It’s been SO long.
Several months ago I typed my website into my browser and hit enter. I was shocked to realize that my entire domain had expired! “Has it been that long!? Wasn’t my card on autopay!?” As it turns out, when you let your domain expire you have a grace period to get it back in good standing (which I missed entirely) and then you have to fork over a small fortune to get it back.
Since this is basically functioning as a baby book for each of my children, and holds so many of our family memories, I forked over the small fortune to have it reinstated.
Well, shall we jump in with a short update?
Poppyseed and Middle are now 5 years and alllllmmmmoosstt 3. I have declared this stage my favorite yet, because everyone is verbal, can feed themselves, and is potty trained! It sure does make for a much easier chapter. My dad always used to say, “The older my kids get, the more fun they are,” and I can definitely relate to that statement. I love the baby stage, and toddlers are a fun ride, but big kids are where it’s at!
Poppyseed is still our joyful child. She is always up for just about anything! She loves people and loves playtime. Her favorite thing is to “do something special,” and for her that means anything that involves leaving the house! Swimming, trampoline parks, water parks, and even shopping are all just fine with her. She’s becoming more and more like a mini-adult each day, but OH MY GOODNESS the sass. The sass! It’s a daily struggle. I pray constantly that I am handling this stage in the right way, but there’s honestly no way to tell!
New thing alert: Poppyseed lost her first tooth in June! She pulled it out all by herself when no one was even looking. The Tooth Fairy gifted her 4 one dollar bills about a week later. (I think that the first dollar was her regular sum, but her tardiness resulted in a bit of interest.)
Other new thing alert: my in-laws are the best grandparents to these kids, and Poppyseed would probably choose her Gommy over me any day of the week. But Gommy really sealed the deal when she bought her a bird and a bikini in the same week. (Bird shown below – bikini is not!) In case anyone has questions, Snowflake lives at Gommy’s home. 
Then there’s Middle Kid. Y’all. This boy has my HEART! He’s such a little rascal, and yet this mom is just so dang smitten. Poppyseed is my little girl and absolutely who I want to spend all of my time with. I dream of traveling with her when she’s an adult, helping her choose and decorate apartments, and being a helping hand when she has a family of her own. I love my girl something fierce, but Y’ALL. There is something about those boys. It’s like all rhyme and reason goes right out the window when that kid looks at me. I mean, he could probably bite his sister and then follow it up immediately with spilling a gallon of milk all over the floor, but the second he walks up to me and says, “Mommy, can you hold me like a baby pwease?” I will do as asked. Every. Single. Time. Thank goodness his daddy isn’t as easily suckered, or he’d be even more rotten than he already is.
Preschool ended in mid-May, and we spent the vast majority of April and May in swimming lessons. I loaded the kids up each and every day for weeks and drove them to the Houston Swim Club. Poppyseed learned to truly swim last year, but this was the year that she became a truly strong swimmer. She learned to back stroke and freestyle, she can dive, and she can swim the length of any pool with form that can put most adults to shame.
Middle was a tough cookie, but we persisted and finally got him to graduate through two levels of swim school. I think next year will be the year that he will really find his “fins” if you will, but for now he can float on his back and somewhat swim. Let’s just say that he still requires a close eye!
I had really lofty goals of getting each child involved in some type of club, sport, or class, but truth be told, we have really just laid back all summer! And, I have LOVED it! Every morning begins with a breakfast and cartoons. We don’t worry about being anywhere before 9am or 10am. After we become a little bit stir crazy, everyone puts on their swimsuits and gets in the car. Earlier this summer we went to our neighborhood community pool on the reg. Our pool is smaller than most in the area, without any of the bells and whistles (compared to other area pools, ours is honestly quite dull!) but we love that it’s never crowded. We each acquired quite the tan after just a few weeks.
Then came our game changer. We live super close to Typhoon Texas, an amazing waterpark with all kinds of attractions for kids. I’m sure that the adult slides are a blast, but there is so much to do for kiddos under 48 inches that a family like mine can spend all day there and not get bored! My mom always tells me to use her credit card number and buy something for my kids. (She’s unable to shop, but still wants to spoil her grandkids!) I usually thank her and tell a little white lie, saying that I picked up some dresses for Poppyseed with money she has given us, or bought a little truck or horse for Middle, but I’ve seldom taken her up on her offer. That changed when I realized a Typhoon Texas Family Pass was really affordable, and so Grammy treated us to a summer full of fun!
So now, almost every weekday morning, we wake up, eat breakfast, don our suits, and head to the park!
My kids now think that they own the park and play allllll dayyyyy long. We usually stay from 10am until 1pm, at which time I drag their tired and screaming little bodies out of the exit and strip their suits in the car.
They beg for Chikfila the entire ride home while sitting in nothing but their undies, and half of the time they win before being taken through the drive through and then home for naps. They sleep until practically 5pm when Oatmeal gets home, and then we eat dinner and go on a family walk.
Thus has been our summer. Predictable, repetitive, and utterly glorious.
These kids are also in a stage where they are as thick as thieves. They are truly best friends, and of course they spend all day every day together. Seldom do they each do their own activity for more than about five minutes before one joins the other. And you just never know what may entertain them for hours on end… it’s often not what I would expect.
This is the part of the post where I realize how rusty I am and just begin to dump photos into the body of this blog so that I can remember all of these fun little snippets. Starting with all of the “Popcorn Parties” we have had as of late…
Because eating on the carpet in the middle of the day is a SUPER special treat, right?
Walks with Daddy at night are everyone’s favorite. We are in the middle of a stage where Poppyseed is always one upping and/or beating Middle at made up games or races, and Middle gets SO SO SO MAD when he loses. In this picture Oatmeal was whispering a few strategies to help him win a game of tag. (Random fact: The tshirt Oatmeal is wearing is the shirt he wore on the day Middle was born.)
Sometimes we get out without the kids. Not often, but sometimes!
That will have to be it for tonight. Maybe I’ll make it back before another 8 months has lapsed.
