First Week of Summer!

 We survived our first week of summer...and actually had some fun, too! The kiddos had to come with me on a few cleaning jobs the first part of this week but they were mostly good sports about it and I tried to balance it out with fun stuff.

Bright and early Wednesday morning, we went strawberry picking! We broke the silence of the clearly serious strawberry pickers with our happy chatter and exclamations over the beautiful red strawberries we found!

And the kiddos all got to try one. Have to make sure they're good!

Samuel's strawberry blends in!

My niece ate more strawberries than she put in the box:)

Zakkai made it a goal to find the biggest strawberries he could!

                  Gosh, aren't they beautiful??! They blow store strawberries out of the water!

Had to do something with the 11 pounds of strawberries! I made some Strawberry Honey Chia Seed Jam with a lot of it and made this absolutely delicious strawberry pie and some strawberry lemon muffins today! The rest I froze for smoothies:)

Then after strawberry picking we met one of my best friends and her girls at a splash park!

Braving the chilly weather;) It was in the mid-60s but none of the kiddos cared! They stripped down and ran into the water. They were a little chilly but stayed active so they had fun!

The boys getting dumped on by a bucket of water:)

 We stayed there for a few hours, eating lunch, playing in the water and on the playground next to it. Then on our way out, the kids wanted to stand on the park amphitheater stage and put on a little show:) Eliana just twirled and had so much fun. I love her serious face!

Chilly!!

Yesterday, I packed up a picnic lunch and we hung out at the park for awhile, after running a few errands. It was a beautiful day! Look how big she's getting!

She loves to climb!

All 3 kiddos loved this climbing thing (whatever it's called!) and spent a long time trying to master it;)

Samuel was so determined to figure out how to get around it.

He worked for so long but finally had to give up. Maybe next time!

Eliana, thoroughly enjoying her peanut butter and homemade jelly sandwich:)

Silly girl!

Then last night, we got to go on a date!! My mom came to pick up the kids and we headed out on our first date since Feb! It was much needed time, especially with all the busyness these days. We had a really good time. We went to our new favorite restaurant "Amul India" where we practically groaned with pleasure while we ate. Seriously. Amazing food.

Then we picked out a new paint-by-number to start! We so loved doing the one last spring and finally got a frame for it to hang it up! We spent the last part of our date getting ice cream and taking a long walk in the park until the thunderstorm started. It was refreshing (the date, not the storm!) and just what we needed!

A great first week of summer!

Happy Birthentine's Weekend!

We have been so unbelievably busy around here! I got 2 new part-time jobs this week, one being another cleaning job and another being a preschool teacher! Eliana's teacher is leaving for another position somewhere else and called me earlier this week to ask if I would finish out the school year. Thankfully, it will work for me to get the boys to the bus stop and then leave immediately for preschool.

 

So now I clean 3 times a week some weeks and teach preschool 2 days a week. Add all regular activities and household errands on top of that and I am swamped! I had to turn down an extra day teaching at the preschool because I just knew I couldn't handle it. On Friday Ben was leaving for work and he said, "Don't take any more jobs today!" haha.

 

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We've had a fun weekend. On Friday night we went to Ben's mom's house and had a birthday dinner for Ben and his grandma, whom he shares a birthday with. It was really fun! We had a yummy Olive Garden dinner and cake and played a game.

 

Yesterday morning we had a special treat and went to breakfast for Ben's birthday! We found a really inexpensive cute diner and had the best waitress! She even put a birthday candle in Ben's toast:) We ran a couple errands and got caught in a white-out on our way home. I have a couple cute pictures from breakfast but my phone keeps dying randomly so I can't get it right now. (gotta love technology!)

In the evening, Ben's mom came over and happily took on our Trio to allow us to go on a date! Can't remember the last time we actually got to go out on Ben's birthday (we don't celebrate the Valentine's Day part of it so he can feel special!) We went out to eat at PF Changs, which we loved and got some cheesecake and browsed at a bookstore. Our kind of date;)

Today it is FREEZING outside, so admittedly we played hookie from church which we never do but we've had 2 late nights and it was -2 out this mornings so....we stayed warm inside! We're having a dinner of popcorn and leftover muffins from breakfast and tucking everyone in their warm beds:)

A great ending to a great weekend!

A Date!!

 I have a GREAT reason for not blogging last night! Ready? We......went on a date! woohoo! One of the perks of living close to family. That and having help when your car keeps breaking down:)

I dropped the kiddos off at my mom's house where they feasted on pizza and watched a movie. They even got to spend the night, which was such a big treat for them! They have never gotten to do this kind of thing. Eliana was excited but a little nervous. She had to call me around 9:30 last night to say goodnight because she was feeling a little sad:( I guess she went right to sleep after she was assured of our love for her:)

We got to eat dinner and do a little Christmas shopping for our babies, thanks to a gift given to us! We have been so blessed! We went from not being able to get our kids anything to being able to get them each a gift, some stocking stuffers and one big gift for them to share. God has really provided for us and we are so thankful.

It was so fun wandering around Target aimlessly without having to reprimand children to stop touching everything they see or wandering off or whatever. We wandered! Who gets to do that?? We got home after 9:30pm and watched a Redbox movie. It was such a great evening!

AND we got to sleep in til 8am this morning! I woke up expecting to hear Eliana calling for me that she had to go to the bathroom but there was only silence. Weird. Last night I missed them so much. Funny, isn't it? They were gone only just over 16 hours and it felt like days! They gave us big hugs this morning and told us all about their fun. They are super tired today so I am hoping for some good quiet time this afternoon!

Yesterday I got Eliana to take a little nap (3 naps this week, can you believe it?!) but she woke up SO grouchy. After trying to rock with her for a bit and get her to wake up slowly, I finally put her back in her bed and told her she needed some more time to wake up and I would wait in my room and when she was ready, she could come get me. She cried for about 5 minutes and then I heard her door shut. I waited a couple minutes and went to investigate and I found her glasses set neatly outside her door:) haha. It made me laugh! Sometimes she just needs some time to wake up slowly. She was back to her happy self about 10 minutes later.

I decided last-minute to do a little ornament craft with the kids this morning. I don't do crafts with them much anymore, like I used to when the boys were little. We did a little salt-dough handprint ornament. The boys put in the ingredients and Samuel kneaded the dough. (He was munching on an apple in the picture.)

We put the handprints on a tray to bake and I let them play with the scraps. Z decided to make a little Olaf:)

Such a tired girl!! I will post pictures after the ornaments dry and we paint them! They got so much pleasure out of decorating our tree this year and seeing all their ornaments they've made at school that I knew another handmade ornament would be a hit!

Plus I will enjoy wiping away a stray tear years from now as I look at their handprints and reminisce about how little they were:)

Have a great Saturday!

Date Night!

Hello, again! I survived a whole day without the computer! Amazing. Who'dda thunk it could be done:) You know what though? It was really nice to have a break from certain things like Facebook. I don't know about you but I often walk away from facebook with a lingering feeling of anxiety or upset due to thing people post or comment on.

Today, one of the first things I saw when I logged on was a really upsetting article that someone posted. Sometimes it's nice to have a break from people's opinions and ratty news for awhile. Ya know? Anyways...

We kept very busy yesterday. Ben went to a class all morning at our church and the kiddos and I did some cleaning and rearranging! We made a nice little art area down in the basement, which looks pretty nice. I had art supplies in different cabinets and places stored out of the way and it will be so much better all together. I'm sure it will be especially nice when it gets warmer out, as the basement is a nice cool place to be. It's just a little chilly down there right now!

And then, dun dun dun!!! Ben and I got to go on a date!! First time in 11 months, folks. Some of our best friends here came over to babysit, to our extreme thankfulness. We have a gift exchange with all my sisters and hubbies each Christmas and the theme this year was date night! We put Missy down early, left dinner for our friends and the boys, who barely glanced up to say goodbye they were so enthralled with the company, and headed out!

We said a prayer as we drove away because we were hoping that Eliana would stay asleep and that we would have a good time, too. God answered both prayers! We seriously had one of the best dates we've had in a long time. Or one of the only dates, ha:)

Unfortunately, we don't know what nightlife is like anymore and stupidly, didn't realize that every restaurant would be super crowded, being a Saturday night and the Saturday just after Valentine's Day, to boot! Our restaurant was all booked up for reservations by the time we thought of it and it was a 2 hour wait time to walk in!

We decided to put our name in anyway and go spend our Barnes and Noble gift card. Talk about leisure! Can I tell you the last time we were able to linger in a bookstore, browsing and even sitting to read and talk for a bit?? Never. It was so fun!

We finally went back to the restaurant to get our pager and had to wait another 35 minutes but boy, was it worth the wait! I'm not sure if they have restaurants in other states but if you have a Maggiano's near you, go for it! Our server was SO nice, the food was absolutely amazing and the company was not too shabby either;)

Hopefully that date will tide us over for awhile til we can have another one! Maybe if we're lucky, we'll get to go out and celebrate the big 10 next month! woohoo.