Happy Summer Vacation Time

Happy SUMMER everyone! I hope everyone is having a truly fantastic summer.  Thankfully it hasn't been too awfully hot here but it is just now the beginning of July, so hey we shall see what the rising temps have in store for us. I know my utility bill would be happy if temps stayed mild but I know we won't possibly be that lucky.

Has anyone made big summer vacation plans?  We haven't really.  I mean, I finally have a job that I can build up vacation time and then guess what...I can never use it. So in the mean time...my vacation time just sits there waiting for me. So there goes our summer camping trip we were planning on.  Granted we did camp in the back yard already, and it was super nice but it's just not the same. 





Above photos from our fun adventures at the lake this weekend!

This weekend (and last weekend) we went to the lake. We have been to two different lakes lately, and the kids are loving it.  They want to continue checking out different lakes in the area and ya know rating the state park swimming areas. Swimming is their big thing right now.

Above: Nothing says summer funnin' like a goofy family photo!

Last week we took my Mother back home she was down visiting for a week and it was just absolutely wonderful. She rarely gets to see my kids even though she lives only an hour and a half away.  She doesn't drive, and there was a big chunk of time where our own  transportation was sketchy.  Now that we have reliable transportation I also happen to work all of the freaking time, so traveling even an hour and a half away is difficult some times. So kidnapping my Mother for a week was very nice! The kids would wake up every morning and have coffee with Grandma around the kitchen table.  During the week my Mother was visiting I think I only had a day off 2x.  Which means I got to be present and hear my kids sitting around the kitchen table with Grandma sipping on coffee and getting laughter and conversations that made my heart smile. I loved doing this with my Grandmother when I was a child. Only I was only allowed to drink hot tea or hot cocoa, not so much coffee haha, so my kids are lucky  there. 





Above photos are some long over due photos I talked my mother in to doing while she was down visiting!

We went to our towns Art on the Block event while my Mother was down visiting, it was really fun! Not quite as hot as usual which was nice, but it was still on the warm side. It also rained later in the evening and washed away everyone's side walk chalk art, which is always sad. We also  took my Mother to an early 4th of July celebration put on for the community by a local church, that was really fun too and thankfully not scorching hot like usual either! My Mother even won in the raffle! So did one of my sons!

Currently we are gearing up for 4th of July, but I have no idea what we are doing.  We bought a few fire works, we aren't really in to shooting them off ourselves.  We also aren't too in to going to the cities enormous over the top 4th of July celebration.  It gets super over whelming, and lasts all freaking day and is just exhausting. We will likely just stay home for the 4th of July and call it an early night or something. Especially since we already did one 4th of July celebration last weekend, that was really all the fire works and fun we need.

The kids just realized they only have a month and a half left of summer vacation.  They are a little upset at how quick their summer is going.  Going to summer school kind of helped their summer go by a little quicker.

We like to keep our summers fairly low key.  We do not do summer sports. We do family things in the summer. Visiting the lake, going hiking, camping in the back yard, going on little adventures, etc.  To us that's more fun than going to baseball games and things like that.  Besides, my kids aren't big on baseball (I am not sure how that happened as I LOVE baseball, but my kids do not share that sentiment, I think they get it from their father who is also not a baseball fan). 

CS#2 will be starting TACKLE football this fall.  I am a whole lotta nervous bout that one!! However, he is super excited.  I figured we would let him try and see what he thinks.  He has played a lot of flag football and is now old enough to move up to tackle football. 

The other two kiddos are staying in soccer this fall.  CS#1 moves up to a new age level and he is sooo freaking excited.  He will be in a bigger field and their will actually be a goalie now.  He was getting bored in the other age level because the field was small and there were no goalies and few players. His sister has been in this group for awhile and this will be her last season in this age group before she ages up next spring.

It's also time to start thinking about back to school shopping. FUN TIMES. Backpacks, and supplies, clothes. and all that fun stuff. Time to suck the bank account dry with school shopping, and preparing for my daughters TENTH birthday.  Yeh.  10. DOUBLE FRICKIN' DIGITS.

We have also been fostering a pug this summer.  Never dealt with a pug before until this little foster pup.  They are an interesting breed that's for sure.  OH and we also adopted a kitten.  So yeh. She has lots of teeth and claws and uses them all very well, I need to take out stock in Neosporin and Band-Aids. She is not a nice kitten.




Above photos: Our little foster pup, she's  too stinking cute for words.


Above: Our new little kitten of fury.

Happy Hearts Day!

I am such a terrible poster lately.  There just isn't enough hours in the day to do all I want to accomplish and even now I'm up way past my bedtime and it will bite me in the tush tomorrow night as I work my over night shift. Sleep is a very precious commodity. I thought I was tired when the kids were babies.  Nope.  I am pretty sure I am to the bone exhausted now days.  No amount of sleep is going to make me un tired.

I feel like I'm constantly on the go. Rush rush is all I do.  Rush to work by 4:45 every morning (cept the days I work an over night shift, then it's off work by 5am and then I rush home to grab an hour of sleep and then wake up to get the kids off to school, and then rush home to sleep until two and then get up and rush rush to get chores and errands done before the kids get home from school).  If I'm working days it's rush to work, pray the day goes by quickly, and then rush home (or to the store or whatever else I need to get done before my kids get home at 4:30). 

Get home work done, supper done, scouts and soccer practices and football practice too.  On the weekends there are sports games and church activities. 

My calendar.  I don't even want to talk about it, and none of it is for me.

And the crazy part is?  My kids aren't even that busy with stuff honestly.  Two out of three play soccer in the spring and fall.  One plays football in the fall (and now in the spring), my daughter also plays basketball in the winter.  Daughter is also in Girl Scouts (the boys gave up on Boy Scouts because our troop was not active and they weren't having fun and now they are leery of joining a new troop).  It's not like we do dance or gymnastics or karate (which  trust me if we could afford it, I know they would all be in karate for sure).  They want to be in wrestling really bad, but again...the cost for three kids to be in and then the cost of travel.  I can't take that much time off from work to get them where they need to go, so traveling sports teams are not working for us right now, which makes me sad because I know they would enjoy it.

I've always been that mom that has worked her butt off to be creative and go above and beyond on everything the kids do or want to do.  I think I burned my candle at both ends well before my daughter was in third grade.  I always made sure I was  super creative with everything we did.  Now?  The kids and I are like "Meh" when it comes to things like Valentines day boxes for their class parties.  We don't really care.  We've "Been there done that" early on and so the excitement of it just doesn't appeal.

This year my daughter wanted a Shopkins mailbox from Wal Mart for her valentines box at school.  That's exactly what we did.  We didn't make fancy cards, we bought a box of Shopkins cards. Tada. I bought a bag of suckers and sent it all to school.

My sons, they still haven't finished their boxes.  Their cards are done.  For their boxes I went to the store and bought two $1 boxes and folded them up and taped them to be more sturdy and then they will glue foam hearts all over them.  Creative, no?

The boys like the idea.  Simple.

My kids, when I asked them if they were ok with their "simple" non creative boxes, looked at me like I was an idiot and said "who cares? We have a box to put our stuff in and you got us suckers and heart candies to take to school"  I still have to remember to get cupcakes for my sons.

My daughter already had her class party on Friday.  So in my mind...Valentines Day is over.  Which means....I'll probably forget to send the boys to school with their stuff on TUESDAY MORNING.  On top of that I work an over night shift on Monday...so I will be like stupid tired on Tuesday morning. Brain fog central.

I was not designed to work over night shifts.  It is not my favorite.  But when paying bills and raising a family you do what you have to do, and at least it isn't every night but only once maybe twice a week I can deal with that. 

I used to try so hard in all things I did for the kids.  Now I'm like "Meh, good enough". 

Glad I'm done having kids.  If I ever had another that poor kid would get the short end of the stick.

My daughter is almost 10, I spent over half of her life showing off my creativity and brain power at doing all kinds of awesome mom shit. 

Now it's her turn to use some of that creativity that she inherited and learn to do some cool shit on her own.

My sons, they are so much like their dad.  They are content with the basics.  They never ask to go all crazy and big on anything.  Simple guys, they really are.  They just want the basics, nothing too busy or over the top. 

Now birthday parties and Christmas and Easter those are still my TOP holidays to show off my creativity and all that (and can't forget Halloween and Thanksgiving). 

I just find myself going WOW I still have all of these AMAAAAZING ideas and I DO want to do them, but oh grief.  Look at that bank account.  I still have to pay the electric bill and sign two kids up for soccer and one for football and get started on Easter basket shopping and the boys' 8th birthday is right around the corner.  NOT to mention the new vehicle we're getting when income tax rolls around (and then that will be gone, but at least we will have a car).  So instead all of my ideas and creativity gets put on the back burner with dreams of "getting them done". 

I guess I just prioritize differently now.

Back when the kids were little my "ME" tim was blogging after they went to bed, or Facebooking off and on throughout the day when I needed a moment to zone out and regather my brain.

Now?  I honestly don't know what me time is. There is no time. I need to clean (Which I SWEAR my house is more of a chaotic mess now that my kids are OLDER than what it EVER was when they were toddlers!!) We also have neighborhood kids running in and out of the house all day and that makes things crazy too. 

We still foster dogs, so there's chaos that ensues with that too.

Some days I'm just ready to pull my (starting to go gray) hair out.

I work full time hours at work, and then do full time mom stuff. And then my kids break my heart when they get disappointed I have to work the day of the class parties.  Parties start at one and are over at two, and I don't get off work until two, and even then I don't usually get out of there right at two.  Even the day I had to be at an IEP meeting right after work and was trying to leave early, I still didn't get out of there early. 

Luckily made it to the meeting on time, and it was a good meeting. Yay for a good IEP meeting those are always great.

Now don't get me wrong I still do a lot for my kids that are fun.  We host all kinds of fun parties for the kids, and not just my kids but all the kids in the neighborhood and we have done so for several years now and we love it. 

Over the summer we hosted a neighborhood squirt gun fight that the kids all LOVED it was so much fun.  We also had a big ice cream party right before school started and again, all of the kids in  the neighborhood LOVED it.  We usually do a neighborhood Fourth of July event, but we couldn't do that this year due to my work schedule.  I basically work every holiday (yay holiday pay!) But boo on missing out on family time. Choosing between bills and your family isn't ever fun. However it's a struggle a LOT of families face every day, so I'm not any more special than any other family or mom out there.

Over the summer we also did a drive in move for the kids in the back yard.  We plan on buying a projector to use this summer. However, last year we brought out our TV screen and sat it all up in the back yard and the kids brought their blankets and spread them all out over the lawn and we had tables full of snacks and drinks for the kids and they got to watch movies in the back yard at dusk.  Tons of fun!

So while I beat myself up about not doing SOME things for my kids (Fancy class party boxes etc) or missing class parties...I also have to remind myself that we still do a LOT of stuff for the kids. Just over the years ideas, have shifted.  We take a lead from the kids and what they are interested in and what they want to do and follow their interests letting them explore fun ideas and things. We still spend a lot of time at the park, and at the lake.  However more time is spent in our own neighborhood. The kids LOVE being outside.  The boys grab their big collection of NERF Guns and head outside to meet up with the neighborhood kids for NERF wars or "zombie" wars.  Or they all ride their bikes.  They play all kinds of crazy games.  They get DIRTY, they are covered in mud when they come inside, all three of them.  Ruin their play clothes, which thankfully they are already play clothes).  BUT they are wearing huge smiles (most of the time...) and happy and making memories.  It isn't about how BIG or crazy you go for them.  It's about taking an interest IN them and letting them be themselves and have fun.

I can only remember ONE creative Valentines box from when I was in school, and that was the year my Mother made me a GIANT white mail box out of poster board.  It was really cool, had the big red flag and everything.  However, she didn't let me help make it. Everyone loved it.  Cept me.  I mean, yeh I liked it and thought it was cool, but  I didn't get to help with it.

I had always taken a Kleenex box and covered it in red construction paper, and pink hearts and put one or two of my favorite Valentines cards on it from the ones I had chosen to hand out that year.  They weren't creative at all, quite simple, but I had made them. I loved them.

For Kams I have made a giant Rapunzel tower out of oatmeal cylinder boxes, and a Hello Kitty box, and I don't even remember what all else she's had SOOO many big creative boxes.  (From the time she was three and started preschool, so like  6 years of this now LOL) She's over the "coolness" of it, and so am I.

We have found (for us) that creating big projects like THAT cause more stress and less ACTUAL time spent together. 

We'll save those kinds of projects for the holidays and birthdays, times when we KNOW it's ok to GO BIG. I LOVE throwing a big birthday party!! LOVE parties!

I throw little holiday parties at my house all the time. We just had a little Valentines party for some of the kids in the neighborhood on Saturday.  They had so much fun! So did I. We did a Christmas party for the kids where they made home made ornaments decorated cookies, and then I took them out caroling in our neighborhood and they loved it. We will do another neighborhood party for Easter. I've already started planning that one! BUT First I have to finish planning the 8th birthday party for my sons.  Which I already have an awesome head start and most of the décor. (Hey April is coming up quickly). 

I've been sitting here filling out my paper calendar (Gosh I'd be lost without all my calendars).  Filling out soccer games and practices, and all kinds of other stuff.  I'm just finding myself thankful that my kids are able to be who they are and do what they enjoy doing.  I didn't get to do that when I was a kid.  I was in NOTHING until I started band in 5th grade.  NO sports, NO dance classes, NOTHING.  No Girl Scouts, not a single thing.  Which was both frustrating to me as a child who WANTED to do things, but looking back I realize it was more liberating than anything, so looking at things from my perspective I try to walk a line of letting my kids do the things they love (Sports, scouts etc), but also still just be crazy little kids getting dirty in the mud for as long as they can. 

Being a mom is utterly exhausting.
Being a mom is wonderfully exhilarating.

Always something new! Always changing and growing and learning new ways of doing things, and I'm not just talking about the kids! PARENTS are too!

We've been there done that on a lot of things.  Some things I loved some I hated but I learned something from all of it, and I will continue to do so.  I know we have some challenging years ahead and likely our family priorities and creativity will shift again before it's all said and done. My daughter is almost a pre teen.  She is just about 6 months away from being in the DOUBLE DIGITS.  My sons are almost 8. They won't be my "little" boys much longer.  They have already changed a lot, in just a year.

Tonight I got to watch CS#2 totally LIGHT UP when he saw that his new Beta Fish had been delivered by a good friend of ours. He has named his fish Sparky and loves him to bits. Later this week my son will go in to Oncology for a yearly check up to make sure he is still NED from the cancer he was diagnosed with as a newborn, Neuroblastoma.  He's a tough kid! It's a big milestone. so naturally I thought he needed a surprise gift, and that was his fishy fish. He loves fish! I loved seeing his face light up!

So here's to an amazing Happy Heart Day on Tuesday, and an amazing doctor appointment on Wednesday!

Whether you are making amazingly creative and thoughtful Valentines Boxes for your kids (and letting them help...or not), or keeping it simple and buying them, or keeping it even simpler and just letting them make something at school....however you are  doing it...just know...in the end you are doing what works for you, and keep it up! You never know what will work for you next year.  Don't beat yourself up for what you can or can't do, there isn't enough time in life for that. Life changes so quickly it seems we never know what will happen tomorrow. 

Circus Mom