Mommy Monday-which shoes?

I find these ages of 8 and 6 to be my favorite.  We are in such a sweet spot. I don't know if it's me feeling more peace and joy in my own life or absorbing my little's lives.  I find myself often worrying or anxious if  day to day I am doing a good job of creating a life for the girls that they will remember and want to replicate.  I cherish my childhood with my family and always aim to recreate the same feelings for my girls.  Of course we are all different, but I know exactly what I hope to create for my girls.  I want them to feel confident, included, loved, special and secure.  I want them to trust their instincts and know their opinions.  I want they to be fiercely confident in what makes them happy and strive to have that feeling daily.  

I had a great conversation recently with my dad about the girls.  I love that we can talk so openly about what his feelings were raising me and my brother with my mom and his male perspective. My dad and I are incredibly alike and I value his masculine opinion greatly.  It helps me see things clearly from a different angle.  We are both very self competitive and strive for more all the time.  We aren't perfectionists but see things very fast moving.  Always quickly moving towards the bigger goal.  That is a really hard perspective to carry when raising kids. I teeter on the line of " to much and not enough" never sure what's the right thing.  I want my girls to feel independent from me but still feel me close if they need me. 

My dad gave me the best advice and interestingly enough it was things I had been mulling over for some time.  He said " make sure they feel included in your decisions". So simple.  This I hope makes the girls feel that their opinion is good , valued and taken seriously by me.  I had been adopting this practice but didn't know I was doing it.  For example, I would be getting dressed for a date with Erik and ask the girls to pick out my shoes that they thought would work with the outfit I had on. They would scamper into the closet and come out with options.  Some super "wow" and some really great!  I would try them all on and we would discuss which was better and why.  Then we would move onto earrings, lipstick and coat.  This seems frivolous but made my heart so happy.  They knew mommy wanted to look nice for my date with daddy and wanted to help.  

I remember the silliest things about my mom getting ready for a special event and I want my girls to remember their own special memories about me.  

Mommy Monday- Stuck in a rut

As you know, the girls have been back to school for a couple weeks now.  For some reason this year, it was really hard for me to get back into a groove.  The first week back, I felt like I was a little aimless. I have had a list of to do's growing by the second but I couldn't get myself sorted out enough to tackle any of them. I really noticed myself not really interested in getting ready for the day in anything but workout clothes.  Not that I was really working out though.  I hate the feeling of non productivity and am used to getting a lot done in a day. This odd feeling of lack of ambition was really thick and I didn't like it at all!  I decided enough is enough of that!  I decided to get my act together and get back to my normal kick butt routine and feeling great.  

Here was my plan: 

First, I decided to tackle myself.  I took a long shower, slathered on some tanning lotion ( I feel like tanning lotion solves a lot of issues - if you can't tone it, tan it :)).  I whitened my teeth and got myself in for a hair cut and color.  BAM!!  Already feeling a little better.  I decided to get dressed up a bit even just to pick up the kids from school.  I put on my makeup and off I went. This can seem so trivial and superficial but I think my rut was something of not feeling great about my appearance too.  Once, I put in a little more effort my focus came back in line.  

Second, I started making tight plans to workout again regularly.  I don't love to work out but know it does wonders for my productivity and doesn't hurt in the body either!  I've gotten back on the train with my Tone it up workouts and am doing regular yoga too.  Yoga is a savior for me!  

Thirdly, I made a master list of what I wanted to accomplish that week and a plan on how to get it done.  Little to big!  I packed our fridge with healthy food, meal planned for the week, made sure we had pencils and erasers set aside and ready for homework and mopped the floors.  I took a look a head at my work needs and made a plan of attack on scheduling and emails.  I did all the laundry and organized the girls clothes back in order. This alone made me feel so in charge.  

Lastly, I picked out a new outfit for a date night with my guy. It was a funny feeling going gapping specifically for a date night outfit. We have been married 10 years now.  With crazy work hours, his new position at work and me with the kids schedule, it can be really tough to plan/justify a date night.  Nevertheless, I was a woman on a mission!  I put together an outfit that made me feel pretty and we loved our night. I can't say I've woken up this week with the same pep in my step but I plan to repeat steps 1-4 and tackle this week again like a BOSS! 

Anyone else feeling like they have been a little "stuck" lately?

Mommy Monday-Back to school blues, Destruction and bed buddies

We have officially started back to school this week. I have been feeling so sad about our lazy days coming to an end.  I am not however sad about the constant mayhem and destruction that these two tazmanian devils cause.  OMG!!!  How can two little girls make such a hurricane of a mess every day.  As August rolls around, we typically travel a lot and keep slower days when back home.  The means, loads of endless eating, fort building, slime making, scrapbooking, etc.  SO MUCH MESS!!  My girls are generally pretty messy all the time but they love to play together and are super imaginative.  As I write this they are converted two large boxes into forts and are closing each other into them with tape and "shipping" each other off to exotic lands.  They are giggling so hard that each of them has basically peed themselves.  While I'm scrubbing surfaces and sweeping slime supplies I can't help but adore those giggles.  That is what imagination is all about right?  With that said, I think my melancholy about back to school has worn off a bit. A quiet house for 80% of the day is pretty heavenly!

This week we got the girl's room lights installed. They both have pendant lights now above their beds for reading.  I adore how they turned out!  While they love their new additions they are both total scardie cats when something changes in their rooms.  Peyton was first with her imaginary fear.  As I was tucking in Capri for bed and discussing her day, in comes sissy worked up about something in her room.  Of course I knew it was the new light.  Capri offers to share her bed with her for the night so she wouldn't be scared.  Big sissy protection.  I wash my face and get into bed so giddy to binge watch Game of Thrones and in comes my two little babies.  Both now are spooked by something so in my bed they come.  While I know I'm getting no sleep that night I can't help but love them all cozied in with me while daddy was gone.  I remember the feeling of calm that would come over me as soon as I was let into mommy and daddy's bed when scared.  I'm hoping they are over it tonight though!  Peyton likes to sleep on my head for most of the night and Capri grinds her teeth out of her head.  It's super restful!  

'til next week....

Mommy Monday- Summer tutoring, delirium, groceries and game day

We have heard nothing but daunting claims that 3rd grade is the most challenging  academically. Man, I thought 1st and 2nd gave me a run for my money with my not so studious big girl.  She comes by it honestly though.  The academic part of school was not my specialty.  Ha!  I had the social part down though!  Learning new skills still are hard for me.  I have to work really hard to master something and Algebra was never one of those things.  We are supposed to tackle multiplication, division, long addition and subtraction and ALGEBRA!  What the heck!!  I was planning on doing some tutoring with both girls this summer to hopefully get a head but we are into August and mostly have been just partying!  I decided that since all I've done is work on the fashion part of school next year, I should probably get going on this "getting ahead biz".  Math is her biggest struggle.  I called a couple local tutoring centers and they were all so pricey!  I thought maybe I would skip a formal atmosphere and get them something online that they would think is fun.  Challenge accepted. We do Jiji math at their school but I wanted to try something not as familiar for them to hopefully keep it fresh.  We landed on Splash Math and it seems to be going well.  They start with an assessment and then we move on slowly through the different lessons to really hit all angles of the new skill.  Both girls seem to be enjoying it and most of the time they are able to get the hang of it themselves.  So far so good!  

Today was filled with church and solid delirium for both the girls.  They were so giggly and looney!  This makes me nuts!!!!!  I love the giggles but the loon nonsense makes me crazy! They just start getting ornery and stop listening.  We have been staying up really late and I've decided it might be time to start inching towards our normal bedtime to avoid days like today.  The day ended nicely thoug.  I fired up my Chris Tomlin worship music and sent them outside to jump on the trampoline for 4 hours.  Work that energy out while mommy get's rid of her crazy eyes.

Next thing that I can't understand is the sheer amount of food my family eats during summer!  Any other mamas find this to be a struggle to keep up with?  I'm talking meals and snack plates every hour!  I really try my best to feed my family fresh and organic.  I know this isn't for everyone but it's really important to me and something I try to stick to.  We have a great produce stand around the corner from us that I make weekly trips to stock up on all of our fruits and veggies.  I recently tried Butcher Box for our meats and we gather fresh eggs from our hens daily.  My girls are super picky as I mentioned last week in my Mommy Monday post and my hubby is pretty picky too. I'll eat anything so I'm super easy I think!  Erik is a big guy so to feed him is literally 3 servings of our dinner or meal.He likes what we have coined "goulash" meals.  That means basically anything that looks like a casserole and is all wet and mushy together.  He also is trying to keep the lbs. off so he wants me to make healthy " goulash" . What?!  He loves mexican food, won't eat fish, no pork, minimal fruit and some veggies.  Okay, good luck to me!    My struggle is not spending an million dollars a week on feeding everyone.   How does anyone else battle this?  I think it may be time to get back to Costco trips!  

Lastly, I had such a happy mommy heart this week with my whole gang together.  If you have followed for a while you know my hubby is a police officer.  We don't see him as much as we would like to.  When he is home our time together as a unit is gold!  He took the kids with him running errands the other day and came back with two games. They picked up LIFE and Battleship.  We decided on LIFE first.  We got our snacks all ready and gathered around our sweet new breakfast nook table to play.  We giggled and played together for about an hour.  Man do I love my little group.  Time like that is so priceless and makes my heart so full.