Friday song, my pacifier for this week

Something about her voice just soothes me like a warm blanket on a cool night.  I've been addicted to her this week.  This week was better at work, worse regarding Gabriel and school.  He hates it and has been waking up crying in the middle of the night.  Just praying at this point for him to find peace.




I am adding on to this because I forgot to write something funny this morning, and I was late for work.

Many years ago I was driving my mom and I to Fredericksburg for a weekend trip to visit my grandmother.  I was excited for my mom to hear Gillian Welch, who I had just discovered and thought was amazing.  I popped in her first CD, "Hell Among the Yearlings", and was instantly taken to another time and place, and of course, calmed by her voice.  My mom quietly listened to about four songs, then in the middle of the fifth song, with her face totally deadpan, said, "If you don't take that depressing CD out I will grab the steering wheel and plunge the car into the next ravine we cross."

So I did.  To each his (or her) own, I guess!  Makes me laugh every time I think about it.

Cousin sleepover swap

Two or three times a year, we do a Cousin swap weekend with my parents.  Friday night my niece stays with us and my nephew stays with my parents (or vice versa), then Saturday they switch houses.  Saturday night we all eat dinner together.  It is super fun and works really well because it means Cade and Macy are here one at a time with Gabriel and will play with him.  When they're here together he sort of gets lost in the shuffle. 

This weekend was all about the Olympics and our backyard water park.  

Look at how Macy has her head tilted just right to the side.  It is so inbred in girls to pose for pictures!  What a cutie.

Time for bed!  I love this picture, and I love it when Cade and Macy can spend time with us.  Hooray!

Backyard Decathlon!

I'm trying to wrap up the summer posts.  Because even though it's only mid-August, our summer is basically over since Gabriel has started school.

We had Olympic fever at our house.  Before they started, I decided to try to get the boys geared up by holding the first annual Backyard Decathlon.  We started out by having our own parade of countries, marching around the back yard while I hummed the Olympic theme.  Then it was time for the competition to begin.  Our categories were things like Ladder Jumping and Purple Ball Throwing.  Whoever won got to stand on the upside-down ball bucket and be presented their medal, along with a kiss on each cheek from Mommy.  It was great fun, and we WILL do this again, even in a non-Olympic year.  

One new fun thing that we've been doing this summer is glow stick bubble baths.  We fill up the tub with bubbles, get the sticks going and flip off the lights.  INSTANT FUN!!!   I can't put into words how much the boys love this.  We got the idea from Gabriel's former school friend Luke's mom, who has a blog where she tries out things from Pinterest and posts about the results.  She started the blog because she felt she was wasting a bunch of time in the evenings, and had lost her creative spark sometime in the middle of having children (didn't we all?)   Here's a link if you're interested.  I have a list going of things I want to try from it.  

My mom's birthday was at our house, very last minutely thrown together.  Which can sometimes be very, very fun.

The Birthday Girl

I'm kind of proud of my pretty Turk's Cap centerpiece, clipped from the garden that morning.

Joel, showing his "Cheese-y" smile, with his Aunt April.

Now I need to still finish up with a Cousin weekend post, and my fabulous NY/NJ trip post.  

My Friday song

Love Brazilian music, love music that makes me think of walking along the beach.  This offers both.




I wish I was on a beach with my family.  This has been a tough week.

First day of school!

Gabriel bravely marched into Kindergarten this morning.  We had an open house Saturday to meet the teacher, who was not the teacher we were expecting.  They hired a teacher one week before school started, we think because the teacher from last year didn't want to deal with 22 Kindergarteners.  This greatly upset me because I was worried it would upset Gabriel.  He doesn't accept change very well.  But, "Mrs. B" seems like she has her stuff together and has been teaching this age for a LONG time.  Some of her best quotes from open house:

"I love my kids, but it's tough love".

"I don't want parents in my classroom.  You can peek in the window over the bushes if you're that concerned about what's happening in here, but kids don't act the same when their parents are in the room"

"My goal is to make them self-sufficient and independent by the end of the year".

Well, my fears melted away with every word the woman said.  And since my kid picks up on my approval or disapproval with some sort of internal radar, he seemed excited to get started this morning.  I walked him in and dropped him off with two other kids melting down and one little girl totally ok.  The rest of them hadn't shown up yet.  He didn't seem upset at all, and a miraculous thing happened.  I didn't shed a tear.  Not one.  Didn't even well up.

The only thing I was sad about was Joel.  He and Gabriel have been inseparable this summer, and now Baba is gone all day.  I think he'll be ok once his preschool starts back after Labor Day, but until then I'm trying to play with him and fill the void that his brother has left.

Of course, after all the praising I gave Gabriel when I picked him up, he decided to COMPLETELY melt down about going back tomorrow while I was putting him to bed.  Seemed he had thought about things and decided he didn't want to be gone away from home that long each day.  But I think it had more to do with the excitement of starting school coupled with a late afternoon VERY HOT swim lesson that wore him out.

We'll see what happens tomorrow.