Around here Twenty-three: 06/02-06/08

A glimpse into what it is like to live in our home just this minute.

shark fins are Bugles dipped in white chocolate (hah! Pinterest saves the day...again)

that hit my phone.

Intentional Outdoor Hours:  178+ hours (of 1000)
Plenty of baseball this week and we are officially in the last week of regular season baseball! (yay! and sad too).  We got to squeeze sweet Baby Tessa girl at Grey's game on Friday and we were all happy to get to chat with Uncle Jonny and Ninna, and Aunt Pam was there too!  I made some time for some dog walks and jogs and it felt amazing to get out and move.  Plus, I started listening to S-Town with This American Life podcast and loving it bigtime.

Reading The Post Birthday World by Lionel Shriver and still really enjoying it! For our Inspired Reader's book club challenge it is a check in the box for both: Book I've been meaning to read AND book I chose for the cover art :)

Celebrating our Rusty's first birthday with a Shark birthday party.  Somehow the weather lucked out for us and we had a perfect weather day for his party.  Lots of family and friends made the trek out to our place to celebrate our boy.  Despite my best efforts to self-sabotage the party by not planning anything earlier than 24 hours in advance - I am so very blessed with people in my life.  Abba showed up the day before to deep clean our downstairs including cleaning all window screens and under couch cushions! (blessed be, for real).  Then I got texts from multiple family and friends asking what they could bring - and they did! And handsome Daddy Shark over here somehow cleared out the garage and got all the grass mowed and finished a whole picnic table that week.  I hearty-eyes this Daddy Shark like major.

Basketball Camp'ing.  Grey headed off to the camp everyday this week for a few hours in the morning and he loved it.  We took advantage of the school parking lot one afternoon for some bike riding (Gemma is now totally proficient at two-wheels!) and Grey got to enjoy a playdate with a school friend and fellow bballer one day after camp (Thanks Angie!)

Discovering at Rusty's well check that he had a double ear infection!  No symptoms (no fever, no extra fussiness, no middle of the night waking up?!) I felt terrrrrrrrrible.  The doc told me no worries and that some kids are just extra tough when it comes to being sick.  Poor little man is getting patched up on amoxicillin

Creating the kids' chore charts for the summer months again this year.  I incorporated their Summer learning goals on there too.  Reading/Literacy work everyday and swapping Math, writing, and Science/Exploration throughout the week.  So far so good.  I love me some chore charts.  (Logistics:  Our kids don't get an allowance for doing their chores - we just tell them that we all live in this house, so we all have to work together).

Surprising our middle sis, Kayla, with a late night road trip to her house to sing Happy Birthday to her at midnight over a chocolate twinkie. hahha!  My baby sis and I headed out around 9p on Wednesday night and after the almost two hour drive, spent the night laughing and giggling in front of the fireplace on the bare minimum furniture left in Kayla's house before their big international move to Bermuda.  We all settled into her air mattress bed around 2:45am (seriously there's nothing left in the house after the movers left last week!) and then Tasha and I were headed back on the road home at 4:30am to be back in time before B had to leave for work and Tash had to go to work!  #worthit every darn time for sisters.

Recommending to all my lady friends the Diva Cup (this one is linked to Amazon, but I got mine at my local CVS).  If by any chance you were waiting for someone's rec - here's mine.  After twenty years of being a grown woman and always feeling like I never remember to buy supplies and being stranded or panicked with insufficient absorbency protection or not having access to adequate bathroom trips....ya know, all the 'secret' crap we have to deal with at least monthly.  YOU GUYS. I finally feel like I have a handle on this part of my female life.  In every way, it makes me feel better (environmentally friendly, chemical free, no 'which absorbency to I need this day and do I even have that in house right now?!' confusion, no more last minute shopping trips).  This is not a paid advertisement - they don't even know I'm writing this - I'm just telling you because it has changed my life.

Making black bean Thai noodles with broccoli from our Cooking with Poo cookbook (our cooking instructor from our Thailand trip!), taco Tuesday, chicken, stuffing & veggie casserole.  Grey helped make banana cookies with two over ripe bananas, and I whipped up my grandma's french toast recipe for breakfast because I've been thinking about her so much this week.