Caroline has 1 more week of school and Evan has 2 more weeks. They are signed up for absolutely no summer activities, which might be a huge mistake on my part but for now I’m looking forward to it – we have enough memberships and passes to keep us busy on boring days and I really don’t want to be forced out of the house on the days where I’m too pregnant to do anything besides watch Harry Potter movies.

Sunday:

I don’t actually know what time she got up, but she was asleep by 11 am.

My secret apple orchard

Too lazy to grill our own food means 5 Guys takeout on the patio

Monday:

Park playdate with her very best friend in the whole world (and some statues)

Yogurt City for dinner

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Tuesday:

She’s helping me pass my NST

Cup thief (it’s just melted ice)

Wednesday:

Field day for both kiddos!

AND swim lessons! Busy day.

I love my Target Starbucks but sometimes a girl just needs an Icee.

Thursday:

Won’t stay inside even in the rain

CUDDLES ALL THE CUDDLES

A long week finally caught up with him

Friday:

She’s obsessed with the rhododendrons

Impulsive dinner out at Voodoo Grill and the best shrimp po’boy I have EVER eaten

STOP SHOWING OFF, MYSTIC

Saturday:

She wore this for most of the day.

She looks really happy because…

…BOUNCE HOUSE. We love birthday parties.

The whole weekend has been gorgeous, which means the house is trashed, the laundry is piling up and we’ll probably have ice cream for dinner again. It’s supposed to rain tomorrow, so I’ll catch up then. Or maybe Caroline and I will go to the aquarium and I’ll just ignore the mess. That seems like more fun.

It’s unofficially summer now, so all the time not spent at the doctor was spent outside.

Sunday:

Take your children to work day (because people feed them),

They took turns pushing each other on a big kid swing. I’M FREEEEEE.

Look at all that glorious empty floor space! If I took that picture right now it would not look that clean. At all.

Monday:

3 year old heaven

It is shocking our friends still agree to play marbles with my husband.

That is not her beer.

Tuesday:

A block fell on his nose because his tower was REALLY tall

Playing with my piggies

Everything about this photo cracks me up

Wednesday:

WINTER COATS BECAUSE SCREW YOU CONNECTICUT

Awwwww, what a cute little ferret that will NEVER EVER COME TO OUR HOUSE

BFFs

Thursday:

Mommy, take my picture!

(Fisheye) Lunch of the front steps

Gorgeous night for a maternity session

Friday:

Peek a boo?

He takes my appointments very seriously

Can’t wait! Family movie day!

Saturday:

We can’t go to the grocery store without visiting our lobster friends.

STRAWBERRIES

False alarm contractions sent me to L&D and then home again. The good news (?) was I wasn’t imagining it, they could see them on the monitors. The better news is they weren’t doing anything so the doctor isn’t worried. The bad news is this will probably keep happening (minus going in to L&D) until I go into real labor.

BOTH kids have field days at school this week, so it’s time to stock up on sunscreen and bug spray and cross my fingers for afternoon naps. I have four photo sessions to finish editing,  three trashed bedrooms to clean (because organizing and rearranging the second floor has gotten Out Of Hand), one zillion baby onesies to sort, and – in theory – a nursery to paint. That is probably not happening, but I can at least pick a color. Who wants to come over and stare at various shades of creamy off-white with me?

I’ve been doing these weekly posts since I was pregnant with Caroline. She’s now a fully functional human (well, unless you try to stop pushing her on the swings, then she is a hideous raging monster beast) and I’m only a few weeks away from another baby. If the entire internet self destructed tomorrow, these posts the things I’d be the saddest to lose.

Sunday:

This was pretty much the only awesome stroller we DIDN’T take home from New York. It’s really awesome.

Caroline made herself right at home.

It was so great to have E with us in NYC for the first time.

Monday:

Reading Spiderman books to Doggy. Obviously.

Bubble machines are priceless. PRICELESS.

Someone is still exhausted from New York.

Tuesday:

She thinks the a/c vent is tiny stairs for tiny people.

Another Tuesday, another non-stress test

They can find their way around the hospital without me now.

Wednesday:

OFFICIALLY SUMMER

Weirdoes

Swam all the way to the deep end by herself

Thursday:

How one child gets so many scrapes and bruises (and almost never mentions them) is beyond me

Cute kid. Trashed house.

Performing at the spring Science Fair. He knew all the words.

Friday:

Enjoying her tiny rain-proof house at Stroller Strides

God bless iPads. Seriously. SERIOUSLY.

Well earned cheeseburgers after our appointment.

Saturday:

I dunno, it’s a wall. I liked it.

The best food in the world.

Motherhood: when your nice relaxing bubble bath is ruined by this thing staring up at you.

I have too many things to do and not enough time to do them all, so I am mostly doing nothing. Besides editing pictures. That is both fun and able to be done while I sit on the couch and watch this Star Trek movie. Again. There’s a tribble! I love tribbles! Tomorrow I am making a pie, which should count as more than enough things for one pregnant lady to do in a weekend. Maybe I will make two pies, just to be sure someone besides me gets to eat some.

This week felt really, really long. But in a good way. A full way. Something about going away for the weekend to Mom 2.0 changed things at home – maybe we ALL needed a break from each other – and we’re all happier to be around each other. Despite spending an awful lot of the week in various waiting and exam rooms, we ended it in NYC proving our kids are really good sports (we made them walk everywhere) and really fun (when they aren’t driving us crazy).

Sunday:

These are my “before” flowerpots, but that didn’t stop her from trying to take care of them.

She asked for purple flowers to plant (I don’t even know what these are).

Mother’s Day at Chili’s (again) calls for finger guns

Monday:

Freezing, FREEZING cold water

The gingers are unphased by cold

So excited about her chocolate frog she forgot to take the plastic off.

Tuesday:

She tied that all by herself.

Thank God for iPads (during my NST)

Wishflowers

Wednesday:

Pweeeese we swim some more Mommy? Pweeeeeese?

We bought cat food and paper towels and batteries at Walmart. She is hugging the batteries.

Fawkes Phoenix is Evan’s new BFF

Thursday:

Looking pensive about the rain

In case you thought they were GOOD at posing for pictures.

Sleeping Beauty

Friday:

What is this weather even??

Next year, SHE is going to be coming home on that bus.

Another day, another visit to L&D

Saturday:

When you get the Metro-North seats with the power outlet, you get to play Angry Birds all the way in to the city.

Shake Shack is actually as good as everyone says.

I think our last family picture (selfie or otherwise) was in October. We heart NYC.

And now I am literally going to crawl upstairs to bed because my left hip is broken (out of joint? sprained? can you sprain a hip?) and I can’t walk. I finally found my sense of direction in New York, but unfortunately it was because we walked EVERYWHERE. I’m pretty sure even the gingers are going to sleep in tomorrow.

Although I did get a super awesome new stroller that’s inspiring me to get back to Stroller Strides. Maybe if my hip pops back in we’ll actually make it this week.

Today it is only in the 60’s and threatening to rain, but Monday was gorgeous so we went to the lake. The water was can’t-feel-your-toes freezing – almost as bad as the ocean this time of year – but the kids had a great time.

(Sidebar: The one zillion dollars I have spent on swim lessons so far is totally worth it for the peace of mind it brings me around the water. We’ll still be sporting those across-the-chest floaties for most of the summer, but the fact that both kids understand how to hold their breath, float on their back and get to the wall/shore means I can actually ENJOY going to the lake instead of freaking out the entire time about the very presence of water more than 1 inch deep. I plan to continue throwing money at our swim lessons all summer.)

We were not the only people there. Evan actually ran into a friend from school and that friend has some siblings/friends for Caroline plus their favorite baby-friend Baby Charlotte came too. I like this lake in May. by July it’s crowded and trashed (because it is free and has lots of parking and people are jerks) so we’ll be at the real shoreline beach with everyone else.