Motherhood

The girls have been asking about having a lemonade stand at our house all Summer, and since the weather has finally cooled off a bit, we decided today would be the perfect day for it! They decorated their posters yesterday, some seriously impressive artwork if I might add, and we baked up some cookies after breakfast this morning. There’s always a ton of people outside walking with their kiddos or dogs, and always a construction crew or two, so we had tons of customers and the girls stayed busy for almost an hour! We did regular lemonade & ones with blackberries, which the girls were excited about because they turned pink. I told them it was called fresh squeezed lemonade, so they kept yelling at people to “come squeeze the lemonade!”

It was a ton of fun & definitely one of our favorite ways to spend a Summer day!

Annnnd now we are off to the pool, our favorite way to Friday!! Happy weekend, friends! XO

This week we celebrated Brandon’s 33rd birthday (how are we so old?) and after a long morning of rain, we caught some perfect overcast skies and weather that wasn’t a scorching 99.9 degrees. Perfect pool weather, at least for us! 😉 I rarely have my camera since I am pretty much a helicopter mom around water, but figured we needed to document a day at the pool before summer gets away from us. This has been a good year for us with the kids in the water, Harper & Ellie took swim lessons before we left Atlanta, and are finally comfortable enough to swim and jump in without plugging their noses. Claire is still a little timid and prefers to be holding on to one of us at all times, but let’s be real, she’s like that even when she’s not in the pool.

An afternoon swimming is just about their favorite thing in the world, Claire dumping water from one plastic cup to another, Harper jumping in and out a hundred times yelling “cannonballs!!” and Eloise casually trying to float on her back until dad turns into the shark.

Caught this little guy eating food out of someone’s lunch basket. Happier than a bird with a french fry (or a mom with a poolside cocktail). We have just a few short weeks until the girls go back to school, so we will be savoring all of the pool days from here on out!

Rash guards c/o our local fave Swimzip!

Ok well it’s safe to say that Summer is flying by, considering I planned to share all these little update posts & have barely kept up. We have been BUSY. Since we last posted in our Summer series, Brandon and I took a trip to Salt Lake City, we stayed with my parents for a week while our house was under construction again, and then we spent another week in Iowa, visiting family & surprising my grandparents with a 60th anniversary party. It was so much fun seeing everyone & doing all the things that come along with living back in the midwest. But! It feels SO good to be home!!!! And to have a fully functioning kitchen for the first time since we have lived here!

I thought I would share a little glimpse into what our Summer nights look like, the days sure are long but I know this season will be over before we know it. We have spent almost every afternoon either in our backyard kiddie pool or at our neighborhood pool, which means Claire is back to taking afternoon naps wherever she chooses to crash. I always wished I would have a kid that could just fall asleep wherever, and now all of a sudden, third kid, three years old, and it is happening. 😉 This is my quiet time to cook dinner, and while Ellie loves to help me in the kitchen, Harper relishes in the quiet moments where neither of her little sisters are bothering her, so she usually sneaks into the playroom to draw by herself or watch cooking shows on her ipad. She is so my child.

We got pretty used to not having a working kitchen, so we grill almost every night. Our go-to lately has been marinating chicken in italian dressing for a few hours and then throwing it on the grill until it is blackened. Seriously so simple and easy, but adds so much flavor! We love eating it over salads or with some roasted veggies. Although every single part of me is dreaming of Fall and all the comfort food that comes along with it!!

After dinner is almost always a popsicle bribe, the girls pick up the playroom or their bedrooms and we head outside for a sweet treat. Because I’m clearly just begging for more sticky messes to clean up before we call it a night.

I caught Claire leaning on Brandon eating her popsicle the other night and dropped everything to get my camera in time to capture it, he’s pretty much the sweetest girl dad in the entire world.

Also please don’t judge me for how infrequently my kids let me brush their wet pool hair these days.

What’s next for us? Celebrating Claire’s 3rd birthday & Brandon’s 33rd birthday next week!! She turned three on July 1, and of course that was a travel day for us, followed by a week of playing catch up, being worn down & everyone having colds. We are so ready to celebrate these two!! Hope you all are having the best Summer ever so far! XO