Five on Friday

Time for a little random Five on Friday! This week has felt crazy long. Tuesday I kept thinking it was Thursday which means my week felt two days longer.

Happy St. Patrick's Day! This is a holiday I never knew people celebrated until I moved here. Growing up we wore green and that was it. Now it's a huge deal with a visit from the leprechaun, gold coins, soda bread, a parade and green everything. A preschool teacher once told me it's because Charlotte has so many people from up north where it's an even bigger deal. I honestly have no clue if the boys even wore green today. The girls are in UNC gear.

It's the second most wonderful time of the year!! March Madness! I love having the games on and it brings back such great memories of watching the games growing up (we always got to watch at school). We had everyone fill out brackets. KC chose her teams based on mascot (there's a cute video on my instagram). Three of us chose UNC to win it all, one chose dook (of course), and KC picked Villanova - or the Angry Bird to win it all. I laughed when I saw President Obama had dook and UNC in the final game and UNC winning it all. Apparently he wants another rematch.

Baseball games start this Saturday. Both boys have moved up a level. We have four hours of games scheduled for Saturday evening. And then 4 games and 2 practices next week. And it's a RECREATIONAL league. Chris keeps telling me I have a bad attitude about it. And I do. That's a lot of time. Bring back basketball.

Katherine started rolling over. It makes me want to cry. I want her to be my baby forever. She has the sweetest personality so far. It's quite the difference from the 2.5 year old who enjoys screaming what she wants and kicking off her shoes in a tantrum when she doesn't get it. (KC has her super adorable moments though I can't make her sound like a total nightmare).

In my shining moment this week I wrote two thank yous to neighbors. I had the boys run one over earlier this week. Then the other was delivered yesterday. The second one was returned by my sweet neighbor saying I mixed up the envelopes. Yay me!

Have a great weekend!! Linking up with April, Christina, and Natasha :).

Balance - part 2

I think the hard thing about being a mom is there's really not a good measure of how you're doing. Some mornings I bask in the snuggles of an infant, dance around the room with a toddler, play soccer with a first grader, and read a good book with a third grader.

Then there are the days the infant cries all day and I don't know why, the toddler screams because she wanted peanut butter on her bread instead of cream cheese, the first grader forgets his reading book for the tenth time, and the third grade has an attitude because you asked him to tie his shoe. 

More often my day is sweet snuggling in the morning with the attitude in the afternoon, or the morning completely frazzled by the little ones and an afternoon of two boys helping me without being asked. The balance of the two keeps me motivated like I'm doing okay, but then humbled like maybe I'm screwing things up, which in turn is motivating. And then I say a prayer. Ha.

And now for some obligatory snow pictures. I was hoping for one more snow and I got it, for about 3 hours. We had pancakes, played outside, and by 1pm the sun was out and it was spring again.

I hope your week is going well! It is absolutely freezing here and our best friends are coming over to play this afternoon.

Monday Musings

Once again random thoughts for today. I hope everyone had a good weekend. They do fly by!

N's class read The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane and he loved it so much he wanted to read it again at home. We just finished it and I cannot believe I hadn't heard of it before now. What an amazing story. In graduate school we studied Because of Winn Dixie by Kate DeCamillo so N and I read that earlier in the school year, but Edward Tulane is by far my favorite of hers now.

A friend gave me Big Little Lies and I'm really enjoying it (when I get a chance to read it). I love the style the book is written in, it almost reminds me of Where'd You Go Bernadette.

I am loving monthly meal planning. Except today I realized I don't have the ingredients for tonight's dinner and the next expresslane pick up is tomorrow morning. I may actually have to go into the grocery store :gasp: - or I'll just search Harris Teeters until I find one with a pick up today... a little more likely. 

Tomorrow my sweet baby turns 3 months old. She is such a good baby. Yesterday I set her in her crib to go through some clothes and she just fell asleep. I've never had a baby that just falls asleep. Normally there's bouncing, rocking, nursing, the talk of a car ride, and lots of sweating. She also likes to nurse with her feet crossed at the ankle - such a lady already.

I really want to start a monthly post on what my toddler wore vs what I wanted her to wear. It's like a running joke these days. Here's two recent ones:

For the UNC game I'd picked out this cute dress, bow and diaper cover. 

She picked a tshirt (with N's name on the back), navy pants, elmo socks, and "neekers"

Another day Chris dressed her and she came downstairs in a Cookie Monster shirt, heart leggings, and bunny shoes. 

I convinced her to change into a white shirt (it says Big Sister), green ruffle shorts, and we compromised with bee boots. Oh and I even got a bow in her hair!

I also always said I wouldn't be the mom with all the fuzzy iphone pics. And yes I'm the mom with all the fuzzy iphone pics.