Summer Update

Hello! I haven't meant to be away for so long. Summer is busy, and tiring, and good. I think all my creative juices have dried up for the summer as I transform into a personal camp shuttle, sunscreen applier, and creator of summer memories, and I'm okay with that for now.

Let's see if I can do a quick summer update and photo dump before my nappers are up.

Ice cream. What is summer without it? Especially if you go in your matching jammies right before bedtime?

Festivals and community activities. This was at the USET Foundation and both girls got to ride a pony right before it downpoured on us!

Fun with friends! And the best kind of fun (read: without kids). Nick had been saying to me for months that if I ever want the day "off" he would accommodate, so I finally took him up on it! So reenergizing to spend the whole day with my best friend doing what we do best (brunch, talking, a barre class, more talking, and a pedicure).

This was one of our favorite summer days so far. We took the girls peach picking and then rode our bikes on the Columbia Trail. Here they are eating their bounty just before our ride. Pure summer.

It's been nice to have some special time with this sweet girl while her big sister has been at a couple of camps. Her language is really taking off and it is beyond sweet to hear all the things she has to say! Even when it's "Only Dada kiss me." (I was her favorite for almost two years! We had a good run of it, but now they are both wholly devoted to their daddy. I guess I can't blame them.)

Father's Day with the best of the best! I don't know how we all lucked out and got this guy to be our main man but I am thankful every day.

Another fun time--my parents kept the girls for TWO nights and we ventured into the city for an overnight with Morgan and Joe! We ate the best dinner at Momosan, saw Come From Away on Broadway (amazing, and bring your tissues), and generally just laughed and had the best time.

These two! Will the sweetness of sibling love ever not kill me? Eloise wanted to watch their show holding her sister "like a baby" and Mimi happily obliged. The first month or so of summer was an adjustment for all of us and there was an ugly biting/hitting phase that we won't mention, but the clouds have lifted and they are again happy to be playmates most days.

I never said our life wasn't exciting. When you set the bar nice and low like I do, a trip to the dentist is pure magic for kids! I had poorly scheduled the timing of Eloise's and my cleanings, and had to bring Amelia with us, and was shaking in my boots about it for weeks. It was a total nonevent and from now on I'm never using adult time (ie when I have childcare) to do this errand! Bring the kids, they'll think it's awesome. (And I think this probably has a lot to do with our wonderful dentist.)

Swim lessons! May have felt like they were going to be the death of me midway through, but we made it. Note to self next year: four weeks of swim lessons is too darn much. Two weeks would have been just fine! But we met some fun pool friends and spent the better part of a month at the pool every day, morning until naptime. The closest thing to a marathon I've ever done!

I can barely look at this picture without shuddering. I am not "in" to insects of any kind, but I feign interest so my girls develop an interest in the natural world. We had about a dozen of these GIANT caterpillars on our back patio herb planter, all over the dill. After a little research, we discovered they're black swallowtail caterpillars, and the girls couldn't get enough of them. If there's anything worse than a caterpillar that emits a rotten cheese-like odor when touched, it's when your three-year-old comes into the kitchen while you're making dinner asking "Can caterpillars pee out of their faces?" with a yellowish serum all over her hands. So glad these "pets" are gone. (We did see a black swallowtail butterfly at our back window this week and I'll admit it was exciting to think it was likely from one of our caterpillars.)

More fun days with friends, grooming and bathing our friend's old horse and getting lobster rolls at the best seafood market, where they got to pet all kinds of sea creatures. And bike riding in our old college stomping grounds with my precious goddaughter and her parents!

Camps! Eloise did the cutest nature camp, and told me she wishes she could go to nature camp every day. And Vacation Bible School was also a big hit!.And now we are camp-free for a couple more weeks before school starts, and it's been nice to have some downtime and spontaneous days.

I scheduled their two- and four-year well visits at the same time, thinking this was a smart move, but once I found out Nick would be traveling for two weeks in a row (which we survived, but I don't want to talk about it) I began to regret this scheduling choice. Thankfully our doctor has the patience of a saint and didn't mind them tearing up the entire exam room while she worked quickly to get the job done. Only Amelia needed a shot and--praise God--she didn't make a peep! Reward/bribe was a milkshake at our local pharmacy, where we had the worst service but we forgave them because it's pretty special that we still have places like this in 2017!

And last but certainly not least, miss Amelia's second birthday! How did this happen? I'm sure I've talked about the poem "Babies Don't Keep" before, but if not and if you want a good cry, look it up. In true second child fashion, there was no fanfare to this birthday--her daddy was on a work trip that he couldn't miss (so he took the red eye home that night to be home by 5am the next day so we could celebrate), her "gift" was a toddler chair for the dining room table, and her birthday dinner ended up being put back in the fridge and we ordered pizza because we were too tired from our respective weeks of travel/solo parenting! I think she'll forgive us, and we'll try harder next year. But oh we love this girl so!

Hope to see you sooner than later!