Thoughts on a Thursday

I've had way too many things that have been in my head but haven't been recorded. Since last posting I've really worked on this whole soaking up the last bits of summer thing. We've had friends over for lunch a couple of times. We've thrown a back to school bash (hopefully more details to come). We've splashed in splash pads several times. We've had our plans changed by serious summer storms. Addie and I have had some one on one time with talks about getting married and kissing and all sorts of things I don't feel quite ready for and can't believe I'm discussing with this remarkable girl. Sam has been seriously motivated by the prospects of preschool turning him into a fully potty-trained individual overnight. Charlie has started sleeping through the night (knock on wood that he continues). And he got tubes. And he's crawling everywhere and pulling up on everything and swallowed a pea-sized Polly Pocket camera this afternoon. Pat turned 32 today. The boy is stressed, which is not his usual way of being, so I'm hoping a little birthday fun will take his mind off the pressures he's facing right now. And by fun, I mean that Chick-fil-a is opening here today and that's what the kids want to do, accompanied by a trip to Sam's preschool open house. But a few gifts might take his mind off things, I suppose. I'm still really weepy about the start of school. Really weepy. But, a good weekend full of fun will hopefully leave me with few regrets about how we spent our last summer with no kids in school. Maybe a trip to the movie theatre or the bowling alley or miniature golfing or up the canyon that evening. So many possibilities that we never got to this summer. I'm taking time in the middle of the day to attend a cooking class on knife skills (a long overdue birthday present to my mother-in-law and sister-in-law=a day of girly fun). I'm hoping that maybe before then we can swing in to Shabby Apple's garden party, but getting there at the end of the party probably will mean slim pickings. Do I dare make the trek to SLC multiple times in one day? The garden party would most definitely be worth it. Decisions, decisions. Hope the end of summer is treating you well. Hope to be starting a new exciting project that's been spinning around in my head for a while. Hope to be back to a regular schedule of recording my thoughts around here soon.

What I've been up to...

Obviously blogging isn't on that list, but I don't want to forget what has been filling my time. I've been busy...

-going to way too many doctor visits, which will hopefully be tapering off now that Charlie's scheduled for ear tubes a week from tomorrow. I'm ready for no more ear infections for a long time!
-celebrating Pat's dad's 70th birthday last weekend with a big surprise party and a whole lot of family togetherness. Chrissy and I put together a slide show full of grand kid pics and sentimental feelings. I'm so grateful for such a great man in our family and it was fun to have so many family and friends around for the occasion.
-loving my new and improved Carolina pulled pork methods. We shortened the smoking time by an hour and the cook time by several hours and still had excellent results, making this a more do-able recipe because we don't have to plan ahead quite as much. We tried it out last weekend for one of the family gatherings and now I can't wait to make it again!
-shopping for back to school. We went to the outlets on Monday and found a few cute things for Addie. I'm still really struggling with the fact that she's going to school but trying to do fun things to get ready to help distract me.
-cleaning up mess after mess after mess after mess created by Sam. I'm just spinning my wheels all day never really accomplishing much because I'm always a step behind this boy. Much time is also spent carding my doors open because he's on a kick to lock them and then pull them closed, making it really inconvenient to do a whole lot.
-trying to create order in my bedroom since we moved Charlie into our closet. It's a big enough walk in that his crib fits ok, and considering I haven't had a full night's sleep for 8+months, I'm ready to do whatever it takes to make that happen. Sometime in the next few nights will hopefully bring uninterrupted sleep.
-digging in my heels in disbelief that August is half over and that summer is drawing to a close. I had high hopes for what this summer might hold. There have been nothing but glimpses of what I was hoping would be regularly occurring. The next 2 weeks we're going to be pretty busy doing nothing, because the long, lazy summer days spent with swimsuits on and high rates of popsicle consumption and forgetting about everything but playing haven't really happened, and we'd better fit in a few of those before school starts.