my little buddy

manning loves being able to do whatever he wants. every day gets to be special - just for him. today he asked to build marshmallow structures like he had done at church a few weeks ago. he was still doing it when the kids got home too.

and then he helped me make dinner. such a big kid. love.

mommy's (and daddy's) nightcap

this summer i have started having trouble sleeping through the night. this has been primarily due to nightmares and an unjustified fear of someone entering our house (we have an alarm system that i obsessively check).

i have been drinking "sleepytime" tea off and on for years - mainly for warmth at night - but then i took a chance on this "nighty night" tea because it was on sale. worth every penny of full price. i have never relaxed and fallen asleep so quickly in my entire life, i sleep through the night and wake rested. matt has even started drinking it too.

and here i am sharing. sleep well! love.

meeting mason's teacher

it might have been maddux' first day of school, but i was off to a parent infromation meeting with mason's teacher tonight. i don't think they could have paired him with a teacher who would be more perfect for him; she loves math, football and is soft spoken. 

tonight was an explanation of the curriculum and how to communicate with her. we were also given the opportunity to see some of their work. there were a lot of superheroes at mason's table group.

here's to a great school year! love.

parent info night

tonight, i was finally given the chance to meet madelyn's teacher. i still hate that it isn't before the school year starts, but at least it isn't six weeks into the school year like it used to be. it was nice to meet her teachers and hear about the plans for the school year.

it is the second, repeat: second, day of school. how does she already have parts of a pencil that isn't one we bought her?!

we are looking forward to a great school year! love.

(not) seeing red

we did it again - we all wore the same color! i didn't even notice until someone pointed it out to us at the library. oh well. great minds and all. love.

she loves us

madelyn left us a little love note before she left for school this morning. love.

indians date night

matt had two tickets for a work outing at progressive field and i was the one who got to go this time! i was super excited because i love the ballpark and always let one of the kids go with daddy. i might have been a little too excited. papa and nana bought me an indians shirt during their visit.

this was actually my first real visit to the entertainment part of cleveland too. i wish that we had time to walk around and explore a little bit.

the game was really relaxing and it was a perfect night for baseball. we were even blown away by the concession options! apparently they renovated last year and invited local restaurants to set up inside the stadium. it was foodie heaven! i had the most amazing veggie dog ever and matt had some fantastic looking nachos. it took it so long to narrow down our options and we covered the whole stadium more than once trying to decide on dinner.

this was a standout date night for sure! love.

living in the word

my bible study was working through psalm 119 and were having conversation about living in the word all day long and how we have lost so much by not having loads of the bible memorized because it is so readily available. so i created a reminder list on my phone to put scriptures that speak to me and have them pop up periodically through my day and through my month. it has been going really well too. my list is just growing too fast!

another friend puts the verse she is working on as her lock screen to see it on a regular basis.

every little bit helps. love.

backseat riding

sweet frog photo shoot

i snapped a quick picture of matt and i when we stopped by sweet frog on our way home from church today. we were using our 20% off coupon from vbs to "reconnect" (that is what it said on the coupon). the boys wanted to get in on the picture love too - but only with mommy. love.

the longest/best day ever

it is "go" day - vbs starts tonight! the kids and i arrived at the church loaded up with food, movies, supplies and a change of clothes for vbs. the kids were amazing! i set them up with movies and food in one of the rooms and they let me make it happen.

notice the sea turtles in the ceiling? the netting i ordered did not have the visual impact intended.

volunteers came and went throughout the day to get their individual classrooms set up (there are 9 rooms under my age group - "preschool"). the kids and i had a little lull to get changed and ready in our vbs gear before dinner (the church feeds the volunteers every night which is a HUGE help and they also provided us a light lunch today).

vbs ready!

we had prepped for 400 kids (we had 350 on average last year) - we had 405 kids! there was a little panic during snacks and crafts and some behind the scenes registration issues to start the night, but overall, the evening went very smoothly.

mason and maddux during opening worship.

all of the "coaches" were asked to wear silly sealife hats. i got off easy compared with some of the other options (like a tie-dyed giant squid!).

madelyn working on a rainbow in her group.

to say that i was exhausted when we got home would be an understatement. we were at church for 14 hours today and i put in 18,000 steps inside the building! crazy, right?!

once we got the kids settled, the vbs shirts into the washing machine for tomorrow and i finally got a shower, i collapsed into a deep sleep.

and then madelyn came in to wake me up. i could not make myself wake up. she had to come back again. why? because she had thrown up! ahhh! so tired. i was finally able to drag myself from bed and limp (my feet were crazy sore) to madelyn's room to take care of the mess and get her back into bed. poor kid.

asleep.

but then mason came in! he had thrown up! noooooooo! on my pitiful sleepwalk to take care of mason's mess and get him set up with a 'bed' on the floor of my bathroom.

please, God. let this be the end of the sickness. this is not the week. good night. love.

zoo day

next week is vbs so we are going to be at the church a lot this week and next week. and i feel pretty guilty about it so today we are spending the day outside (after a quick stop at the church to get some volunteers going on some decoration production). first stop, the zoo on a very hot day (for here) - around 94.

we were all happy to find the penguins very active and swimming when we arrived. they are normally up on the rocks with maybe one or two swimming. they were darting around so much today that i had a difficult time catching them in a picture.

manning was having a morning and wanted a picture on his own.

next to the very adorable snow leopard triplets. they have already doubled in size since we saw them a few weeks ago! they won't look like babies much longer.

we had the otter slide to ourselves (which very rarely happens) so the kids had a great time sliding again and again. mason discovered that could go even faster if he kept his feet up and kept shooting out the bottom of the slide.

there is manning petting the animals again. he loves, loves, loves his critters.

i wanted an updated picture of us all on the butterfly bench like one we have from last year but it was soaked so we settled for just in the same garden. (not that we don't fill the entire frame!)

maddux found this "purple sea star" and wanted to send a picture to nana.

it actually ended up not being all that uncomfortable; there was a breeze and more shade that i had remembered. we had a nice, relaxed time. love.

my little mermaid

one of madelyn's pool friends (she is watched by her grandmother during the summer days and we see her every summer at the pool) let madelyn try out her mermaid fin. madelyn always swims with her ankles crossed to pretend to be a mermaid and was pretty excited.

manning gets tired of swimming before the other kids most trips and lays on me to warm up. today he asked to take some pictures. love.

cavs win!

it was such a bummer that daddy was gone for game 7 of the finals! given that it was such a big game for cleveland, i decided to let all of the kids stay up to watch the game. 

we watched despicable me 2 on another channel while waiting for game time and madelyn and manning were bummed when we had to switch channels before the movie was over. 

manning fell asleep before the pre-game ended. the rest of the kids were on pins and needles with every single shot from the very start. i tried to get them to pace themselves because the game was going to be long (and hopefully very exciting). naturally, we were cheering for the cavs. mason's comment at half-time was that he "thought lebron would be better." that cracked me up.

we watched the game with daddy via text.

we had a super special snack at half-time - goldfish and oreos. maddux fought hard to stay awake, but he couldn't finish the 3rd quarter. 

the game was SO exciting! i had to be careful not to yell with maddux sleeping on top of me. i wasn't sure that mason was going to make it. he was trying so hard to stay awake but his eyelids were winning.

the game was so exciting that madelyn stepped away from assembling manning's birthday legos to sit on the couch and watch the fourth quarter.

and they both made it to the cavs victory! love.

felt board stories

i had accidentally signed manning up for an adult felt board class so i went instead. it was the best $5 i have spent in a long time! we were given the supplies for putting together three felt stories based on books, two general games, a felt board and several other resources for other ideas. not to mention an hour and a half of adult conversation - and fancy coffee.

the kids were thrilled to check everything out when i got home. i was only able to complete two of the stories during the class and had to finish the rest at home. we made pieces for pete the cat (pete the cat and his four groovy buttons), pigeon and duckling (the duckling gets a cookie?) and a book that was new to us tickle monster by edouard manceau. tickle monster has quickly become their very favorite.

seriously, hours and hours of storytelling fun! first the original versions and then combinations of their own stories. we are even talking about making more pieces based on other books they enjoy. love.

field day with mason

thanks to a friend being willing to watch the little boys this afternoon, i was able to help all day at mason's school for their "end of year celebration" (aka field day). the morning was easy because the littles were at preschool, but mason wasn't coming until the afternoon. 

i dropped the boys off at preschool, helped all morning with the 2nd graders, over my lunch break ran to pick the boys up from preschool and got them to my friend's house (maddux' best buddy) before racing back to mason's school and reapplying my sunscreen for the 1st graders and kindergarteners. 

mason doing the plunger ball balance potion of the relay race station i was working.

the all time favorite - toilet toss - but the hardest on the volunteers. it is super hot on the asphalt and there is lots of bending down and picking up.

we couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day. we had pleanty of volunteers and everyone had a wonderful time. we love our school. i can't believe mason is done with kindergarten. love.