Katie fell asleep on the way to pick up Owen…about three minutes before we got there. 🙁
Category Archives: House & Home
Kids in the pool!
Friends of ours came to spend the night on their way to their OBX vacation…so we took the kids to the pool. I only snapped a few pics because we were busy visiting!
Fairy Camp, Day 5: The Recital
On her last day of Fairy Camp: Mama, there’s a lot of tutu in here!
Waiting for class to start.
Recital time! Tom was able to get off work to come, and it was going to be a surprise for Katie! It was funny because she just kept staring out at me and then Tom and then me and then Tom. I was just happy she didn’t freeze up or cry like Owen has done!
The studio records every ceremony so this is from their YouTube channel:
I took a few still shots…
Getting her fairy wings:
Beautiful dancing:
Her fairy group:
Family selfie!
The post-recital lunch…which Katie walked in and thought it was all for her birthday! 🙂
She LOVED the experience. I would really like her to do another week (they have a Sophia the First camp in August), but full price is $175!! Even with their $25 discount for taking the Fairy class…$150 is too much. (We got this camp via a deal site and I only paid $89! so I’m a bit spoiled!)
Minivan update
So about two weeks after we got the minivan, it just hit me—I’d been liking that everything in the minivan was where I expected it to be or it just worked like I thought it should—as opposed to the Mazda which never seemed to do anything logically. I was telling this to Tom and he said “It’s a Toyota. It’s your Highlander but bigger.”
Ahhhh. That made total sense. I still hate that we own a minivan, but once I started thinking about it as just being a bigger Highlander, I accepted it much quicker. 🙂 And it is a really REALLY nice car with a ton of extras…which helps the transition, too.
The final test will be our upcoming road trip to Michigan. My plan (hope?) is that we will actually be able to see out the back of the vehicle instead of being packed in like sardines like we were with the past two cars!
My tomato picker.
We’re still working on making sure she ONLY picks the ripe ones, but as long as we’re guiding (reminding) her she does great!
She’s in there somewhere!
Chilly Pool
The water was colder than usual (from all the recent rainwater) so she kept getting cold and wanted to sit in her mermaid towel. 🙂
Then it would get too bright so she needed Owen’s towel over her face. 🙂
The kids love riding in daddy’s car!
Tom needed the minivan to go pick up a new (used) couch so I had to use his car to take Owen (and Katie) to swim class. Both kids were completely enamored with his car. Katie wanted to sit right next to Owen instead of sitting in her seat, though. 🙂
Our patio grew today!
What a dad! Tom spent most of Father’s Day adding steps to the patio!
Saturday Dinner #4
We’re still doing our approximately monthly dinners—and tonight was #4! We had two sets of friends on their second appearance…and one newbie couple (neighbors)! It was a bit crazy as the kids outnumbered the adults (just barely) but it was fun as usual!
A River Runs Through It
It’s stormed here before but we’ve never seen this before…a river running through our back yard! Of course, this was during our dinner party, so Tom was grilling in the rain again!
Katie’s dinner attire
We let Owen pick what he wanted for dinner to celebrate the end of the school year. He chose Papa John’s delivery. And he wanted to eat out on the deck!
This is what Katie wore to dinner. 🙂
Our first meal on the deck!
The kids were super excited!
Maggie’s happy again!
She has really missed laying on a sun-baked deck. 🙂
Tom’s weekend project!
Ta da!
A free-standing deck (to avoid needing permits) that lets us use the useless, steep, root-infested ground for our table and chairs! It’s awesome!
In progress:
I am SO glad I have a handy hubby!!
Owen’s doing really well with his swimming lessons!
Today his teacher said that he’s getting close to moving up a level!
Post-Dinner Pool
It was still really warm and humid after dinner so we took the kids to the pool. Katie was in a new bathing suit. 🙂
Owen practicing his swimming!
Pool Party Treat
Tonight was supposed to be the first community pool party of the season but there was some bad weather rolling through so they cancelled it. As it turned out, the weather passed in time, but that’s life. They still gave treats to the people that were there. Katie really enjoyed her Popsicle!
Our old couch is new again.
We sold our brown leather hideaway couch because we don’t really need the extra bed anymore, we wanted to ditch the weight before our next move, it was starting to get a little worn, and we wanted to get some money out of it before it died.
We still had our old L-shaped couch in the basement, so for the time being, we’re just using part of it. The kids LOVED it.
Katie loves to help unload the dishwasher.
Another day, another BBQ.
As soon as we got there, Katie and her friend were two peas in a pod. (They know each other from t-ball games.)
Half of the kids:
We met some more great people, the kids all got along (who doesn’t love a bounce house?!), and the food was amazing! The kids stayed awake until we got home after 10 and even though they looked tired they didn’t want to go to bed!
Our bushes are trimmed!
We went from this:
To this:
Ahhhh. Much better!
I’d get rid of them completely but then we’d have to pay to put something else in. No thanks. (I hate the other lower bushes, too.) GRRR.
I can taste the bruschetta already!
My first harvest of the season!
Our four-bed princess
Maggie likes the pile of beds we have stacked from cleaning up the house. 🙂
So, this happened over a few hours.
The bush was completely normal (aka not in the way) when we returned from baseball yesterday morning.
It was normal all day as we went in and out.
Then people arrived for dinner around 5:30-6:00.
Then it stormed.
Then you can imagine our complete surprise when people were leaving after our dinner and we opened the door to see this jungle.
What?!?!
Nature is crazy.
Saturday Night Dinner
I finally remembered to take a picture of our group at dinner. Tonight we had my good friend Ruth (and her daughter Emily) who came down from Maryland, Frank and Beth (and their two girls) who have attended before, and a t-ball mom Kate (and her daughter) that I befriended recently (unfortunately, her husband had to stay home with their three boys because their behavior had been lacking).
Owen was at our table because we had extra seats and the kids table was filled with four girls. 🙂
Of course, it had started storming terribly at the exact moment Tom needed to be out grilling, but I had the foresight to have him put up our old umbrella so he didn’t get completely soaked. 🙂
We all had an amazing time with lots of laughs and can’t wait to do it again!!
What happens when Katie doesn’t nap.
Doctor Who Family
These are my new decals. They might be my favorite ones yet.
It was a toss up as to which kid was which monster—we decided Owen was more robot and Katie was more creepy evil. 🙂
Food discussion
So, of course I posted all about Owen’s issues and our new decision on a forum with some friends. I love the input I get—often things I’d never have thought of. They gave lots of advice—some things we’ve already tried and some things we just don’t want to do (mainly, let him make a bowl of cereal or a sandwich—himself—if he doesn’t like dinner). We don’t want to let him do that because then he’d just eat cereal or a PB&J every night. And we’re trying to get him to EXPAND his food choices.
The mom guilt part of me agrees that if he wants to make a sandwich he should be able to do that because it’s just food…and if HE makes it, at least I’m not…but the other part of me wants to be a hardass because I’m just SOOOOOO sick of it and dammit, he can eat what’s on the table or go hungry. Yes, I’ve literally reached that point. (All the years of the same issues over and over and over have hardened me a bit, I admit.) I mean, he managed to survive pre-k lunches not liking anything but obviously eating enough to not be hungry so why can’t he do that at home? Also, he’s not always going to be able to make a PB&J or grab cereal—if we’re out or at someone’s house, he needs to eat what’s given (not that it’s a terribly common event).
I just don’t know. Just when I think we’ve come up with our solution, someone else makes a point that changes our minds.
Oh, and to make matters more complicated, it’s also a possibility he could have some sensory processing issues. Sigh. His autism diagnosis has long been retracted, but the doc never did any type of food/texture testing, and I’m struggling to remember if we even answered any questions about it. At the time, we may have just thought he was still just young and being normal-kid-type picky and we were concentrating more on the other areas.
So of course if I pick the hardass route, we’ll likely find out he does have a sensory issue and then I’ll be wracked with mom guilt. But if we go the non-hardass route, we might never even know.
So in the next week I’ll be calling his pediatrician to see what we can get figured out. And in the meantime we’ll see how it goes.
Blurg.
Owen helping weed eat!
Tom shortened the strings so it wouldn’t be as dangerous…and Owen still almost nipped Tom’s leg. 🙂 Needless to say he only helped for a few minutes.
I so wanted to shut her in.
