Weekly Happenings: This was a pretty average week. We didn’t really go anywhere or do anything out of the ordinary. I chose the title I did for this post because Paul and I updated the throw pillows for our couches and Paul also put up another shelf in the pantry to give me more room for storage. Rather mundane “adult” things, I suppose, but it’s strangely exciting. I suppose that’s the stage of life we’re in right now. 😉
The Weekly Weather: It’s been teasing us, really. It will say that it’s going to rain, but then whatever storm it is either passes us by or completely disappears. Oh well…at least it’s been a bit cooler (and by that I mean low- to mid-90s).
What Paul’s Been Up To: As I mentioned before, he added a shelf to the pantry. He also bought some more peel-and-stick reflective material to put up in the office to cut down on the heat some more. Oh, and he was called to be the ward clerk at church. He helps keep track of church attendance and several other things.
What Sarah’s Been Up To: I hosted my monthly book club meeting, which was a lot of fun as usual. Other than that, it’s been mostly just my regular stuff.
What Joseph’s Been Up To: He has settled into school (his favorite subjects are computer lab, art, and GT). He also continues to be a huge help watching Abigail while I teach piano.
What Abigail’s Been Up To: She has thrown us for yet another loop. The past two nights, she’s woken up in the middle of the night, upset. This means that I drag the extra toddler mattress into her room and snuggle with her until she’s ready to go back into her bed. Then I wait for her to fall asleep and sneak back to my bed. I’ve got my fingers crossed that she’ll sleep tonight…I don’t know if I can do a third night in a row.
This Week in Pictures:
Sunday afternoons are apparently meant for spontaneous naps.We had yet another front porch visitor.He was a bit nervous that I was so close. He kept poking his arms at me. I backed off as soon as I got a couple of pictures.The blank space above the bucket was buggin’ me, so I ran to Hobby Lobby to rectify the situation. I couldn’t find another bucket (which was my original plan), but I did find this print. I think it fits in nicely!She was playing and singing (not actual words, but little “ahhs” and “ooohs”).Our new couch pillows. This time around, we opted for cases with inserts. That route ended up being much more cost effective. Plus, we can take off the cases to wash them if needed and then just replace the inserts as they start going flat.Abigail was excited to get another box to play with and…destroy.She also got a kick out of Joseph pushing her around the house.So much so that she tried to give him a turn (he helped her out a little). Apparently Lowe’s celebrates…Hallow-Thank-Mas.The new shelf (the top one). Now my containers aren’t stacked on top of one another!
Easiest dessert, ever. Refrigerated chocolate chip cookie dough (I used the flat type that has 24 cookies), baked for 10-12 minutes in a 350° oven in a mini muffin tin, and then right as they come out of the oven, pop a mini peanut butter cup into the center of each one. Let cool completely before removing from tin (trust me on this one, haha).I seriously love the cute clothes I’ve been able to find for her! The face behind the (phone) camera.
Weekly Happenings: This past week seemed to just fly by. We were busy with work, school, running errands, teaching piano, and the like. I’m trying to wrap my head around how September is almost over. The holidays will be here before we know it!
The Weekly Weather: It’s been all over the map, really. We’ve had a couple of good storms which we desperately needed. One was overnight with quite a bit of thunder. Joseph ended up spending the night on the extra mattress we have on the floor in our room. Abigail thankfully slept through it all. We’ve had some slightly cooler temps and then some slightly hotter temps. It’s been quite the adventure checking my weather app several times a day to see it change, haha.
What Paul’s Been Up To: He’s been busy at work. He’s also been helping me with some organizational bits around the house. When we first moved in, we had a set of shelves to hold a lot of his military awards, coins, and the like. They’ve been fine up there until Senorita Grabs-a-Lot came along (she won’t leave the “shinies”alone). So Paul ordered some shadow boxes for his medals and coins and got some frames for some of his awards. I noticed it feels a lot more open with the shelves gone, which is another plus. Oh, and his birthday was this past week! We’re celebrating tonight with friends and cheesecake (of course). 🙂
What Sarah’s Been Up To: Mostly just my ordinary stuff. I did drive out to New Braunfels (about an hour away) to visit with a friend who recently moved out there. It was so good to see her and hang out.
What Joseph’s Been Up To: He’s back into the groove of school. He’s doing GT again this year and is excited to get to do some extra project-based learning.
What Abigail’s Been Up To: She’s…keeping me on my toes and giving me the opportunity to try many different parenting styles/techniques to see which one works best. 😉 I think we’ll leave it at that, haha. One cute thing that happened was that at dinner one night she told me her tomato slice (which was cut in half) looked like a rainbow. 🙂 She’s constantly using her imagination (one day she held a toy up to her eye and told me that she had a telescope). Life is definitely an adventure with her.
This Week in Pictures:
All ready for church.The result of me telling her I wanted to take her picture.Here’s one of the boy all ready for church.I asked him to keep her occupied while I put dinner together. He did a great job (and got a nap in to boot…that’s my kind of multi-tasking).We ordered her a new windbreaker. As soon as it came, she wanted to put it on…and refused to take it off. I think I told her I would give her broccoli if she would let me hang it up.We had a visitor one morning (Paul had to chase it out of the garage because he didn’t want to have it trapped in there and he didn’t want to have Joseph encounter it in there since Joseph does NOT like any flying bugs).It’s called an Imperial Moth and it’s about the size of my hand, length-wise.Smelling a flower that Paul picked to give to her (if she promised to go inside from the garage…life seems to be a constant stream of negotiations with this one). She didn’t want me to brush her teeth until she saw Joseph brushing his. Then she needed to do hers on her own, next to him.Girl clothes are fun.I moved Abigail’s kitchen upstairs to be with the rest of the toys.I did need to reposition some of the other toys up there to make it work.I like it much better up here. There are fewer places for her to squirrel away her toy food (which she then gets upset about being missing and I have to hunt around for it).It’s also a lot more open downstairs, too.We were getting ready to go out to run errands. She insisted on putting some toys into a backpack and have me help her to put it on. Then she told me she was going to school. Not quite yet, my wee one.When one is playing dress-up, one doesn’t care if one’s costume is a conglomeration of two totally different costumes. I love when the sun is trying to break through the clouds. Those white streaks are rays of sunshine that my camera just couldn’t capture the way my eye could.I scrounged up a few quarters for the kids to go for a ride on the bike.Joseph’s turn on the bike. Bye-bye shelves and hello shadow boxes! I had a few things on the shelves that I still wanted displayed, so I just found a different place for them (along with Paul’s two eagles that he got at different times during his military service). Abigail really likes mayonnaise on her sandwich, apparently. A really cute crocheted dress one of my sweet friends made for Abigail. Why have the shark OR the narwhal when you can have both the shark AND the narwhal?
Weekly Happenings: This past week contained Joseph’s eight-year physical, a shopping trip for new clothes (to fill in the gaps in Abigail’s new wardrobe), ordering new clothes for both kids on Amazon (seriously, why do they have to grow out of their clothes at the same time? haha), and a fun couple of play dates (on Friday, I took Abigail to the park for a play date with kiddos her age and then this morning, Joseph was able to go across the street to our friends’ house to play sans his little sister, which was great for him).
The Weekly Weather: it rained pretty good on Wednesday. Abigail and I got caught in it on our way home from dropping Joseph off at school, but luckily Paul was at home (he was planning on staying home to watch Abigail when I took Joseph to his doctor’s appointment later that morning), so he hopped into the car to come get us. Other than that, it’s been pretty humid and sticky, but thankfully a bit on the cooler side (low- to mid-90s).
What Paul’s Been Up To: work, yard work, etc. He also met with the HOA leaders this week to iron out the most recent issues (it’s never-ending, it seems).
What Sarah’s Been Up To: My piano students are pretty much settled back into their routines, which means my routine is getting back to normal. I’ve had a few drop (due to moving and bust schedules), but haven’t picked any up to replace them. I like being done a little earlier in the afternoon so I still have time to cook dinner each night.
What Joseph’s Been Up To: He did pretty good at his appointment. He did NOT want to get a flu shot, but we got it done. He’s 4’1″ and 59 lbs. He’s back in GT on Mondays (during class), which he really enjoys, settling into the new routine and rules (which can always be a little tough at the beginning) of his new classroom and teacher, and really enjoyed getting to play with his friends this morning (they’re home-schooled, so he doesn’t get to see them often during the school year).
What Abigail’s Been Up To: Her stubbornness has gotten to be quite trying at times. I often have to take a deeeeeep breath (or two…or three) before dealing with the aftermath. There’s a lot of negotiating that happens in the household (she does better if she gets a choice rather than just being told what to do, but that can’t happen every time, so I try to come up with incentives for when those times happen). Luckily, much of the time she is her sweet little self which is a good breather for in-between the tough times. I took her shopping for some new clothes and a pair of shoes (she needed some more dresses for church and a few more short-sleeved shirts…the shoes were somewhat of an impulse buy, but she should be able to wear them with quite a few outfits, so I’m happy (and excited to get her dressed for church tomorrow, haha) She is currently obsessed with Baby Shark (a cute music video that’s gone rather viral with the toddler-crowd) and with anything Halloween (she calls it Trick-or-Treat and gets excited whenever she sees pumpkins). She also wants to watch Christmas specials of different cartoons (thank you, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, haha), which kind of makes me long for cooler weather and the holidays.
This Week in Pictures:
My impulse-buy for Abigail. She can wear them to church, but also with a couple of her more casual outfits. I couldn’t pass up the color. She looks so good in mustard.I was able to combine a coupon and some rewards dollars to get a pretty good deal. I love it when I can do that (especially if I have to buy a lot at once).Walking in Momma’s shoes. I was able to find her some Bermuda shorts on clearance online (seriously, it’s so hard when all that’s in the stores is pants and long-sleeved shirts…and sweaters…it’s still 90+ degrees, people!).Years ago, one of my brothers gave me a piece of his artwork (fashioned after the concept of a Klein bottle, for anyone who is familiar with what that is). It lives on our front porch and usually collects a bit of water every time we get a decent amount of rain. I usually dump it out right away (sitting water is just asking for mosquitoes to breed in it) and was about to do so, but then I noticed that one of our resident toads (who have burrows along the edge of our front walk) decided he’d hang out in the new “pool”. Loving the swings at the park.Also loving the big slide.Trying to figure out how to navigate the bridge (mainly trying to keep her feet from going through the holes…this part of the play equipment is really meant for slightly older kids).Figuring out how to walk in-between the holes.I came down from taking my shower this morning to find this…cutie-patooties.She got a little…over-zealous when eating her toast. She loves swinging…
