Busy Little Bee

My apologies for the lack of posting (and pictures!) the past several days.

I have been a busy little bee since my last post and the poor blog hasn't gotten as much love .

Sadly, I've really lagged on my running routine too.

But the evenings have been so cool and beautiful lately and Will and I have taken a couple walks in the wagon at sunset. We use the wagon so I can walk at an actual "exercise pace", but he's big enough now that we'll walk hand-in-hand for awhile at the end and it feels so nice to walk with my boy. Brisk walks at sunset make me think of all the walking I did throughout my pregnancies, only now instead of feeling a wiggly baby in my belly, I have his hand in mine and we're chatting away about our favorite things. Love. :)

Our weekend flew by filled with lots of things that needed to be done, but didn't really leave me feeling relaxed at all. I just bounced from one thing to the next, accomplishing a lot but wishing for just a few moments of quiet "me time". I did manage to get to bed at a decent hour both nights and even squeezed in a 45 minute nap on the couch with the sound of an NFL game in the background. The sound of football on TV makes me so drowsy! I think because I associate it with lazy Sundays...

Anyway.

This weekend, I:

1) went to the Genoa football game on Friday night with Craig and both kids

2) came home and washed two loads of laundry and made a big portion of chicken salad for our lunches and as a "meal" to take to my cousin's family

3) worked at a booth at the Erie Street Farmers Market on Saturday morning from 7:30-noon issuing vouchers to my patients to use for fresh, local produce

oh my goodness, it is just heavenly at the market this time of year!!! I want to go back this weekend when I can just wander and take it all in...

4) came home, got lunch for all of us and then cleaned out Sophie's closet of her 12 month and 12-18 month summer clothes (a big bag was passed on to Celia this weekend!)

5) baked cookies over nap time - again... some for us, some for my cousin's family

6) also over nap time, I went outside and dug up rocks around one of the tree stumps... again... in the rain

ugh. I am avoiding that job like the plague.

it is never ending and so cumbersome. but Craig keeps saying we need to get that done before grinding the stumps out and when else do I have time? so I went out despite the drizzle - ick.

7) came in, showered and cooked dinner (scalloped potatoes and ham) and then took Sophie with me to Home Depot to pick up paint for the dining room while dinner was in the oven for a little over an hour

8) dinner, bath, bedtime for kids and then I mixed up the batter for carrot pancakes for Sunday's breakfast and went to bed reasonably early

9) babysat my sweet nieces on Sunday morning from about 8-1,

fed them breakfast & lunch and showed them some of Sophie's favorite Tot School activities

10) folded and ironed laundry while the three girls took morning nap (hooray! they all slept well!) and Will was off to a car show with Craig and Papa for a couple hours - yay for productivity!

11) lunch for everyone, naps for our kids, put away some laundry

12) quick nap on the couch and then off to Walmart for an oil change (I was dangerously overdue)

13) back from Walmart - kids are up - leave for some family socializing and errands: over to Casey's new house to see the progress, stop at Molly's to drop off meal and visit Brian, and finally to Kelly's to drop off bag of hand-me-down clothes for Celia and Craig to pick up something (a tool?) from the farm

meanwhile, Sophie is sooooo uncharacteristically unhappy throughout our stops and fussing/crying/insisting on being held. I was racking my brain as to what could be bothering her as she was not satisfied with a drink of water or a cracker. I thought it might be that her bottom was bothering her (though she hadn't pooped and she wasn't red) or maybe her stomach hurting (though she hadn't eaten anything unusual recently). she just did NOT want to be put down and she appeared to be trying to climb up higher while being held - like she was trying to lift her foot up onto my shoulder. weird?

finally, we got home and I took off her shoes (brand new, size 5, LLBean "Beansport Mary Janes") and she winced and acted super sensitive about her feet being touched. when I took off her socks I could see reddish imprints of the top of the shoe on her chubby little feet and clearly her feet were uncomfortable. :( my poor baby. her feet hurt and she couldn't tell me. Craig was upset that he didn't figure that out sooner because she was trying to unfasten her shoes in the car. they were plenty long, but both my kids have had chubby baby feet and some shoes are just too constricting top to bottom until they're a little older. Will used to have that problem with some fake croc sandals when he was her age - they'd leave imprints of the holes on top his feet. but thankfully, his feet slimmed down as they grew (LOL) and I am sure hers will too. in the meantime, I called LLBean to see if there was anything they could do to credit/reimburse me for shoes that were purchased back in February that I no longer had an invoice for. ummm... best customer service I have ever received. they were ridiculously nice about it and told me what I needed to do. I will be getting full credit back to my card upon return! I love LLBean and I will definitely continue to shop there after that experience. and I hope next year Sophie's feet will have "grown up" a bit so that she can get the Beansport Mary Janes again - they were so cute and perfect color for being functional in fall, winter or spring.

14) dinner, bath and bedtime for kids, clean up kitchen and house, pack lunch for Monday, plus other odds 'n ends

15) move our big, antique, dining room table out to garage for Craig to repair crack, rebuild legs and refinish (more on that later), move other dining room furniture to center of room and begin painting the trimwork with a fresh coat of white (this took me from about 10-12:30 and then I went to bed)

Whew! I'm getting tired just writing this! Every night this week has consisted of trimming and painting the dining room. I am so excited for this big makeover and I LOVE the new color. Once I have a few more things done/accessories found, I will give you the big reveal. But this has been a project I've wanted to do for months. My sweet Craig has been working so hard on lots of small/medium house projects the past few weeks and it has been SO nice to see all the much needed progress on our home coming together. I love having him home during the week! Does he really have to go back to work??? :)

So that's what we've been up to!

I think I'm going to make a vow not to do home projects in the fall though in the future. There's just so much I want to do on weekends in the fall and I don't want to miss out. Lots of exciting outings to come!