Toast 2 Mom

Since A Long Time Ago….

So many events have happened since my last post. It's been bonkers-ville. We had company, lots of cookie orders, teacher appreciation week, my blog 6 year anniversary, girls in a play, wedding anniversary, mother's day and fun, warm weather social events with friends. It's just been hard to keep up with all types of tasks. But I never want to not have these memories. So here is my much-abbreviated version of the past couple weeks. 

Grammy, Papa and Grandma Iva came for a visit. We went to a fun burger place downtown and to view the bats. This photo of Sydney was taken at Guadalajara for breakfast - one of our fav spots.

Cinco de Mayo weekend. Miss Cheeks got her face painted at a festival we went to downtown.

The girls were in a play - Peter Pan. Sydney played the role of Peter Pan and Natalie was Wendy. It was FANTASTIC!

 

 

 

Happy 12th Anniversary celebration dinner with the Hubby. 

 

The girls had Field Day at school - lots of fun activities. So glad I could be a part of it. 

 

 

 

Happy Mother's Day (and anniversary too) to me. The girls brought my presents in this morning by wearing them when they woke me up. I got a cute new shirt and a pair of earrings (Tiffany's nonetheless). I went for a nice long run today. The girls and I went to lunch and then to a movie. A perfect way to spend a day. Cheers!

Making Memories - NY Style

We just returned from New York City. Hubby and I often talk about the priviliges our girls have already been given in life at just the ages of five and seven. They've been coast to coast and a lot in between. Sometimes we worry and hope that they fully appreciate the blessings we have by sharing these experiences together. And then we are simply grateful to be able to show them what life is all about - new places, new faces, new experiences, opportunities, life lessons. 

We've been on several trips as a family. I have to say this trip ranks very high, if not the highest, as one of my favorite experiences with our girls. I am already a huge fan of New York. So there is no surprise that I enjoyed myself. However I'm also a very high anxiety traveler with my girls. I used to travel solo very carefree. Throwing kids into the mix, just has that way of adding extra panic button moments to the days. And in New York, there's always something to be on guard with - people, crowds, traffic, and all of those things at once. But despite all that, I found myself fairly calm....and embraced all the things we saw and did....and there were many!

The Hubby and I have been to NY several times. We are champion NY travelers. We get up early and hit the pavement. With kiddos in tow, we set our expectations low for adding daily mileage, but like always, our girls are champion travelers, and they did awesome. We saw SO much. 

Saturday was FAO Schwarz, Central Park, carousel, Times Square, pizza for dinner. Sunday was bagels in the morning, subways rides, walking around - Grand Central Terminal, Empire State, NY Library, Cinderella on Broadway (SUCH a great show!!), Chelsea Market, and The Highline. Monday I had brunch with a dear friend from college, then we went to the Museum of Natural Science. That night we went to a garden party. We stayed with a friend of Hubby's who is an editor for a magazine. Some friends of his had a party in Grammercy Park (how New York City are we?!! :) And Monday we made it to the Statue of Liberty to round out the trip. Several neighborhoods, several blocks of walking, several subway rides and lots and lots of fantastic memories! I can't wait until we go again!

Cousin Bonanza Weekend

The cousins left early this morning after a wonderful four day visit. It was a gorgeous weather, fun-filled weekend. And our girls social calendar became drastically more "boring" (as Sydney described it) now that they have left and gone home to Nebraska. 

While they were here though, we made the most of it. We fed horses, bunnies, donkeys, peacocks, ducks, turtles and fish. We went to three parks, rode a train, hiked, played in a creek, went fishing and enjoyed playgrounds. We went to a carnival, dined at outdoor dining restaurants, ate yummy Mexican food and made s'mores. We played soccer, dolls, pretend and read lots of books. We went to brunch and Hubby introduced rock climbing to the adults. The kids had popcicles, made shrinky dinks, colored cards and posed by bluebonnets. 

Whew! I bet I missed several things; but our four days was quite eventful. Our cousins even left with a list of things we didn't tackle. So we're saving that for next year! Looking forward to the next visit!! 

Chinny Chin Chin Cheekers

It's been a long day - and it all began about 9 o'clock this morning when I dropped Cheekers off to preschool. Like a normal day, I dropped her off, put her lunch in her cubby, put her snack in the snack basket, put her water in the water bottle basket, talked to her teacher about the weekend and kissed my girl goodbye. Today the routine stopped at putting the water bottle in the basket. Cheeks was bouncing around the room, ready for Monday to begin. She was balancing herself between two tables, using the tables like parallel bars - swinging back and forth. Then in a flash, she fell flat to the ground, right on her chin. And that's how my day began. 

It was clear right away she'd need stitches. Her teacher and I got her all standing up, washed off and tears wiped. I drove straight to a med-check. It was a long wait, but our girl was SO tough. Daddio joined us to keep us both strong. 

After a long wait, our girl ended up getting three stitches in her boo-boo. That was definitely harder than the fall itself. They never can seem to get the injured area numb enough. And needles are the worst! Nothing is more heartbreaking - EVER - than watching your babies look at you and just sob in pain and you can't do a thing about it. 

But I mentioned our girl was tough. She's amazing. Three stitches later, and she asked if she could go back to school. It was nearly lunch time, and her lunch box was still at school, in the cubby. I took her back so she could hang out with her friends the last hour of school.  

On the drive to school, she asked if I would take her to a movie sometime soon. Sydney had choir today, which made her day longer; and since big sis didn't like movies as much, I thought today would be a great day for that movie request. After school was over, I picked up my trooper and we went to see The Croods. It was just what the doctor ordered. It was funny and cute and loving - like my girl. It was a great way to take the mind off the morning. 

After the moviewas over, Cheekers had one more request - a cherry slushie from Sonic. :) How could I resist?It was Sonic half price happy hour time too. A cherry slushie, a movie, lunch with friends. What turned out to be a bad morning ended up being a pretty nice afternoon. 

We kept things low-key the rest of the day. The stitches will be a part of Miss Cheeks' face for the next week. They'll tell a good story in her pre-school graduation photos being taken later this week.

In light of things happening in the world today, I can handle three stitches. For that only, I am grateful.

Crawly and Cute?

Daddio got back in town yesterday after being away for a week. 

I began the morning with a race downtown that I have done for the past two years. It is a 10k. I ran my best time of the three years. When I got home, it was family make-up-time day. We went to lunch, we did some shopping and we did a fun, family past time - feed the ducks,turtles and fish at a nearby pond. Near the pond is this area with cow statues that the girls like to stop at. Around this area happened to be a very friendly (and hungry?) catepillar. The girls are always willing to hold the wiggly things. Testing their willingness for wiggly things, Daddio put Sydney to the test to see if she'd put the catepillar on her face... Well she did. 

And afterwards, we treated the girls to ice cream. 

It's great to have Daddio back home!

My Girlies

Daddio gets back home tonight. And it's been a very busy last 24 hours with my girlies. Last night we joined some friends for dinner at Waterloo. The kiddos played on the outdoor playground, while the parent-folk did some Friday night happy hour. 

Today we woke up early and didn't stop all day. Our day began with soccer. We had the gym and lunch in between and a birthday party all afternoon. Now we're beat and ready to restore some energy for Daddio's arrival. He is always our extra gear of movtivation. 

Some photos from the last 24 hours with my ladies!

Fun with bubblegum

Inbouding the ball


England Wins!

After game lunch at the Guad.

Family History

Today the girls got to learn a little bit about their family history. Hubby's father was in WWII and flew in a B-17. His position was in the ball turret of those planes during his missions. And today the girls got to see one of those planes their grandpa (whom sadly they never met because he passed before they were born) flew in up close and personal. 

The Wings of Freedom tour came to our town this weekend. We toured a couple different planes and saw three of them take off. Hubby was in history buff heaven. It was a great experience that whether our girls will understand the impact or not; I know they'll remember the day we looked at those cool planes.