Goodbye, September.

I don't know where the month went, but the last post I wrote was saying hello to September, and here we are, waving goodbye to the month.

I usually blog on my lunch break; I may take a day, close the door to my office and leisurely eat my lunch at my desk and type up a few posts at one time and schedule them to go out automatically throughout the week.

Unfortunately, my co-worker resigned late in August and we have not yet replaced her.  I was devastated on a personal level, as we had become great friends over the past 5.5 years of working together. She took a position that put her back into a field she really wanted to be in, so while I'm happy for her, I'm sad for me!  The office is lonely, and she happened to leave during one of busiest times of the year...the start of the new school year.  There were only 2 of us in the department, so it's down to just me....needless to say, my lunch breaks (if they exist at all) have been very short and I'm normally reviewing a resume while I eat, instead of leisurely  writing blog posts. I'm not complaining, and I'm of course happy to have a job, but I am SO ready to have someone else in here!  That process is slow going, so I'm just taking it one day at a time for now.

So there's the catch up on my work life, I'll try to get caught up eventually on our home life, too!

Liam started Preschool 2; he's still in the same center and same classroom, but this year will be more focused on kindergarten prep.  He is always talking about how excited he is to go to school and ride the big bus with Jake next year, so let's hope that excitement holds on when next August rolls around!

Speaking of school, Jake has managed to have 3...yes 3....sick days already.  2 for a random virus that involved a sore throat and swimmer's ear, and one that was a stomach bug.  Let's hope that he got that out of his system and that (maybe!) we will have a healthy cold and flu season!  Here he is, during a healthy time, being silly at a friend's Oktoberfest party recently:

 Other than trying to get back into the swing of school stuff and after school activities, we've been outside a lot, enjoying the warm temps and lack of rain!

A bonus to your dad building you a treehouse and having leftover wood is that you can make some sweet bike ramps :)

Jake had "favorite team jersey" day at school---Hail to Pitt!!

 

 

He likes to keep the front porch of the treehouse free of debris.  A kid after my own heart.

Sometimes we head inside to dress up like Pirate Cowboys or play a board game....

 

Our neighborhood association put out flags for 9/11, and I had a little helper for my block:

 

Brian and I had a few hours to ourselves at a recent wedding...it was at a farm and even though it was a bit on the chilly side, it was a gorgeous day to be out!

And then we celebrated our own wedding anniversary last week!  Thumbs up to 9 years of marriage!

The boys are back in Sunday School after summer hiatus, and I'm always happy to snap a picture of them looking so spiffy on the way there:

Earlier in the month, we celebrated my dad's 60th birthday together with my parents and Nate, Katie, and Luke.  It was so nice to spend the day with everyone...we had good food, played some games, and got to love on baby Luke!

 

Uncle Nate, showing Jake how to fly a drone

It's all fun and games until the drone gets stuck in a tree!

 I always thought I was a baby hog, but I have some stiff competition with Liam around....this kid would hold Luke all day if we let him!

 

Brian finally got a turn....

And in swooped Liam, trying to steal him!

And just in case you needed a little heart-melting today, here is a video of Liam singing "You are my sunshine" to Luke.

Happy 60th birthday, Pappy!!!

So, that's been our September!!!  I hope everyone is enjoying fall so far!

What's Up Wednesday

I decided that taking part in another "What's Up Wednesday" would be a great way to catch up on all the posting I've fallen behind on in the last month...I love a good shortcut! Here we go!

1.  What we're eating this week....
Nothing worth posting!  We'll have some of the usual...pasta/salad, baked chicken, tacos....last night we ventured out with some friends to Max & Erma's (turns out they have a kids eat free night every Tuesday!) which was delicious.  There were 3 adults and 7 kids, ranging from ages 4-7 and I have to say, the kids were all angels!  It was a nice night out for the 3 mamas.  The kids were so good, we splurged on some fresh baked chocolate chip cookies for everyone. This little tag speaks the truth:

2.  What I'm reminiscing about...
The beach!  As I've mentioned before, we are doing a vacation this year, but we're changing it up and going to a lakehouse in Montana, so no usual beach trip with the besties for us.  I've been thinking back to last year with these water-loving kiddos:

 

 

3. What I'm loving....
How much fun these kiddos have been having at their camps this summer!  Liam has stayed at his regular daycare/preschool, but they switch over to an informal summer camp format for June-August. He's been loving all of the sprinklers and weekly themes, and he's pretty much a hot, sweaty, tired mess when I pick him up everyday.

Jake goes to camp at our church, and it's an awesome program that has swimming twice per week and a field trip each week.  So far this summer, they've gone to the movies, a hiking trail, the science center, a Just Ducky tour, and the aviary!  He's there with a few of his friends from preschool days and his baseball team, so he's having a blast.  They do a "star camper" award each week for a kid who demonstrates the values they talk about at camp (mostly respecting the rules of camp and being kind to other campers and counselors)...Jake won the award earlier this month!

4.  What we've been up to...
The usual summer stuff, really! Riding bikes, the boys have been in the treehouse a lot, playing with neighbors, going swimming....now that it's not raining 6 out of 7 days a week, we've been out a lot more! This past weekend was busy, I went to a baby shower for a family friend (where I got to hog my nephew, Luke, again!)

 

And on Sunday, the boys had been invited to a birthday party at a friend's house with a pool....these two didn't get out of the pool for a solid 3.5 hours.  I take that back, Liam got out to have a piece of cake (of course) but that's it!  They were WIPED that night.

 

5.  What I'm dreading....
Right in this exact moment, I'm dreading 11:30am today, when I have to go to the dermatologist for my yearly check up.  I know it's a necessary evil, and after having a number of suspicious spots removed in recent years,  I will preach to anyone who will listen that they should go get skin checks...but that doesn't mean it's a fun thing!  But, it will be over with by the end of the day, and hopefully I'll be off the hook for another year.

Consider this your friendly PSA that if you haven't had your skin checked this year, call now to make your appointment!! 

6.  What I'm working on....
Vacation 2016.  I haven't really been working on it as much as just contemplating options.  I know, we haven't even taken our vacation this year!  But of course, I'm already thinking of next year....we've been tossing some ideas around....back to the beach as we usually do?  Disney cruise?  Disney world again? There's so much we want to do and see, and we feel like the kids are only little once so we want to do the fun kid things with them while they're young enough to appreciate it...if only we had unlimited money and vacation time!  


7.  What I'm excited about....
Booties!!  No, no, get your mind out of the gutter.  Not that.  I'm talking these kind of booties:

BP. 'Trott" - Nordstrom 

Ivanka Trump "Taren" - Nordstrom

I've been eying up those two from Nordstrom (thanks, Pinterest Told Me To!), but I hope to be able to hit Marshalls before fully committing to buying the boots at full price.  Any other cute shoe suggestions?  Preference between the two I posted?  Leave them in the comments!

8. What I'm watching/reading...
I'm just finishing up What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty (love it!) and up next is Beautiful Day by Elin Hilderbrand.

 

We've been watching Big Brother, So You Think You Can Dance, and of course, I just finished watching The Bachelorette! (and definitely looking forward to the trainwreck that is Bachelor in Paradise)

9. What I'm listening to....
I've been throwing it back when I turn on Spotify and listening to Dave Matthews and Counting Crows a lot (or the 90's hip hop/rap station if the kids aren't around...shhh don't tell them!)

10. What I'm wearing....
Over the past week, anything that keeps me cool!  It has been HOT here, into the 90s nearly everyday.  The flip side to this horrendous outside temperature is that while the number on the thermometer continues to climb outside, the thermostat temp in my office continues to drop.  So, basically this....

11. What I'm looking forward to next month....
VACATION!!!! :)  I'm sure that I will find myself saying something along these lines when we get back, but we are really looking forward to going!

12. What else is new...
We made an effort this summer to continue going to church whenever we can, even though there's no Sunday School.  They do offer a children's church program during the regular service so we've been able to go a few times over the past 2 months or so.  We'll register the kids for Sunday School again in the fall....Liam loves going and gets excited every Sunday....Jake seems to dislike it slightly less at this point :)  I think his main complaint is that they all sing songs for the first 10 minutes or so, and he REALLY dislikes that portion of it. Oh, and the fact that I won't let him wear athletic shorts or sweatpants. Mean mommy!

sun in their eyes, but looking handsome (and coordinated) on our way to church last sunday!

 13.  What I'll miss most about summer...
Not going to lie here, I love a lot of stuff about summer and I'll miss it for sure, but what I'll miss most is the lack of nightly homework!!  There is something to be said for simply coming home from work and getting to hang out with the kids, instead of having to factor in homework time :(  But, we'll get into the groove eventually....

What we've been up to

I've fallen behind on blogging, so brace yourself for a post that's basically just filled with random happenings and pictures.  You're welcome! :)

After years of tagging along to many, many birthday parties (a benefit of being the 2nd child, I suppose)  Liam is starting to have his own little social life at birthday parties.  This was a recent one for one of his besties, Maya...with an appearance by Ariel!!

Painting seashells-look how sweaty his head is, he had just come out of the bouncy house!

As I posted before, Liam has pretty much moved away from weekend naps.  It's fine for the most part, and sometimes if we're home, I have both of them take a rest in the afternoon to recharge....sometimes they read or do something quiet, sometimes I put on a movie and pop some popcorn:

And sometimes, after an especially tiring weekend, this is what happens around 5pm:

 

DONE.

We had a low key Father's Day celebration, which was very welcome after a few busy weekends in a row.  My parents came up and the rain held off so we were able to have a family wiffleball tournament, followed by a trip to Bruster's and burgers on the grill later in the evening :)  Happy belated Father's Day!

Me and my dad, circa 1984

Brian and his dad, 2006

Brian and the boys, 2011

Nothing like seeing a picture of your newborn to make you realize how quickly the time passes.  *sniff, sniff*  Is someone chopping onions in here?!?

Anyway--this past weekend was pretty much a total wash.  Saturday was storm-tastic.  There were maybe 3 breaks in the rain with tiny amounts of sun, but that would be followed by a full blown storm with sideways rain. We did the usual rainy day activities for most of the morning....coloring, board games, etc.

We gave up on the day by lunch time and went to "Inside Out":

I promise Jake was having fun, I'm not sure what is going on in that picture, haha!!  It was a good movie...not my favorite Pixar movie, but good. It made me cry, though I'm pretty sure there hasn't been a Pixar movie produced that hasn't resulted in tears for me! 

Sunday was a bit better in that there was no rain by late-morning, but temperature wise it felt more like fall.  I could nearly taste the pumpkin spice latte!!  We made it to church in the morning...I have to tell you a little more about this picture.  It's rare these days that Jake wears anything other than "comfy" shorts (aka-athletic shorts) so when he does venture out of them, I like to document it.  They were both looking handsome and my impatiens are the BOMB this year (if I do say so myself) so I wanted to snap a picture of them in front of the beautiful flowers.  That's not asking so much, is it? 

Well, according to my 7 going on 17 year old it was.  His exact response when I told him to stand still so I could get his picture was, "Mom, are you seriously going to take my picture?  These church clothes are embarrassing" Well, excuuuuuuuuse me. 

Also, when did I become "mom"???

The rest of the day ended up being a nice balance of work and play....Brian was able to get some treehouse work done (I promise to post an update soon!), I was able to clean out 2 closets that looked like they were going to explode at any minute, and we were able to play in between that stuff.  At one point we were all wizards and sorcerers:

And later in the day, we headed outside to play baseball. 

In case you were wondering, my cue for that picture was "smile boys!"  NAILED IT.

So that's it for right now; it's hard to believe that it's almost JULY!