{ A New Routine and a Random Post }...

With school back in swing again, Drew and I have been left to fend for ourselves and come up with a new routine. You would think all it would take is getting back into the groove of school again, but for me this year, it's different. I haven't had just one child at home with me since Jake joined our family over 5 years ago. Since then, I've been lucky enough to have siblings entertain each other, (most of the time). I'm not used to being the entertainer. This has given me a chance to bond with Drew all on his own and to enjoy the day together. At first when I would think about the two big kids being off at school all day I would have this blissful image in my mind of scrapbooking, blogging, reading, napping and basically anything that I felt like doing because it would be soooooo easy with just one at home! Well, it is easier, (of course) but in different ways. Pretty much everyday so far, I still wonder where my day has gone and what I have accomplished by the time the kids get home and I can't figure it out. Crazy, huh??? So, this week I've deicided that I need to get on a routine and have times that Drew and I play, read, shop, watch movies and take a nap all on a regular time each day. Then we both know that we get to have fun together at different times throughout the day. That helps me to enjoy him so much more and it also takes the "mom guilt" away for me when I want to do something "just for me".

Here's some pictures of what Drew gets to do at home being "the only child".

Baking with Mom

This is one of the things we did last week. Makes you want to come eat cookies at our house doesn't it!?! I promise this was AFTER I was done. No Drew germs on the cookies. I had to be the fun mom and let him clean up the bowl and the beaters! He loves this. He runs and gets his apron all by himself, pulls the stool up to the bar and starts "helping".

Bike Ride

He is so proud (and so are we) that he has passed up the trike and is now on training wheels. It makes bike rides so much fun! This morning Drew and I took a little ride. If you look close, you might notice two things from these pictures...

1. He is wearing the same shirt today that he was wearing in the cookie pictures. It's one of his favorites. I have given up that fight a long time ago. If this shirt is clean, it's on his body. Only because it's not worth the battle (somedays it's worth it).

2. Did you notice the superman gear? He is our "Super Kid" this week. This is a post from The Errand of Angels blog. Go here to check it out. Scroll down a couple of posts and you'll see it. I loved the idea and so did the kids. We have adopted it like our own and I think this will be a fun tradition. If you didn't read about it and you have sibling arguments to work out, this is a must read.

To the Park We rode our bikes to the park and had some fun. He loved it and I loved that I was able to push ONE child on the swing, and heard only ONE child say "Watch Mom!"

Shopping

This is the part that still isn't quite so fun, even with just one child home. I still can't get over the fact that it takes so long to run errands in a city! I leave at 9:00 and barely get home by 2:00 and then I turn around and my day is over. I'm going to try to plan doing this just one day a week. I would MUCH rather be home then in town. Yesterday, we went to Hobby Lobby (one of my favorite stores) and bought some things. I went in with a list of what I was looking for, so I wouldn't wonder around forever wasting time. I had these certain areas in my house that I wanted to finish up. I came home with this bag of goodies.

And ended up taking this bag of goodies back today and only keeping this:

It's a vinyl lettering quote. It was 50% off, so I paid about $10.00 for it. The quote says "Family a journey to forever". I love it there. I used to have something similar above my picture wall in my other house and I was really missing it here. Now I feel like this wall is grounded and the pictures have some sort of purpose. I walked around my house afterward wondering where else I could put something like this. There is more about this on The Errand of Angels Blog.

Nothing else in the bag worked quite right and I didn't want to settle, just to get it finished. Casey was glad that I returned everything else, but I let him know that I'm planning on going to dinner with some friends this Friday night and then we're going shopping. He said "oh". Hopefully I'll find some good things. I had fun in McKinney a couple of weekends ago shopping with my mom and Aunt. I'll have to do a post some time this week about that. I've been slow with everything lately, but I will get better! For those of you that are waiting for your food storage info. (I think there's about 5 from this weekend in my e-mail) it's on it's way...I haven't forgotten about you. I've just been trying to get my days in order!