mommy guilt and other things i've been up to.

Hey there!

It just dawned on me that I used to have a blog.

Once upon a time I would take hundreds of pictures a day with my big-girl camera,

and post on my blog near daily

and keep a grand record of our days.

Now I'm doing good if I get the breakfast dishes put away by dinner time

and don't fall asleep on the couch by ten.

The crazy level has amped up quite a bit over here,

but all is well.

This is my first stop every morning.

My in-laws gave us the Keurig they've never used.
It makes me very happy.

Life is crazy now,
but once soccer ends in a few weeks I know our lives will quiet down a little.
But I'm always sad when soccer ends.
Saturdays during soccer season are really my favorite.
Especially games with skies like this.
Isn't that the best soccer weather?



A couple of weeks ago Gary and I had a Saturday when all three kids were at
a birthday party for the day.
Instead of our usual date at Home Depot to do house stuff
we hopped in the car and drove to the beach.



It was just the two of us.
We stopped at several vintage pop-up shops that I'd had my eye on,
grabbed lattes together,
and sat on the beach watching the surfers.



We still like each other.
It was a good Saturday.

Someone has been taking cooking class every Wednesday afternoon after school,
and someone thinks it's pretty much the best thing ever.



I've realized that baths that don't require a hair-washing are my favorite.



One of the realities of going back to work is that
I've been dealing with a fair amount of guilt lately.
I missed Avery's field trip to the pumpkin patch...
I'm not volunteering in the kids' classrooms like I used to...
Riley was home on his birthday but I had to work.
Mommy guilt is an evil thing.



How did this guy turn twelve already?
If the mommy guilt wasn't making me emotional enough,
I looked through his baby pictures yesterday.



Oh, time.
Why must you be so cruel?

But time is good, too.
Because this afternoon, after the busiest week I can remember,
we spent two hours at the park and they played.
They laughed and ran and I sat on the bench and watched
and felt no twinge of mommy guilt.



It was a good day.

i have crowded brain syndrome.

My brain has been filled to the brim lately with STUFF.
So much stuff that this space has taken a big back seat.
Sorry.
Hi.
How are you?
What's new?

Me?
Oh, just life stuff.
Nothing bad, just regular life stuff.
Kid stuff.

I think it's funny that when I first became a mom,
I worried about so many things:
...is he getting enough tummy time?
...did she eat vegetables today?
...am i getting him on a schedule?
...am i teaching her to be wary enough of strangers?
...is he learning his abc's slower than his classmates?

All of those little things I worried about seemed so big when the kids were babies.

And now that the kids are getting older,
I'm realizing that was the easy stuff.
As the kids get older, the stuff gets tougher.

Not because he is a tough kid.
He's not.  He's the opposite.
He's lovely and funny and clever and so crazy CRAZY smart.
Way smarter than his mom and dad.
And we want to make sure we make the right decisions for that kid.

And he still wants to dig holes in the dirt.



Oh how I love that he still wants to go outside and dig a hole.



I wish I would have stressed less when he was a baby.
If I had known that the tougher stuff comes later,
I wouldn't have worried about whether he was walking by his first birthday.

Anyway.

This weekend was gorgeous.
If you're ever looking to visit the bay area,
think about doing it in March.
Or September.
It's perfection.



Sunday afternoon we headed out for a little adventure.



And we took a little hike.
My hamstrings are sore to prove it.



There is something about sunshine and green hills
that are good for the soul.



I'm telling you...March here is perfection.





Ohhhhhh...the rope swing.
They could have done it for an hour if there wasn't a big group of teenagers
waiting right behind us for their turn.



Avery swung too,
but I was too nervous to take her picture.
I was sure she was going to fall.
The picture is deceiving,
but it was a pretty big drop from from the rope to the ground!
But she didn't fall.  Unnecessary worrying.
Again.



Perfection.
I won't say it again...promise.

We had to make a decision recently,
and I'm hopeful that my brain will be a little less crowded with 'stuff' now.
{i'm pretty sure there's a joke there somewhere.}
Maybe I'll even blog more than once a week!
Changes are a'coming, and it's all good.
It's all good because God is good and faithful
and He loves those kids of ours even more than we do
and has great plans for them.

That's good stuff.

being thankful for crazy.

We're coming off of a crazy weekend.
But it was one of those weekends that make you realize
how good the crazy is.

For the past several months Gary has been coaching Riley
and six other fifth graders in the Odyssey of the Mind competition.

Odyssey is a "competitive educational program that provides kids with problem-solving opportunities".
In plain English...the kids are given a SUPER complicated open-ended problem
to solve and present to judges.
Riley's team had to create a structure out of balsa wood that weighed no more than 15 grams
{the equivalent of three nickels}
and that would hold as much weight as possible.
And present that structure to the judges in a skit.
The kids had to do ALL of the work themselves.



So every Monday and Thursday, since December, these seven kids have been
meeting at our house working on their task.



Their structure ended up holding 30 pounds before it broke.


{for a little perspective: the team that won the high school division
made a structure that held 540 pounds.}



It was really neat to hear these guys, week after week,
brainstorming and creating and learning and laughing through it all.

And I've got to say...my husband is the best coach.



He's the epitome of patient.
And a great problem solver with a crazy analytical mind.
{basically the polar opposite of me.}
I listened to him talking to the boys and thought, "he'd made an awesome teacher".

There were 200 teams in the competition.
This is the awards ceremony for half of them.
{this was one sweaty, stinky gym.}



They didn't win the competition,
but they were happy with their performance
and they had fun.
And we were all so proud.



These are a good group of kids.

Sunday after church we had the afternoon to ourselves.
We ran errands and just spent the day being the five of us.
The weather was gorgeous,
there wasn't a cloud in the sky,
and went out to Mexican for dinner.
It was a good day.



Sometimes I complain about always having something to do,
and not having much down time.
But I would not trade these experiences with the kids for anything.
I know this season of our lives is so short.
One day they'll be gone and I'll have plenty of down time,
and these will be the memories I cherish.
Not those rare moments where the house is empty
and I can vacuum in peace.

This week...I'm thankful for the crazy.

reminiscing.

I was looking through my flickr photostream today trying to find a picture.

Such a bad idea.

I got sucked into looking at pictures from a few years ago
when the kids still had chubby little hands and baby faces.
Wah.  Time stinks.

Avery at our old house in April 2010:
Those piggy tails.  Sigh.



And I miss that kitchen.

Baby bowl and spoon!
I don't have any of those in my kitchen anymore.
How can that be?



I can't even handle this.



Crazy kid.



Now I want to cry.  She was one.



Oh those little people.













And one of my favorite pictures of her.  Ever.



Seriously.  Babies in sponge rollers.  It's the best.

And now my boys wear deodorant
and that baby was singing Poker Face this afternoon.
I'm off to go cry a little.

the last little bit.

Well I can see the door closing on summer 2012.
And I'm sad.

On one hand I'm kind of ready to get a routine back.
I'm ready to have time to run in the mornings.
That has really been lacking this summer.

But on the the other...I'm not ready for my kids to be gone.
The house is always SO quiet when they first go back.
And for the first time, my little partner will be in school all day.
She's so excited about kindergarten.
She keeps asking me how many sleeps until school starts.
She's ready.
{wah}
And I can't' believe that this will be the only year where all of my kids
are in elementary school.
The only year they'll all be together.
This is Riley's last year of elementary school.

I.  hate.  time.

So for the next week or so we're just trying to squeeze the last drop
out of summer.

The kids had their last swim meet last weekend.
It was freezing.
We have a non-traditional type of summer weather over here.
July and August are kind of chilly here,
but September and October are AWESOME.




Avery is {{this close}} to being a swimmer.
She competed in the kick board race.  :)

That donut looks so good right now.

I'm hungry and I'm not going to get anything to eat.

And I'm trying to lay off of sugar.

Ugh...I hate that donut.

Avery had a friend over today and they played in the curtain for an hour.
They thought it was the funnest game ever.
They dragged in chairs and toys and popcorn and sunglasses.

Colin was reading on the stairs.

Riley was reading on the couch.



It was kind of a quiet hour.
I liked it.

And this evening,
just before the sun left our yard,
they begged to play on the slip and slide.
I really didn't want to get it out,
because I knew they'd play on it for twenty minutes and then be done.
But I said yes anyway.
And those twenty minutes were pretty fun.

The twenty minute slip and slide session was the perfect way to end our Tuesday.

We have a few more days of summer
and I'm going to try and cram as many more fun sessions in as we can.
It's going fast.