Over-scheduling

I always thought that it was quite silly to overwhelm your child with activities. If they are so busy with school, dance, soccer, music lessons, tutoring, etc. ad nauseum that they don't have time to just relax and be a kid, they are doing too much! (And it's going to drive poor Mom up the wall, too!)

And now that my child is old enough to start doing more things, I suddenly have to eat my own words.

There are SO MANY wonderful opportunities out there. I would LOVE for Aidan to learn how to be safe in the water. I want him to interact with friends and learn how to share. I would love to have an outlet for him to move and get some energy out, especially during long MN winters. And many of the local mom-and-me classes sound like so much fun, especially since I want to take advantage of these last few months where it is just me and Little A. And, of course, I feel completely obligated to go to anything that I have already paid for (season pass, class fee, etc.) or that is a wonderful FREE opportunity. I mean, why would we want to miss out on something that's free?!

But good grief! There are too many things to do! This last week in particular, friends gave us a week pass to the local athletic club. It is an AMAZING place with lots of things that Aidan really enjoys (pool, huge sand pit, playground, toddler room full of climbing toys, cars, etc.). And I thought that we needed to go as much as possible to "get our money's worth".... you know, since I didn't pay anything at all! And I have come to the sad realization that you just can't do it all. You just end up with an overwhelmed toddler, a stressed mom, no down time, and a schedule that's way too hard to plan around.

I'm learning to say no. We continue to do fun, educational, enjoyable things every day, but I am giving up on trying every single thing. And it feels good. (Even though I still am sad at missing out on things.) Is this hard for anyone else???

Life Lately

So here's what we've been up to lately:

I have continued to teach piano lessons through the summer. Scheduling has been tougher, but it's still been a lot of fun. Aidan enjoys playing, too.

My current calling is Primary chorister (which is SO MUCH FUN!!!), so we have been preparing for our Primary sacrament meeting program, which will be at the end of September. My Primary kids (all 60 of them!) are wonderful! I'm stressing about the program just a little, but I'm sure that the kids will do a great job.

Aidan and I have been trying to squeeze in as many summer activities as possible while the weather is still nice. That means we have done a lot of swimming, park days, library special events, outdoor concerts, and meeting Mike for lunch at Thursdays on First. This picture is from one of the library events.

We have just loved having some new ward members share a backyard fence with us. They have a 5-year-old and 3-year-old boy, so all 3 boys have loved fence-hopping to play together. Favorites include baseball and digging in the dirt for worms.

And in between all of this, we are trying to get ready for the new baby! I'm getting bigger (this shot's for you, Heidi),

and we're trying to get any needed stuff ready. We borrowed a bouncer with Aidan that was just WONDERFUL, so when we saw the same one for sale on Craigslist, we had to buy it. I brought it inside but hadn't put it away yet, and the next morning I snuck upstairs to find this:

Oh, I love being a mommy to BOTH of my sweet little boys! :)

The Deck is Done!!!

My husband is a true rock star. When we looked at this house last summer, the deck was painted baby blue. While it wasn't the favorite color choice for either of us, it wasn't horrible. It also looked to have been done recently, so we figured that the previous owners had spruced up the deck to entice buyers, just as they had painted the inside walls.

Unfortunately, after only one winter of Minnesota snow, the paint all started peeling, like this:

We think that perhaps they used non-waterproof paint. Anyway, we obviously didn't want our deck looking like that, so we decided to tackle the project together... and then I shortly thereafter found out that I was pregnant and learned that pregnant ladies aren't really supposed to sand and stain. So poor Mike was left to do the job alone.

We started around Easter. Literally EVERY SINGLE EVENING that has been nice enough weather (and some that have been broiling hot rather than nice), Mike has been outside working on the deck. While he did spend some time power washing, the majority of the time (like 3 months worth!) was spent sanding. Like this:

And this, with the detail sander that was his Father's Day gift:

This was the deck after Mike got the rails all sanded down but hadn't done much to the floor.

Mike's next step was stripping the paint. Which is an arduous, smelly task that doesn't really remove all the paint as easily as you would think. This picture shows the floor after he stripped it... much less blue, but still enough that he couldn't just be done there.

So Mike was back to sanding (again), and he got the deck looking beautiful and clean. It actually looked like brand-new wood if you didn't get close enough to see the leftover blue between the boards where he couldn't sand.

And the fun part? Staining! This shows the finished railing (but not floor),

and these last pictures are the finished deck! Isn't it gorgeous?!

See? I TOLD you my hubby is a rock star! (Now we just need to get a grill and some deck furniture to compliment all that hard work!)

Baby #2

I announced this on Facebook already, but some of you might not follow me there. So, if you have missed the announcement, we are expecting baby BOY #2 on December 20th!

This is a shot of Thor (as Mike thinks we should name him - NO WAY!) in profile. Aidan loves to show people the baby's nose. Everything from the ultrasound looked healthy and wonderful, so we are just patiently waiting until Christmas time to meet our new little guy!

Bedtime Adventures

Last night, I went in to check on Aidan before going to bed myself. We always have him clean his room before bedtime, so I was surprised to see something on the floor around his crib. It was too dark to tell what it was, so I leaned closer to see. It was some kind of white fluff, which really confused me... until I remembered the small hole in the back of his stuffed dog's back. I pulled out the poor dog, who was limp and lifeless. I barely made it out of the room before I died laughing! Mike snuck in and got this great shot.

Luckily, the dog's surgery today went well, and he is healing nicely. Cards and flowers can be sent to Puppy care of us. :)

My Cute Kid

I finally updated about our vacation. Here's a few fun Aidan things that have happened since then:

Anyone with kids who isn't already familiar with the book Blue Hat, Green Hat by Sandra Boynton ought to go get it from your local library. Anyway, the whole point is that there is a turkey who keeps wearing his clothing (socks, shirts, pants, etc.) on the wrong part of his body, and the text under the turkey always reads, "Oops!" The turkey finally gets it all right only to jump fully clothed into a swimming pool. It's a cute book. Anyway, Aidan wants to dress himself now, and one morning he came out in this outfit yelling, "Oops!" (That's his shorts on his head.)

Another event: our city hosts a track meet for anyone who wants to come run. They let the kids run by age group. The first week we went, we just missed the 2-year-olds, so we let Aidan run with the 3-year-olds. Unfortunately, poor Aidan accidentally got knocked down by one of the parents running with her child and did a HUGE face plant, and he has been terrified of the track ever since. We kept taking him back hoping he would get over that fear, but (as you can see in the video), it hasn't worked. Aidan and Mike show up after the guy in blue plaid shorts goes by - you can see Aidan holding his bright red Elmo doll.

The next race, I decided to hold Elmo on the sidelines so we could both cheer for Aidan... and you can see how well that (didn't!) work!

Oh, well. Aidan loves to run when it's NOT on that track, so hopefully by next summer he'll have forgotten about the face plant and will be ready to try again!

And last cute-ism from my kid: one morning, completely unprompted, he pulled out his cooking set and his Elmo and did this:

I choose to believe that my child will become a surgeon rather than a psychopath! :)

Vacation - the Leftovers

And now the last of it - stuff that didn't fit in the previous posts.

The three youngest grandkids, Sarah, Aidan, and Luke, all happened to have monkey pajamas. So we got some cute pictures of the kids in their matching jammies.

The reunion officially ended on Saturday night, although all of us ended up going to my mom's ward the next day. Since that day was Father's Day, some of us went to visit my dad's grave that evening.

And the next day, many families left, but we had one more day to spend in Utah. We ended up running errands with my mom, including a store where Aidan found this lovely ensemble all on his own!

We also met up with Mike's brother Tyler for a game of mini-golf and some dinner. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera... oops.

Oh, and one last shot: this one's for my dad!

That was all for our vacation, including the (again, thankfully) uneventful flights home. I'm so grateful for all the time that was put into organizing our reunion, my mom for letting us stay at her home, and that we were able to go. I love my family and enjoyed spending time with all of them!