Life has been good. We love spending our weekends hanging out with friends and just hanging out together as a family. B/c we both work full time, we cherish the little time we have together on the weekends and always try to make the most of it (without overprogramming ourselves to death). And I have to admit, while I love working, there is a part of me that wonders....if I could put into mothering the energy and time that I put in to my job, what would my life look like and what would that mean for my children? Or b/c I work, does that result in even better mothering from me b/c I am meeting some needs at work that could not be met at home? Always the question, for every mom I am sure!
This picture if from a few weeks ago when we met up with our friend Lisa at the park. Her older daughter and B-man were busy running around, but Campbell and Lilah were happy to hang out together and eat mulch.
B-man loves to help feed his sister. Seriously, they are the best of friends (right now). Every morning they are so excited to see each other and B-man loves to help take care of lil C. He likes to hold her and often announces to me in the car that he is "talking to Campa momma". I best not interrupt (though this morning he wasn't having it and told her NO TALKING!)
The rain held off for long enough this weekend for us to enjoy a few hours of fun and wine at Oliver Winery (one of the best Indiana has to offer, actually the midwest - yum!). It is a great place for the kids to run around and the adults to enjoy time together! Here is Jen the birthday girl with sweet Campbell!
Great friends!
Me - Jen - Amanda
Self portrait! Looks like b-man reacts to photos like I do!
And this is an example of how we spent our time yesterday. B-man decided that there should be no cushions on the couch and then the kids proceeded to run, jump, crawl, tumble and of course laugh for a long time. It was great!
Tucker totally wanted in on the action, poor Tucker.
"I see you!"
I declared yesterday a NO TELEVISION day for my children (we rely on it WAY too much) and have been focusing on cutting back tv time by almost 100%! B-man sometimes asks, but then we replace his tv time with fun family activities like fingerpainting. After family time all day, my kids were worn out. Lil C went to bed by 6pm, maybe a little earlier and didn't get up until 6:45 this morning (not by choice!) and B-man (while he didn't have as great of a night sleep) was down before 8pm (hard to do when it is light so late!) and also slept in. Ahhh - time for me!
We also started a new project yesterday, inspired by my new fav book, "No Impact Man". We are composting (surprise PJ!). My friend gave me the basics and shared with me that we don't need anything fancy to get started. So we started with an empty coffee can. Each week I am trying to incorporate little things in to our lives to help reduce our carbon footprint - we already are avid recyclers, but now are adding composting, less TV time, and will be looking to reuse materials rather than buy new when we can. Also starting to focus on using cloth over papertowels when I can (hard to change!). And b/c of the new bike trailer our friends gave us, once I get lil C a helmet, we are going to take advantage of less car and more bike! Not to mention the Farmer's Market opens up again this coming weekend - and we need to eat more local and less meat. We can do it! (PJ - are you on board??!!!!)
3 comments:
I love how you ask PJ in the blog. LOL! We've been composting and my plants/container garden/flowers are so very grateful! It's very easy.
You go McCools! I'm impressed! It's funny you mention this book today--I just saw the movie on my computer last week (NetFlicks) and loved it! Mike and I have also cut lots of tv from our lives. Honestly, I used to be addicted. We didn't renew our cable. We get about 5 basic channels now... thats it!!! It was hard in the beginning, but lots of good came from it. I do still watch from time to time after she's in bed, but nothing like before.
Thanks Maria and Brigit. Ha ha, sometimes in our house, I just have to do things and not talk too much about it to get others (like my husband!) on board! Oh and tv - we actually went 2 years without cable, then caved in. There is no way my husband would give it up (and I still indulge after the kiddos go to bed sometimes too, but try to read or go to sleep earlier!) - but we both are working on keeping it off around the kids. Really hard sometimes - especially b/c it can be easy to plop Brennan in front of the TV when I want to get things done!
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