When life gives you lemons...

(Or you go to the store to buy a bag so you can cross an item off your summer bucket list)...you make lemonade!

Ingredients:
1 1/2 c. fresh squeezed lemon juice (we used 10 lemons, but added a fair amount of pulp)
1 1/4 c. white sugar
8 c. water

Directions:
Combine sugar and 1 cup of water and bring to a boil on high heat, stirring constantly. Let cool
to room temperature and then chill in the fridge. While the simple syrup is cooling, juice lemons and mix with the rest of the water in a large pitcher. Add the simple syrup and enjoy!


Aidan and Logan were eager to help me make this yummy treat while Lorelai napped. I cut the lemons in half and they used their muscle power to juice the crap out of those lemons.

I even bought a juicer just for this occasion, and I'm SO glad I did. It would have been a nightmare to juice 10 lemons by hand. And now we have a good excuse to make fresh-squeezed lemonade (or limeade, or orangeade) all the time!

When Lorelai woke up, all 5 of us enjoyed a nice tall glass of it. But shhh, don't tell Lorelai--the boys got an extra glass for all their hard work (and because the entire amount was too big for my 2qt pitcher, whomp whomp).

They're already asking when we can make it again. I'm excited to experiment with some other recipes as well. Strawberry lemonade, anyone? Yum indeed. :)

Fireworks on the Fourth

I guess we didn't have a very traditional 4th of July. We didn't watch a parade, we didn't go to the pool, and we didn't grill out. Although that was not for lack of trying--the propane ran out right when Adam put the chicken on the grill. Bummer.

But we did get all decked out in our festive red, white and blue and took the kids to see some fireworks.





I even painted our toes matching red. :)



It was Lorelai's first time watching fireworks, and I was worried that she'd be scared of the noise. But she did so great, clapping and cheering, oohing and aahing--so cute!



We've never actually taken the boys to see fireworks, either. They've seen them from the beach house and from our car in the distance on our way in to the beach a few years ago, but this was the first time we went somewhere to watch them on purpose. We went to a local shopping center, parked in front of Target, and waited. And then waited some more...until well after 9:30.



We passed the time with feeble attempts at sparklers (it was tough to do and nicely photograph in a parking lot, so we'll have to do them another night), and despite being past everyone's bed time, they all hung in there like champs. And I think we'd all say it was well worth the wait. They were in awe!





Logan was pretty much in a trance the whole time. Totally mesmerized.








I love this pic!


The kids didn't get into bed until after 10:30, but thank goodness everyone slept past 8. Lorelai didn't wake up until 8:30. Score!

And who cares if we didn't do all of the quintessential 4th of July things, because the one we did do was pretty awesome. Dare I say, a blast? (Haha, so punny.) Although I'll be sure the grill has plenty of propane for next year because I really wanted some grilled food. :)

Rain rain go away...

...now that my children got to play.



We crossed another item off our summer bucket list this evening, and I think they kiddos had just as much fun as last year playing in the rain.



We've had plenty (waaaay too many) rainy, dreary days lately, but they've almost all been part of thunder storms with crazy wind, thunder and lightening. Not ideal for playing, obviously.

But this afternoon, I cut out of work a little early in an effort to beat the rain (and let's face it--start my glorious 4-day weekend a little early!). As I was driving the kids home, there were no storms, just rain. Perfect for playing, finally.



We got home and they got changed, but it stopped raining right as they walked outside. Total bummer! So we watched a movie instead, had dinner, then went out to play. And just when we thought all hope was lost for playing in the rain, like magic, the skies opened up and the rain started to fall.

They splished and splashed and ran around like crazy, enjoying every second. More childhood memories were made. Even before we were all the way inside, they were asking when it was going to rain again.



Gotta be honest though, now that we've checked this item off our list, I'd be happy to not see another rainy day for the rest of the month! The storms and rain we've had lately are crazy and so not normal for June/July in NC. Rain rain go away! Unless it's at night or a quick, harmless shower in the evening so I don't have to water my plants...

Big girl bed

Ever since the last time we tried and failed to get Lorelai to sleep in a big girl bed, I've been chatting it up and periodically asking her if she wants to try it again. The answer was always no, or not yet, or "maybe later." But later finally came on Father's Day weekend, when she actually agreed to let me take the railing off her crib to create a toddler bed. In an effort to avoid jinxing the situation, I've avoided posting about it, but it's official. Lorelai is sleeping in a big girl bed, and she's happy about it!



She fell out on the first night and I realized I forgot to put pillows down like I did for Logan (#momfail). She was totally fine despite the incredibly loud noise that sent me and Adam running up the stairs at vampire speed. And I assumed she'd figure it out after the first fall, since I'm pretty sure Logan and Aidan each only fell out once or twice before they learned to adjust. Unfortunately, she kept falling (thankfully never hurting herself or getting too scared to keep sleeping with the side off) so I used the pool noodle trick to keep her in there, and it's working like a charm.



And the best part (here's where I'm going to jinx myself, I'm sure...) is that she doesn't get out of bed to roam at night or in the morning when she wakes up. She doesn't wake up any earlier because of her new-found freedom and doesn't go in to wake Aidan and Logan up. I worried those things would happen, which is why I was okay waiting for so long.

We're so proud. And as soon as she stops wetting her diaper so much at night (I'm not holding my breath), I'm going to repaint her crib and convert it to a double bed headboard so she'll have plenty of room to sleep without falling out. Hope the boys don't get jealous that she'll have a bigger bed than them. :)

Facebook, twitter and a new fridge

This weekend, I got around to finally doing some things I've been thinking about (and putting off) for a while. First of all, I joined twitter and set up a Facebook page for my blog. Follow me? Please?

Honestly, I don't know why I really did it. It's just more social media to maintain, and I don't really even "get" twitter. I mean, I guess get it in general, but I don't know how much I'll even use it, and so far I find it kind of hard to follow. Tweet, retweet, links out the wazoo, where are all the pictures?! Can you tell I prefer instagram? Been a member for a day and have yet to send my first tweet. Total selling point for following me, huh? ;) But everyone and their mother's cousin's friend has a twitter account and a FB page for their blog, so I was feeling kind of left out. And one of the things I like best about blogging is the networking and "meeting" new people, so it seemed like a natural step. I guess.

*****

And the other big news is that we finally got a new toilet seat for the boys' bathroom! Wait, you don't consider that big news? Well when the seat has been cracked for a while and then your son literally carries a (gross nasty ewwww) toilet seat across the house to show you how broken it is, you'd be eager to get a new one, too. But really the big news is that on our trip to get a new toilet seat from Lowes, we just happened to see a fridge we really liked, at a good price. So naturally we hopped in the car to hhgregg to see if they could beat the price. They did, so we got a fancy new fridge this weekend! And for the record, I was the one that talked them down on the price even further, because Lowes' extended warranty is cheaper. Bargain hunting/comparison shopping for the win!


Okay, they're *slightly* different models between each store, the differences being .5 cu. ft. and an extra ice bucket.

For several months now, we've had some sort of buildup that's caused water to drain into the freezer instead of down the back (?? I know nothing about the inner workings of appliances), so we've had a towel across the front of the freezer to catch the water before it spills onto the floor, and we've had to remove everything on the bottom to chip out the ice every couple of days. Such a PITA. And before we came up with the janky towel solution, we missed some leaks and the laminate flooring and baseboards behind the fridge got warped. So glad to finally have a replacement after putting it off for so long.

Isn't it pretty? I want to pet it. Every time I open the doors, the led lights glow all pretty and I half expect angels to sing. Weird? Probably.


Side note: It'd be MUCH prettier if we finally got around to painting our cabinets white after all these years...

Such language!

I'll be the first to admit that I have a pretty bad potty mouth at times, just never around my kids, because I really think they should be sheltered from that as long as possible. In all honesty, I don't know that I'd mind them knowing bad words in general, but right now they're too young to know how to use them so they're not hurtful towards others or ugly. Not that there's a good way to make a curse word "pretty" but anyway... And little kids saying naughty words is just too shocking and ugly in itself. So shelter, it is. But it's hard!

I know Aidan knows curse words, and just recently found out that Logan knows curse words as well, thanks to the bus. Apparently there was an incident at school where he told a friend how to spell a curse word (not sure which one, either hell or shit probably) because Logan refused to say it. When that got back to the teacher, he got so upset because he didn't want to know these words, but he couldn't help it because older kids on the bus were saying them.

His teachers sort of empowered him to be a "bad language monitor" so to speak, so if he heard other kids saying bad words, he could feel comfortable telling an adult (especially since his teacher said she could tell it made him so uncomfortable). Problem not really solved, but we moved on and still no bad words uttered from either of my boys' mouths under my watch, at least.

And then one of his parents (ahem, not me) dropped the f-bomb quietly, casually and completely accidentally last night, right in front of both Aidan and Logan. Oops! I gave this particular parent a serious stare-down and silently hoped that the slip went unnoticed. No such luck. Logan looked at me with eyes as big as saucers and whispered "Daddy just said the F-word!" We explained that it was a mistake, and he was sorry. But adults can and do choose to use adult language like that, and that still doesn't make it okay for kids to say those types of bad words.

Teachable moment or parenting fail? Probably both. Fortunately Logan (my overly sensitive one) didn't get upset about it. But that was definitely the first time they heard that word out of one of our mouths. I hope their innocence wasn't shattered too badly.



But even I'm guilty of exposing them to inappropriate language when I do something innocent like turn on the freakin' car radio. All of a sudden I hear Ke$ha talking about her coochie (sometimes that part is censored, sometimes not. I can never tell which version I'll get until that word pops up). I immediately changed the station to a song called "Detachable Penis." First of all, what?! And second of all, that station got changed in a hurry as well, because both boys like to read the name of each song that comes on. And then this morning, I turn the station again, and start jamming to J-Lo and Ja Rule's "I'm Real," when bam! The n-word. Seriously? Thank heavens I had already dropped Aidan and Logan off. But what happened to decency on the public airwaves or whatever? Geez! XM, get it together.



Although I guess if a few bad words is all they get out of some of those songs, I'll be lucky. Because the inappropriateness doesn't stop at bad words. I'd really rather not explain what Daft Punk and Pharrell mean by "Get Lucky" or what "Blurred Lines" Robin Thicke is singing about...

Sheltering kids is hard, man! It's a balance between protecting them from inappropriate things yet carefully exposing them to the world gradually on an age-appropriate level so they're not totally naive. And I'm not sure I've found that balance yet.



PS: for the record, and on the off chance that Adam is reading this, I wasn't mad enough to hate him forever, because it could have just as easily been me to let a bad word slip. I'm just glad it wasn't me.

Summer break is FLYING by

On Friday, I had a moment of panic, realizing that we were already 2 weeks through our 5-week summer break from school.

We were sitting at the pool having an impromptu pizza dinner, hanging out with our neighbors and a friend from Logan's class. The kids were having a blast, and I was totally enjoying the evening. A great way to celebrate the first official day of summer.



As I was chatting with Logan's classmate's mom, she said that open house is on July 11 (school starts on July 15). I had my moment of panic, and her response was more, "Only 3 weeks of summer left, yay! Back to "normal"! But in my mind, I'm thinking OMG only 3 weeks left, oh no!!! There's so much fun stuff we still need to do, and it seems like 2 weeks just slipped by without much notice. In 3 WEEKS I'll have to deal with packing lunches, homework, and much less flexibility to spend time enjoying ourselves outside, going the pool, and hanging with friends on any random weekday we choose. Panic, I tell you. (It's the homework that gets me, if I'm being honest. Adds so much stress to the evenings.)

Fortunately though, we've already checked two things off our summer bucket list. Last Monday, we went to a Durham Bulls game with my work. Had hot dogs, got cotton candy, ate ice cream sandwiches, saw an awesome home run, and stayed up past bedtime. Still only made it to the top of the 3rd inning (damn these 7:05 games, so not good for little ones!) but it was a great night. Lorelai cracked us up because she kept asking where the cow was. We would all tell her it was a bull, but she couldn't grasp the concept. By the end of the night, it was a "bull cow" but she couldn't let the whole cow thing go.



And then on Saturday at 9:20am as we were eating breakfast, Adam just happened to check movie times and saw there was a 10am showing of Monsters U. We scrambled to eat and get dressed and made it to the theater just in time. I was so proud of us for being so spontaneous and fun (that's two days in a row!). We even hit up the food court afterwards for some lunch. Cool parents for the win!



It was a great movie. Unfortunately I missed several parts because Lorelai had to go to the bathroom literally 4 times, which never happens at home. It was her first movie in a theater, so I think she was just antsy and wanted to walk around. But all things considered, she did really well.


We rounded out the top-notch "make the most of summer" weekend with a cookout at my Aunt and Uncle's house--another very summer thing to do.



But I still can't shake this feeling of not enough time. Maybe it's part of an overall sense of time flying that's really getting to me. Aidan turns 9 in a month, and Lorelai turns 3. Logan's not far behind them when he turns 7 in September. Kind of blows my mind every time another year rolls around for each of them.

In the same way my mind jumps 3 weeks ahead to homework and lunches and our typical frantic evenings, it also jumps years ahead to middle school, high school, my baby going to kindergarten, driver's licenses, boyfriends/girlfriends, and my kids just plain old growing up and not needing me. Wow, this post just to a turn...


(Hey look, I even just so happen to have pictures to semi-illustrate my point! My daughter is almost 3, going on 16...and it freaks me out!)

I don't know. I guess the thing I need to learn (and I keep going back to this) is to enjoy the moments we have now, and try not to worry about the future until it gets here. Technically we only have 3 more weeks, but on the other hand, that's 3 whole weeks! Look at that, the glass just got half-full again. :)

(And now I'm off to order an ice cream maker so we can check off one more item on our summer bucket list.)