Wonderful Day

Today was a great day. I dragged us all to the pool. I'm sort of OVER the pool for the summer. My 2 best girlfriends were supposed to be there so I decided we should get the most out of our membership fee as possible over the last 2 weeks. You might have guessed that my friends didn't end up coming but it was such a glorious zero-cloud-low-humidity-cool-breeze day, that I didn't even mind getting stood up.

We stayed for 3 hours and Tim was home when we got back. Cameron took a nap after a little convincing. I'm just not ready to completely retire the naps. I'll let him play trains quietly in his room for at least one hour. Today he fell asleep on the floor...after he pulled all the wipes out of the container. When I got him up, the first thing he said was "wipees". Yes, son, I noticed.

We hopped in the car to get some dinner. I don't often enjoy taking all the kids in to a restaurant. Tim goes in to get the food and we eat in the van, a "van-nic" if you will. We rolled down the windows and listened to Radio Disney. It was a good time.

Then we actually splurged on marble slab ice cream even without a coupon! Tim and I went last week and they have the best Double Dark Chocolate ice cream. Cooper got Birthday Cake ice cream. It tasted freakishly like a grocery store bakery birthday cake. We ate out on the patio and the kids ran around in the grass. We went home and let them run it out some more.

Just a fun day that actually felt like we had our normal pre-MBA school life back. We had daddy back. Even if just for a few hours.

4 months and counting...ooh, I think I need a new ticker!

P.S.- I want to clarify the ticker I set up for Tim's countdown. I'm not delusional and expecting some big 6-figure Fortune 500 salary when he graduates. No, rather the dollar sign represents the enormous student loan we will have to figure out how to begin paying back WITHOUT benefit of that aforementioned 6-figure Fortune 500 salary!!

tired

I'm so tired these days. As much as I was looking forward to summer break, August is here and I'm ready for school to start. 2 weeks until Abbie's open house. I am so ready! It's impossible to keep anything cleaned up with all 3 kids here all the time. Plus, Cameron will not stay in his seat to eat. I find crumb trails all through the house. And mouthprints on the couch where he runs and does his faceplants to wipe his mouth. It's a good thing we have the cheap-o denim couch from Rooms to Go. It's been fantastically easy to wipe clean.

That's all I can muster for now.

All Of Us

Cooper drew a picture for me, from "All of us". Can you guess which one is me?? :)

Belly Flop

My little fishies

Lesson of the Day:

You are not allowed to open you eyes at the pool unless you are wearing goggles :)

Half way there...

Summer vacation is half over. Happy? Sad? Yes! The past few months have been a bit mind-numbing. We had a lot of family business issues that are finally coming to a resolution. I haven't blogged much because Tim really didn't want IT all "out there" and it really was all we were talking or thinking about since May. I'm so glad it's pretty much over. It finally feels like we're getting on with life.

We have had a great "lazy" summer, mostly hanging out at the pool. This is only our second summer joining a pool and we only went a handful of times last year. We joined a new pool this summer and it is really nice. This is week 2 of the group swimming lessons. $45 for 2 weeks of 45 minute classes. I think that's a real bargain. Abbie and Cooper have improved drastically.

I started Abbie with a few private lessons. 10 days ago the most she could/would do was dunk herself up to her forehead. She wouldn't even jump in the pool. Now she's trying to teach herself to dive off the diving board. I'm amazed. And so proud of her. She's a "scaredy-cat" type so we've had many talks recently about saying "I can't do it". I don't like hearing her say that. I urged her to say something more positive like "I'll try it" or "I think I can do it". Within a couple of days she had so much more confidence.

Cooper's class is just focusing on basics like getting their arms and legs to move at the same time! He's finally jumping in...sort of. He wants to jump off the diving board so bad. He's been up there, about 3/4 of the way to the end, probably 6 times. But ends up getting down. Pretty soon he'll just go for it. He's ready to go back to school. He says he misses his friends (2/3 of his class are my best friends' kids that we are the pool with every day) and he keeps asking when his next lunch bunch day is going to be.

Cameron likes to jump in when I catch him but he won't go in by himself. This pool has a small seperate baby pool but the "big" pool starts off at a 2 foot section that is roped off from the main pool. It is so much easier to keep an eye on everyone.

The rest of the summer should be pretty exciting too. I'm in the middle of working with our contractor on the plans for our new deck. If I wait a couple more weeks, I could maybe save on demo costs since the old one is just about ready to fall down. The problems have been trying to work around our septic tank and the fact that we have access to the deck from the kitchen and from our bedroom...on opposite ends of the house. Even if we don't use the access to the deck from our room we still have to have the deck there since it's the second story.

Cooper's 5th birthday is coming in 3 weeks. He wants to go to BounceU so we're going to BounceU and then go get pizza for dinner.

Oh yeah, then there's our 15th anniversary in 4 short weeks. I have nothing planned. I feel like we can't really plan much while Tim's still in school. Maybe we'll just skip this year and do 15 next year! Like I'm going to do with my birthdays from now on.

Tim only has 9 more weekend sessions of school left. That sounds better than 5 more months left. One day...hopefully next year we will be able to finally have a honeymoon. I feel like I say that a lot..."Maybe next year"..."hopefully soon".

Hopefully maybe next year really this time, finally :)

Happy Birthday "Baby" Girl!!

Well it had to be something big to get me back to the blog. What could be bigger than turning EIGHT! We just got home from day camp and so far the highlight of the day was hearing her birthday "shout-out" live on Radio Disney today. She was so excited. While I was talking to the producer I actually got choked up. My baby is eight years old. She is such a big girl now. I had no idea that eight was so grown up. There is nothing that remotely resembles a little kid anymore.

Abbie, I love you so much. My three babies...my heart, my soul, and my spirit. You are my SPIRIT. You are so much like me yet so much more self assured and indepentdent. I can't wait to see where life takes you.

A snapshot of your life on 7-2-2008:

• You finished second grade this year and are considered a "well-above average" student
• You love to read but hate to write
• You like math okay but the timed tests get you every time
• You love science and say that one day you want to invent a car that will run on the sun or wind (techie stuff like daddy)
• You are becoming quite a good artist (creative stuff like mommy)
• You love constellations
• You still can't ride you bike without training wheels
• You love swimming lessons
• Tomorrow your instructor is going to get you to jump off the diving board but you don't know that yet :)
• You love anything Pokemon related
• You are sort of "over" Hannah Montana
• Your favorite song is Bleeding Love by Leona Lewis

Happy Birthday baby girl. We'll have lots more fun and photos to share after Chuck E. Cheese tonight.