Caroline had morning day camp at Mystic Seaport last week, so we were out of the house Doing Stuff almost every day. Doing stuff is really fun, but I might not be up for stuff every day. Maybe every other day. This coming week Evan has full day Seaport Camp, so we’ll do even more stuff. I am both excited and already tired.

Sunday:

Caroline says “Look! You can’t even see me!”

Moon bears

This was not my first time at the zoo, so I brough dry clothes.

Monday:

He dresses himself.

Sleepy baby at camp pick-up

Can’t resist the lake, even when we’re tired

Tuesday:

Bed hog

Evan talked the seaport volunteer into doing ALL the puzzles with him.

He said he missed her while she was at camp

Wednesday:

Cheerios and a double stroller all to himself. SPOILED.

Cool dude

He didn’t even mind coming to dance rehearsal because he got to play Minecraft

Thursday:

Fishing Day at seaport camp

Cotton candy frapp

I am unable to handle Caroline in make up

Friday:

Best purchase!!

What are you doin’ lying on the floor? Just get up.

Tappity tap tap tap

Saturday:

Water baby at the zoo for the second time in a week

Mini ginger

Big ginger

I can’t believe it’s already the last week of June. I keep having to triple check the calendar to make sure I’m not on the wrong month. I have less than 4 weeks before Lincoln turns one and before his birthday party. I ordered a ton of birthday stuff but have no actual decorating plans beyond “hang up some sparkly stuff” and “maybe cake?” Luckily we have a bunch of family coming, so I will have people to help me cut up one zillion foods into star shapes.

It is freezing cold today but the forecast for the rest of the week looks perfect for lots of #lakelife fun. So far it’s been a pretty good summer.

This week was spring break. We didn’t go anywhere in the stay-over-night-on-vacation sense, but we did go do a lot of things. Especially Caroline and I – we are cut from the same cloth that refuses to just sit on the couch on a sunny day. We need to go “do fun things”.

Sunday:

Can’t stop won’t stop visiting the goats (except probably now, since all the baby goats are getting big)

Treat yo’ self

Evening walk

Monday:

Not a real cow

So excited about the zoo he fell asleep

Art in motion

Tuesday:

Band-aids are really exciting

This is not a good wrap job but the wrap is so pretty I don’t care

If you give a baby a flashlight, he will think that is the best thing ever

Wednesday:

During the treasure hunt, a pirate asked them to sing a pirate song, so they both sang “Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!”

That hat though

Seriously. The hat.

Thursday:

I thought a nice long walk would be fun. They disagreed.

Caroline arranged her own storytime at the library, despite the fact that a) she can’t read and b) she doesn’t know that girl

Don’t let the cute messy face distract you from the path of destruction behind him

Friday:

Maybe I should try to teach her to read

Hide out

That’s his concentrating face

Saturday:

She is very disappointed that no REAL birds will get to enjoy the houses she decorated for them

Wearing his new hat while we enjoy dinner on a deck

These kids, you guys

I am BEAT and I feel about a million years old. I wish I could sleep for 24 hours straight. I feel like I’m right on the edge of getting sick and I do not have TIME to be sick. The kids are supposed to start soccer this week but somehow soccer (which is supposed to be Monday/Wednesday) is now on Thursday during the same time as swim. Obviously they can’t be swimming WHILE playing soccer so I’m going to have to get swim moved (there are other swim classes, there’s just one soccer team). But this swim session is really full and it’s going to be SUCH a pain to work out. I’m dreading making that phone call but both soccer and swim cost too much money to just skip. Stupid sports.

The weather is finally warm enough that I’m confident it’s time to switch out everyone’s wardrobes, but that means it’s time to sort out the donate/consign/pass on piles. Just ONE kid’s clothes could keep me busy for a week – and I have 3 kids with way too much stuff. I suspect absolutely nothing from last year will fit anyone (especially Linc, since he didn’t exist this time last year) so I will be forced to buy EVEN MORE stuff. Stupid stuff.

Thank God spring break is over. I’ve become just a whiny as my children.

On Friday I went to Stroller Strides at the mall and saw that they had the same weird Ben Franklin Easter Bunny they’ve had for the last few years, so I knew I had to find somewhere else. About an hour later my phone buzzed with a reminder I set up two weeks ago that the Easter Bunny was going to be at the zoo the next day. I LOVE when my past self does helpful crap like that. How do I get my past self to not eat so many cheeseburgers so I wouldn’t have to be on a diet now?

Anyway, E had to work so I was on my own for Easter Bunny festivities. I set the bar REALLY low – if we were in the same room as an Easter Bunny and no one cried, we’d call it a success – but we had one of those magical outings where everyone listened, everyone had fun and everyone wore themselves out so they went to bed easily (and slept in the next day!). I think we were all just so relieved to be OUTSIDE in the SUNLIGHT that we couldn’t have had a bad time if we tried. Wait, that’s obviously a lie. Children can ALWAYS have a bad time. Children can be in a bouncy castle filled with candy, pizza and grape soda while all their parents are horsewhipped for that time they made them go to bed early and at least one of them would stand in the corner crying “But I like ORANGE soda!” To sum up our zoo trip? Super fun.

The good thing about being a technology hoarder is that when your laptop breaks your husband can find an old one he reformatted to run some crazy obscure operating system and fix it up with nice normal stuff like Windows and Picasa so you don’t go into laptop withdrawal  It also means you can post pictures of your family trip to the Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular in a semi-timely manner. Hooray for my awesome husband!

The Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular was pretty spectacular. I’d heard it can be insanely crowded on most nights, so we planned as well as we could for a non-busy time: the last night it was on, after Halloween, we had advanced tickets and we got there before they opened. It worked, really well actually. We were the third people in line at the start of the trail and the hardest part was entertaining two toddlers who are used to being allowed to run wild at the zoo. Caroline was being particularly…toddler-like, so keeping track of her once they opened the trail was hard, especially because she refused to ride in the luxury of her stroller. I’m really glad we went and that we got to see it – but I don’t think we’ll be going back until the kids are old enough to appreciate the pumpkins.

Those are all real pumpkins, really carved by hand, and each lit individually by LEDs. They do a theme each year, and this one was something about great films or stars of stage and screen or…whatever. The best part was that they piped John Williams movie theme music through the whole thing. At the end there’s a giant tree FULL of pumpkins called The Laughing Tree. Even though it was the last night of the display there was a guy carving a pumpkin larger than both of my children combined. And the best part we got to see it all, go home, and be in bed at a nice decent hour.