Whew, it has been a busy couple of weeks! So much busier than I expected them to be. Life is definitely full. I’ve barely had time to even sit down at my computer, much less write out a blog post. But I miss it! So I thought I’d try and recap everything that’s happened since my last post.
Summer School
Summer school is in full swing. The boys go there from 8:30-1:00 every day. They took the same sports class and dance class. They both also have an engineering class, but different levels. And Caden is in coding – his favorite class and Shepard has art – his favorite. They find each other at lunch so they can always eat together. It’s kind of adorable. Even though they fight so much at home, they really do have such a close relationship. I hope it’s always that way. Overall, summer school has been going pretty well. We had one pretty tough day last week when Shepard claimed he was sick, so I let him come home and he clearly was fine. Trying to get him back to school was a nightmare. Deja vu of last summer when every single day of class was about the worst day of my life. Though worse this year because he knows better! I’m not sure what that was all about last Tuesday, but he’s been fine again ever since.
Walking
Every year since Caden first started speech therapy summer school when he was three, I’ve used that time to go on long walks. It’s one of my favorite parts of summer. This year has been no different, except that I have a dog accompanying me. Last week was really hot, so it was hard to walk for too long, but we still got a bit of time in. This week with the temperatures much cooler, Annie and I have been going for two, three, four mile walks every morning. It’s definitely more of a challenge with her in tow, but I love to have the companionship. It’s one of the reasons I really wanted a dog and I’m glad I’m sticking with it and making this happen. Plus it’s just really good exercise! For the last week and a half I re-devoted myself to reaching a step goal every day. I’ve also started counting calories. Which some days has really sucked. But overall I’ve been feeling better and have a lot more energy. So I’m going to try and stick with it.
Therapy
Last week Greg and I met with a child psychologist to talk about our struggles with Caden. Or…Caden’s struggles with us. It was more of an introductory session and we’re going back today with him. I liked this psychologist much better than the one we tried a few years ago. I hope it goes well. For all of our sakes. But I think Caden could really use the help and I’m hoping he’s old enough now to understand why he’s there.
Wonder Woman
Last Friday we went to see Wonder Woman. We went as a whole family because Greg really wanted to see it and it’s just so much easier to not find a babysitter! It’s kind of exciting that the boys are getting older and we can do more things like this, though.
The boys spent the whole moving basically crawling all over Greg trying to find the best cuddling positions. It was a little long and slow for Shepard’s attention span. And he kept asking questions at normal volume. But as Greg pointed out, he bought tickets first and the only other people there picked seats right next to us, so it was their own fault they had to listen to Shepard’s talking during the movie! 🙂
Early Father’s Day
We had sort of an early Father’s Day celebration with Greg’s family on Saturday night. His sister Melissa and her boyfriend Andrew were in town, so we wanted to spend some time with them. We had a nice dinner, gave Grandpa his presents, and played Codenames. After another outrageously hard day with Caden, it was a nice way to end the night. Look at that smile above. There’s definitely a happy kid inside of him. I just wish it came out more often.
Father’s Day
Sunday was Father’s Day. Greg decided to have a relatively low key day at home. We let him sleep in as late as he wanted, made him his favorite cherry coffee cake for breakfast, and gave him his presents.
Such happy smiles. 🙂
Oh how I wish Shepard could stay so small and adorable forever. All his smiles and giggles make me so happy.
They are always so highly amused by the cards that they make.
Very funny. 🙂 We gave Greg a video game he’s been wanting, two pairs of shorts, a Guardians of the Galaxy Mad Libs, and a book about the 1700 best pizza restaurants in the world.
So the plan for most of Father’s Day was to have my family over for a party. But my mom got sick, so neither of my parents came. And since they didn’t come one of my brothers didn’t have a way to get here. So it ended up just being my other brother and sister-in-law. It did kind of feel like a lot of work for just having two extra people here for our “party.” But all that work was already put in on Saturday, so the party was on! I made Greg jalapeno popper dip and my dad a hot Maui onion and bacon dip.
Can’t have a party without punch!
Pulled pork and bbq chicken sandwiches.
And a “cake” with a brownie base and then peanut butter mousse, chocolate mousse, and chocolate whipped cream frosting. It was definitely a labor intensive dessert and I was just happy the mousse layers stabilized and didn’t fall apart!
It was a pretty relaxed little party. The weather was incredible. We had every single window in the house open because there was such a wonderful breeze. It felt like my perfect kind of early summer day. Everyone spent some time outside, the boys showed Uncle Timmy the video games they’ve been working on, we talked about the quickly approaching baby’s birth (!!!). It was a nice day! Kind of disappointing it didn’t go as planned, but what can you do? After Timmy and Brittany left I was pretty beat and still had cleanup to do. So Greg took the boys to drop some food off for my dad and then spend a little more time with his parents.
As a side note to this recap blog post, I just want to say that I am so, so thankful for Greg as a father to our boys. He’s the best dad I could have ever imagined he’d be. He’s so selfless and giving and always, always there for them. They will never doubt his love for them and he will probably always be their biggest supporter. I’m not good at saying it out loud, but I think it all the time. We are SO blessed to have him in our lives.
Work
Ah, work. This has been a real struggle, you guys. Will working at home ever not be a struggle? I do have to say that this week I was determined to make sewing my main focus. And I’ve done well. It’s hard to make that my daily lifestyle, though. There’s always so much else going on. Especially in summer. But this week, the last three days, I finally buckled down and made these cute little mohair animals. They almost never sell because they’re too expensive, but I like making them. They’re entirely hand sewn and it just feels so awesome to start with so few supplies and just my hand and end up with an adorable little teddy bear or monkey! Yesterday I started on a big batch of dolls since that’s what my customers actually want. I’m hoping I can get them done by the weekend, but that’s probably very ambitious thinking.
Obedience Class
I can’t believe we haven’t even had Annie for three months yet. She’s basically half of my life. So much of my day is centered around what she needs to be a happy and well cared for dog. For the most part, things are going really well. But we’re definitely still struggling with her over-excitement, jumping on every single person she sees, and pulling so hard on our walks. I heard about a free obedience class last night, so I signed us up to check it out. When we arrived, there wasn’t another dog in sight. I was frustrated to think that it must have been cancelled and nobody let me know, so we went on a little lakeside adventure. Annie kept diving in the water trying to go after ducks. She’d walk as far she could with just her head above water and then turn around, run back, and do it all over again. So even though dogs supposedly all know how to swim, Annie definitely doesn’t know she knows how to swim!
Anyway, I got a call back that the class was only moved back an hour and I wasn’t on their list, even though I did sign up. So we went back to the other park and tried out our first class. It was challenging. And stressful because Annie just wants to play with other dogs SO MUCH. But it was also very helpful. I learned a few tricks to try with our problem areas. And I also think I’m going to sign up for their next eight week session of classes. It feels like a worthy investment. I want to have better control over her. And I want people to stop giving me unsolicited advice on the streets about what I’m doing wrong. 😛
Moving Ahead
Well, I think that’s about it for the last week and a half! It’s been busy. As a bit of a Sunday Intention vibe to end this post… For the next few days I’m still focusing on work. But I’m also hoping for a little down time. I’ve had very little of that lately. I need to remember my goal of doing lots of reading this summer! It might be a good afternoon for a book!
