Taking the day off

I took Thursday off to clear my head a bit, spend time with the girls, and take care of a bunch of chores that have been piling up. We have a busy weekend ahead since one of the grandparents of O and L are driving down to visit on Saturday, so I know I won't get much rest over the weekend.

I got up early to go surfing with my friend David. It was super low tide - and the waves were really small, so we just decided to go to Panakin's for breakfast instead. Before we left, I did some product photography - not really, I just put one of our old bottles on a fence post and took a photo with my cell phone.


Even though I didn't get to surf, I still had a really refreshing time eating a cinnamon roll and just talking and sharing with David. It's good to be able to unload on someone now and again :)

After breakfast, I went home for a while and then the girls left with Jenetta to go to the library. We have found that our local library does free stuff for little kids each Wednesday and Thursday. Jenetta likes to bring the girls to the story times, and the girls really enjoy themselves there. So while they left, I picked up the car at the mechanics, went to a doctor's appointment, and took care of the recycling that had been piling up.

After nap time, the girls and I had a really good time running errands together. They were really well-behaved, and I decided to share our good fortune with them at the recycling center by giving them each a dollar to spend at the grocery store. I knew not to take them down an aisle I didn't want them to see, so while we were looking for cheese, we came across yogurt on sale for $.90 each. That made them very happy, so they spent their dollars and ate the yogurt in the store! Then I took them to the post office, and the clerk stamped their hands with smiley-face stamps.

When we got back home, some of our neighbors were just getting home from school. O and L have become great friends with two girls who live across the street. They are 12 and 6, but they seem to enjoy having new friends to play with in our neighborhood. I think they enjoy being totally revered by two little girls - O and L look up to them so much! So O and L played with them in their front yard for about an hour, which allowed me to get the rest of the chores done in the garage I needed to accomplish.

Yesterday was a pretty good day. Jenetta and I were talking about how easy-going and compliant they both were for the whole day. However, the evenings are still very challenging. They fight us on every step of the "winding down" process, but we have found that if we don't try to calm them down after dinner, then getting to bed can be very challenging and take hours!!! By the end of the day, we are both wiped out and very tired of dealing with it. It seems that they are learning a lot about the rules and how we want them to behave - just for some reason, that all goes out the window after about 7:00.

Next week, we are going to take a break together. We're taking the girls to Grandma Joy and Grandpa CJ's house for dinner. Jenetta and I are going on a two hour date together. Yay!!!