Tracy Aviary Family Day

For our family date day this month, I decided on Tracy Aviary. I've been wanting to go for so long and I figured since it was cooling down this would be a good time. Not to mention, this made a great activity to invite Mom and Grandma to (Grandma can't walk on grass so we need solid ground activities for her).

The good parts were the Macaws being SO vocal (although that scared Pierce a bit), they have tons of flamingos, there were other birds that were pretty interactive with the kids, they had a couple birds just walking around so that made it more exciting.

The bummer parts were the kids didn't get to play as much as I had hoped (Mom seemed to be rushing a bit...might have to do with Grandma walking so slowly these days), you can't feed the animals anymore since it was attracting wild birds that hurt their birds, and it was much warmer than I had hoped.

It wasn't as entertaining and fun as it has been in the past so might be a while before we go back, which I kind of feel sad about. But, at least we got out of the house.

Labor Day Weekend 2023

Labor Day Weekend was part dud and part a lot of unexpected driving.

Saturday we kicked off the weekend with a drive up to Malad for lottery tickets. The lottery was pretty big and Larry REALLY wanted to go all together (I'd totally be okay just letting him drive up and I'll stay down entertaining the kids). I figured since we had two days at home after, I could sacrifice a day driving up there. We decided to bring some fun stuff for the kids and some snacks so we could drive up, play at a playground, and then head home. The playground we found ended up having a splash pad, so we let the kids strip down, play in the water, dry off with the hand dryers in the bathroom, and then get re-dressed. We let them play as much on the playground as they could handle. We let them eat all the snacks we had. We even let them dance around and put on a mini performance on a nearby stage. It actually ended up  being pretty fun, although the drive home wasn't everyone's favorite haha.

Sunday we ended up having a lazy day. I wanted to get our new decorations put up, tidy the house, and get some other chores done, but I figured I had another day so we just had fun as a family on Sunday (aside from Grocery shopping and laundry).

Today, as we were finishing up breakfast Larry got a call from his older brother saying he crashed one of those electric scooters and hurt his leg and wanted to know if he could take him to the hospital. He lives an hour North of us so it was quite the ask, but we know he didn't have very many options. I told Larry he should just go up, take care of his brother, and I'd stay here and take care of the kids. He mentioned taking a couple kids with him and going out to lunch and I thought the lunch idea sounded fun so he ended up talking me into us all going. I figured it would only take a couple hours, max, but we got him to the hospital at 12, went to lunch, and then (because it was raining so playing outside wasn't an option) we headed over to Cindy's to hang out with her. Around 3:00 his brother text us to tell us he had to have some surgery on his leg and would be there at least until the night. We had to tell him, unfortunately we couldn't stay that long and so he'd have to find a ride home (it is a school night and it was a long drive after all). Luckily, the kids had fun playing upstairs with Olivia so that was nice (plus I learned Pierce can officially go up and down stairs all on his own). 

A representation of our whole weekend

So we never got around to all the chores I meant and we did SO much driving and lots of eating out (it felt like) so it wasn't my favorite Labor Day Weekend we've had, but at least we got to see family and help someone in need.

Surgery Day

Surgery day (#1) is upon us and I couldn't be more excited (and maybe a tad nervous)! Definitely no more babies after this, I'm having my tubal ligation in approximately 3 hours. I've been looking forward to this for about a year now. We knew when we decided we were done having kids I'd have this surgery and then the following year I'd have my "mommy makeover" tummy tuck (to fix my abs and hernia) so I'm excited to get this one checked off to do my other one next year.

It's been a hard process to get this surgery, unfortunately. I tried for 3 weeks to get my consultation appointment. When I finally got in they found out it was the wrong kind of appointment and they'd cancel that one and put me on the calendar for the right kind (the one I went in was for if I was looking for an ablation to help my periods instead of being on birth control). I went in and they said I needed to have an appointment within 30 days of my surgery (this was back in early July) so I assumed that meant my surgery would be in July. They told me they'd call me to schedule it at my consultation and when they finally did call they told me the earliest surgery date they had was the 31st of August (UGH!!!) so I asked if that meant I still had to do an appointment within the 30 days and they said yes, unfortunately, so they scheduled that for the 22nd. Luckily, I had that day off already so I booked that. I was totally fine, excited, and looking forward to getting this done. Then, for some reason, last week I just started to get so nervous that I'd go under and not wake up. 

I swear having kids makes you develop ridiculous fears...apparently in my case. As the week has gone on I've been doing everything I can to make sure to soak up as much family time. I mean, sure, I make jokes about this being my last week alive (so I'm not wasting in sleeping and I'm having as many snacks as I can haha), but there is a part of me that is quite nervous. Luckily, we've had an amazing week, the kids have been so sweet and loving and cuddly this week, which is very much helping my momma heart. I've been more patient and soaking up ALL moments with them. I have a lot I need to get done still so I have no intention of letting this take me from my family and great life. I have today off, even though my surgery isn't until 12:10 (I haven't been able to eat since 11 last night so I intend to have a great big meal afterwards), but I do go back to work tomorrow so hopefully my recovery is quick (I'll keep ya posted...assuming I wake up haha).

August Activities

This month has been an active one that's for sure. Aside from my family reunion, back to school, and my exciting day I have tomorrow (see tomorrow's post for that), here's what we did this month:

-Stace had to get her car repaired in Utah so she stayed with us for a couple nights early in the month. It was a bit chaotic (since I still had to work), but I was glad we could make room for them and make it work so they didn't have to pay for a hotel. We had a lot of fun the Friday night playing cards (Larry, me, and her all played and it was SO much fun!), we did masks, we talked and talked, and just had some good girl time (with Larry a little bit).  We also took the kids to the Utah County fair on Friday night. It ended up being kind of a dud, but at least we got out of the house!

-I finally ordered organizers for our activity closet that were actually useful. The closet isn't exactly where I'd like it to be, but it's SO much closer and so much easier to access. I still need to find room for the paper cutter, some wood projects I have, and my silhouette machine (that I never use), but other than that I've found a way to squeeze everything in. While, it's still a work in progress and there's more I can get done, this is HUGE progress for this closet! 

-While taking time off of work for the first week of Gwen and Cara being in school I decided to also attempt to potty train Lucy. She kind of started doing it on her own a few months ago so I thought this might be easy, and it turned out it was! She basically took care of it all on her own. We printed off two trackers (since she filled out the first one by the end of the first week). She kept requesting rainbow underwear so this last weekend we found a set that had rainbows at Smith's so we got her those. She has filled out the 2nd tracker and so we're planning on taking her to the dollar store to get a toy and let her switch from pull ups to the underwear. I'm so excited she's taken to this so easily. We only had one instance where she went potty in her pull up (that wasn't from nap time or bed time) so I'd say that's a success!

-Last Saturday, we met up with Marie and hit up the Loveland Aquarium. It was her first time going to this one and it ended up being a hit. We were able to see everything just before it closed (we saved the sharks for last and we were there when they announced it was closing in 10 minutes so we cut it pretty close). We then headed to nearby park/playground to let the kids play and eat. Unfortunately, Marie got stung by a bee there so that was pretty sad, but she handled it like a champ and said she was feeling better the next day. We definitely had (mostly) a lot of fun that day.

-Football preseason has started and the Packers have been ROCKING it so far! I'm so excited for the real season to start up!!

This month just zoomed by, it was so nice! But I know the next month is going to go just as fast and then we're into the holiday so it'll practically be February by the time I can slow down so here's to having a great rest of the year!

Back to School Time

I am coming to love Back to School time. Not because I look forward to my kids being in school and dealing with drop off and pick up (not to mention having one kid in all day school and one in half day so that's so many pick ups and drop offs), but I love shopping for school supplies, I love planning lunches, and taking first day of school pictures (and picking out first day outfits).

This year my mom and I took Cara and Gwen out shopping on the 12th. We only had to hit up Target and Kohls and got everything we needed (we did end up hitting up Barnes & Noble too, but that was a personal one for me and I ended up getting more books than I expected). We got way more than the girls needed, but it was fun. 

Unfortunately, lunches aren't that exciting, yet. Cara is pretty picky and has only had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (I do try and put a few snacks for her, but she's just pretty basic) and Gwen doesn't have lunch at school. Maybe I should be grateful it's easy so far.

The first days have been great. Picking out outfits was so fun and I, of course, had to do our traditional questionnaire for both of them. Cara started last week (the 16th) and Gwen started today. So far both have loved going. In fact, going to drop Cara off (with Gwen) they had their heads out the window yelling "this is the best day in the world!" and Cara (I think she assumed everyone else was going into 1st grade as well) kept saying "first grade is the best" and telling everyone hi. Both said they weren't nervous for their first days, which is a nice surprise.

Gwen was so in the zone when I dropped her off. She has to hold onto this rope line when I check her in and once she grabs on, I no longer exist, she's in preschool mode. When she got out she was so excited and said she had a great day. She seemed so excited for recess the most. She's already asking when she gets to go back again haha.

Either way, I'm so excited they are having great years so far. I look forward to them having more fun and learning more. Their teachers are so nice so far and I think it's going to be a great year!