So last night around 11pm, Graham came into my room and said, "good morning mommy!" - After convincing him that it wasn't even close to being morning, we decided that he could stay and sleep over in my room :)
First order of business this morning was getting the kids up and ready for daycare and their stay at their dad's house. Then I got myself ready for water aerobics...
Probably one of my favorite moments of the day happened when we were in the car on the way to daycare. The song, "Say Hey" came on the radio and the kids and I did some serious dancing and singing....Ellie likes to mimic whatever I'm doing and it is sooo funny to watch!
Once we got to Sabrina's though, the kids' attention quickly turned to the fact that it was garbage day...
It's always quite an event :) Eventually though we got to the front door!
We have been coming to Sabrina's house since Graham was about 6 months old - she and her family are definitely like extended family for Ellie and Graham. I have no reservations about leaving the kids with her and know that they will be well taken care of. We are so lucky to have found her, and I keep my fingers crossed that she'll stick with us for quite some time yet :)
After dropping the kids off I went straight to River Road for the morning water aerobics class...
Go ahead and imagine me out in the middle of this picture working out with some of these....
I tried the class for the first time last Friday and really enjoyed it. It was a great workout and I just love being in the water, so it doesn't really feel like a lot of work :) There are a lot of new things to learn at first, but the instructor and other people in the class have been helpful. I'm hoping to find a way to continue to make it to classes after I go back to work in the fall....it will be a great way to stay active all winter.
After class I headed home to shower and make some breakfast...eggs, bacon, and toast...my favorite!
With no kids around I decided to watch an episode of Army Wives while I ate :) But I didn't quite finish the episode before I heard someone at the door....
Wednesday means it's time for Ted to come work in the yard. Ted's another one of those helpers that I am sooo happy we found. Ted first came to me when I was pregnant with Graham and he's been keeping our yard neat and tidy ever since. I don't see Ted very often during the school year because he comes during the day, but when we do get to talking it goes on for quite awhile :) I really enjoy chatting with Ted about his kids, my kids, work, the yard, and life in general! Today I think we probably talked for an hour in total....some about the sprinkler system that's giving us trouble, but also about his belonging to the Hoedads "back in the day" - a worker-owned treeplanting and forestry labor cooperative that was based right here in Eugene. They have a big reunion coming up so I got to hear more about that. I find Ted to be so very kind and incredibly interesting and so helpful and supportive - I'm so grateful to have found him!
I spent some time working in the garage this afternoon while I was waiting for a load of laundry to get through the wash machine. You might remember the before picture of garage from this post, and I've definitely made a lot of progress since then. It's still very much a work in progress though...
I now have plenty of room to park my bike though, and I can easily walk from one end of the garage to the other. I have taken MANY bags and boxes of "stuff" to St. Vinnie's and I'm starting to get stuff arranged and put away. Feels good to keep plugging away at this - it's the last evidence of our move here, just about a year ago now. My goal is to get this all cleaned up before my family arrives mid-August. After working out there today I have some new energy for it and am already trying to figure out when the next chance is I'll have to work on it :)
I have a baby shower to attend this coming weekend, so I had to run out to get a couple things together for that. No pictures of that yet though, 'cause Teresa could be reading ;) More about that on Sunday's Week in the Life post! I can tell you that it involved a stop at Costco and Target.
After I got home I did some work on my One Little Word project for July. Our assignment involved music...
"Do you have a personal soundtrack? Have you been hearing your word whispering (or maybe yelling) to you this year through music? This month we're going to take time to listen and document some of the songs that might be inspiring us as we journey with our word in 2011."
Music has always been an important part of my life, so this assignment really spoke to me. There are definitely songs that have inspired and moved me as I focus on my word for the year, FORWARD. So the assignment was to find 9 songs, and I've been keeping a list as I stumble upon songs that hold meaning to me right now. I knew I had found the 9th one when I was rocking out with the kids in the car this morning :)
You should be able to access the playlist by clicking here - I think it will open up itunes and you can listen to little snippets of my songs. I'll list them here as well in case the link doesn't work right.
(click on the list to be able to read it better)
I did a lot of relaxing for the rest of the evening and didn't really take any pictures at all. A friend came over to watch tv and we ordered a pizza...and after that I just crawled in bed to unload today's pictures with a cup of peppermint tea.
There seem to be themes that jump out at me from day to day....on Monday it was about errands and work, Tuesday was about having the kids here and playing with friends, and today I find myself thinking about the people we have in our village that help me out, like Ted and Sabrina. We are so fortunate to have so many good people in our lives - there's no way I could do this all alone :)
