Oh, HI!
Hello, there! It’s me again. Been quite awhile, huh? Sorry for the unexpected sabbatical. Lots of things going on with summer in full swing and two very active little kiddos.
Let me catch you up as best I can:
To kick things off, probably on maybe the 2nd day of spring that was warm enough to wear flip-flops, I did.
And injured my toe.
Scrapped a whole bunch of skin right off that sucker. Why? How?
Well, silly story, actually: I was pushing a grocery cart after checking out and the baggage clerk had put a large jar of salsa (yep, glass jar) in the front of the carriage without putting the toddler seat flap up. And wouldn’t ya know it, that large jar of salsa wanted to be free so badly that it slipped right through the slot where a toddler’s leg would go and CRASH, SMASHED right onto my foot on the pavement. Yep. Bye-bye skin.
Did I mention that I was training for the Bolder Boulder at the time? Oh yeah. Put a halt to that pretty quickly since I couldn’t get a shoe, not even a sock, over this monstrosity for a few months.
I still did the BB. With my super awesome siblings and Magic Man (aka Joel) by my side.
Had a horrible finish time since I ended up speed walking most of it on a blazing-ly hot day. I’m not going to lie, even living here, the altitude and the heat got to me. And I thought I was going to pass out on the hill into the stadium, but I didn’t!
And I FINISHED it!
We took the boys to a Rockies baseball game (2nd for Aiden, 1st for Drew) and fed them cotton candy, hot dogs and peanuts.
The whole 9 yards.
It was kid’s day and they scored these super dorky free hats. They love them!
The boys, including Joel, went on a huge trampoline at Aunt Marg’s house for cousin Josh’s graduation’s party.
Flying high!
And hanging low!
Joel took them fishing for Father’s Day and they all got “skunked” out except for Drew.
“Skunked” – slang for not catching any fish. Not to be confused with actually being sprayed by a skunk. Which is what I thought they meant and freaked out for 2.5 seconds.
Then, the boys went to the O’Brien family reunion in Alcova without me. Low-light of my summer. I’m pretty sure this is the first, in almost 10 years, that I’ve missed the annual reunion and I was so heartbroken saying goodbye to them heading down the driveway.
Work-shmerk! Being a responsible working mom is hard. Sometimes, unfortunately, you miss the ‘mom’ part and get stuck in the ‘working’ world.
Well, they forgot I wasn’t there, which is a good thing ~ they did all kinds of fun things, I heard.
Jumped off the back of Aunt Sharon’s boat!
Stayed up to 1 am night fishing and roasting marshmallows for s’mores at the campfire!
Played with cousins and swam at the “beach” until they were so hungry they couldn’t get the spaghetti down fast enough (I love spaghetti faces ~ thanks, Aunt Marg for this pic!).
As if that wasn’t enough, the boys then immediately went to Grandma Camp, with cousin Callie, out at Joel’s folks’ property.
And, again, swam their hearts out! (Thanks, Kristina for this awesome pic!)
On Independence Day we were back out at Joel’s folks’ and swam some more!
Every little boy needs a shark towel.
Can’t you just eat up those little cheeks and squishy lips!? I love this face!
And this face.
Not mine, Aiden’s!
He’s 5.5 years old going on 12. Too cool for school with the James Dean smirk of a smile. Outrageously irresistible! He got a marriage proposal this week, btw. Twice, from the same sweet little gal. He’s going to be an unintentional heart breaker for sure.
And then there’s my Drew. We had a date-weekend since he was too little to go camping/fishing with Joel & Aiden last weekend. We went to breakfast, the movies, out to see Nana & Papa, and played at the playground until he told me he was tired.
He’s going to an intentional heart breaker. He knows he’s charming!
Combing his hair, shinning his shoes, working a grin ~ even sharing his popcorn with me!
Flexing those muscles and courageousness across the playground.
Flashing that flashy smile that goes all the way up to those deep brown eyes.
Boy am I going to be in trouble with these two.
…well, make that 3.
If you read this far down…SURPRISE! After a miscarriage earlier this year, we’re PREGNANT and expecting baby # 3 in early Dec.
So, busy will get busier and snuggles around here will get snugglier. We’ll find out in 2 weeks if we’re having a boy or a girl. Updates to follow!
So, my friends, I will say once again: don’t blink. Life happens fast. Slow down when you can.
Watch your babies watch bugs, swim their arms off and dig through the dirt. Let them run through the sprinklers, eat drippy popsicles and ride their tricycles “to infinity and beyond”. Let their Aunties and Uncles spoil them and let Nana/Grandma & Papa/Grandpa break the rules when they keep them for overnights.
They’re only babies for so long. And you only get this lifetime to make those memories with ’em.
So hop, skip and jump to it!
~pw
