Hello Friday - the first of July

I can't believe that we are already a full week into July!  We've been living up our Summer to it's fullest already checking things off our summer bucket list and it feels good.  We were actually out of town last week on a road trip through Idaho and Montana, we planned our trip to break up the 8.5 hour drive into more manageable 3 and 4 hour stints and thankfully the girls did pretty well on the whole trip.  It has been confirmed that Finnley doesn't do too well going over mountain passes but other than that we had a great time.

Today is Cooper's 10th Birthday.  He is our sweet little snuggle bug, The Coop Boy or Bugga Boo as I like to call him. I can't believe that he is already 10 and he really was such a great comforter during our years of struggling with infertility (we're still infertile fyi) and has been so great with both of the girls.  I will be the first to admit that I don't give him the love and attention he deserves and once had and I really want to change that because soon enough he's going to be super old and no longer. I was confirmed last night of how great he is because Ellie was having a rough time going to bed and he came in to help comfort her!! What a dog!

I have found that all of us are pretty into all of our technology and I wanted to take a step to remedy that.  I decided back in the middle of May that I was going to implement "No Tech Tuesdays" starting in June.  I have LOVED it!! y'all.  From the time the girls get up in the morning to the time they are in bed we are tech free, sans music and google maps...and occasionally Thomas and I will cheat during the girls naps.  But seriously it is so awesome.  We are so much more present with our girls and each other and we are able to really pack our Tuesday's full of so much fun.  We are also able to get quite a bit accomplished around the house too since we aren't vegging out in front of the TV during the day.  The girls are doing super good with it too, they are finding ways to entertain themselves, play with each other and it is encouraging their (Ellie's) creative sides.  I really cannot say enough good and fun things about it, I almost want to institute a second official tech free day of the week!

I signed Finnley up for swimming lessons (parent/child class) she had her first class on Wednesday and I was able to convince Thomas to take her since I had just washed my hair the day before ;) and she hated it.  She cried the whole time and was just a miserable mess.  Thomas could only subject her to the torture for so long before he decided to call it quits...she barely made it 13 minutes (the class is only 25).  Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures so I have no evidence.  We're not giving up on her though, her class is twice a week and we fully plan on taking her back.  Swimming is such a valuable life skill that we think it is so important for our girls to learn.

Speaking of crying about swimming...Ellie isn't much better when it comes to the pool.  I am convinced it all depends on the instructor.  Sadly I wasn't able to get Ellie signed up for swimming this summer though she is on the wait list.  But last session Ellie was resistant practically the whole time, held on to her teacher for dear life, and then said that "swimming is so fun!" after every lesson - insert eyeroll emoji.  I am really hoping that we are able to get her in this summer. I am actually having her go back to the previous level to see if being in the kiddie pool will boost her confidence a bit more.  While we were on our road trip, Ellie kept begging to go to the pool at the hotels.  Finally at our last hotel we had time to appease her.  She was so excited to get down to the pool with her swimsuit and puddle jumper.  Then the water was pretty cold and she bawled her eyes out the entire time we were there - a good 15+ minutes.  We went back up to the room and took a bath to clean off, when she told me she liked the pool and wanted to go back.  Again in the morning she asked if she could go to the pool before we checked out...what are we going to do with her?  I am pretty sure the only thing we can do to help her get over her apparent "fear" of the water is to continue to take her to pools...so I guess that we should plan to take her to all the open swims if I can't get her in a class.

Ellie is signed up for Ballet and Gymnastics this summer and is super excited about both of them.  Several of the girls that were in her Ballet class this year decided to take a break from it for the summer but us mom's couldn't handle missing out on our weekly meetups so we signed our girls up to all take gymnastics together just so we could sit and talk to adults once a week ;)  Actually all the girls really love gymnastics so it's a win-win.  Even though we all signed up within a minute of each other our girls didn't get put in the same group together and somehow Ellie got matched up with a brand new teenage teacher with a group full of boys...so Ellie needs lots of redirection and has been goofing off a lot with said boys.  Regardless the moms are all having a great time because we all get to sit together.  Ellie loved Ballet so much that I had to sign her up again, thankfully she has her same teacher and it's a class of all girls so she is behaving a bit better and she is making huge strides in her ballet abilities ;)

It's officially the time of year where we utilize our fire pit.  Ellie loves fires and now Finnley does too.  Last year we tried to have a weekly fire and we'll try for that again this year too.  On Wednesday we made our first fire of the Summer and since the weather has been so hot lately our wood was extra dry which helped it catch fire so much easier than the last couple of fires we built at the end of the season last year.  Not only did we have a fire but we also made s'mores.  It was over 80 outside and our chocolate got so soft, there was no need for the nutella I threw out the day before, usually our chocolate is rock hard (because PNW).  They were extra delicious and while Ellie isn't a fan of the s'more (because chocolate) she quickly got over us putting her marshmallows into the fire when she tasted their toasty goodness and was begging for more!  Finnley, though is a fan of chocolate and appreciated all of the parts of a s'more...oh to be the second child and get to do all these fun things at a much younger age!

Our July is already one week down...it's our least busy month of the summer but we're figuring out ways to keep it filled up.  I just hope we've scheduled enough "home time" so that we'll be able to get some projects done - mainly the playhouse which hasn't seen much change in the past few weeks.  I also have to finish painting our bedroom, it's just around the window and shouldn't take more than 10 minutes but I keep putting it off.  Additionally I think we're going to finally replace the flooring in our Master Bathroom and get rid of the nasty 1989 linoleum in there.  I'm thinking of a classic tile, probably white with a darker grey grout just not sure if I want square, rectangle, or hex tile...what would you do?

♥ Ashley

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