So while we’re roaming the aisles of Target to get the essentials that we need, we happened across some kid-sized fleece blankets that were on clearance.  I’ve been meaning to get Evie a new blanket because her only larger sized blanket is a double thickness fleece blanket and it is really a bit too warm for summer.  I couldn’t find any prices marked on the clearanced blankets, so I decided to look down the next aisle to see if there were any others marked down.  I spotted a couple that I liked - a generic flowery one and a cute pink and brown Hello Kitty blanket.  I held them up for Evie to pick the one she liked and she swatted them away with her hand.  She then proceeded to point at the Disney Princesses blanket on the shelf and make her sounds that say “I want that one!”  At least it was blue instead of pink.

Score: Mommy-0, Disney-1

So we travel on down the aisle and end up near the toys where Daddy and Zach get very distracted with some Transformers.  Evie and I keep walking until we reach the shoe section.  Her last round of shoes are all starting to get a bit tight, so I thought I would see if I could find a cheap pair or two and start moving her to the next size up.  As I searched for a good bargain, Evie was busy picking out her own pair of shoes.  The first pair she pointed and grunted at were cute, but too small for her.  We kept searching.  I found a cute, sensible pair of tennis shoes that would work, but she would have nothing to do with them…because she discovered the Disney Princess tennis shoes next to them.  She started screaming for the Princess shoes.  They weren’t so bad and they were tennis shoes so I gave in.

Score: Mommy-0, Disney-2

While she hugged her Princess tennis shoes I continued to dig through the racks searching for some cheap sandals.  That’s when she spotted these:

The look of sheer joy on that girl’s face was indescribable.  The look disappeared real quick and turned into a murderous scream when I tried them on her and then attempted to take them back off.  I tried to convince her that hte silver Circo brand ones (that were exactly the same other than the color) were better but she wasn’t having it.  She insisted on the pink ones.  She wore them all the way through the store, allowing me to take them off only long enough for the guy at the check-out counter to scan the tag.  Oh, and guess what they have inside the shoe???  Disney Princesses.  They have barely left her feet since we bought them, even though the straps are starting to rub blisters on the top of her feet.

Score: Mommy-0, Disney-3

Apparently I’m just not going to win at this game.  Up until yesterday, there were no princesses in my house, unless you count Tinkerbell, but technically she’s a fairy.  She really hasn’t been exposed to princesses at all, yet she suddenly loves them.  I have no idea how my daughter turned out to be such a girly girl.  I guess she’ll just have to play in the mud in her sparkly princess shoes.

Yes, I’m a bit of a sucker, but if her brother is going to be dressed head to toe in Lightning McQueen I guess I better just get used to princesses too.  What can I say?  I like seeing my kids happy.

I think the worst part about blogging is that when I go for more than a week or so without really writing my mind gets all backed up.  I have so many different things to write about that my mind can’t seem to focus on any of them.  Then I start feeling guilty because I haven’t updated at all and even more guilty because I can’t seem to force myself to write my kids’ mushy birthday letters that I hope they will read someday.  Then I just sit down and start rambling because I just want to get something new on the page - like right NOW.

So, the whole month of June has been absolutely crazy.  First was our anniversary, then the trip to Texas, then a quick trip to Maryville for another wedding and racing back for Zach’s birthday party the next day.  Not to mention that things at work have been all crazy too.  It has all been such a rush, leaving very little time to sit down and focus on anything.  I’ve barely kept up with posting pictures, much less any actual content here.  It’s rather hard to post when you can barely even breathe.  This week has been a little better, but I’m so tired that every time I sit down I fall asleep.

Then I realized this morning that it is JULY already and I have the next 3 weekends booked.  Looks like it’s not going to slow down anytime soon.  Wow.  Can someone please send me a time machine?  Or just make it all stop until I can catch up?

Happy Birthday to my big 4-year-old boy! You’ve helped make the last four years the best of my life.

(Yeah, the mushy mommy post is still coming as soon as I find the time to write it!)

I took about a bazillion photos (ok, more like 500) which you can see the best of on Flickr, but here are a few of my favorites:

Jason & Chelsea saying their “I Do’s”

Evie & Daddy

Hubby with his Dad and Brother

Zach Fishing

Evie begging for “up”

My beautiful niece Mikayla

Zach on the boat

This week we’re adjusting back to our “normal” schedules, catching up on tons of laundry, and preparing for another quick trip out of town and a big birthday party this weekend.  I’m hoping things will slow down soon so I can get back to regular posting here.  However,  it appears that while we were gone my baby girl turned 15-months-old and somehow my other baby is turning 4 years(!) old on Friday, so you can expect some mushy Mama stuff the rest of the week!

Happy Anniversary to my husband, who has now been putting up with me for seven years. It’s been over eight years now since that first bump on the dance floor and there’s no one else I’d rather bump into. It hasn’t always been easy - for either of us - but we’re figuring things out. I kind of feel like we’re finally hitting our stride after seven years.

I love you for just being you, for putting up with me, for always being there, for letting me be who I am, and for giving me the two most beautiful children in the world. I hope we have many, many, more years together.

This kind of love is what I dreamed about
Yeah it fills me up
Well baby it leaves no doubt
This kind of love it’s why I’m standing here
It’s something that we can share
I can’t get enough of this kind of love

We started out the weekend with a date night for Hubby and I.  We had dinner out then got to see Sugarland in Concert which was just awesome.  Seeing them live made me love them even more than I already did.

Saturday morning we go up and took the kids to see Up which was a fantastic movie. I missed a little at the end because Evie was getting restless, but I’m sure we’ll be buying it and watching it many more times. After that we had lunch, did a little shopping, then headed back to the house. Evie got a nap, Zach and Daddy watched Kung Fu Panda while I got in a little quality time with my sewing machine. Then after dinner we watched Bedtime Stories which is sure to become another favorite.

Sunday we spent the day at my mom’s helping her set up her pool in the back yard for the kids to swim in. They were so anxious we let them get in before it was filled and they had a blast playing in the cold water. Evie had her first true pool experience. It took her a while to brave the water but after watching the other kids having so much fun she finally decided to join them.

We had a great day hanging out with my mom, sister, brother, and their families. The kids were ready to crash when we finally got home. If it hadn’t been for the laundry I had to stay up for I think I would have gone straight to bed too!

(They’ve been very lovey with each other lately)

I have all these post ideas in my head, but I just can’t seem to find the time or the mental energy to get them out.  I owe Miss Evie a 14 month letter, which I have started and can’t seem to finish.  I have several one line drafts that haven’t progressed at all.  Plus, I started thinking about the fact that Zachary will be 4 years old next month and I am sitting around wondering how in the heck that happened?  He was just a baby, like last week right?  And holy cow, I have another birthday party to plan and haven’t even started!

Regardless of how stressed out I am, we did manage to cram in some fun over Memorial Day weekend (which is the real point of this post).  Thanks to Jenny over at Savvy Source, we got some free tickets to Jiggle Jam.  We took the kids on Saturday, which just happened to be probably the hottest day of the year so far.  Besides the fact that we spent the entire day melting in the sun, we had a lot of fun.  Evie loved the music and Zach enjoyed playing in the bounce houses and fountains.  We met up with Cagey and her two adorable kiddos for a while, which I really enjoyed.  It was great to see them outside of the computer screen for a change!  The kids’ babysitter, her sister, and nephews were there as well and we enjoyed visiting with them too.

Evie likes bellies. Anjali is not amused!

On Sunday, we headed up north to visit my dad and his wife at her parents’ home.  They were staying there for the weekend and invited us up for a BBQ.  My brother and sister and their families were there as well and we had a great time playing with the kids and just enjoying each other’s company.

Monday we stayed home and celebrated Memorial Day by cleaning the house.  Exciting, huh?  It had to be done, so it was nice that we had an extra day to fit it in.

Oh, and I should also mention that I read an entire book over the weekend.  I only mention it because this is not something I normally do.  It usually takes me about a month to find the time to read an entire book.  This one, however, I just could not put down.  Now I can’t wait to get my hands on the follow-up.  I’ve been doing a lot more reading lately and I’m really enjoying it.  I guess it’s the one good thing that comes from Hubby staying up late at night playing WoW.

And a few more pics for good measure…

My adorable niece, Caitlin

The girls messing up the T-ball game

A cute picture turned into an awesome picture thanks to the editing skillz of my friend Jen

P.S.  If you’ve made it this far, then please go check out my latest review and giveaway!  It’s a perfect gift for the little girl in your life! (Yes, family members can enter too!)

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As the summer winds down and school is getting closer, be sure to have a cheap health insurance plan to cover all the needed shots for school and medicine for those pesky colds.

Way back before Evie was born, Zach’s preschool he was attending had an eye screening.  They sent home very vague results that said we needed to have a full eye exam done.  Since I was a bazillion months pregnant I shoved it to the back of my brain and decided I’d get it done “soon”.  Then when he turned 3, we got a coupon in the mail from Blue Cross to get a free eye exam through the See to Learn program.  Yep, I thought, I need to get that done.

Suddenly, we’re coming up on his 4th birthday (holy crap, how did that happen?) and I finally got around to making an appointment.  We talked a lot ahead of time about how the doctor was going to ask him lots of questions and look at his eyes and that maybe, if the doctor thought he needed them, he would get glasses to help him see better.  We talked about how Mommy wears glasses and several other people in his family do as well.  He seemed all right with it all.

The morning of his appointment he was actually pretty excited.  We got to the doctor’s office, filled out paperwork, waited a few minutes, then the doctor came in and started checking his eyes.  I had a feeling right away that something wasn’t right (I’ve been through this many times myself).  After LOTS of testing, he decided he wanted to dilate Zach’s eyes and then check them again.

It took two assistants plus me to hold Zach down for the dilation drops.  Apparently they burn, but I’ve never had them so I have no idea how bad it was for him.  He wasn’t too happy after that.

After some more testing, the doctor finally sat down and talked to me (while Zach was going a bit stir crazy).  Apparently Zach is farsighted, has astigmatism, and a slight case of amblyopia.  He needs to wear glasses at all times (other than sleeping, of course).  He also needs to be checked again in six weeks or so to see if the glasses are correcting the amblyopia or if he will need to wear an eye patch for it.

Whoa.  I wasn’t prepared for all of that.

If anything, I figured he needed a slight correction because I had noticed him sitting a little too close to the TV, which made me thing he was nearsighted like me.  I never even considered the possibility of him being farsighted I guess.  But, now that I know, some other things are starting to make sense - like why he knows all his numbers and letters yet can’t make them out when I show them to him on a piece of paper.

So, we picked out his glasses that night.  There was only ONE pair in the entire store he liked. (Well, that’s not entirely true.  He did like the Barbie ones, but I vetoed that and didn’t bother to mention it to his Dad.)  The lenses were ready  a few days later and he’s been wearing them ever since.

I think he looks adorable in them and they must be really making a difference in his sight because he’s only complained about wearing them once.  I expected it to be a bit of a fight, but he actually likes them.  The biggest problem really is getting his sister to stop grabbing them off of his face!

Now, if I could only get over my guilt for not taking him to the eye doctor sooner…

We slept in, had a nice slow morning, then headed off to Deanna Rose Children’s Farmstead a little after 10:00.  I went back and forth trying to decide what to do but finally decided on that because, well, it’s free.  I figured Evie would love the animals (she’s really into our dogs and cats right now) and Zach would love the playground.  I was a little nervous because I only took the single stroller, but Zach said he wanted to walk.

We had a great time walking around checking out all the animals.  Zach was a little bummed that I didn’t have change to buy food to feed the goats (though we remedied that later), but instantly cheered up when he remembered the barn with the slides.  I loved being able to let him play and not having to rush.  While he went down the slides over and over again, Evie wandered around checking out the geese, ducks, and rabbits.  She’s really starting to love being outside and it was fun watching her explore.

After that, we walked a bit more and decided to stop for some lunch.  The kids played at a toddler sized playground for a bit, then we did some more walking, checked out even more animals, until finally we stopped at the BIG playground and let the kids play until they were completely worn out and it was looking like we were going to get rained on.

Just before we left, Zach yelled out, “This is the BEST. DAY. EVER!!!”  I couldn’t have agreed with him more.  The weather was perfect.  The kids were extremely well behaved.  We all had a really great time together.  It was relaxing and exhausting all at the same time.  It was perfect.

And, to top it all off, we stopped at Target on the way home for a few things and just happened to find a toy that Zach had been promised over a month ago (that we hadn’t been able to find in stock anywhere).  He was over the moon excited.

I just wish we could have days like that every day.

Mornings have been a struggle lately. We go back and forth with this, but lately it seems to be much harder than usual. Zach just doesn’t like to get up. Once he’s up, he doesn’t like to get dressed. Once he’s dressed, he doesn’t want to leave. When we finally make it to day care, he doesn’t want to get out of the car. I always get some resistance from him, but today was really hard.

This morning it took nearly 30 minutes just to get him out of bed.  Evie was being clingy so I only had one hand to work with, and couldn’t do much but pester him to get up.  Once he was finally up and we went through the whole getting dressed process he told me he didn’t want to go to day care.  We had our usual talk about how he has to go to day care so Mommy and Daddy can work, etc. but he still wasn’t budging.  Finally the real issue came out.

“K told me he doesn’t want to play with me any more,” he says with the saddest face I’ve ever seen.  “He says I’m not a nice friend and he won’t play with me.”

My heart totally sank.

I heard a little of this going on the week before but dismissed it thinking it would all blow over but apparently it stuck with him.  My mama bear instincts wanted to just sweep him up, give him a big hug, and tell him it would all be all right (and to tell K that he was a big meanie).  But, my parenting instincts told me that this was a teaching moment and I needed to find just the right words to teach him how to deal with people that hurt his feelings.

Gah.

I did give him a big hug and raced through what I should say in my head.  I explained to him that sometimes even your friends will say things that hurt your feelings.  Sometimes they are just mad and don’t really mean it, but sometimes they do it because you have done something that hurt their feelings first.  I suggested to him that if K does this again, maybe he could just go play with someone else for a while until K is ready to play with him again.  We talked a little about how he needed to make sure he was being a nice friend as well so his friends would want to play with him.  And of course, if they can’t solve it themselves then he can always ask a grown-up to help.  I want him to learn how to deal with things like this on his own, because God knows this won’t be the last conflict that comes along.  This is so minor compared to the things he’ll have to deal with in the future.

The hard part is that K is the closest one to Zach’s age at day care.  The other kids are quite a bit younger, which is why Zach gravitates toward K most of the time.  It is a small home day care, so there aren’t a lot of options.  When they’re both happy they have a great time together.  But, K plays more violently, obviously watches some more grown-up things on TV, and has the attitude to go with it.  Even though he’s just a few months older than Zach, he definitely seems much older and Zach looks up to him in a way.  Zach, however, is the kid that wants to play the tough guy but is really quite sensitive underneath.  He was totally crushed that K didn’t want to play with him.

I’m guessing that this whole thing was weighing on him all weekend.  He had kind of a rough weekend overall and I feel bad that I didn’t pick up on it and ask him what was going on.  I just assumed he was being obstinate on purpose.  We grow up in this society that tells us that boys are tough and don’t have feelings but seeing my 3-year-old boy so distraught over the snub of a friend brought me back to reality real quick.  I’m just as guilty as anybody else of forgetting boys have feelings too (just ask my husband).

Zach is growing up so fast.  He’ll be four years old next month.  He wants to be so independent.  Most days I look at him and I see this big boy that can do nearly anything he puts his mind to.  Other days, like today, I look at him and see the tiny little baby I gave birth to and I want to hold in my arms and keep him there forever.  That’s the only place I can truly protect him.