First Day of PREschool

Madeline's first day of preschool was today and she did great!  She is in the Sunshine room. (Don't dare call it school or she gets mad and corrects you immediately.  It is PREschool!)

I snapped this last picture before I took off and said goodbye.  She could have cared less.  I think she wanted me gone.

She was super excited to see me when I picked her up!  She told me she had lots of fun.  I think her favorite part was a tie between playing outside and eating ice cream.

Kings Island

I'm always kinda bummed out that we live so far away from the zoo.  In Columbus, I took the girls there all the time.  But here, it's just far enough away where it's kind of a pain to go.  Fia inevitably falls asleep in the van and then refuses to continue her nap once we're home.  But one thing we have that Columbus doesn't is an amusement park in our backyard.  Seriously, it's like 10 minutes from our house.  We took the girls there a few weekends ago and had a blast.  We had no idea the kids area had so much to do for little ones.  We were there for a total of 3 hours and made the most of it.  I foresee a season pass in the years to come.

The cars and the swings were Madeline's favorite rides.

Can you tell it was 95 degrees that day?

Madeline just recently started recognizing numbers and had to sit in seat # 3.  

 What trip to Kings Island doesn't involve ice cream by the fountains?  And not just any ice cream.  Graeters!

More Madeline quotes

While sitting in the grass playing Duck, Duck, Goose, there were a lot of bugs flying around

Madeline: "Ugh, these bugs are killing me!"

Where did she even get that?!

___________________________________________________________

First thing in the morning sitting down for breakfast....

Madeline: "And now, I'm not gonna be a pain today!"

Overheard

I can't even tell you how often I hear this everyday.

Fia: (starts crying)

Madeline: "Sorry Fia."

Fia: (crying harder)

Madeline: "SORRY FIA! ~Twinkle~Twinkle~Little Star~How~I~Wonder~What~You~Are~"

Fia: "~tinkle~tinkle~wittle~staa~"

---Argument Over---

And no, I didn't abbreviate the singing to save my typing. That's exactly what I hear.

Fia's First Haircut

Fia's hair had been getting long and unruly lately so I decided it was time to get it trimmed. I had trimmed it once before myself, basically just her bangs so they weren't in face. But this time she needed a professional cut, so I took her to Cookie Cutters. She did fantastic and didn't mind the experience at all!

Here is her messy mop before:

And here she is after. How adorable are those curls?

Super Cuteness

I've heard of the super cuteness that comes with a 3 year old, but so far, most of it has been the bad parts of a 3 year old.....not listening, straight up defiance, endless potty training, the list goes on. Madeline has said a few cute things but this one takes the cake by far.

She was in our backyard picking "flowers", basically buds off our bushes. She was going along and came across a section that had dried up so it was brown in color. She stops and exclaims in delight, "Look! A chocolate one!"

Trip to Indy

The kids and I took an impromptu trip to Indianapolis last week and had a blast! My sister had a business trip booked so we decided to tag along for a mini-vacation. We talked Nonna into coming too and turned it into a great girls trip. So much so, we want to do it again next year. Since it was a business trip and all, Jackie didn't really get to partake in the all fun, so hopefully next year for her.

We got there Tuesday afternoon and went shopping immediately. Madeline found the cutest hat so we had to get it. She was having too much fun showing it off to everyone.

On Wednesday, Nonna and I took the kids to the Children's Museum and I took entirely too many photos. But it was hard not to! This place is too cool. The first exhibit we checked out was the dinosaurs. They had a really neat room with large skeleton replicas of T-Rex's and others, but Madeline was scared of it so we had to skip that part. Instead she checked out the fossil research area.

And went digging for her own fossils.

Fia was in on the fun too! And this photo of her cracks me up every time I see it.

We couldn't possibly have gotten any luckier to have the Dora & Diego exhibit still there. This was hands-down their favorite area.

Fia was enamored with the Dora statue and kept going back to see her.

Meanwhile, Dr. Madeline was checking out injured animals in the Diego Rescue Station.

Next up was Isa's Flower Garden and the Purple Planet.

Another photo of Fia that gets me chuckling. She is such a ham!

Then we headed over to the Barbie exhibit where they were put to work answering phones.

Walking the Barbie catwalk. Future model on my hands?

Photographer?

Fia was backstage doing hair.

Lastly, we couldn't visit Indy without meeting up with Papaw for some ice cream. It was a super relaxing, super fun trip and I can't wait to do this again next year!

Little Chef

Blueberry Picking

Madeline and I went blueberry picking last weekend. If you've never had fresh blueberries, you MUST do this. This was my first time and wow, they are amazing!

The bushes had all shades of ripeness so we had to be careful to only pick the blue ones.

She did a great job at this.

Very serious blueberry picker.

Helping Mommy do the grocery shopping

We live smack dab in the middle of two grocery store locations. One is much nicer and bigger than the other so I frequent that location all the time. However, we stopped in the other location this week and Madeline couldn't have been happier. I didn't know they had kiddie sized carts and she LOVED it. She took it as her job to be the shopper and everything had to go in her cart. I wish our normal store had these. I guess we'll be visiting the "other" store more often now.

Fia is walking!

Fia took her first unassisted steps back at the beginning of July and hasn't looked back. Her favorite activity the last few weeks has been to do circles around the house with the doll stroller. It was like her exercise to build up her legs. Then as each week passed, she could take an extra step or two by herself, but couldn't get past 4 or 5 steps. Then this week she took off! She is now walking across the room and it's so fun to see. She is so proud of herself when she does it.

I have some great video of her to share but my computer is having issues at the moment. I'm anxious for you all to see her so I'll try to get it up soon.

Happy 4th!

Happy Birthday Andy

Ault Park

Ault Park has a special place in my heart since I went there many times as a kid. So since we've been back in the area, I wanted to take the kids. It was a beautiful day and we had nothing planned, so off we went. My Grandma lives right by it so we picked her up to tag along. How sweet is this picture?

Their flower gardens are normally overflowing with beauty. But sadly, both my Grandma and I were a little disappointed at how unkempt everything was. Of the pretty flowers that were there, Madeline wanted to pick them. Which I don't think you are supposed to do.

But GG couldn't say No to this face.

Then we checked out the fountain. As soon as we walked up, Madeline started stripping off her shoes and socks to jump in. Unfortunately, this is something else that has changed over the years. This thing used to be full of kids on a hot day, including myself. But now no one is allowed in.

Madeline still made some fun of it.

We had a blast and so did GG. She said she would make pizza for next time and we'll eat it there. Sounds like a date!

A new venture

I wasn't sure what to title this post. It's kind of a series of bad things leading to a good thing. I'll just get right to it. I've been struggling the last few weeks. It's a host of issues but mostly financial issues and me dealing with being a stay-at-home-mom.

I knew money was going to be tight living off of one income. And honestly, we were doing fine until we bought the new swagger wagon. Then things got really tight. We'll be okay, but it requires extra belt tightening that we aren't used to. This amounted to lots of stress on my part because I worry way too much (thanks to my parents for passing that on to me).

Then I'm still trying to get accustomed to staying home with the kids. I love being home with them, but it's harder than people think. I miss the challenges and feelings of accomplishment from working a job. I do make sure the kids have activities throughout the day. But it's not like the kids say, "Hey Mom, good work today." And honestly, many days I feel lost with them. I'm not a teacher by trade, I'm a scientist. I'm constantly questioning if I'm stimulating them enough. For awhile there, I was comparing myself to what they used to do at daycare and that bar was way too high. I've been looking to other SAHM's for guidance and they basically said I need to give myself more time. I've only been doing it for 3 months and I also moved to a different city during that time. One mom said it took her close to 9 months before she felt like she had everything together. And when I really think about it, I am doing a good job and can feel myself getting better. I joined a Mom's group and that has been great. Just about every day there is something to do with them, either having a playdate at the park, a pool party at someone's house or an ice cream social where everyone brings their own topping. It's been fun and the moms I've met are really nice.

So, all this introspection has lead me to believe something is missing from my life. And after much discussion with Andy, I've decided to become an independent sales consultant for Tastefully Simple. I think it's a win-win situation for us. I can work but still stay home with the kids and bring in some extra money to boot. There also doesn't seem to be much downside. I do have some small start-up costs, but I think I could easily make that money back after a few months. So if this ends up not working out like we think, I can always quit and not lose anything. Don't get me wrong though. Being able to quit isn't the frame of mind I'm in. I am really excited and can't wait to get started!