Moving on Up

Nora rapped up her summer sessions of swimming lessons this morning by getting the go ahead to move up to the next/highest level. The rest of the day was spent doing laundry and getting to work on packing and cleaning up. So much to do and we're supposed to leave sooooo soon. Also, I'm not really feeling as much of a sense of urgency as I should be...I've been in bed and sound asleep by 9pm more than once this week. Soo randomly tired! Without having late night work sessions prep for our trip is going at a snails pace with mowing and packing and car clean out left to go!

Tappity Tap Tap at Target

Today's post swimming lessons, pre-trip stop was a snack related Target run. Fun fact we discovered today...Target sells tap shoes! Sooooo for today's episode of draining every last drop of mom's patience before lunch-time there was a 25 minute (not joking) tap shoe try-on session for Nora and Lincoln that concluded with a brief test run in the middle of the store. I will say this...Nora's excitement was pretty fun to watch and her determination and commitment to properly fit her brother with his own tap shoes was admirable as well! Now she's on a mission to save her dollars to get herself some real live tap shoes while I'm saving my dollars to have to refinish our floors!

Summer Stuff!

As we prep for our annual trip to Ohio, I asked Lincoln's teacher, Miss. Jessica, to work with him in a life jacket, just so he had a little experience in the water with it on before we went boating. The way he comes out of the water makes me laugh every time!

After swimming lessons we made a quick smoothie stop and then popped over to the ABC store to pick up some Florida beers to take North with us. Pro-tip: smoothies keep tummies AND hands full while in a store with lots of kid height things to touch...BUT can also be spilled by toddlers while mom isn't paying attention!

And finally, to solidify the start of summer Nora and I traded ankle bracelets. She picked out her colors for two different bracelets (I owe her one more) and taught her how to make a simple one...which she made for me. Ankle bracelets on = summer in progress!

All Together Now

It's a fresh week and with a big trip looming in the very near future I decided to take on a huge project today in order to try to reign in mess we're dealing with all over the house. The playroom seems to be the bell weather for the state of the rest of our house and when all three combine their play powers it doesn't take long for the wheels to fall off! It took a whooooooole lot of patience and encouragement (and maybe an adult beverage) but eventually our team effort resulted in

a playroom ready to be played in, and probably made a mess of again. Otto is a force to be reckoned with in that room!

Make Lemonade

Today was a big day for Nora. After WEEKS of asking and asking and asking and asking all of her pieces finally fell into place and she got to make her homemade lemonade and take to the sidewalk! She set up across the street for easier pedestrian access and despite the scorching heat and blazing sun she sat out there like a champ (so sweetly requesting I sweat sit with her and gave away lemonade to whomever would stop. She had a few kinks to work out but eventually got the hang of it. As much as I didn't want to sit out in the sun today it was fun to hear her talk about what she was expecting from her first lemonade stand and what didn't quite live up to her imagination. No long line of people on the sidewalk waiting for lemonade...just 4-5 nice people who stopped and were surprised that she was giving away such tasty fresh lemonade!

Aside from Nora's kindness project of the day I managed to accomplish somethings today (despite staying up until ALL hours binge watching Queer Eye) Anyway, I updated all the CHAD cards on the carseats. It's something I try to do periodically, especially before trips and give myself a little high five when I get it done. For those that don't remember, it didn't apply to at the time or may not have been around back in the day when I first talked about them, it's an info card that can be filled in and put on your child's carseat. That way, if anything were to happen and you weren't able to go with your child to the hospital or weren't able to give information about them it is available to first responders. I print them out, laminate them and then use packaging tape to put them on the side of each carseat. Because it's laminated under the tape it can easily be removed and taken with each kid without ruining it. I also keep one for each of them in the diaper bag, one for Otto in the Ergo and Lincoln & Nora each have one in their back packs for the airport. Nora and Lincoln both know that even if they're scared and don't want to talk in an emergency all they have to say is check my carseat or if it's safe they can just show the helper where to look. They also know that if we get separated at the airport, etc they have their card to show a helper in a uniform. If you want one go ahead and download the pdf file here - I use Word to fill it in.

Working Together

This is one Christmas gift that is going to give until there's literally nothing left. They might take a couple weeks off here and there from wrapping their wounds but then I wander in to find very collaborative ankle treatments and Nora giving taping examples and walking her brother through what she needs to do to help his "hurt ankle". I love these very fleeting peaceful moments when there's no screaming and I can actually breath for a second during the day! Speaking of screaming oh Lincoln...my little swimmer is not loving it so much the last few lessons...I think there's some contagion going on at the pool...hopefully it'll get figured out soon

He's Back!

It seems that every afternoon these two have some sort of brawl. It's always a slow boil and despite best attempts to redirect them or introduce a new activity they always have to get the fight in and over with. To say that I'm over it after this past weekend would be an understatement! So, as you can imagine, we were all pretty darn excited when Kyle got home tonight!

The kids were quick to present him with his Fathers' Day gifts and one of his favorite dinners was ready and waiting for him when he got home too. Before a family walk Kyle gave each of us a souvenir from the Open too. Now we just have to get through the rest of the week with hopes of catching up next weekend!