Jeff, Tiffany, and Their 3 Little Baers: A Great Week!

My week started off a bit rough because my flight from DC was delayed six hours. I was SO grateful I had brought my computer because I just worked on my blog the entire time and on the four hour flight. I could have never had time like this at home because there's so many projects I'd want to be working on that to spend more than 10 hours (plus the time on the flight to DC) would have been completely unrealistic. So it was such a blessing to me. But I didn't get home until 2:20 and finally made it to bed at 3 a.m. The next morning Jeff was amazing and took Lily and Ryan to basketball with him and then Max slept until 7:45 a.m. (which he NEVER does!). It was wonderful. I took Lily to swim lessons and before Jeff went to work he unpacked luggages and cleaned up the house so that I had a fresh start for the week. Those acts of service changed everything for me and helped me to have a positive beginning.

This was great for me personally because I worked really hard. I didn't want Jeff to have to do as much yard work when he came home so I mowed during one of Max's naps. I was up at 5 every morning exercising, cleaning bathrooms, the kitchen, and going through all the boys clothes. I made my shopping list for the week and we went to the grocery story and Costco. We had a play date, and lots of park time and bike rides. Looked at toys at Toys R' Us, ate at Chik-fil-A, and played with trains at Barnes and Noble. I listened to a podcast that talked about adding more nature to your nurturing and it has really helped me in trying to add that more to our day. It was recommended to have 30 minutes a day 3 times a week of interacting with nature for kids. I am trying to add nature walks after dinner which the kids love. We look for different color flowers or collect leaves and trace them. It is so nice because the kids play hard and sleep hard and we have had a great day learning and exploring and experiencing the world around us.

They played in these cars at Toys R'Us for a good 40 minutes. Lily was all about her bows this day.

Max of course loved the cars as well.

Chik-fil-A

Being the only adult in the Chik-Fil-A play area, the other kids tend to gravitate to you, so there was a big group in the airplane portion of the tunnels.

Reading books while I mow the lawn.

Jeff had been gone all week and finally got to come home Thursday. This was his first week of deadlines so we were excited to see him. On Friday he went to basketball, did work, helped with a move, then spent a couple hours cleaning bird poop. He worked so hard and did so much, it was wonderful! The best part though was playing the guitar and the kids dancing. They miss the guitar.

The kids told me there was a fly in the house and Lily asked if she could get the swatter. I told her I would get it later, but she is so determined and got a chair, reached up very high to get it herself, killed the fly, then cleaned it up. She also reorganized the swatters so they would be easier to get. She is so funny and helpful, I love it! She also painted her toes and nails by herself, takes a shower all alone, though she does help Ryan now too with that, and gets the toothbrushes ready. She is seriously the best helper and I'm so grateful for her as she just likes to be involved and get things done and solve problems. She was making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and she was doing a great job spreading the peanut butter, but I helped at the end. She told me I was really good at that and seemed sad she wasn't as good. I said I had a lot of practice. She then mentioned how she is really good at coloring and swimming, even if she wasn't good at spreading peanut butter. I was pretty upset about something and it showed in my voice, but every time I talked to Lily in this way she'd just respond, "okay my lady," in a pleasant manner.

Lily made the bed all by herself and was giving me tips on how to make it like her (since she did such a great job and did it better than I would have done it she told me).

Max is all over the place now and very dangerous. He climbs on the couch, on the train table, on the ottoman then the arm rest of the couch, and moves at a fast pace. If you ask him to stand he will let go of what he is holding on to and smiles big as he knows he is doing something impressive. His new thing is tearing out the music books in our bookshelf and one book in particular he tore out all the pages. He has done it enough times that we will soon be moving those books.

Ryan and I had some fun alone time while Lily was at swimming. He loves taking Max down the slide so I go right next to them and hold Max's hand while we go down. When we were at Costco Jeff and Lily were going to get something so I stayed with him and Max. He told me, "I will watch Max, you go with Daddy." I told him I had to stay there too, but he was insistent on handling it. When I kept staying he just wanted me to go a little ways off so that he could feel like he was watching them on his own. We got some more Chuggington and Thomas books from the library and Ryan never gets tired of reading them. We went bowling with rocks and made beds out of grass and leaves for the rocks. He loves riding his bike (Lily's old Dora bike) more than anything and is constantly asking. He likes opening the garage door on his own and likes. We play in the princess tent and pretend that Max is a monster. Sometimes I shake the tent and say it's an earthquake. Ryan didn't like that at first, but then each time I shook it I cuddled with him and told him I was protecting him. After that he loved having an earthquake. This week the kids all wanted, as Lily called it, "love time." That's when I hold and cuddle with each of them and let them know how loved they are. Ryan still loves to do puzzles and tells me to close my eyes while he finishes them and then he surprises me.

For the 4th of July Jeff got up early and helped set up and prepare for the ward pancake breakfast. He made a lot of batter and then cleaned up too. The kids ate pancakes and participated in the parade. We went swimming at Chimney Park Pool and the water was a bit cold, which Max did not like, but he did like splashing every once in awhile and being held in the pool. Lily loved swimming around and Ryan liked to say he was swimming too. They LOVED the slide and could have kept going down it all afternoon. It was only $2.25 a child so we thought that was a great deal. When we told them it was time to go home Ryan kept finding other things he wanted to do, needless to say there were lots of tears when we left. We discovered poor Max got sunburned on his arms very bad when he woke up from his nap....whoops. The boys and I slept very hard, Jeff watched a soccer game (hooray for soccer games airing during nap time!) and then we went to chik-fil-a to eat and play then Barnes and Noble. I put a very tired Max to bed and Jeff took Lily and Ryan to see fireworks. A very busy, but very fun family day!