Sunday night....

This weekend came and went WAY too quickly. We were so busy running around and enjoying the long Fourth of July weekend that Sunday night crept up on us in an instant!

Let's see..... Here's a quick rundown .....

Thursday the kids and I went to Adventureland with the Launderville's. I took a million pictures, but have yet to upload and edit them. We had a great day, and the weather was gorgeous! I'll post the pictures as soon as I have a second to peek at them!

Thursday night Matt was able to leave work a little early and join the kids and I for the festivities in Valley Junction. They had tons of cool stuff going on -- a parade that lasted for 1.5 hours, bounce houses, music, a street dance and the best kettle corn imaginable! LOL. We stayed until 9:30 or so and then headed home.

One quick thing on parades.... I remember growing up the parades my parents took us to were full of great entries (high school bands, hand made floats, clowns, etc...), but now it seems like all they are is one big rolling advertisement. I swear if I saw one more insurance salesman or radio station promo I was going to throw up! Pretty sad!

Friday we filled up the pool and the kids swam all afternoon, and then Matt decided to wash his car in the driveway. Now -- we are SOOOOO not a wash your car in the driveway type of family. It took forever to find the right bucket, towels, etc... but man... the kids LOVED it. In fact, Katherine decided that "going to the car wash was too expensive and we should start saving money and washing the cars at home"! LOL!! After naps (yes, all four of us took a snooze!) we went out to Firecreek Grill for dinner. It's a super nice place, really quiet and kinda swanky on the inside. Thankfully the kids were great all during dinner and sat like angels! I knew they'd be good, but I was shocked at how wonderful they were! We ended up ordering spinach and artichoke dip for an appetizer and I'm sure it didn't hurt that Caleb gobbled that up as if it was chocolate cake!!

Saturday night we went to a happy hour type thing at Matt's boss' house. Super fun!! They invited several co-workers, college friends and neighbors, so it was a mixed crowd. About half way though the night, I was talking to a guy that I'd never met before (he must have been a college friend) and he starts laughing and says to me, "Is your daughter the gymnast?" Evidently Katherine had put on an expedition in the backyard and cornered this guy for about 30 minutes telling him all about her gymnastics team and was showing off doing cartwheels, handstands and round offs in the backyard. He was amazed at how much she loved it, especially considering how young she is! Yea, I'm not shocked! LOL.

One thing about Katherine ... she either takes to you RIGHT away, or it takes an eternity for her to warm up. And if she doesn't warm up to you initially, there's always that possibility that she never will. With that being said, both her and Caleb fell in love with this guy Matt works with and his wife. They were playing a beanbag toss game and the ladder game with them for a good chunk of the night. Then it turned into being chased around and playing tag! Then.... Katherine decided that Matt's boss would be a good one to harass errrr..... flirt with. She stole his hat, they played tag, she gave him a taste of gymnastics, etc... I told Matt that he could put a stop to her antics, but he insisted that Joe could handle it. One of the new employees and his wife got quite a kick out of it!

After we left Joe's house, we took off for the fireworks and finally made it home after 11. The display we saw was incredible. It lasted about 45 minutes and the finale was spectacular!!

Today after church, I went out for lunch with Lisa, a friend of mine from college, and then met up with Matt and the kids at the mall. Katherine is going through a phase where all she wants to wear are dresses, so we had to buy a few more today. I'm not sure what happened, but all of a sudden, she refuses to wear shorts -- it's either a leotard or a dress.... nothing in between.

So -- all in all -- it was a nice and relaxing weekend. Too bad it had to pass so quickly!!


OOOHHHH, one odd thing about this weekend.... we live in a very lively active neighborhood. There are always kids running around, an open pool, or an impromptu play date. It's great! This weekend.... not so much. Pretty much everyone that lives around us has Okoboji connections and took off for the lake this weekend, so we were living in a ghost town. It was eerie! I can't wait for life to return our little corner of the universe!

OK, enough of that....

Can I just tell you that Caleb is quite the handful tonight???? Actually, nap time was quite unpleasant too.... He's refusing to go to bed, and pulling out all the stops.... turning his light on and off, taking off his pants, throwing everything in his bed in to the hamper.... really frustrating me. The nap time battle drug on for an hour, and we've been struggling over bedtime for an hour and 20 minutes at this point. UUUUUUGH! I just want to scream!

Tomorrow they are going over to my parent's house early. I have to be downtown for a doctor appointment at 9:15 and it's the ever fun glucose test -- drink the sugar syrup stuff and then get the blood work done an hour later. If there's one thing I HATE it's needles, so I'm really dreading tomorrow!