Week 21 {365 project}

May 20

Don't mess with Lila when she has a hose

May 21

Last day of play school.  Lila's teacher always has fun ideas.  Balloons in giant plastic bag=awesome

May 22

Scaring a squirrel away from his precious bird feeders

May 23

Kindergarten music performance.  All the little boys in the back row were pointing out their mom's and then waving.  It was so sweet and I better enjoy it now.

May 24

Nothing better to Lila than a cool drink from the hose

May 25  

Simple beauty in a field.  My mother in law is amazing at road-tripping.  We turned a 2.5 hour ride into 4 with our random stopping.

May 26

Spending time with great grandpa.  He took us all out for rides around their property. 

Life's simple pleasures

My mom and I had a talk last night about life's simple pleasures.

I had spent the afternoon with her and she told me about the eclipse.  She was driving out to a high spot near us to see what she could see.

I asked her to come by and pick me up first.  This was something I didn't want to miss.

About 8pm she arrived and off we went on our journey.  This high spot was 20 or so minutes from my house.  It was down a hilly, country road.  The street lined with trees and beautiful homes.  We got to the high spot just in time to see the eclipse begin.  At first we had to wear both pairs of sunglasses to see it...

Then I tried taking pictures through the sunglasses.

We weren't able to capture the image of the sun with a notch missing.  We were able to joke that we were the ONLY people stopped at the side of the road staring at the sun.  We decided that the evening was not lost because we did see the eclipse, if only for a moment, and we enjoyed life for that night.

Beautiful scenery around our "eclipse spot"

So peaceful

An amazing site minutes from my home.  The great egrets in their evening spot.

We slowed down for a few moments.  We enjoyed the breezy night air.  We did not burn our retinas looking at the sun.  It was a good night.

Week 20 {365 Project}

May 13

Happy Mother's Day. 

May 14

Lila picked me some pretty forget-me-nots from our yard

May 15

Brendan always sleeps in these weird positions.  Jason said it is weirder that I took the picture.

May 16

Daddy throwing Lila in the air.  Their favorite game.

May 17

A beautiful sunny afternoon

May 18

Brendan received this book in the mail.  It is by George Carruth and is titled, The Boy Who Loved Birds

Thank you Aunt Kathy for thinking of him:)

May 19

Practicing soccer moves with daddy

Who do you call after Supernanny?

Brendan.

This boy has been not stop crazy since the day he entered this world.  We should have known since he was 10 weeks early.  Impatient much.  He has always been on the go, wild, nuts, loud.  You name it. 

When he was about 15 months old he started the "terrible twos" which quickly became the "torturous threes" then the "frightful fours"...

Five was so much better.  Brendan was amazing at five and then kindergarten happened and we entered the "sassy sixes"...

He is so mouthy and giggles when you try explaining why he cannot act a certain way.  He gets Lila to act naughty all the time.  Their crazy energy feeds of one another and I often feel like that frazzled cartoon mom with her hair sticking out and chaos all around.

Brendan gets time outs, his favorite items taken away, misses out on fun things and sometimes none of this works.  I know he just acts like this for Jason and I and at school he is perfect.  Like the teacher's helper and she just gushes over him.  I have seen it happen.  He walks into that room and an angelic glows surrounds him.  He walks out and those little horns pop out.

I have gotten stares so many times when I have been out with him.  Once when he was 2 having a meltdown and crying LOUDLY, I said to the woman staring at me,

"Please stare more at my crying child throwing a fit.  It is really helpful."

It just kind of popped out.  If I see a parent struggling I offer a smile.  Because we have all been there.  Once at the grocery store a kind woman and her son (he was about 10) said to me,

"Don't worry.  We've all been there and it gets so much better.  You are doing great."

as my 3 year old was running nutso throughout the store touching every darn thing on the shelves.

Luckily Brendan's craziness adds a lot of laughter and love to our home.  He has an amazing imagination and is so sweet when the horns retreat.  He is the best snuggler and often randomly says, "

I love you mom"

which makes it all worth it.

Week 19 {365 project}

May 6

Sunday soccer
This was the picture after his goal.  I missed getting a picture because Lila was climbing on the bleacher seats and the coach was very rudely standing in front of me as I pointed it out to him.(luckily Jason is the coach)

May 7

After months of trying and trying and trying.  He finally tied his shoe!

May 8

Lila after three hours of fun at the park and missing her nap.  She looks beat.

May 9

Lila thinks the firefighter hat is a pirate hat.  She puts it on and says, "Arrrgh!"

May 10

Spending a beautiful sunny morning at the "choo-choo" park

May 11

We had the winning bid on the "Movie Night" basket at Brendan's school.  He was just a little excited.

May 12

A rainy and drizzly day makes for a perfect movie night on the porch.

The morning I needed to drink before 8am

Brendan and I have this little before school routine.  I wake up at 6:55 (ok 7am because I hit snooze once) and then go get Brendan up.  We make breakfast, get his lunch ready, talk about what is going on at school that day, get dressed, and brush teeth/hair.  At some point we remember to get Jason up and I start my coffee.  Lila 99% of the time does not get up until Brendan is leaving with Jason for the bus. 

Today she was up before Brendan.  She doesn't know our morning routine with Brendan.  We eat breakfast at the table (Lila and I have picnic breakfast with a show) and we don't watch tv.  She asked for peaches and then wanted Brendan applesauce.  She threw a fit when I suggested she eat the fruit she chose 30 seconds before.  She wanted down from her seat to see daddy.  Then she did not want to see daddy but threw another fit when Brendan gave him a hug.  She hit me when I told her we are not watching a show before Brendan leaves for school and got to sit in time out.  This was all before 7:40am. 

A morning mimosa would have been lovely at that point.

Thankfully she is napping now and the drama has ceased.

For now.

Week 18 {365 Project}

Another week down and another week late.  Story of my life sometimes.  I have an excuses.  Last week was crazy therefore this week is getting back on track.

April 29

Our March for Babies walk with our good friends.  The moms and the 5-6 year old boys.  Our friend's son was born with a birth defect and she raised money for our team as well.  In a week (I was really on top of things this year) we raised $800 for March of Dimes!

April 30

This squirrel was peeking through our kitchen window.

May 1

Snuggles on the couch

May 2

Go Time: Pt. Deux
(hopefully to be followed soon by Go Time: Third times a charm)

May3

Lila stuck her arm into the paper towel roll and pulled the cardboard tube out to use as a "elleyscope"

May 4

Checking to see if the starlings are in their nest

May 5

Much needed drink at the end of a long week