family fun

back to the grind….

I’m sitting in front of the computer for the first time in forever. Sleeping in my own bed, showering in my own shower, doing my own dishes and cleaning the house…

Oh, wait. That part isn’t fun.

Today I’m working my way through about 20 loads of laundry, filling up our fridge, cleaning the sty that is our house right now.Does anyone know how a house gets dirty when there is no one here? I just don’t get it.

And trying to get everything done with my cats on top of me. They seem convinced that I will be leaving again, so they are determined to be touching me every second they can. Have you ever tried to work at the computer with a cat in your lap? Or cleaned the bathroom with a cat trying to climb up your leg? Its super fun.

Anyway – I have so much to share with you all. Its been an incredible two weeks and I’m dying to tell you all about it! Give me a day to get organized and we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming 😉

 

 

 

they wait till you’re too tired to argue

Its been a crazy two weeks.

Actually, its been a crazy six weeks!

  • Husband was gone most of March.
  • Colin turned 4!
  • We went to Ohio for a week.
  • Family came to Philly for a week to stay.
  • We saw Valley Forge Park, Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, and so many more Philly landmarks.
  • We had a huge Easter dinner!
  • I still managed to work though out that while time. Sort. Of.

Anyway, by Friday I found myself sick and exhausted and looking forward to a weekend of quiet.

Then they found a salamander in the backyard.

And, despite my saying many, many times that there was no way in YOU KNOW WHAT it was coming into the house….

His name is Bob.

Hold me.

my week in instagram

my ellie had her third grade concert.

then gracie had her writer’s celebration! she wrote a book about ballet – so so adorable.

then my husband came home after traveling a ton.
poor colin.
he’s getting kicked out of bed.

then it was spring break! woot!
we headed to…

we took colin bowling for his party.
he had a blast!!

and guess what he got for his birthday??

ellie’s best moment

Life is full of little moments. Once in awhile, you get a best moment. A moment you will always remember. A moment you will treasure forever.

Last week, we had what had a best moments in Ellie’s life. She got to play soccer with World Cup Champion Brandi Chastain.

Ellie has played soccer for years. Its her favorite sport – and when she found out she was going to get to meet a real, professional soccer player. A real, professional, GIRL soccer player. She asked me every single day how much longer it would be. She was jumping around the car on the way there. We got there, she put on her uniform and pretty much charged onto the field.

(Oh, yeah, Kelly Ripa was there, too.  Ellie was like, “LOOK! Its BRANDI!! Hey, isn’t that the lady in the bank commercials?)

It was amazing. AMAZING. I was in heaven watching my girls have the experience of a lifetime. They were running around, running ‘laundry drills’ with the Electrolux Perfect Steam Washer and Dryer, and finally, playing a game.

I love how Grace is fixing her hair and Ellie is shoving Julie‘s son – who was
on her own team – out of the way to get the ball.
Those are my girls, all right!

After the event, the girls got their photo with Brandi. This was so very important to Ellie. She kept saying, “Mom, make sure I get my picture with her, okay? I really, really want my picture with her.”
Then Ellie really blew me away. Ellie is a little shy around new adults. She almost never says much to them (except when we give her the evil eye to make her make polite conversation). But she stopped Brandi and started talking to her, telling her how much she loved soccer and how she had 4 soccer trophies and she is so proud to meet her.
And Brandi was amazing. She was encouraging Ellie to keep playing and was so excited about her 4 trophies. Brandi Chastain was excited that Ellie had four soccer trophies.

It was amazing. I was tearing up watching them. You don’t have moments like this everyday!!

Electrolux understands how important these little moments are. They make so many appliances that save moms time so that we can spend less time in the laundry room and more time having special moments – everyday and best moments – with our families.  We’re researching washers and dryers now, since our dryer is no longer a dryer, merely a “thing that we put clothes in for several hours at a time” and our washer now slowly moves across the laundry room when the spin cycle is on. We’ve looked at so many brands and Electrolux is clearly the top of the top! They are the stars of my dream laundry room!!

Please go and share your “BEST” moments with Electrolux! Every time you do, Electrolux will donate $1 to OCRF. That’s all you have to do and you can help fight ovarian cancer! Every dollar is needed to help this important cause. Despite huge improvements in detection and treatment, ovarian cancer remains the leading cause of death from gynecologic cancers in the United States and is the fifth leading cause of cancer death among American women. Please take a minute to support OCRF!

disclosure: we received transportation to this event and a gift bag. we were not compensated for this post and, as always, all opinions are my own.

my week in instagram

what a week.

we had a day or two that was positively summery.
thursday, colin and i played hooky and headed to the park.

ellie’s hermit crab has the courtesy to wait to die ON HER BIRTHDAY. So we had a funeral.
thanks, dumb crab.

friday was ellie’s birthday party – we took all the kids out to dinner. yummy. I know it sounds crazy to take all those girls out to dinner and give them their own table, but they did such a good job. And were so hilarious. They thought they were hot stuff sitting all by themselves!

saturday we went to longwood gardens. now i’m dreaming of spring….

and we indulged in indian food over the weekend. chicken tikka… yummmm….

academy of natural sciences

This afternoon we had no school (insert daughters doing cartwheels here) so we hit up the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. Now, I would never tell you to play hooky. But if you ever have a random day off, go into Philly and hit the museums when they’re not crowded. Even if you’ve been somewhere twenty times, it is incredible to have it practically to yourselves.

The dinosaurs were awesome of course.

Except when they tried to eat Ellie and Grace…

Then we headed up to our favorite place… the Outside In! We met some new friends. Ellie was watching this cute bird play in the water – and it splashed her right in the face! Hilarious!

We got to pet a legless lizard, a box turtle, this swimming turtle I forget the name of…
and THIS GUY:

Can you believe how brave Grace is??

I was brave enough to touch it with one finger, but if that thing had climbed up my arm, I would have probably shattered glass with the high pitch of my scream! (I am NOT a bug person!! I prefer my wildlife cute and furry, thanks.)

We had so much fun – what an amazing day! The Academy of Natural Sciences remains one of our favorite outings in Philly!

Check out the girls’ blog – they wrote about our visit as well!

disclosure: we received a complimentary admission from visitphilly.com. all opinions are our own.


my week in instagram

it was a pretty calm week this week.

i learned how to play racquetball which, sadly, i do not have a picture of. four days later, i can lift my arms again.

we had my husband’s parents over for dinner and we were trying to have a conversation
and i couldn’t stop laughing at how colin was climbing over grandpa –
like he’s a jungle gym –
and grandpa was just continuing his conversation.

i went to a fashion event and met some twilight stars.
this picture was taken solely make my sister, amy, super jealous.

we taught the kids to play monopoly.
grace totally kicked everyone’s butts.

colin’s new favorite hairstyle – a faux-hawk.