Adventures in La La Land

1. One day this week, at 11:30 pm, Lucy and Lena were still awake, screaming and giggling and playing and fighting. I had put them to bed at 8:30. I've been doing bedtime solo for like 5 weeks now and it's getting real old. Especially when the children do.not.go.to.sleep! So I decided something had to change. The next day, I told the girls we were going to have "major cleaning day." Every few months I get fed up with the state of their bedroom and deep clean it. While we were cleaning, I mentioned nonchalantly to Lena, "Do you think you'd like to move your bed into Levi's room and start sleeping in there?" To my surprise, she was totally on board. So we spent allllll day cleaning and re-arranging. Lucy is beyond excited to have her own room and kept asking, "Can I arrange the furniture any way I want?" I agreed and then proceeded to help her drag her dresser to the very center of the room. All the other furniture is pushed up against walls...

Have you ever searched Pinterest for a Baby Shower game? They all promise the same thing: either "games that are actually fun" or "new games you've never played before!" And they're always the same: measure mom's belly with yarn, find the safety pins in the rice, "what's in your purse?", mom walks around with a tray of baby items that you're supposed to memorize (and then you're quizzed on what mom was wearing instead of the tray items!), the Price is Right, or the melted chocolate in the diaper game. Well, I've played a lot of baby shower games in my life and when it comes down to throwing one myself, I'm always on the lookout for something truly different - which usually means I make it up myself. In the spirit of generosity, I'm going to share them today. So if by chance you stumble upon this on Pinterest, you can have a few new ideas to add to your repertoire. Name that Name My sister still didn't have the ...

1. This week, we did something that my girls have been begging to do for ages: sister swap. My best friend has girls who are the exact same ages as my girls, so on Wednesday, Kelly picked up Lucy and dropped off Harper. Lucy and Presley played at their house all day, while Harper and Lena played here. And they all had a blast. As much as I harp on my girls to love each other and be friends, sometimes it's nice to play with your own friend without your sister around. BFFs! 2. I left Kelly's house with the entire series of Boy Meets World on DVD. My mean parents didn't let me watch it growing up, so I've only seen a few episodes here and there since adulthood, and I figured it'd be a good show to binge while Justin's out of town (hopefully just one more week!). I watched the first 7 episodes Wednesday night and was amazed at how innocent it is! Weeknight sitcoms on regular TV are NOT like that anymore. I'm not even sure Disney shows are like that anymo...

1. I cannot believe we're halfway through July already. I just looked at my calendar and realized we have something going on every weekend from now until August 18. And then we're starting school on the 20th! Slow down, summer!! 2. I'm starting to freak out a little bit about homeschooling. So I did what I always do when I'm overwhelmed: I started planning. The planner I ordered came in the mail this week, so I decided to lesson plan our first week. It took me 3 hours. Lol. But it was a lot of trial and error to figure out how to juggle both of the girls at the same time. Planning should be faster from here on out. I'm still semi-freaking out about what to do with Levi during homeschool, and of course I'm terrified that I'm going to let the girls fall behind and if they ever do get to go back to ACS they'll be woefully unprepared . . . 3. I also finished that book about the Charlotte Mason method ( For the Children's Sake by Susan Schaeffer ...