Playing catch up with literally everything in my life, but at least the weather is gorgeous.

This post is late and I got less than 3 hours of sleep in the last 24 hours and I barely remember how I got home from the airport last night and Caroline is sitting on my lap with her slightly terrifying My Little Pony Equestria Girl introducing her to all the princess dolls and I have 5 photo sessions to edit so what I’m saying is if this post makes none sense don’t be surprised.

Sunday:

Princess Pirate Butterfly Caroline’s new best friend, the Dragon Ice Cream dragon

Evan defends his family against a zombie puppet

Sleepy, smudgy butterfly

Who knew a Kohl’s parking lot could be so inspiring?

Monday:

I don’t even know.

Sand castles on our deserted beach

About 20 seconds later Caroline and her friends smashed them all.

Tuesday:

They’re having a mini-conference on how best to beg me for that candy on the counter

Cleaning and trying out my headphones for an upcoming post

Shooties. Verdict after wearing them all weekend: Wise choice! Very comfortable for high heels, lots of compliments, only felt slightly like I have hooves.

Wednesday:

Who is this huge person going to preschool and where is my baby?

Another stunning fall day in Connecticut (Town Hall)

Watching Monsters University (again! We saw it in the theater!) with the kids

Thursday:

I took a picture of my parking garage level/number to I didn’t have to remember when I can back at 1 am Monday. BRILLIANT. Worked perfectly.

Boston!

Random MARTA station in Georgia where my friend Miranda picked me up!

Friday:

Average attention span in 2012: 8 SECONDS. Now you know why we needed a session on writing engaging content.

All cleaned up for dinner with my other Minute Clinic bloggers at Type A

The crazy cab ride was worth it to get to this place. AMAAAAAAZING.

Saturday:

In case you were wondering, THAT is an Equestria Girl. I managed to snag one when they were breaking down the booth on Sunday.

My next DIY, obvs.

Atlanta was really pretty

Step 1 in getting back to my real life: write down all the stuff on the calendar I’ve been ignoring because it was “in October” and “October is a really long time from now”.  Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh <–  the sound I just made looking at the stack of papers from the kids’ schools talking about open house nights and PTO meetings and pizza parties. Back to work!

Every morning Evan wakes up and says “What fun stuff are we going to have today?” Luckily, so far, “school” still counts as fun stuff in his book, so when we do school PLUS an adventure his mind is thoroughly blown. It was 95 degrees last Wednesday – not typical in Connecticut – so we all hopped in the car after school and booked it to the shore. I’m sort of ashamed that we’ve lived in Connecticut for eight years and until recently I felt like we lived way too far from the beach to ever go properly. It takes exactly 17 minutes to drive from my door to this park. I’m the worst beach-goer ever.

Although, really, until this summer it’s hardly been worth it with the kids. This was the first time they had ever played happily, independently, and safely while I actually got to RELAX a little bit. I read two pages of a magazine, they ran around in circles, we built and destroyed a bunch of sand castles, Evan and I both swam in the ocean (well, Long Island Sound)(it was still pretty cold), and we all got a little sun-kissed. It was really, really fun and it made me hopeful that vacations will just get more relaxing from here on out.

All hail queen of the beach!

I actually saw my husband this week! On more than one occasion! It was actually the best week we’ve had in a really long time, even if the kids were so exhausted by Sunday they both passed out at 5 pm.

Sunday:

Early morning photo session at the arboretum

Mystic Drawbridge Ice Cream at Taste of Mystic

More perfect weather. Well done, Connecticut.

Monday:

Playing SO NICELY together before school

Daddy met the bus for the first time ever

GO TO CHILI’S AND ORDER THIS THING IMMEDIATELY

Tuesday:

Still wicked happy to get on the bus for school every day

Twirling is her favorite

Squeaky clean

Wednesday:

I AM READY FOR THE BEACH WHY ARE WE NOT AT THE BEACH?

NOW we are at the beach. He spent 2 hours in the (cold) water.

FASHUN

Thursday:

Imaginary hopscotch

Basically all my pictures are waiting for a bus these days.

Hide and seek! BET YOU CAN’T FIND CAROLINE.

 Friday:

Eat this with cream cheese and/or honey.

BFFs

I can’t help it, this might be my favorite set of photos ever (also, Evan took this, he was like “TAKE A PICTURE OF THE PRINCESS!!!”)

  Saturday:

“Daddy made yummy pancakes!” he says in the pancake restaurant.

Fairy Princess Caroline reads to Candy Crush Dragon Daddy

And Daddy reads to the gingers

I had forgotten how nice it was to have someone to help with bedtimes or go out to dinner with or help wrangle the kids at the apple orchard. I know I’m not a single parent – NOT EVEN CLOSE – but doing all the parenting on a day to day basis was really starting to wear me down. But a week of school and TWO meals out (not to mention a beach day where the kids built sand castles while I read a magazine) plus seeing my husband enough times that our conversation didn’t go like this: “HiIhavetobebackatworkinsixhoursbutIneededtotellyouIamoutofdeoderantandalso
canyoufindmykhakihatIloveyougoodnightzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.”

I don’t have a lot of hope the next week will be as nice, but I have two super fun things coming up (a Saturday in NYC with the kids and THREE DAYS in Atlanta without the kids) that are going to make September just totally fly by.

I keep thinking I must be getting close to my 3 year anniversary of these posts, but I am too lazy to actually do the math in my head. This week has been exhausting in a good way (work!!) and a bad way (when did my children go deaf??????) and next week looks exhausting too (NO REALLY, WHY ARE THEY DEAF????) so basic math is one of those things I can’t be bothered to care about. I really am just that lazy and stupid.

Sunday:

My very make-shift newborn set up in a client’s apartment. I’m pretty proud of my fake-studio skills.

BABY FEVER: LEVEL CODE DOUBLE RED ACHIEVED

Dancing to the band at Hot Summer Fun on the roof of the Mohegan Sun parking garage

Monday:

One of those Top 10 for Kids is probably a bad idea.

Surreptitious grilled cheese eating

For someone who BEGGED for mac and cheese, that face is not happy enough

Tuesday:

She said her first day of school sign says “Caroline goes to big girl school”

A pumpkin mocha iced latte, that’s what

Hand stamping some thank you cards to go in my fancy professional type photographer packaging

Protecting Brutus from a thunder storm

Then we went to the beach…

Then we went to the country….

Wednesday:

…so it’s not surprising Wednesday looks like this….

…and this. (They both went to school Wednesday and I went to work, there are just no iPhone photos.)

Thursday:

The definition of “partly cloudy” – and pretty good for a family session

Greek food, get in my face

Sun-streaking

Friday:

Because that’s what stickers are for.

The pavilion at Rocky Neck all opened up for a wedding

Well done Connecticut (with an assist by Long Island in the background)

Saturday:

Model poses

She would ride the carousel ALL DAY if they let her

I promised him a bouncy house but it was gone, so I finally FINALLY bought him the light up bubble gun he’s asked for at every fair and carnival and festival and parade we’ve been to for the last year.

We successfully ate ALL THE THINGS this weekend, so I’m totally stuffed and feel like I could sleep for a million years. Considering it’s 6 pm on Sunday and Caroline just put herself to bed, I think the feeling extends to the whole family. Even E, I guess, although we’ve literally only seen him for 15 minutes since Tuesday, so who knows. I’m hoping next week gives us a little more family time, even if there is less deliciousness.