happy Sunday!

This has been a mostly WORK weekend. We sent the girls to Boom’s all day yesterday and they had fun with ALL THE LEGOS ALL DAY.

Meanwhile, Chris and I were back home doing major cleaning upstairs....the girls’ floor of the house.  And guess what Callie has the gall to say as she left at 9am, knowing that we were going to be cleaning up HER CRAP?

“Mom, I don’t know how you stand cleaning! When I’m older my kids are going to clean up after themselves.” 

Um...WHAT.

Good luck with that.

Anyway, here’s what Chris and I looked like ALL DAY:

Ok, so we worked from 9-3 or so, and we got Callie’s room and the playroom done.

When Cal got home, she was very excited. And told me this was the best her room has ever been. So maybe that makes up for her earlier comment. Maybe. Ha!

This morning I was planning to complete my Urban Wildland Virtual 10K, but alas Bloomington weather wasn’t having it. So thankfully there is flexibility with virtual races and my plan is to complete it tomorrow!  Instead I had some coffee and did a bit of my puzzle, and then started on Maya’s room.

I spent a couple of hours in there and it was transformed!

During lunch we watched the Lynx season opener. It is so exciting that they started to play again, and I hope that they are all able to stay safe and healthy. 

After all the work of the weekend, we were able to play this afternoon! We went to G-ma and Pa’s house to hang out with them, Uncle Dan, Auntie Hanna, and Mitchell. Mitchell was the king of the afternoon on, of course. So adorable.

Have a great week!

A Picture Update: Summer 2020 Week 7

I truly don't know how we are already done with 7 weeks of summer.  It happens every year, and every year I forget how fast time flies.  Uffda!  Here's a snapshot of our week!

Monday and Tuesday: Because our weekend was so busy, Chris didn't get to make Eggs Benedict.  So he did it on Monday morning instead!  And then Maya had fun drinking from the sprinkler with Luna, and Luna was a sweet girl.

Wednesday: G-ma and Pa took the girls to Centennial Lakes for mini-golf, lunch, games and cookies!

Luna continued to be needy sweet, and the girls had fun on the swing set.

Thursday: THE BIG BIRTHDAY!!!  All the preparations were done the night before, and the very excited birthday girl was up at 6am.  We had presents and breakfast done by 8am!

We met the Helds at the splash pad for some birthday morning fun.

Callie, Charlie, and Mabel waited for 6 MINUTES for this giant bowl to fill up and dump on their heads.

Then there was lunch, and a backyard party with the neighbor boys!

The kids made "Dirt Dessert" with pudding, cookie crumbles and gummy worms.

And the final birthday celebration was a picnic with G-ma, Pa, Auntie Cat, Uncle Dan, Auntie Hanna, Mitchell, Luna and Shambles!  It was "Mermaid" themed.

So there was a round of "Pin the Tail on the Mermaid."

Maya opened presents, and there was another clear theme...TWINS!  She got 2 Mermaid Barbies, a set of Elsa and Anna dolls, and a double stroller for her Luke and Lucy twins that live at G-ma and Pa's house!

Auntie Cat's birthday is coming up, so we got to celebrate her too!

G-ma made brownie cupcakes, but it was pretty windy so Maya just pretended to blow out the candles. 

 

And she nailed the selfie with the fam (ok, it took a few tries, but she did it eventually).

As you can tell, it was a really fun day!

Friday: A deer followed me a bit on my run.

The girls and I walked/biked to the park before it got too hot.

Chris was done working at 3:30 and we were at a loss of what to do. It’s so hot, so being outside anywhere  wasn’t really an option.. So we all piled in the car for a family trip to the grocery store! And Callie found the Eiffel Tower of bread.  

That’s about it! Click here for a few videos from the week, and have a great weekend!