A Full Day, You Might Say!

{This post was written LAST weekend.  Proof that I can write...and then get lazy about pressing the PUBLISH button.  I'm trying, Y'all!}

Towards the end of the day yesterday, we began to recount all we'd done and accomplished.

- Worked on school projects.

- Daddy went to the hardware store and got a $7 gadget to fix the garbage disposal.  SCORE!

- We at lunch at 10:30...seriously...to allow us time for afternoon activities.

- We left the house at 11 to drop off one car at the dealership.

- We went to the university and dropped off the girls for their first Super Saturdays class.  They were a bit nervous, but super excited!

- After their classes, we went downtown to enjoy a snack...hot chocolate and a cookie were well-deserved!

- We picked up the car at the dealership and all headed home.

- 30 minutes of Quiet Time was well-deserved by this mama!

- We got dressed in workout gear and the girls and I headed to the climbing gym.  We were super disappointed when we arrived to see it was jam-packed.

- We buckled back in and decided to knock out our grocery shopping...sans list!  Living on the edge, I tell ya!

- We picked up boiled shrimp at the grocery and came home to that for dinner.  Easy-peasy.

- We hung out with the cats in the den uncharacteristically late...it was 8PM when the girls went to bed!

WHEW!  No wonder the weekends evaporate!

Thanks for the Memories, August!

August has been a whirlwind!  I CANNOT believe that the girls have been in school THREE WEEKS today.  (I guess that explains where the time has gone!)

So...before the month ends, here is {one} first-day-of-school picture.  The girls posed like this on their own...look at those long legs!!!

Despite the back-to-school busyness, we've packed in a lot of fun, too...

...several trips to the library to keep these girls entertained...

...a mommy-and-me trip to the trampoline park, where these girls gave me a run (er, jump) for my money...whew!

...a family trip to the yogurt shop (during which Daddy agreed to a selfie!)...

...and the kickoff of the soccer season...

I'm supremely thankful, among all this BUSY, that the girls still made time for play at home.  Here they are, having "built a TV", putting on a show for Mommy and Daddy before bedtime.

~ Thanks for the memories, August 2016! ~

A Birthday to Document

(This post may be late, but the girls' birthday celebration was not!)  :)  The girls' birthday fell on a Tuesday this year, so we celebrated as a family the Sunday prior.  Going back to their first birthday, I like to document the day play-by-play, and I can only capture so much when they're in school.

So...two days prior to turning the big SEVEN...here's how our babies spent the day!

The girls requested French toast with homemade syrup.  I made strawberry syrup, and it was delicious!

Four thumbs up!

After breakfast, the girls did a little reading with Daddy...

And then it was time to open gifts!

The kitties even helped.  :)

The girls got lots of new books!

And they had to dig in right away...

After the girls each consumed a book, they each started building a wooden model they got.

Can you see me now???

 Baby A was super proud of her helicopter!!!

And B loved her tyrannosaurus rex!

ROAR!!!

 After their models were complete, the girls got an envelope to open.  It was full of clues...

...which ultimately spelled, "GET DRESSED WARMLY AND GO LOOK OUTSIDE".

To the girls' delight, they found SCOOTERS!!!  And we were incredibly lucky we had not-too-freezing weather to enjoy them!!!

The girls worked SO hard learning to balance...

After lots of concentrated practice, we decided to break for lunch.

We planned to go to Yuki for our traditional birthday sushi...but we didn't realized they were closed for lunch on Sundays.  We went instead to the Bistro and had a wonderful lunch.  The girls even got to enjoy a very special dessert!

After some much-deserved "quiet time" that afternoon, we donned our coats (it somehow seemed colder!) and got in some more scooter practice.

It was incredible how, after that little break from the morning, the girls seemed to pick right up and be able to RIDE!!!

They posed like this themselves!

We all had a wonderful day, celebrating SEVEN.

Super Stuff from a Sunday

Sunday was a really busy…but really good…day.

I think this is the first time I remember the girls waking up early, talking about something exciting.  Their clock usually turns green at 6:30, and it’s very rare I hear from them beforehand.  Sunday morning, though, it was in the neighborhood of 5:40 when I heard B “talking”.  It wasn’t long before A called me to take her to the potty.  When I went in their room, B said, “Mommy!  Tomorrow we get to start our countdown calendar!”  It dawned on me that’s what had them so excited.

I made cinnamon rolls (not homemade) for breakfast, and then the girls watched me get a chicken dish in the crockpot and a cake in the oven.

The girls played a little bit while I cleaned up the kitchen, and then they joined me at the kitchen table.  While I addressed holiday cards, they did some Christmas drawings.  We just got our Christmas books out on Friday, and that was clearly their inspiration.  They kept drawing manger scenes…they were there, as were different animals…and there was always a Baby Jesus.  Except sometimes Jesus looked like a cat.  (It’s the thought that counts, right?)

The girls made a Christmas collage for Daddy to take to work with him, and then they supervised while I put the garland on the mantle.

We turned on some Christmas music to keep us focused.  The girls weren’t too keen on *my* music (a collection of Top 40 hits through the years), but they were grooving strong to a kids’ sing-along CD.

Daddy came home and we had lunch, and then the girls watched me make icing for my cake.  They kept saying, “It looks like a wedding cake, Mommy!”  That’s gotta make a mama feel good.  :)  I made a couple of cupcakes for them, and they had a great time trying their hand at decorating.  I was impressed they both managed a letter “S” [for Sasha, of course].

While the girls enjoyed some “quiet time” with Daddy in the basement – watching a show on Animal Planet – Mommy ran a couple of quick errands.  When I got home, the girls were playing a made-up game of Duck-Duck-Goose.  Since they only had two players, they enlisted a big exercise ball…when the ball was the “goose”, they had to work together to push the ball around the imaginary circle…which drove them into hysterics.  I was in hysterics, too, watching them playing together.

At last it was time to put up the Christmas tree, and the girls were ecstatic.

They were on Carpet Watch, picking up any of the “needles” that fell from the tree as Daddy and I assembled it.  They were pretty patient through us putting on the lights.  At last it was time to decorate!   

They got each ornament out of its box, and rang every bell that we had.  They kept wondering which bell Sasha would like on the bottom of the tree, to ring with her tail.  They laid out a couple for her to examine, and she graced us with her presence and sniffed the bells, which thrilled the girls.

The girls did a really good job of hanging the ornaments.  Baby A kept asking me to pick her up so she could reach a higher branch.  I did that once…before discovering she’s too heavy for me to hold like that for very long!  Gulp.  That then became Daddy’s job.

It was so cute to hear the girls say, “Oh, I remember this one!”  and, “I remember making this in the three-year old class!”

This year, for afternoon snack, the girls got to have the cupcake they’d iced.  I couldn’t believe they remembered their snack from December 1 LAST YEAR, when we put up our tree.  “We had popcorn last year, Mommy.  We sat in the foyer and ate while you and Daddy put up the tree.”  Wow!

Even on such a busy day, we’re creating memories, alright…and I love it.