Monday
I planned on being super lazy Monday since we all had a busy weekend. Our morning started as usual; the kiddos got up early, we ate breakfast, then I was about to start our lazy day when I checked my email. One of my friends had just emailed asking if we’d be up for a early morning park jaunt since they were up early and ready to go. We’re always down for a park trip so we quickly got dressed and made our way to Idylwood Park. It’s one of our new favorite parks. We started our visit on the play structure, followed by snacks, then a trip to the beach. The kiddos had been there before but had yet to step foot in the water. I don’t know if they realized they could or maybe they weren’t interested before but once they saw their little friends go in, they were sold. They had a blast. Sand, water, rocks, sticks, all hot toddler commodities. We left with no shoes, a pants-less Laine, bare feet, sand-filled shoes, and tired kiddos. And we also met a new little friend; there was a 16-month old little gal with her mom who we befriended and got her digits.
Tuesday
Last week my friend said she had an idea that I probably wouldn’t like—the idea being a day of cooking meals to freeze. To her surprise, I was game. At the start of September I spent a day cooking meals to freeze for the month that turned out to be a success, and I was planning on doing it again for October. After many emails back and forth to prepare our menu, we went shopping Monday night at Costco and Target in preparation for Tuesday. We started early; I went to her place at 8:30am with the kiddos in their pjs for a day of cooking for me and play for them. We lasted until close to 3:30pm, nixing two meals off of our menu but we were tired, my kiddos hadn’t napped, and we were cooked-out. We all went to bed early that night.
Wednesday
Lazy day. Not by choice, by circumstance. Our HOA won a settlement from the builder because of faulty window sealing or something. (I should know, but we just pay our HOA dues. And never tell the “first wife” of the HOA president you had no clue about the lawsuit.) It’s been quite the process; they had to come in a few weeks back to prepare the sheetrock around the windows and remove the windowsills, then again to prepare to take the windows out, then to patch and texture, and a few other things, then finally to paint around the new windows. Our painting day was Wednesday. Having the pups, cats, and kiddos, and the painters having to hit every room, it was easiest to stay home to rotate everyone from room to room. And bonus, the HOA couldn’t agree on how to finish the new fancy sliding glass door so they decided to leave it unfinished?! So we asked the construction foreman if it was cool to ask the painters to paint our door and he said sure. We asked, they said yes. Score. And Brian lucked out with all this work too. We had a water leak in the family room ceiling back in August that Brian was going to patch … he asked the worker guys if they’d fix it, they said sure and did a fantastic job. Brian would pay to have a light bulb changed so it worked out really well. Awesome guys, and they wouldn’t even accept anything for their work. So, long story short, we stayed in Wednesday and read many books, put together puzzles, trains, and made cookies between room rotations (and Laine color-coordinated her pjs with her sippy cup).
Thursday
After a lazy Wednesday indoors, I was itching to get outside and the kiddos had energy to burn. We made plans with the mom we met Monday to go to Farrel-McWhirter for a morning of outdoor play. Our other friend and her three kiddos met us too, so we basically had a preschool class. We checked on the animals, Blaise cleaned his hands (his latest fascination is the Purell hand sanitizer dispenser inside the barn), ate snacks, then us moms sat on the grass while the kiddos ran around and played. One of the more relaxing park trips! We spent a little over two hours there before we left for home, lunch, then naps.
Friday
Brian had a class Friday night and all day Saturday, so knowing I wouldn’t have much of a break from the kiddos, I asked our awesome sitter to come for the morning so I could have some me time. I ended up shopping for the kiddos. Go figure. I did some me errands too, then made it back home just in time for them to take naps. They had a great morning with Kristen, and Laine was her BFF for once. No more stranger issues (fingers crossed). Brian’s class went until 10pm so I was on bath and bed duty for the night. Since they were inside all morning playing with Kristen, I took them on a post-bath pj walk around the block. Laine almost made it the whole way, Blaise ran and picked blackberries. The kiddos went to bed, I had some alone time to read, Brian was Ham Radio-ing with a bunch of old guys.
Saturday
Brian was Ham Radio-ing again all day; his class went from 8am until 5pm (boring if you ask me, he enjoyed it). After our standard morning routine, the kiddos and I left for the park. We went to (surprise, surprise) Farrel-McWhirter with our friend, Katherine (her husband, Mike, was at the class with Brian). We did our standard park routine: checked on the animals, had a snack, walked toward the tire swings and bridge. One of the farm cats was super friendly and hung out with us a bit. We grabbed some lunch after the park and had a floor picnic at Mike and Katherine’s house before heading home for naps.
Usually by the time Blaise wakes up from his nap, it’s almost dinner followed by bath time, then Laine can barley stay awake much longer so we rarely head out the rest of the day. I broke our normal routine Saturday. Blaise woke up at 4pm as usual, and I had readied the diaper bag and Laine so we could head out right as he woke up. I needed to exchange a hat I bought for him on Friday, and I needed his head to figure out the correct size. Knowing he wouldn’t want to go from napping to the car seat to shopping, I decided we’d stop in Snoqualmie to check out the trains. The kiddos had a blast. The trains were cool but the fallen leaves were the hit. We left Snoqualmie for the North Bend Outlets and on our way there were a ton of cars stopped on the side of the road. There was a massive herd of elk chilling on the land. We turned around and stopped to check out the herd. So freaking awesome. If the kiddos hadn’t been with me I probably could have watched them for an hour or two. Farm animal herds aside, I’ve never seen any large amount of wild animals congregating together. After elk watching, Blaise ate blueberries, we exchanged his new hat, bought even more pjs at Carter’s, had a toddler dilemma (how to ride freakish clown store rides while not letting go of your new puzzle), then headed home to Brian who was back from Hamming.
Sunday
We’ve lived in Issaquah for six years and seem to always be out of town the weekend of the Salmon Days Festival. This year we were in town and went down there Sunday morning. We’re morning people and crowd avoiders … the festivities started at 10am so we got there at 9:30am. Ample parking, no major crowds, perfect. Except we weren’t as impressed as we thought we’d be after six years of anticipation. It’s basically an outdoor fair exhibition hall without any rides and overpriced food. It was cool to see all the local businesses, and there was the grassy area by the park that had kid stuff (as in kid related businesses promoting themselves). Just underwhelming I guess. It was still a good time; the kids got to sit inside a fire engine and check out the inside of an ambulance. And there were balloons, always a favorite. We had planned on eating there; there were great food options but we decided to hit Red Robin instead. Booths, booster seat for Blaise, highchair for Laine, servers … balloons. We were all tired from the weekend and early morning so it was nap time for all. Except Blaise didn’t nap, he happily screwed around in his room for two hours. When we have non-napping kiddos (aka overtired kiddos) we call it a day and keep it low-key until bedtime. And that’s what we did. Brian took over parent duty and I took the rest of the day off, if off means cleaning and doing laundry without little helpers, then getting sidetracked and going through our closet and filling a bag with stuff to donate (I love purging!). It was a good week and weekend, and next week is jam-packed so after Dexter, we called it a night.
Also Last Week … Laine’s Buzz Obsession
Blaise was gifted Buzz Lightyear pajamas for his birthday that Laine has claimed as hers. She has a bit of a Buzz crush (and played with brother’s favorite ambulance while he was napping).
Jumping Raccoons 