Tuesday, July 31, 2018

A Day in the Life - Summer 2018

I absolutely love "day in the life" posts, and I try to do two a year (one in summer and one during the school year).  For the summer post, I always try to pick a day where we have some stuff going on, but that's not too crazy or overloaded.  This year's post covers a day towards the end of summer - July 18.  Here's what a summer day looks like for us in 2018!

9:02 - breakfast time for me!  Typically I eat the same thing every day: low-fat vanilla greek yogurt with fresh strawberries and granola.  I'm a creature of habit!

9:15 - we've been working a lot on independence this summer (with both kids) and one of those areas is making their own beds in the morning.  They don't look perfect (and Matt and I don't fix them), but they do a great job!


9:34 - today was a gym day for me!  I don't go every day, but my goal is 3-4 days a week.

Spark is my bff.  If you don't have this in your life - you need it.  Find an advocare distributor near you and get some!  If you don't know anyone who sells it, my friend Emily does and you can order straight from her blog!

10:13 - today was leg day for me!  

10:50 - Done.  And tired.

Not bad for 50 minutes!

11:08 - We got home from the gym, and the kids went upstairs to play in the playroom while I started on laundry.

11:29 - I had a few quiet minutes while the kids played upstairs and before I needed to fix lunch, so I squeezed in some reading time on our July book club book - The Favorite Sister.

11:49 - I started the lunch-making process, and Cooper came to help me with one of his chores: putting all of the clean silverware away.

12:02 - Lunch time!  This was Cooper's plate...

LL's lunch...

And my lunch.

12:49 - The kids got a little bit of movie time, and I worked on that day's blog post.  

1:23 - The kids were back upstairs playing, and Cooper wanted to show me his artwork.

1:31 - I went in my room to fold some towels, and there was a helper on the bed (who isn't supposed to be up there).

1:36 - Matt just started his new job as a Medical Device Sales Rep, and the scrubs he ordered finally came in.  He looks so handsome!

1:48 - I made one Amazon Prime Day purchase and it came in!

2:45 - We had not been to the peach shed one time this summer (we went a ton last summer), so we decided to sneak away and go get some ice cream!

Do you notice him holding up his "six"?  So.  Cute.

This girl is just so precious and sweet.

3:43 - Home from the peach shed and working on more laundry.  I've just recently started washing all of the kids clothes together (I used to do them separately) and then separating them when they come out of the dryer.

4:56 - I already had plans to make spaghetti for dinner, but since my Instant Pot came, I decided to make it in there instead!  Why not, right?

5:50 - It was super fast, super easy, and super good!  Plus only having one pot to clean was a plus!

6:17 - After we cleaned up dinner, we went for a family walk around our circle.  This is one of our favorite things to do in our new neighborhood!  Can you spot the two kids on scooters?


6:46 - We all headed upstairs to straighten up and get baths, and we were surprised when Lola made it all the way up by herself!  This was the first time she's done this!  The old lady is 14, so stairs really aren't her thing.  The most she's made it is to the landing 1/2 way up, and she usually turns around and goes back down.  She surprised us when she came all the way up by herself!

7:29 - Reading books before bed!

8:16 - the kids are in bed and it's time for ice cream and Big Brother!

9:31 - Time for bed for me!  It takes me a long time to go to sleep, so I have to get an early start on it.

That's a typical summer day for us!  Some are a lot busier and filled with a million activities, and some are way more chill and we never leave the house.  This day was a good balance of both!

If you want to see our past "day in the life" posts, you can read them here:



Monday, July 30, 2018

Summer: Week 8

Week 8 of summer vacation was from July 9 - 15.  This was also Matt's first week in his new job as a Medical Device Sales Rep!  He was actually gone this week from Monday morning through Saturday morning for training in Chicago!  Since Matt was gone so much, I used this week to be my "get my classroom together" week and I planned to get as much done this week as I could!  So in this post, you'll see very little of Matt and me constantly in my classroom - haha.

Monday
We started off Monday morning with Cooper's well-visit.  You can see all about his 6-year-old stats here!

After Cooper's doctors appointment, I dropped him off at Gigi's (where LL was) to swim there for a few hours while I went to work in my classroom.  Before I left for school, my mom gave me this cute little present for my new classroom.  This little guy is called a "thinker".

I worked on this little cubby area for most of my time at school.

When we got home, I added Cooper's 6 year height to our growth board - and he's just a little taller than LL was at 7!

After the kids went to bed, I did a little prepping for the next day.

Tuesday
Early morning snuggles in Mommy's bed!

We got up and going pretty early because we had a full day ahead!

We were all rocking our shirts from our St. Augustine Beach trip!

First up for the day was the kids summer movie!  Ben was in town, so he and Gigi met us there to see the Emoji movie!


After the movie, the kids hung out at Gigi's house while I went up to school to work in my classroom for a few hours.

That afternoon we got all dressed up for one of our favorite summer activities - Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-Fil-A!

The whole cow crew!

The kids love hanging out with the cow!

My mom is such a good sport!  She was totally into this and made the shirts for herself and Ben.


I absolutely love these.  LL's smile is so cute and genuine!

Cooper got to arm wrestle the cow and was so so happy about it!

Wednesday
Wednesday morning, the kids were at Grammy's, so I got up early and hit the gym.



After the gym, I got a shower and headed to my classroom (are you noticing a theme this week?)

It's coming along!

Thursday
Thursday I decided to not work in my classroom at all and have a "fun friend day".  LL met her best friend in Kindergarten, and she moved to another school district a few years ago.  Since then, her mom and I have still worked hard to make sure that the girls see each other and keep their friendship going.  We invited Madeline to come for the day to play.  First up - swimming!

After swimming, we hit up Snopocolypse for snow cones!


We spent the afternoon at home letting the kids play, and we ordered pizza for dinner.

Friday
I had to go up to the school to meet with my fellow ELA teachers to plan our first few weeks of school.  Grammy and Pop came in the morning to pick up the kids and take them for a fun day.  They went to the park and to see Hotel Transylvania 2.

After I got done at work, I picked the kids up and we went to Gigi's because Ben was in town.  We spent the evening there swimming and eating dinner!

Saturday
Saturday was a big day for LL - she had her first "non-family" sleep over!  Madeline and her family came to pick LL up for a fun day and to spend the night.

I can't believe my girl is big enough for this!

These girls love each other so much!

First they had lunch at Suchero's.

Then they went to the movies!

Then they went bowling!

Then they got snowcones!

Matt came back in town after being gone all week, and we snuck away for a date night!

Gotta have ice cream, too!

About 8:00 we got the call that LL was starting to get reallllly nervous about spending the night and wanted to come home.  Matt loaded up and went to pick her up.  It would have been fine if she stayed, but we would never force our kids to stay and spend the night if they are nervous about it.  It had absolutely nothing to do with Maddie or her family - just being away from family for the first time.  It was no big deal and she can try again another time!

Sunday
On Sunday,  LL and I snuck away for some one-on-one time and to do some school shopping!  LL gets so into this and she had the best time going together to help tackle the list for her and Cooper!

That night we had friends over for dinner for the first time in our new house, and Matt used our new grill for the first time!

Baby Whisperer?  Yes ma'am.  I'm great at putting a baby to sleep!

It's so funny to me how "into" babies Cooper had been this summer!

I love loving on babies...and then giving them back - haha.