Friday Roundup - the beginning of Summer!

Happy first Friday of Summer y'all!! I can't believe how quickly time is just flying by!  Now it's officially Summer (as of Wednesday) and the livin' is easy.

We've kept ourselves quite busy this week and I cannot complain.  I've crossed off many things from my "To-Do List" (that's actually never ending and has repeat offenders almost daily - I'm looking at you vacuuming) and I couldn't feel more accomplished about it.

Speaking of that To-Do list let me tell you about my vacuum. 

As some of my older readers might know we replaced our lovely cream colored carpet from 1989 in our open living area back in 2015 and then more recently this April we replaced the same carpet in our bedrooms, we now have no carpet in home and just have wood floors, with the exception of a jute rug in our living room and some area rugs in the girls bedrooms (Ellie's, Finnley's).  Since 2015 I've been using our electric broom to do all of my vacuuming since our big vacuum was terrible on the bare floors and spit everything out behind the vacuum.  It was a chore in itself and I had move the plug for every room.  It did a decent job at sucking up the dog hair and rice crispies but I've been wanting something that does a better job.  I picked up this vacuum last week to try out since the one I wanted was sold out and Y'all, I got it because they called it a hardwood hero, I hated it.  The suction was great on it but I had to carry the canister around with one hand all over our house and it was just cumbersom.  So I returned it.  I made my way to a different Target and they had this vacuum in stock (only two left).  I have been wanting a Dyson for forever and I couldn't believe my luck.  They are currently having this model on closeout right now and it's only available "in store" so I couldn't use my beloved Ebates...but it turned out to be an even better deal!! In store they were selling it for $199.98 (a full $100 off the internet price) and with my 5% redcard discount I got a Dyson for like $189!  That is unheard of.  I've been using it every day since and I love it!!  Totally worth it.

On Wednesday we kicked off Summer with a visit to the Splash Pad.  Ellie loved it and Finnley was just fine until she got wet...not surprising.   Ellie saw one of her school friends there and just wanted to play with him the whole time, meanwhile I was trying to hold a conversation with my friend we met up with there as Finnley kept beelining it out of the spray park.  We had a fantastic time and both girls slept for over 3 hours!!  We might have to make visits to the Splash Pad a weekly occurrence this Summer.

Finnley has been a walking machine and is walking about 90% of the time now, she prefers to hold her little bunny (or any object for that matter) as she walks around and it just warms my Mama heart.  She's been getting so much more comfortable walking and I am loving it so much. I can set her down now and she will stand or start walking around and my back is so thankful for that.

Thomas' little brother has a boat, so we took advantage of the beautiful weather we're experiencing right now and took it out on the lake.  Ellie loved it so much, she got to "fish" and drive the boat around...we are going to have to work on her driving skills some more.  Finnley hated the life jacket and was just a crying monster the whole time it was on, once we took it off her she was happy as a clam...little turd.

We were driving in the car the other day and Ellie asked me if I missed my mom.  I said yes and then it got me to thinking about how hard it is to do this motherhood thing motherless,  all these questions I have and things I want to say to my mom.  But also about the relationship I had with my mom and how much I desire to have a more open and communicative relationship with both Ellie and Finnley.  I plan to write a post in the near future all about that so stay tuned!

Happy Summer Y'all!!

♥ Ashley

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