Cuteness Times Two...

Another crazy week over here...what is new, right?
Yesterday we were lucky enough to get to hang with Mama Z and Jack!! A super fun, relaxing visit and the boys LOVED each other. O.k...they loved each other for the first 3.5 hours of the visit and for the last 30 minutes they fought over a car. But that's beside the point. A good time was had by all...who said you can't find friends on the internet that aren't creepy pedophiles? Oh, no one? Then I say it! Good times!


The adorableness of them squealing with glee over this ball game was enough to make us want to kill ourselves. Seriously ridiculous...

In other news, Lucy continues to act 14 years old, in both good ways and bad.

Good ways:
*Loves to watch over her brother if I tell her I need her to "babysit" for a few minutes.
*Gets really into singing and moving her mouth around to look cool...hard to explain but I will reenact it if you see me on the street.
*Seems to really be getting how her actions can hurt someone's feelings and seems to have more empathy for others.

Bad ways:
*Cares about matching all hair accessories with her outfit. And wakes up with an outfit in mind already. Is not pleased if this outfit in mind is in the laundry, is ridiculous looking or makes no sense based on the weather.
*Stubborn as hell...I mean sobbed for 45 minutes the other night because we took her Barbie guitar out of her room for being naughty.

But in the end there is much more good than bad. She is really acting like a big girl and it blows me away every day. Her legs are getting longer and leaner. She has been handling things with a maturity I have not seen in her before. She uses sentences that begin with the phrase, "So the concept of this game is...."
She is definately a fun, adorable, maturing 4-year-old and I do not want this year to end. It is too much fun to watch and get to be a part of.

Camping...

We headed out camping this past weekend for the first time in over a year. It was....interesting. I am going to summarize it as a haiku-type poem...

Camping
No sleep, six hours in car
Sweating
Four actual hours of fun

And today? Everyone slept until 9 a.m. (no joke...world record for this house...), Tommy and I have diarrhea, we have been super low key and I don't even feel a little bit guilty about it.

Fire up for another camping trip in two weeks!
I need the next 13 days to will myself to get behind this trip.

Bet Your Bottom Dollar...

I wonder if Tommy will ever believe me when I tell him (at age 16 with his friend over for dinner) that he used to wake us all up by belting out Annie's "Tommorow" from his crib.

I am talking versus and all....

"When I'm stuck with a day...that's grey...and lonely!!!!"

Yeah, I totally won't tease him with that story forever at all.

Friendship "Stuff...."

I have always been a person who puts a large effort into friendships with my girlfriends. They have always meant a lot to me for as long as I can remember. I hear I got this trait from my maternal grandmother, who put on one hell of a "card club" back in the day.
I am proud to be able to say that no matter what city or state I have lived in or life changes I have gone through - I have always tried hard to maintain the important friendships in my life. Some people are good at that and some people are not, and I have learned (after working out the frustration and disappointment in my head) that I have to accept people for who they are and what they can give. Things change as life changes and so be it.
I have been fortunate to make some really wonderful friendships over the past six years in my "new town." I am so lucky to have found so many great women I can call or count on during this crazy and interesting time in my life.
I've had some more friendships change, for the good or the bad. Some friends seem to have faded away a little for their own reasons, or life just takes over elsewhere.
I've learned I'm not real good at friendships involving three women. Maybe it works well when you are 7 years old. But in the end, doesn't someone always feel left out?
Some people come out of the woodwork with such kindness and thoughtfulness, I am blown over. Especially from those new friendships or people I don't see or speak to as often as I would like.
Others, that I thought I could really count on, seem to run on autopilot without many emotional deposits into the bank of Sarah. ha! Do I sound like a therapist or what?
Anyway...what is my point? I was up tossing and turning last night just thinking about all this. How I have felt let down, how others are turning into such close friends. How I wish I didn't care or think about this stuff so much.
There is no real summary I have today. Just thoughts about friendship...both good and bad.
In the end, it always comes back to prioritizing your life the way you feel best in your gut. Keep making the effort to connect with others and live in the moment, as usual.

How To Really Live in a House...

My next-door neighbor moved out of his house two days ago. He lived in the house for over 50 years. He is in his mid-80's and is the kindest older gentleman I have ever met (Not counting my dad, but he doesn't count as an "older gentleman" because he is only 70 and that's just a GD spring chicken).
In that house, he and his wife started their life together. They raised five children. He knew the original owners of our house and told me a few interesting stories about the street. He remembers when the end of our street was still an open field where his kids would play baseball.
His wife brought us a homemade cherry cobbler on the day we moved in, over six years ago. They delivered little gifts to us after each child was born.
They went to Florida every winter, church every Sunday and his children visited weekly. He seemed to enjoy the day to day of life. He went for a brisk walk every day, until his hip surgery last year. He insisted on mowing his lawn and doing his own yardwork. His wife declined quickly after a stroke about two years ago and last Christmas, she passed away in that house.
I will never forget Matt bringing him over a plate of our Christmas Eve dinner, when he was at his wife's deathbed with the hospice nurse. He was so grateful, he began to cry when Matt brought it over. And a few days later, I saw him watch her leave the house from his front porch.
He always said "hello" to our crazy kids playing outside, and the kids loved to wave and say "hi!" to him. He took the time to ask them how their day was or what they were up to. I was sad to see the "For Sale" sign go up this spring, though I knew it was inevitable.
Over the past couple of weeks, I have seen him puttering around his yard, his driveway, etc. I was thinking, I wonder what it is like to be saying goodbye to that house. A house you owned for over 50 years, raised five children in, said goodbye to your wife in...and now you have to walk away. What a life they built around that house and what memories to be leaving within the walls.
Even now, in our house of a mere six years, there are so many precious memories we have created here, I don't think I could let this house go.
I hope I am lucky enough to have the memories he has. We should all be so lucky to be married for 50 years, raise healthy kids (who are now grandparents in their own right), and have our great grandchildren over for Sunday dinners.
I hope he still visits our street every now and then. And I hope we can carry the tradition on that his family started. I believe he looked around and saw the new families and young kids playing in their front yards as a sign of hope for this street he has learned to love so deeply. We will certainly miss him.

All I Need to Hear...

The last two evenings, Lucy has casually and spontaneously said to me,
"Mom? This was a great day...."
I don't ask her if she had a great day or anything.
She just says it out of the blue.
It's her 4 year old way of saying, "Thanks."
And that is all I need to hear. That's the payback for all the hard work.
For all the flailing, sweating, extra special things, fun ideas, projects, exciting trips, watching, cheering, encouraging and paying attention at all times.
It's funny how that sentence is all you need for all that work but it is all I need and it's the greatest.

The Love Continues....

Lucy continues to love on the Tomma. Then again, EVERYBODY is lovin' on the Tomma.
Indeed, he is a lovable dude and there is no denying it.

The girls at the gym when we walk in to the daycare area:
"Oh yeah! Tommy is here! He is so cute, sweet, adorable, etc".
Yesterday, one girl told me he ran past her and flailed into her hand. He then immediately stopped and went back to her saying, "Are you o.k?" and hugging her.

A few of the neighbors: "Can I have Tomma?"
"Why is he so random, low-key, laid-back, etc?"
(These comments may be sparked due to the direct opposite personality of his sister's...but I, as their mother, love them both!)

Lucy whacks Tomma. I tell her to tell him she is sorry and all of a sudden he says all PLG, "I sorry...."
Even Lucy will say, "No Tommy! I'm supposed to say it!"
Ridic...

In the car the other day Lucy proclaimed:
"I might marry Tommy, mom. You just never know."
Me: "You never know, Luce."

The kid is the bomb...and I am a lucky B to have him!!

BACK, I Say!

Seriously...could I write or obsess more over the drama that was our front yard this past winter? I mean enough is enough...EXCEPT TO SAY (ha!)...

While we were on vacation, some friends of ours parked their car at our house to go walk to the 4th of July fireworks. As they were hanging around our front yard, a couple walked by and proclaimed, "We just have to tell you...we find your yard to be absolutely stunning. Just gorgeous!"

I told Matt that story the other day and he just stood their beaming, with a twinkle in his eye. Oozing with the similar feeling of pride and joy as he had the day he graduated from nursing school at the University of Michigan. And while we never spoke of that moment, I feel like in his head, the dialogue went something like this:

"Screw you, demolished water pipes. You may have smashed our yard's hopes and dreams...and money to buy Christmas presents (and that year's sales bonus')...but damnit! The yard is back. The yard is BACK!"
(cue tear running down face....)

Operation Back on Track...

The Saturday before we left for vacation, I ran in our town's local 10K race. It was my best race yet and I was really proud of myself.
Right off the bat I would like to go ahead and apologize for my mushroom head I had at the end of the race in the picture above. One thing not-so-great about a "funky, fun short hairdo" is you can't really do a "day two." It just goes mushroom on you. But I digress...
I ran it in 8:30 miles and was 25th for my age group out of 70. And I was the old one (30-34 year olds)! Geez...not going to like the next age group too much...
So my running is at it's strongest and I am in the best physical shape of my life and that feels great.
So what's the problem, you ask? Ever since January and prepping to run my 25K in early May, I have used my running as an excuse to eat everything and anything I want! My old "once in a while" fries, pizza, hamburger and ice cream was starting to become more "once or 3 times a week." I wasn't necessarily getting chubby, per se. Just not feeling my best.
Now that vacation is over, I have insituted Operation Back on Track for myself. I literally cleaned out my fridge on Sunday night and went to the grocery store and bought fruits and veggies. I have been a healthy-eating fool this week and am feeling MUCH, MUCH better. I had to get it together...it's a slippery slope for me people, a slippery slope.
If only I was technically savvy and I could scan for you the picture of me circa 1996. I really enjoyed things like meximelts, Burger King onion rings and sausage gravy. I have this sweet picture of myself in a bright orange XXL Abercrombie and Fitch jacket in front of my sorority house on a lovely fall morning. Some of you readers have seen this picture and laughed with me as to WHY...WHY did I think a bright orange jacket was a good choice for me at that point? Hey, you've got to hand it to me - I had high self-esteem, I suppose.
So onward and upward with my carrot sticks and bananas! Cleanse the body...drink water...and no more ice cream! O.k....maybe once a week, instead of three.

In Love...

Lucy: Mom? What does in love mean? Fiona is in love with Shrek.

Me: It means when you really care about someone and you want to always be nice to them and give them lots of hugs.

Lucy: I'm in love with Tommy.

Up Next? July! Whooooo!!

Our trip to the east side of the state was as expected - fun, relaxing and loooowwww key. And a bonus this year? No major leg-exploding injuries! ha!
Back in action today with a nasty toe infection for poor Tommy that had us spending half of the morning at the doctor's office and drugstore for a prescription.
Oh well....the kids and I didn't really mind.
Something different and exciting on this first day back to the usual daily grind!

Here's a few pics from our week...