Time Capsule and Memories

When I was in second grade, my school buried a time capsule to be opened in 30 years, 2017. Every class from elementary to high school (I'm from a small town and the elementary, jr. high, and high school are all connected) wrote an essay saying what we thought we would be doing in 30 years to be included in the time capsule. They also asked area businesses to put in items, as well.

I remember this project so well, and even remember writing my essay and what some of my classmates wrote in theirs, too. I've thought about the time capsule over the years but could never remember when it was to be opened. I was excited to read a post on my high school's Facebook page saying that it would be opened on May 5 and would have a ceremony for it and also bury another 30-year time capsule.

I went to the ceremony with my girls and my best friend from high school and thoroughly enjoyed myself! I saw a few former classmates and also a few teachers, including the teacher I had in second grade. Her husband was the high school history teacher and it was his idea for the time capsule. It was fun to see them!

I got to read my essay, along with a note I wrote to Santa Claus that year, and saw an awards sheet from my class. I received several awards, and remember that very vividly. I also read my sister's essay and saw the items that my Dad put in from the pharmacy. Unfortunately, several of the items had water damage and had an awful smell, too! But, it was such a neat thing to be a part of and I'm so glad I got to participate.

On another note, before the ceremony I had lunch at my best friend's (from high school) house. She lives in Ash Grove and has two little boys, a little older than my girls. Tysha and I were best friends from about third grade on. So many of my childhood and school memories include her. We played sports together all throughout school and spent countless hours together. I laughed to myself as we backed out of her driveway before leaving for the ceremony at the high school. I backed out in my gray Honda Odyssey minivan with two kids in tow and followed her in her gray Honda Odyssey minivan with two kids and a baby on the way in tow. It brought back tons and tons of memories of all the times we'd drive somewhere together or we'd pull out of my driveway or the school parking lot following each other to wherever we were going. Fun, fun memories!

My sister's letter.

Items from the pharmacy.

Purse and Poses

Lucy is such a fun girl! Lately she's really been into playing with her purse, wearing sunglasses, and posing for pictures. I love these pictures, especially the car picture. She is just the funnest and I love her so!

As The World Turns

I started this blog post sometime last summer, when for some reason my Mom, sister, and I were texting about the soap opera "As The World Turns," and am finally getting around to finishing it. Stephanie and I grew up watching "As The World Turns." It was on every day from 12:30-1:30pm, and actually, my whole family would watch it! My Dad would come home from work for lunch each day and we would all watch it while eating. My Mom grew up watching it, so I guess that's why my sister and I did.

I remember looking forward to this show each day, and would hate when a big cliff hanger would happen on a Friday...we would have to wait two whole days to find out what happened! We would even tape the show, using our VCR, on school days so we wouldn't miss anything. The show ran for 40 some years and oh the story lines that it had!

My Mom, Stephanie, and I had such a fun time texting about this show! Remembering all the craziness that happened, the characters that came back to life time after time, I could go on and on! We even found some clips of the show on YouTube and shared them back and forth. It was a fun stroll down memory lane!

Mother's Day 2017

I had a very nice Mother's Day this year! It began with an "All About My Mom" sheet Lucy brought home from preschool along with a shrinky-dink hand print key chain. I loved both and have been so impressed with all the arts and crafts she's come home with this year!

We went to church on Mother's Day and then had to stop at the store for a few groceries. I waited in the car while Ross and the girls went in to shop. When they came back to the car they surprised me with a beautiful bouquet of flowers. They were so pretty and have lasted a long time, too.

We took a few pictures at home and then had a yummy French toast breakfast prepared by Ross. After breakfast, the girls gave me their presents. Lucy gave me a gift certificate to a nail salon so we could both get our nails painted and Molly gave me a gift card to Panera. They, and Ross, know me so well. :)

My parents came over later that day and we went to dinner with them and played outside a bit, too. It was a very nice day and Ross, Lucy, and Molly made me feel very special and loved. :)

Maybe I Should Pay More Attention

The other day Lucy was playing in the living room with her dolls and I heard her say something like "I'm going to write my name on it and Molly's name so we will know it is ours." I was busy doing something so just said okay and moved on. I wondered what she was talking about but wasn't too concerned. It wasn't until a few hours later when I was cleaning up and found what she had written their names on. It's the baby doll cradle Molly got for her birthday. Lucy used a crayon to write their names on the bed part of the cradle. This doesn't really bother me, as I'm sure it will wipe away easily and it's kind of sweet. I love how Lucy writes her name with an upside down L. :)

Between The Hour of 7:45am And 8:45am

Sometimes I absolutely amaze myself at everything that happens between the hour of 7:45am-8:45am, six days a week. Everything we do on Sunday-Friday begins at 9am...the gym, school, and church. We need to be to each of these at 9am, so we try to leave the house by 8:40am to have plenty of time to get to where we're going and get settled.

Pretty much every morning when I wake up and start getting the girls ready, around 7:45am, I get overwhelmed and wonder how I will ever make it out the door in one hour?! Molly is easy to wake up every day, but Lucy is hit-and-miss on if she will wake up easily or not. Once they're up and out of bed I need to get Lucy to go potty, which can be a struggles, and get them downstairs to eat and get dressed. They watch TV shows in the morning and although I wish we didn't, it's a help to me! I can usually get Molly dressed and her hair fixed with no problem because she's so fixated on whatever's on TV. Lucy is a little challenging sometimes when it comes to getting dressed and getting her hair fixed. She wants to put her clothes on in a certain order and different things like that, making it stressful sometimes.

The girls eat breakfast on the couch, which I'd like to get them into eating at the table and maybe we'll work on that this summer, but for now the couch works. Lucy is good to have water and yogurt or a jelly sandwich. Molly drinks orange juice and usually has fruit for breakfast. She's not a big breakfast person, but I try to get her to eat yogurt or cottage cheese.

Then comes time to get the shoes on and get into the car. This can seriously take up to 10 minutes and countless times of telling them to get their shoes on, go out to the car, etc.

Most days I stress out a little around 8:20 if no one is dressed and hair isn't fixed. I start to worry about how I can make all of that happen in about 10-12 minutes! And I don't know how, but we always manage to get to out destination on time or early and some days I'm in awe of how it happened! This first hour of my day with the girls is definitely not my favorite, but I make it through!

No More Playing Oatmeal

Right about the time Molly was born my Mom got us a bunch of oatmeal so we could set up an oatmeal playing station at our house. Lucy first discovered this at the library when we went for story time. My Mom came with us one day and saw how much Lucy loved playing in the oatmeal, so decided we needed out own at home. It was great for a while and both girls have loved playing in it.

The oatmeal box used to be upstairs in our dining room, but I got tired of always having to clean up the mess, so moved it downstairs. I've recently decided that our oatmeal playing times are over because I'm so tired of cleaning it up! The box that it's in was pretty much completely full when we started with this game and now it has next to nothing left in it. The girls just dump it out wherever they want and I get to clean it up. So, it was fun while it lasted, but we're no longer playing oatmeal in our house!

Not Caring More Than Caring

Some days I'm really good at caring about cleaning up and putting everything in it's place. But, on the day I took this picture, and on most days if I'm honest, I just did not care. Basically, I didn't care more than I cared. This is our living room that is basically the play room. It stores our kitchen and laundry set. The Doc McStuffins station. The table and chairs, high chair and doll cradle. Next to the piano is a cube storage bin that has books, puzzles, musical instruments, and several other toys the girls play with.

I just get sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo tired of cleaning it up, just to have it messed up five minutes later. (No joke on the five minutes later.) So for now, I'm choosing to be okay with the fact that my house is messy because I just don't care more than I do care.

My Keys Are In The Car

I had quite the morning one day last September that I've never gotten around to writing about, so here you go!

One Thursday morning I dropped Lucy off at preschool and went to the bank. I usually go through the drive-thru at the bank, but this time had business to take care of that couldn't be done through the drive-thru. 

I got out of the van and opened Molly's door. I saw her shoes and toys on the floor, and also saw a book fall out onto the ground. Of course, I thought to myself that this would make a great blog post - all of the stuff that Molly throws on the floor during a car ride - and wanted to take a picture of it. I threw my bag and keys on the van floor and got my phone to take a picture. I then proceeded to get Molly's shoes on and grabbed everything to head into the bank. 

I went about my business in the bank and Molly was being very good while I waited for the teller to help me. For whatever reason I started thinking about my keys and went to look for them. They weren't in my bag. Molly didn't have them. They weren't around my wrist or in my pockets. So, I picked up Molly and headed outside to see if they were in my van. I had a sinking feeling they were, and I was right. My keys were on the floor, OF MY LOCKED VAN, where my bag had been. I'd thrown my keys in, along with my bag, when picking up all the toys that Molly had thrown on the floor and forgot to make sure I had my keys before closing the door. 

I now had to figure out how to get home! I knew that we had a spare key in our shed and if I could just get home, I could use the spare key to get inside. I had to get home because our new dishwasher was being installed that day and I wasn't quite sure when the install man would arrive, but I knew it was sometime in the morning. I was waiting on his phone call for that information. I wasn't too worried about getting my van home because my Mom was coming into town sometime that day and had a spare key to my van, so could help me with that part.  

I could call Ross, but he wouldn't be able to help. He was halfway to Cabool for work. 

The bank is only 1.2 miles from our house, so I thought I could walk home. But, that would be a L-O-N-G walk with a toddler in tow and I'd probably have to carry her most of the way.

I was about to cry when I thought of calling my neighbors to see if they could help me. Cindy is a professor at Missouri State and Mike is a pharmaceutical sales rep. Their schedules vary and I remember seeing both of their cars at home when I left, which was only about 15 minutes before all of this happened. I tried calling Cindy first, but she didn't answer. I called Mike and I could tell he was a bit surprised to hear from me. I explained my situation and he said he would be there in five minutes to get me. Thank God! Especially since he said he was just about ready to leave for work, heading to Cabool of all places. :) 

I was so happy to see Mike pull into the bank parking lot! I rode in the front seat, with Molly sitting on my lap (totally illegal!), and no joke, as Mike pulled into my driveway the dishwasher install man pulled up to my house. I had never received a call from him saying he was on his way, so this was all absolute PERFECT timing! 

I got the spare key out of my shed and got us all in the house and the dishwasher was installed. 

So, the story continues........

My Mom came over, literally right as the dishwasher install man was leaving, and took Molly and I up to the bank to pick up my van. I'm so thankful that she had a spare key! I got back home five minutes before the roofer shows up to look at a few spots on our roof. And to top it off, right as he comes to the door, Molly went to the door to greet him wearing no clothes or diaper. (She was in a "I'm going to take off my diaper stage at this time.)  

This was certainly quite the day and ever since then I have been very, very anal about my keys. I double-, sometimes triple-check to make sure I have my keys before closing my van doors. 

Rain Boots

It was raining here one morning and I had Lucy wear her rain boots to the gym. She looked so cute in with them on, especially with her flowered pants and pink, tutu skirt. I just had to snap a picture!

Rapunzel's Hair

Lucy got a Rapunzel doll last fall for finally pooping in the potty. Rapunzel has really, really, really long hair and I should have braided it and made it stay braided once we got her out of the box. I didn't, and because of that her hair became a big rat's nest. It was really bugging me, so I decided to try and fix it. I found some posts online about using a mixture of fabric softner and water to easily get tangles out of doll hair, so tried it. I didn't think it worked as magically as some of the posts said, but I did manage to get all of the tangles out of Rapunzel's hair. She lost quite a bit of hair, but she didn't seem to mind. ;)