catching up

I feel so behind on life. I have stacks of dishes to wash, stacks of receipts to enter into the budget, a dishwasher to unload, a dryer of clothes to fold, and two little babies who are happening to have their nap overlap which seems like a miracle lately. My poor boy had a fever last night so he was up at 1:30am screaming, but luckily baby girl went down pretty easily and then after her 5am feed, slept till 9am. Awesome.

Anyway, time to wind down a bit and write. I still like writing the blog, I just wish I could do it faster! I've never found this blog interface to be very user-friendly.

We had a great start to June with my brother and his family being in town. We went to the zoo, and then we all rented an Airbnb by the lake and had a good weekend away. (Except for when Jeanie was awake from 1pm to 11pm and was crying on and off the entire day from being overtired. I just don't understand this phenomenon, just close your eyes and go to sleep!) But overall it was a great visit and good time together.

Love our zoo

August was surprisingly not into this splash pad at all

My siblings, together again at last!

The boardwalk from the rental home to the lake

Grandma & Grandpa with all their grandchildren <3

August did love this big bucket o' sand toys I got for him, he could've scooped sand for hours

This month Jeanie also met her Uncle Brian who was home from his trucking duties for a couple days

And August has been eagerly checking the garden every morning for any new ripe strawberries :) and to check on the presence of a couple resident toads.

The first flower from my boy, awwww

And baby girl is 2 months already!!

Feeling busy but blessed.

"Father's Day"

We celebrated on Friday, since I had to work Saturday and Sunday, hence the quotes. We started our day with a delicious breakfast of eggs and chocolate chip banana bread and then headed to the Zoo. Man it was crowded! And hot! But we had fun.

no likey the fake dinosaur

First carousel ride!

Looking at giraffes

prairie dogs!

Fun with water froggies

Zipped into the Penguinarium before we left

Family photo. That kid photobombing in the back makes me laugh, his mother was taking our picture so he was probably wondering who we were :)

That evening we tried a new restaurant for dinner. It was nice we sat outside as August remains in a huge, annoying, food throwing phase. So less to clean up. It was nice to spend the day as a family and celebrating Doug. He is such a great husband, and I couldn't ask for a better dad for our son. He's patient when I'm losing it, he is fun, he is helpful, he leads us all closer to the Lord, and he loves us and is faithfully here in the mess with us. I love that.

The work weekend was ok, and I got to call my own dad and talk to him too. I'm also thankful to have such a great dad!

And we are back to everyday life. August had a growth appointment today, he's gained weight and inches so the growth specialist wasn't worried. It is hard though if he already fell from his growth chart (prompting the growth specialist), and now he's super picky and hardly eats meals, so it remains something that we have to keep coming every 6 months for. I'm thankful he's healthy though.

Feeling some stress with stuff at work and wondering about switching up my job or not. Kinda want to, but really, really, really, do not want to work midnights. So asking myself if it's worth the short term (1+ years) sacrifice to be in a specialty or not. Prayers appreciated!

zoo boo

Last week we were excited to take August to the zoo boo. Which I thought was just going to the zoo while wearing a costume.

The Salvation Army, which had tons of stuff last year when I was just pregnant, this year had nothing. So he wore an orange shirt and a pumpkin hat and was our little pumpkin. Actually I had knitted that hat for a friend's baby and she gave it back to me in a pile of stuff her son had outgrown! :)

Anyway, it turns out Zoo Boo is just going thru a sectioned off part of the zoo and stopping at trick-or-treat stations along the way. The only things open were the reptile house, the camels were still outside, and we saw the beaver in his habitat. So we were actually kind of disappointed. August did seem to like to see kids running around, and they did have this really good juggler that we watched for awhile, but I wouldn't go again. There were lots of Halloween blow ups and decor along the path, they did have a display of pumpkins and squashes that were made to look like animals and painted, which was kind of cool, but again, Halloween isn't really our thing anyway, so not for us.

It was a nice day though and it's always good to get out and do stuff as a family. We love our little pumpkin!

Doug's birthday date

We celebrated Doug's birthday today since on his real birthday next week we will be flying out on our vacation!

Started the morning with an omelet to split, toast, and a smoothie made from blueberries, banana, and fresh from mom's garden red and blackberries. Mmmm

I had had a plan to kidnap him and do a fun lunch by the water and bike ride, but he made it seem like he didn't want to do that, so we went to the zoo instead. It ended up being pretty fun, and it was a beautiful day

Kudos to the Zoo for trying to be more healthy, I got some kind of potato and carrot root salad, kale tabbuleh (needed way more kale to the bulgar wheat ratio though) and some quinoa pilaf. All my stuff I personally thought I could have made better, and for sure Liz could have, but I appreciated them trying.

The Zoo is set in a loop, pretty much, so we set off and got to see everything!

It was fun.

Then we met up his parents for dinner and ate way too much

Doug got a tasty chicken pesto pizza

I got a spicy chicken kale cheesy noodle bowl

Yum! Then back to the house, opened presents with his parents, and off to bed and heading to work my weekend tomorrow!