Thoughts for Thursday

Last week I brunched, lunched, and had date night. This week has been pretty much the opposite. Meetings at school, cavity filled, kid drop offs and pick ups, but the weather has been nice so that makes all the craziness better. I will say I keep thinking every day is Friday. I had a pretty intense meeting Tuesday and after it I kept feeling that Friday feeling... so I'm really looking forward to tomorrow.

Random thoughts for today:

My kids see the sidewalk as an invitation for a walk at any time of day, shoes on or off. We'll be playing in the front, or back, or driveway, and off they go. It's really cute until I tell them it's time to turn around.

Katherine has been wearing all of KC's old clothes and it makes me so happy. I associate so many memories with clothing and I love that Katherine has a completely different look so different items really look adorable on her that maybe didn't make such an impression on me with KC.

Katherine loves books. She pretends to read them all the time and has some memorized. Chris and I are a little relieved because as the last of 4 kids she really didn't get the same reading experience the other kids received.

Did you vote early? I took the girls Friday to vote, but we ended up leaving before getting a chance (it's at the library so books took priority). I made a point of telling KC we were going Monday and I needed to vote first. She was upset she didn't get to push any buttons. I even met one of the candidates I voted for when I was leaving. And another candidate attends our church. I'm starting to find local politics really interesting!

Speaking of our church, a couple Sunday's ago the 4th graders were invited up into the bell tower. It was so neat. There are about 5 flights of spiral metal stairs to make it up. Once up they were allowed to play the carillon. I think there are only two in Charlotte. There was also a beautiful view of uptown.

I love spring in our neighborhood. Last fall we planted 3 dogwood trees. They were on super sale at Lowe's but we had hopes. 2 of the 3 made it through the winter and we had one flower. It's silly to say it's exciting but it is. We planted these in memory of our sweet dog who we lost in November and call them Dali's Dogwoods. It's right by the sidewalk and she loved talking walks when we moved here. I'm debating preserving the flower and framing it beside a picture of her.

 The homeowner before us had the best green thumb. She planted some beautiful peonies. I tried to move them this fall to another location, but it looks like I may have just divided them? This bloom was picked over a week ago and is still going strong and my kitchen smells amazing.

 My parents came by to visit Sunday. We spent lots of time outdoors and of course got ice cream.

My dad snapped this and I honestly love this "real" picture. I'm sure N and Chris are talking about some soccer thing, T is glaring down KC for some reason (probably related to taking her "spot" or wanting the rest of her ice cream), KC is asking Katherine for a lick, and I'm making sure Katherine doesn't fall out of the chair. 

Still a big fan of ice cream...

I hope your Thursday is going well. KC wasn't late to preschool, I got in a 2 mile neighborhood walk, and Katherine is currently napping... things are starting off pretty well!

Linking up with Natalie and Annie!

Five on Friday

Happy Friday! I'm on my third cup of coffee after binge watching  The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel last night.

Here's my Five things on Friday!

1. Soccer Saturdays are back! After years and years spending hours at the baseball field I am loving spending an hour at the soccer field for each kid and then having the rest of the day for ourselves. The boys still love soccer, although N says he plays to return to baseball in the fall. Last Saturday both boys scored their first goals (T actually scored 5). It was a big day. The weekend before both of the boys' teams had lost by 10, so this isn't like a super star in the making story. And just as last year, one of my favorite things is we can walk to both fields. This year the boys ride to T's and we walk to N's. There are playgrounds at each field too so the girlies are happy.

2. Chris and I had midweek date night and it was perfect. N had been begging for us to head out so their favorite sitter could come. It was completely last minute but she was free and Chris had to work late so I met him at the restaurant right across from his office. We sat outside for a couple hours eating, drinking wine, then coffee, and listening to music. We left after the musician. I wish we could do that every night.

3. I love when the girlies wear the boys' old clothes (and that happens a lot). Here's a side by side of my two blondie babes.

4. I need a good book to read. I finished Still Me by Jojo Moyes and loved it. I haven't picked up anything since finishing it. I might try Big Little Lies again. I started it after Katherine was born but never finished.

5. That's all I got for today! Linking up with April, Christina and Natasha - have a great weekend!

Coffee Talk

It has rained the past two days which has had me wondering what in the world we did to entertain the kids before spring. I'm up to three cups of coffee a day, two in the morning and one right before the boys get home. Seems excessive. 

 Before the rains hit we definitely lived up to the "playground" part of my blog name. Hours and hours spent on playgrounds. One thing I love about our currently location is there is a park or playground in every direction. The boys play soccer, the girls play on the playground. The boys want to shoot hoops, the girls (and sometimes T) play on the playground, after preschool, the girls play on the playground. I just need to start remembering sunscreen.

Last Friday it was so beautiful I decided we should all walk to N's soccer practice together and then order pizza for dinner. His soccer practice ends after Katherine's bedtime so it was a little risky. She had a blast until the last fifteen minutes. 

I had my first dentist appointment in forever yesterday. And I have a cavity. A big one. I get to go back next week to see if he can clean it out without a root canal. Ugh. While I'm so grateful for a dentist I trust and who is extremely kind, I just hate all of this. I also realized I really need to schedule all my appointments (doctors and hair) before the kids get out of school. It's coming up!

Our ice cream game is still going strong. I consider it self medicating for temper tantrums (mine and the kids). 

Happy hump day! I know this sounds silly but I woke up with absolutely nothing we have to do today. It kind of sounds amazing. Pretty sure a trip to the library story time is in our future.

Thoughts for Thursday

Random thoughts today...

Why is bedtime so miserable? I think I start dreading the whole night time process right about the time I start dinner. The toddler and the ten year old are easy peasy - just tell them it's bedtime and they're out. But 8 and 4 seem to be in the same "make everyone miserable" camp. I pretty sure I'm losing my mind each night, and occasionally losing my cool. Currently, we put the baby in her crib and she's out. We ask N to read to KC in our room, which is super nice and sweet. Then we direct all our attention to T because he's the hardest at bedtime. I wish I could list everything we've tried at bedtime with T and how nothing has changed. It's always a huge rant about how we hate him (because he has to go to bed) and it goes on and on. N hangs with KC until one of us can come snuggle with her because she can't fall asleep withouth someone (and sometimes N falls asleep with her... thank goodness for him). I keep thinking we will get past this phase but honestly bedtime has been hard for about 6 years now... so still waiting.

My two easy sleepers, N getting Katherine up from nap over spring break.

Moving on...I'm pretty excited the "like to know it - instagram relationship" is going away. When I first joined instagram it was people taking snaps from their day. Then slowly it turned into so many staged pictures one right after the other with everything linked. It got harder to keep up with friends. I really like that now you can just swipe through stories of people linking ten million items (and I love you can mute stories of certain people!). I hope instagram goes back to cute daily snaps! 

I ordered these cute suits for the girls from Target. 

T refused to take his lunch to school today because he said N always packs stuff he doesn't like. But I packed his lunch and it's exactly what he ate for dinner (noodles and watermelon). I wrote his teacher to let her know I'm perfectly fine with him sitting without a lunch. I don't play the lunch game.

I remember when I used to blog about how cute and sweet my kids were... haha. We handle our stress with ice cream. It makes everything better. 

Linking up with Natalie and Annie for Thoughts for Thursday. 

The Back-Burner Blog

If I could go back and rename my blog, I'd take this! It was so nice to a week off for spring break. We really enjoyed a break in the schedule and activities. That said we also had to be out of the house because we were having a mold issue remediated. Here's a lesson to learn from us - don't cram so much under your sink that you can't tell if you have a drip. I realized in November the water on our kitchen floor was not from the kids getting water and spilling it. Thousands of dollars later our house, especially the air ducts, are mold and spore free (well not totally free because most homes have mold spores since they occur in nature, but toxic black mold free). Good times. We also learned a lot about asbestos. Seriously, fun times. Can't wait to add that cost into our renovation in a few years. All that said, we still love our neighborhood and home, we just had a quick learning curve to follow on old houses.

A few more random life happenings these past few months:

Our sweet last baby is officially a screaming toddler. She is very vocal with "yes" and "no" which is honestly helpful, but it was even better when she just went along with everything. She eats more than any other kid in our house and everyone comments on it. She starts dinner when I start cooking and is usually still eating her dinner while the bigger kids have dessert. With all that food she's still in the 25% for weight - as of her 15 month check up. She's also learned to conquer the stairs. I remember our ped telling us with our first that we should teach him to go down the stairs backwards. I tried with every single kid to teach them and they never got it. Never even tried to teach Katherine, she just started doing it around 15 months. So she has full reign of the house, which is probably not competely safe but it is nice not trying to figure out how to gate three different stairways.

Basketball season always takes over the winter season in our house. The boys played in a new league this year that we loved and N fell more in love with Caroline basketball. When they announced the Heels were coming to Charlotte, Chris scooped up tickets for the three of us within thirty minutes. I surprised N by picking him up from school early that Friday to head to the game. The Friday game was so much fun (a little nerve-wracking in the first half, but we've grown to expect that from Carolina basketball). Returning on Sunday was definitely not as much fun when they lost in a blowout, but we stayed and cheered on the Retrievers who had knocked UVA out that same weekend.

Over spring break we headed to Lake Tillery with our friends (the same ones we went to Disney with, who also have 4 kids). It worked out well since we had to be out of the house. Neither of us had ever been to the lake but we thought it sounded like a fun adventure. We picked up our little ones from preschool (the older kids were already out of school) and caravanned northeast. N made sure to pack all the essentials - his robotic BB8, his NFL standings board and helmets, every stuffed animal he could find, his pillow, alarm clock, and the blanket from the couch. I edited his bag before it made to the van.

The lake trip did not disappoint. The kids were in love with kayaking, paddleboarding, and canoeing. We planned a hike and a visit to Indian mounds, but eventually scrapped the Indian mound visit to allow them more time on the water. Even after all the cars were packed up on the day we left T had to go out "one last time."

While we were there only 3 of our 12 fell into the lake, and those 3 all share my last name (insert face palm).

T had a birthday coming up over the following week and our friends surprised him with a cake and gift. He had been asking for months for a "dook" cake and of course we refused but our friends made his dream come true. And presented him with a "dook" shirt he has proceeded to wear every other day. Thus ending said friendship.

From the lake we headed to my parents for Easter. My group Easter shot leaves a lot to be desired but it was a fun day of candy, hunts and coordinating outfits.

We celebrated T's birthday (8!) while at my parents and he had a few requests. His first was to visit the Children's Museum. It has the coolest climbing structure outside that he loves. And all my other kids love the inside too. It is definitely my favorite Children's Museum to visit.

We spent the rest of spring break at home, with soccer practice and games resuming. It was a nice way to ease back into our schedule. And with the weather warming up the kids have spent as many minutes as possible outside and it's put us all in a good mood.

That's pretty much the highlights (and lowlights - mold - yuck) of the past couple months. We're definitely looking forward to school getting out, KC's birthday, and days at the pool.