I may fall asleep standing here typing this…we had such a full day of great things.  I will document it tomorrow!

but these kids are troopers!  High five, little guys!!🙋🏻

Your heart kind of stops when you are in the car for a quick errand and the radio blasts out an Emergency Broadcast signal warning you of a tornado in the area.  Add to that a quick buzz on the phone with the same alert (only this one said the tornado was MY area…dang, GPS!).  As I listened and oriented myself, I realized it was an area NW from where I was driving, but still, unnerving.  Especially since I was just explaining to someone the other day that Pittsburgh was an area with extremely low incidents of natural disasters.  

And here’s another example of things taking you by surprise–but this was a great one!  While eating dinner, our lovely daughter, Lily, told me to stay in my seat and keep eating, she would get up and bring some more chicken to her sister.  Sam and I shot each other a look like, “Whoa, cool!”.  Way to make our night, Lily-girl!

Tonight Lily went to see Inside Out with Sam where she devoured a giant bag of popcorn and a slushy. Tomorrow Ollie and Em go to BounceU with him. They are soaking up the quality time together!  Meanwhile, the younger kids and I made pizzas on the grill, enjoying the summer night in the deck…bonus:  all the mess stayed outside. Win win!

Dentist visit:  check

I fail and I fail and I fail some more.  This is what I do as a mother.  But I keep trying.  Because that’s all you can do.  I try to love enough,

play enough,

feed enough,

correct enough,

hug enough,

talk enough,

encourage enough,

relax enough,

watch enough,

guide enough,

bathe enough,

direct enough,

tramp enough,

splash enough,

move enough,

smile enough,

do everything just right.

And so when, in the quiet of bedtime, Ollie says that he is sorry he didn’t listen to me earlier, I get down and cradle his hairy little head and whisper to him how much I love him, how I want him to grow up and be a super human and save the world with his kind little heart.  He reminds me that it is all enough, what we do day to day, minute to minute, as long as we do the best we know how.  We are all just enough and that is perfect.

Discovered a new (amazing) playground

Had an all day playdate with Jack

Survived a massive thunderstorm

Water played

Took an after-dinner neighborhood stroll

Endured a stiff neck until I put some ben-gay type stuff on.  While snuggling with Lily at bedtime, she told me she did not like the smell.  A few minutes passed.  Then, “Momma, what is it?  Peppermint?” Me: “Something like that.”  Lily: “More like stinkamint!”  LOL.

I am no Caroline Ingalls, that’s clear, but we did make ice cream today from three ingredients and used our own muscles and movement to make it.  A little taste of pioneer life here in 2015.  Ice cream is a great motivator–all who wanted a taste had to eat many veggies with lunch and clean up the perler beads (can you tell this is a newfound obsession as I have mentioned it a few times now)  First I combined cream, sugar and vanilla, poured it into one bag and placed inside a larger bag with lots of ice and salt.  Next, the kids all took turns shaking it.  Luckily we had a lot of visiting playmates and so the shaking wasn’t too strenuous.  But the bag was incredibly cold!  So cold it numbed your hands if you shook for much time at all.  Note to self:  use gloves next time. Oh, yes, there will be a next time!

Is it a national holiday?  I am treating it as though it is…and taking the day off from blogging anything spectacular!