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This week was a
busy one, and I have a lot to share, so let’s dive right in, y’all!
Monday, February 16
Monday, the kids were off for the holiday, so the three of us slept
in. Brian did have to work, but he
worked from home, so he ended up being there with us all day, too.
I spent the morning organizing my pictures from the weekend since I
hadn’t finished that, and then I worked on my blog post for Tuesday, quickly
realizing I had a long way to go. I
didn’t want to sit at a computer all day while the kids were off, so I pushed
the blog post to Wednesday instead.
After lunch, I went for a walk, and it was sunny and warm and soooo
wonderful. We had round one of false
spring last week and it was amazing while it lasted!
When I got home, I showered and got ready, and the kids and I headed out
to run some errands. Olivia had a couple
of Target gift cards that she’d gotten for her birthday, so she wanted to go
there and do some browsing. She ended up
picking out two different packs of slime (man, I wish that craze would die
down, haha) and she also grabbed some Ariana Grande perfume from Ulta. My girl is obsessed with all things beauty
right now. Jacob ended up spending some
of his money on a Lego set, and everyone left happy.
Brian’s birthday was Friday, but I had to be at the school all evening,
so we decided to celebrate him Monday since we were all home. The kids and I grabbed some Crumbl cookies
for our celebration, and then we headed home.
We had a few minutes before it was time to go to dinner, so I got a few
things done in my office and I started prepping for Tuesday.
Brian wanted to eat dinner at a local Mexican restaurant near our house
that we love, so we went there around 5:30 to beat the crowd. That place is known to get very busy, and we
didn’t want to wait.
Dinner was soooo delicious. I got
a rice bowl with beef because it has a little bit of everything in it – cheese,
guac, pico de gallo, beans, corn, etc. – and of course, B and I splurged on
some Monday evening margs. They had the
entrance decorated for Valentine’s Day, so we had to snap some pictures there
on the way in and out, too.
When we got home, Brian opened his gifts, and then we sang happy birthday
and enjoyed our Crumbl cookies. We were
all so full from Mex that nobody was able to eat their entire cookie, so we
packed them away to enjoy the next day. We also had to catch a glimpse of the sunset...
Once all that was done, we all sat down to finish The Truman Show
and the kids loved it. It’s so fun
showing them all these old movies that I loved when I was a kid!
After they went to bed, Brian and I ended the night with another episode
of The Girlfriend, and then we went to bed to get ready for the week
ahead!
Tuesday, February 17
Tuesday morning, I hit the ground running because I had lots to do. After dropping the kids at school, I headed
to Walmart to grab groceries, and then I went home to put everything away. I had just enough time to enjoy a cup of tea
before I had to leave again to meet with my therapist.
When I got home, I finally finished my blog post for Wednesday (the one
that was supposed to have been for Tuesday) and that took the rest of the
day. So. Many. Pictures. To. Edit.
After school, we met up with Brian, and Jacob jumped in his car to go straight
to the golf course since he had a match.
While the boys were golfing, I got Olivia home to do homework, and then
I dropped her off at dance.
When I got home, I headed out into the warm sunshine, and I got in 2.41
miles before heading home to get in a 10-minute arms workout. After my workout, I got showered and into
pajamas, and then I got started on dinner.
The boys picked up Olivia from dance on their way home, and then we all
sat down together to have fettucine alfredo, steamed broccoli, and garlic
cheese bread. Jacob told us all about
his match, and Olivia told us how dance went.
He’d gotten one double bogey and two triple bogeys, so it wasn’t
his best match, but he had fun! And
Olivia has started working on the routines for her recital in May and she is
over the moon!
By the time dinner was over, it was pretty late, so we all cleaned the
kitchen, the kids got showered and ready for bed, and then they went to bed
around nine. Brian and I had just enough
time to watch the last episode of The Girlfriend before going to bed,
and WHEW, ya’ll, that was quite an ending.
We both loved it.
Wednesday, February 18
Wednesday morning, I drove the kids to school and then I headed home for
an hour to work on some blog housekeeping + emails before I had to turn around
and go back to the school / church for Ash Wednesday Mass. I met my Momma, Mama Cass, and my two aunts
there, and the five of us sat together behind all the kids at the children’s
school Mass. I always used to sit with
my kids during those school Masses, and I just still can’t believe that they’re
both in the older kids Mass now. This is
the first year I haven’t had one of them in the children’s Mass, and it makes
me so sad. I could go to their middle
school / high school Mass, but the MS/HS are both so huge now that the kids
take up the entire church (and our church is HUGE), so I just go with my family
to the children’s Mass instead.
Children’s Mass is always a treat because it’s always the sweetest thing
to hear the kids’ angelic voices singing the hymns and reading the first and
second readings. And the priests always
have a special homily directed at the kids, which is always so sweet. This year, the Bishop of our Diocese ended up
being in town, so he did the Mass, and he made the homily very interactive,
asking the kids all kinds of questions.
They all had the sweetest answers, and it was just the best thing.
After Mass, we asked our resource officer to snap a picture of our group,
and I love it so much. <3
I stopped by the library on the way home and my friend, Jeannine, helped
me pick out a few AR books for Olivia to try.
My girl is picky about books, but when she finally finds one she likes,
she devours it. Jeannine gave me three
books for her to try, and sure enough, the one she thought Olivia would like
the most ended up being the one Olivia selected. And she read the entire 300-page book in just
24 hours!
When I got home, I started my blog post for Friday and then I spent the
rest of the afternoon catching up on blog reading. I was nearly two weeks behind, so that took
the rest of my time before I had to leave to pick up the kids from school.
On the way home, Jacob’s old piano teacher was in front of us, and when
we stopped at a red light, he took off his helmet and talked to the kids for a
couple of minutes. They always love
getting to see him!
When we got home, the kids did homework and I finished the book I was
reading. Brian got home from work and
took Olivia to dance so I could have dinner ready early since he had a tennis
match.
Since it was Ash Wednesday, we were abstaining from meat, so I made
grilled cheese sandwiches, and we had some chips, Greek yogurt (for protein),
and fruit with them.
Brian left for his tennis match shortly after dinner, and I got the
kitchen cleaned up and went for another walk.
After that, I got showered and into pajamas, and then Jacob got
showered. Brian’s tennis match ran long,
which meant he wasn’t able to pick up Olivia, so I headed out in my pajamas to
grab her. We ended up getting home
before him, and she got showered and ready for bed.
After the kids were in bed, Brian and I started working our way through
our backlog of Saturday Night Live episodes. We were still on the Christmas episode, so we
had a lot of catching up to do.
Thursday, February 19
Thursday morning, I felt exhausted all morning. I didn’t have anywhere to be, so I intended
to get a lot of stuff done, but I was so tired that I ended up working on my
blog post for Friday and then taking a 45-minute nap. I was worried I was coming down with
something, but I think it was just the dreary weather.
After my nap, I felt refreshed once my grogginess went away, and I got to
work finishing my blog post for Friday, doing a load of laundry, catching up on
emails, sending some last-minute text messages and emails about the school
dance, and a few other odds and ends.
I had zero gas, so I stopped by the gas station and then by UPS to drop
some Amazon returns on the way to get the kids, and then I read my book in the
car line while I waited for the kids to come out.
We saw Jacob’s piano teacher again Thursday, so the kids got to talk to
him on the way home again. He plays guitar
and he used to teach guitar lessons in addition to piano lessons, so he was
thrilled to hear that Olivia is now taking guitar lessons.
The kids had music lessons after school, and I sat in with Olivia. She worked some more on The Fate of
Ophelia by Taylor Swift, and while she can play the whole thing now, she
doesn’t have the tempo down just yet, so she’s working on playing it faster.
After lessons, Brian picked up Jacob and they headed to the driving range
to hit some balls, and Olivia and I went home.
What is normally a seven-ish minute drive home ended up being 40 minutes
due to road construction. The road
construction has been ongoing for 3-4 years at this point, so we’re used to dealing
with closed lanes, but we’ve never had to wait longer than 5-10 minutes.
It turned out that the flagger wasn’t doing a great job of letting the
lanes take turns – he let the southbound lane go way too long and then he barely
let our northbound lane go at all, so that’s why we ended up being stuck for so
long.
By the time we got home, it was much later than anticipated, so I grabbed
a cup of tea and did my quiet time faster than usual. The boys got home right after that (I had
warned them to take a different route home, and it’s a good thing they did,
because according to our neighbors, traffic was still backed up well after 7 PM),
and I headed out for my walk. It was warm
and sunny on Thursday, and it was just so lovely. I definitely have spring fever at this point,
and I am so ready for the cold to go away once and for all!
When I got home, the kids went outside for a bit to get some fresh air,
and I got showered and then Brian and I made breakfast for dinner. Once the kitchen was cleaned up, I opened
some packages that had arrived, and the kids got showered and ready for
bed. We all prepped for Friday, and then
we watched a few trailers for upcoming movies with the kids.
The kids got into bed a little earlier than usual and Brian and I watched
some more Saturday Night Live before going to bed.
Friday, February 20
Friday morning, I dropped the kids at school and then I had to stop by
the school office to grab a few things for the school dance. The theme was “Lights, Camera, Action” (movie
premiere) so we borrowed some red carpets from Olivia’s old kindergarten
teacher and she had them waiting for me in the office. I also had to grab a key to the school and
the checks for the DJ and the photo booth company.
When I got home, I had quite a list, so I tackled as many tasks from that
as I could:
-
Catching up on emails
-
Fixing a couple of blog typos
-
Starting my blog post for Monday
-
Starting my blog post for Tuesday
-
Catching up on blog reading
-
Putting away a few things I’d ordered
-
Organizing Easter stuff that I purchased
-
Getting everything packed and ready for the dance
-
Meditating
Friday was also Dave Matthews Band summer tour ticket day, so I settled
in at my desk mid-morning to be ready for that.
Getting concert tickets these days is quite an ordeal, so I put on my
patience pants and got ready. I went in
to look at the Alpharetta show just to familiarize myself with the system again
so I’d be ready when tickets for the Orange Beach show went on sale an hour later. We always go to the Alpharetta/Atlanta show,
but this year we have something scheduled on that date, so we’re going to have
to travel pretty far to see them, which isn’t ideal.
I watched tickets for that show for 45 minutes and nothing great ever
popped up, so I didn’t have high hopes for getting tickets to the show we
wanted to go to either.
I got in the queue for the Orange Beach show at quarter till which is the
earliest you can get in, and when ticket sales officially opened, I had 500
people in front of me which isn’t bad at all… usually, I have thousands in
front of me. Brian went in at the same time,
and he was way further back in line than I was.
I finally got in a few minutes after tickets went on sale, and there was
nothing good left. I kept watching, and
after a few minutes of waiting, I saw two seats pop up in the FRONT ROW (behind
the pit), and somehow, miraculously, I was able to snag them!!!! So, we are now the proud owners of front row
seats for the Orange Beach show.
I’ve been so disappointed that we can’t go to the Alpharetta/Atlanta show
since that’s the one I have gone to every year since 2002 (plus a few in
addition to those that we traveled to), but getting front row seats for Orange
Beach definitely lessened the disappointment!
I grabbed the kids from school right when they got out, and then I zipped
home to drop them, eat a quick (insanely early) dinner, freshen up, load the
car, and then head straight back to the school to meet my friend, Shaun, who
was DJing for us.
We both arrived at 4:30 and I helped him haul all his equipment into the
auditorium. I got him to snap a picture
of me with his backpack that I carried in because I knew that Jacob would love
it. How cute is that? So perfect for Super Mario Brothers fans!
While he set up, I worked on making a “song requests” sign and we chatted. We’ve known each other for 25 years, but we
don’t see each other often, so it’s always nice catching up. Usually, I’m running around like a chicken
with my head cut off before the dances, getting everything set up, but this
year, we outsourced everything, so I had nothing to do but roll out the two red
carpets and lay out the cutie little movie themed bracelets that we’d picked up
for the kids.
The school lunch company made all the food, and they did popcorn, giant
pretzels, nachos and cheese, and slushies to keep with the “Lights, Camera,
Action” movie premiere theme. They had
an old-fashioned popcorn cart and cutie little popcorn bags and it was perfect
(although verrrryyyy messy – haha). And
y’all, my silly self didn’t take a single picture of the food or decor… I’m so
sad I forgot because it was perfect!
This year, for the first time, instead of making a balloon arch and
setting up our own backdrop, we hired a photo booth company, so they came at
5:45 to set that up. It was soooo nice
not having to do the balloon arch this year!
Those things are exhausting.
Haha.
Bianca, my favorite co-chair, arrived around 6, and she and I immediately
went over to test out the photo booth! It
was awesome! They provided the backdrop,
and each session took three photos. All three
photos printed out together on a single 4x6 photo print that had the event name
and the school logo, so it made for the perfect memento from the dance. And the photo booth also allowed you to punch
in your phone number so you could receive a digital copy + a GIF of all three
of your pictures. It was truly the cutest
thing, and it added an extra layer of fun to the night.
And yes, yes, Bianca and I had way too much fun with it… we did
three sessions, you know, to test it out, and yes, I’m going to post all
the pictures here. Haha.
The photo booth was the most expensive part of the whole night, but it
was worth every single penny. I highly recommend
hiring a company to do that if you’re planning any kind of event. And if you’re local, and you want the contact
information for the company we used let me know! They were fantastic, easy to work with, and
they customize every backdrop and photo printout to match your theme, décor,
and colors! We highly recommend
them. And the parents were grateful for
it, too.
The Daddy Daughter Dance and the Mother Son Dance are for Pre-K3 – 5th
grade kids only, so this was the first year that our last little baby had aged
out. So bittersweet. Instead, Brian took both kids to Chipotle for
dinner and then went back home to watch Jurassic Park while I
volunteered at the dance.
Since the dance is for the little kids, we always have to block off the
stage because they are known to try to get up there to make song requests, or
dance, or try to jump off the stage (LOL), so I always sit at the front of the
stage to deter them from getting up there.
I always take the song requests from the kids and text them to Shaun, so
this year, I was glad I’d thought to make a song requests sign because that
kept every single kid off the stage. Not
one kid tried to get up there this year because they all saw my sign and knew
to come to me to make requests. I do not
have high hopes for the boys at the Mother Son Dance in March, though, because
they’re even wilder than the girls. Lol.
Since this was the Daddy Daughter Dance, the song requests were flowing
all night long and we heard a lot of Taylor Swift, which y’all know I didn’t
mind at all. <3 The DJ even played the song for my word of
the year – Opalite. ;o)
About ten minutes before the dance was over, I put away my song requests
sign and went to stand by Shaun so the girls would stop requesting songs. We had a backlog that he wouldn’t even be
able to get to (seriously, those girls requested songs all night long) so it
was time to step away.
When 8 PM rolled around, we still had a line for the photo booth (it was
SO popular), so Shaun ended up playing for ten extra minutes while Bianca
ushered the remaining people through the photo booth. At 8:10, we flicked on the lights, and we
began the cleanup process while everyone left.
We rarely have much to clean up – usually it’s just a few stray cups and
crumbs here and there – but that popcorn had been a HIT and it was all over
every single surface of the whole auditorium.
We all grabbed brooms and swept everything up, and we got all the food
and dishes put away.
We managed to get out of there just a little bit before 9 PM and then I headed
home where Brian and the kids were finishing up Jurassic Park. I got in my pjs, washed my face, grabbed a
snack, and then joined them on the couch.
Then after the movie was over the kids went to bed.
It was pretty late by the time the kids got in bed, but Brian and I made Manhattans
to celebrate since it was his actual birthday (and we wanted to test out our new bar mat), and we watched the newest episode of Shrinking followed by
some more of SNL.
Saturday, February 21
Saturday morning, I was lazy. We
woke up to torrential rain, and I just didn’t feel like doing much. I made waffles for breakfast, and then I honestly
couldn’t tell you what exactly I did for the rest of the morning. Haha. I
hung out in my office for a bit, and I did have to text a couple of people with
info from the dance to wrap everything up, but other than that, I spent a
little time on my computer and some time reading.
B and the kids and I all ate lunch together and then there was a break in
the rain, so I was able to go out for a walk.
It was 70 degrees and the humidity from the rain was hanging in the air,
so I was hot and sweaty by the time I got home.
It felt great, though.
Later in the afternoon, I got showered and ready for the day, and then we
headed to a restaurant to meet my father-in-law, my sisters-in-law, and one of our
nephews to celebrate Brian’s and Olivia’s birthdays with them. On the way there, we swung by our church so
we could get something to my Momma as she was walking into Mass.
After dinner, we headed back to my father-in-law's house, we had cookie
cake, and Brian and Olivia opened their gifts.
We got home around 8:30 and the kids wanted to start Jurassic Park 2
(much to my dismay – LOL), so I read my book on the couch while they
watched. We didn’t get through the whole
movie, though, because we had started it so late.
When the kids went to bed, Brian and I made Manhattans (yes, again), and
then we watched some more of our backlog of Saturday Night Live before
going to bed.
Sunday, February 22
Sunday was a typical Sunday – sleeping in, cinnamon rolls for breakfast, online
sermon, and Sunday prep (planner for the week ahead, transferring photos from
my phone to my computer, etc.).
My phone and computer decided they didn’t want to play nicely together,
so the pictures were a struggle that wasted a bunch of my time, so late in the
morning, I decided to pivot, and Olivia and I did her birthday interview since
her birthday is tomorrow.
We went to my mother-in-law’s and step-father-in-law's house for lunch to
celebrate Brian and Olivia, and then Brian headed to a tennis match while the
kids and I swung by Dairy Queen to pick up an Oreo Blizzard cake for her
birthday celebration with my parents later in the evening – so. many. birthday.
celebrations.
When we got home, the kids and I hit the ground running. They had to shower and prep everything for
the week ahead, and I had a lot of work to catch up on since I was completely
unproductive Saturday and then had issues Sunday morning with my
technology.
I managed to wash two loads of laundry, I got all my photos organized, I finished
my blog post for Monday, I worked on this blog post, I made my to do list for Monday
(which was loooong), I did my quiet time, I got the towels folded and put away,
and I got the clean dishes put away that were drying.
Brian got home from his match and got showered and then we left to go to
my parents’ house to celebrate Olivia’s birthday.
We had spaghetti and salad and bread (her dinner selection!) and then the
DQ Blizzard cake for dessert.
When we got home, I watered the plants, finished sorting dirty laundry
into piles, got the kids into bed, and Brian and I ended the weekend with some
more SNL and a shoulder and neck rub for me because my issues have
gotten out of control yet again thanks to this new retainer. Sigh.
Happy Tuesday, y’all!
