State Fair

The thought of bringing both children to the State Fair on a weekend made me want to just lie down and sleep for an entire day.  I also thought I'd regret not crossing one of the last items off of our summer bucket list, so Josh and I took the day off today to visit the State Fair.  Massive crowds? Scorching, record-breaking heat? A missed morning nap? No biggie.  The kids did great (people watching is both of their favorite past-times and what better place to do that than at the fair?!)

Max took his job at the Little Hands farm seriously. 

 He had to do a bunch of different jobs (including giving corn to (pretend) chickens, cows (and also milking the cow), and another animal I'm forgetting) and then received a dollar in return.  With their dollar, Max picked out a little box of Cheerios and Claire picked out the only item that was pink, which just happened to be instant oatmeal. 

Another job- planting the harvest 

Claire LOVED the merry go round, or the "rocking horse ride", as she calls it. 

Max, not so much. This is the part where I rescued him from the purple horse. 

We had mini donuts, lemonade, pronto pop, french fries, and a malt.  Max's favorite was the french fries.  My least favorite is his diaper that followed said french fries. 

  

Get in mah belly!!! 

The first thing we did after we returned home was throw the children in the bath.  As I was drying Claire off, she said, "Mom, I can't stop hugging you.  I can't stop kissing you either.  I just love you so much!".  Girlfriend speaks my love language. 

Social weekend

Whew, what a weekend.  I was home with the children on Friday and enjoyed a park playdate with Melissa and Dagney and their children in the morning and another playdate with Ami and her kiddos in the afternoon.  Josh went to the fair with co-workers after work so I had the kids the entire evening by myself too.  I even drug them along to my eyebrow wax appointment.  The lady looked at me suspiciously when I followed her back with a toddler's hand in each of my hands and I promised her they would be well-behaved, which they were!  So proud of them.  And no bribery was even involved.

Saturday Josh was gone the entire day again- from 10:00AM until after midnight.  No playdates, just lots of quality time with my two loves.  Today I had an annual girls day (which is usually girls weekend) with Amy, Pam, and Sarah.  Eight glorious hours of talking, shopping, drinking, eating, and way more talking.  Love.

These two little people are my world. Here is Max's "Cheeeeessseeeeee!" face. 

Claire is way into 'hugging' Max these days.  

He's way not into it... which I think makes her more into it. 

A couple funny anecdotes about the kids these days.  If Max can't see something or someone, he thinks they/it is "working".  "Max, where's Daddy?", "Working".  "Max, where are your shoes?", "working".

Claire is super scared of garbage trucks.  On Friday she must have asked me DOZENS of times if a garbage truck was going to come.  Whether we were at the park, inside the house, at a friend's, at the brow wax, at Target, everywhere, she wanted to know if a garbage truck was coming.  

Falling blankets

Last night I got up THREE times to put Claire's blanket back on her.  "MOM!  My blanket fell off!  I'm COLD!!!".  Each time it took me about 30 minutes to fall back asleep (why am I the one who has to get up with her AND I'm the one that has trouble falling back asleep?  Josh can fall back asleep in less than  a minute but she only lets me get up with her), so that's about 1 1/2 hours of lost sleep, all because she kicked her blanket off.

The third time, around 5:00AM, I went downstairs to get a heavier and larger blanket.  Claire kicked it right off. "I don't want that blanket, Mom!  It's BROWN!".  Woo-saaaaaaa, deep breaths.  I put the other blanket back on and told her I was not coming in there one more time until morning.  Went back to bed and told Josh, "I am so damn sick of going in there multiple times a night to put her blanket back on!  We are buying a new bed for her tomorrow!!!".  Claire is still in a toddler bed and if she was in a twin or full size bed, she would use an actual comforter with a much greater chance of staying put.

Reason came with the morning, and instead of buying an entire bed today, I took the kids to Target and we bought her a $29.99 (before discount) toddler bed bedding set.  She's using it right now and if I don't find myself going in there tonight to put her comforter back on, I'll say it was worth every penny and much more.

When I was rocking her in the dark tonight, she gave me a big squeeze and said in her tiny precious voice,

"Mommy, I love you.  I love you, Sweetie.  Every day you go to work and I just miss you every day.  I just love you so much".

I repeated it in my head multiple times to make sure I didn't forget before I could write it down (I'll be putting that into my photo book!  So darn sweet).

Maybe she's more strategic than I thought and is just melting my heart, preparing me to put her blanket back on tonight.  This girl, she's my world.  

He won

When you become a Manager, you can read books and take classes but you really can't learn how to handle situations like navigating conflict, dealing with poor performance, or influencing, without actually experiencing them.

I've been managing people for seven years and yesterday I experienced a new situation for the first time, and God willing, the last.

Yesterday, I had to tell my team that their colleague, Maria, passed away on Tuesday. And it was awful.

I wrote this post back in January about sweet Maria.

I emailed with Maria less than two weeks ago (she went on long-term disability on June 29th) and now she is gone.

When I learned of her death as soon as I walked into my office on Wednesday, I almost ran into a nearby 'quiet room' before my team could see me (as they did not yet know), where I called my mom, broke down and sobbed.

Wiped the tears, pulled my team together, and shared the tragic news.

A colleague of Maria's said, "She won. He won.  She is healed".

Before Maria left in January for her leave of absence she said, "Worst case scenario, I get to go home to my Savior, and that's pretty amazing".

Maria radiated joy, hope, and optimism.  She never stopped believing that she could be healed, this side of Heaven.  And I joined many, many others in continuing to pray for it.  I drive right past her house when I go to my mom's or to church and say a prayer for her every time.  Now, when I drive past I will pray for her husband and daughter.

Cancer is a beast.  I feel like it's everywhere and it terrifies me more than anything else in the world.  Three months ago another member on my team lost his father to cancer.  Two weeks ago my former boss lost her father to cancer (at age 60).  Tuesday we lost Maria to breast cancer.

There will be a large group from Target attending Maria's funeral next Thursday.  Another first experience as a Manager for me.

Dear Cancer, you suck.  But you know what?  You didn't get the victory.  Jesus won and Maria is healed.  Thank you, Jesus.  We miss and love you, sweet sweet Maria..

And on that day when my strength is failing

the end draws near and my time has come

Still my soul will sing Your praise unending

Ten thousand years and then forevermore. 

Matt Redman. 10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord) 

Finally, a healthy weekend

We finally had our first fully healthy weekend since the end of June, this past weekend.  Thank the sweet Lord.  Just a couple highlights for your viewing pleasure...

I had my fourth Friday off in a row.  The kids and I were so lucky to spend the past three Fridays with Ami and her crew!  This last Friday we went to the Dakota County fair.  I'd really like to go to the MN State Fair but the thought of bringing the kids in the double stroller makes me want to lie down and take a nap, so if it doesn't happen, at least I'll have pictures to prove to C&M that they indeed experienced a fair at ages 1 and 3. 

Max wasn't scared of the Blues Clues ride.  He was scared of the carnival man that secured our seat.  So wise in her young years, the first thing Claire said to Max when we got off the ride was, "Maxy, were you scared of the scary guy?" 

Chickens are gross to look at, but cool to photograph?? 

Their first merry-go-round! 

It's impossible to stay awake in the car after hours at the fair.  I didn't go down without a fight- windows down, music blasting, dancing and singing loudly with a frequent "CLAIRE! STAY AWAKE!!  I'll give you CANDY if you stay awake!!" Super mom here. 

We spent all afternoon, evening, and night with the Fords on Saturday. We introduced Landon to his first splash park experience. 

Max is creeping.  See him eyeing the frozen gogurt? 

wait for it.... 

It feels like it turned from Minnesota's hottest summer EVA to fall overnight.  I'd be lying if I said I wasn't enjoying the cooler temps.  This evening, for example, was perfect.  A couple Sundays ago I made two pans of lasagna for the freezer.  Transferred one to the fridge last night.  Popped it in the oven when I got home from work and enjoyed a family walk around the neighborhood.  My dad came over as we were returning home from the walk.  After a delicious dinner with very minimal effort (today, at least) we took another walk, this time with Grandpa (and it was cool enough to wear a light-weight hoodie!).  We walked down to Uncle Chris and Aunt Becky's house and enjoyed a little visit.  Returned home, slid the kids into jammies and I was out the door for my 8:15 yoga class.  That was a boring paragraph....long story short, I'm enjoying the cool temps and all the time we get to spend (comfortably) outside and am looking forward to fall but I am in shock that summer is almost over!  Between the summer sickness saga and the raging temperatures, I feel like I blinked and missed it!

Have a great week!

National Night Out

We hosted National Night Out tonight for the second year in a row.  It's easier for me to host then it is to find someone else to do it...and I enjoy it too.  The firetruck arrived 45 minutes late, causing me to be  a little nervous, but all is well that ends well.  The fireman said that our party was their fifth of the night and had the most people, by far!  And they still had 10 more parties to attend- crazy!  And our pals from Target showed up with lots of dollar store (See.Spot.Save) goodies for the kids.  I finally put Max down at 9:00PM and Claire at 9:30.  Claire was scared of the firetruck and Max loved saying his new word, "firetruck" on repeat the rest of the night. It was a great evening with awesome neighbors! 

(Josh said we're doing a live band and a pig roast next year.  I'm fine with lemonade and bean bag toss). 

Max was surprisingly independent all night long!  He just toddled around, plopped himself wherever the action was, and gave hugs to lots of random (to him) neighbors!  Sweet boy. 

Now that is a good looking fireman.

Sunday night

What a weekend.  We had a blast last night at the Star.key Hea.ring Foundation gala.  I'll write an entire post on that soon.  Black tie events make you feel so glamourous.

The summer of sickness saga continues.  I wrote a post recently describing how our month of July was a constant blur of sickness.  I honestly didn't think it would be possible that we would STILL be sick nearly two weeks later.  Two days after that post, both Claire and Max got a cold.  A cold is not a huge deal, except that it really interfered with sleep and their coughs and running and congested noses lasted more than a week!  Then, today, Josh came down with some stomach bug.  He's been laying on the couch for the past nine hours, which meant I was on my own with the kids today and still managed house-cleaning, freezer-cooking, playing, dinner, bath, post-bath walk, and bed by myself.  I am wiped out. Sickness, leave us alone!  This week is another busy one. My dad is coming over for dinner tomorrow night, we're hosting our street's National Night Out party on Tuesday for the second year in a row, I have a HOPE International strategic planning meeting Wednesday night, and then I'm off work again on Friday- yay!!

Here are a few pictures from our post-bath pajama walk tonight.  The sun was at its magical hour but I realize now I was taking them too directly into the sun and had the aperture too low.  It's fun to keep on practicing my photography!