I'm back again to chip away at this, so I get an A+ for actually doing 2 days in a row. Trying my best to commit to catching up! 🙌 Here we go covering another week in the crazy McKarns household.
Side note: I wrote the above because I started this post the day after I wrote the last one posted, but as you can see I ended up writing over a series of days and now it's been dayssssss again. So maybe that A+ needs to be lowered to a B-.... 😂🙈
Monday, May 24th:
I was supposed to get my root canal done in the morning, but woke up with a headache, sore throat, and runny nose so I decided it was probably best to reschedule. It's already kinda hard to breathe when you're totally well with a full mouth of dental tools all numbed up, so I figured it wouldn't go over well with a cold, not to mention a drippy nose that you can't stop and wipe. 😂 It was a bummer that I couldn't just get it over with, and when I called to reschedule the soonest opening was a month out. Blah! Oh well. I was pretty sluggish all day because I didn't feel great, but the afternoon cheered me up a bit when Maeve got home with a bunch of end of year stuff to show me, including her yearbook. It was fun to look through that and see her cute picture and all the rest of her classmates' pictures! She got the cutest end of year gift from her teacher with some fun goodies, including a cute popcorn holder, so naturally we had to make some popcorn to use it and watch Zombies 2. It was a whole affair with all babies and lovies included on the couch and of course Rowan too. We don't mess around over here! Kinda the cutest to see them all lined up on the couch covered in a blanket chomping on popcorn. I sent the pic to her teacher and she loved seeing it!
Tuesday, May 25th:
A momentous day for sure, considering for the first time in a loooong time I decided to brave going out clothes shopping for myself with the boys. I really needed some new summer shorts that fit me better. Guess I've gained a few extra pounds since last summer and squeezing into the ones I already owned was so much work I couldn't bring myself to do it for another day. 😂🙈 SO, we hit up TJ Maxx, Marshalls, and Ross to see what shorts I could find and I also decided to browse the tops since I had been feeling like my summer wardrobe was lacking a bit. I had a lot of luck and found a bunch of cute unique tops all for great prices and did end up with a few pairs of shorts I really like too! I also scored a few dresses that were SO cute and such great prices. One was even Vince Camuto and fit me like a glove! The boys also did really surprisingly great, other than the fact that I couldn't get Nolan to stop grabbing at all the clothes, trying to pull them off the hangers so I had to make sure to keep him at arms' length... 🤦♀️ They both stayed happy though the whole time, which made me think I should venture out to shop more often than I do! It was a major success, other than the annoyance that dressing rooms weren't open, so I couldn't really try most stuff on. Luckily, it's easy to buy and return what doesn't work though.
I had youth activities later that night and got home to find out that while I was gone, Adam had an extensive discussion with the kids all about space. They were super fascinated by it all and also completely flabbergasted by the fact that there is no gravity and everything just floats around. A few questions they asked that totally cracked me up were:
1. Rowan: "How do they have (ceiling) fans??" & "Where do they get their toys??"
2. Maeve: "How do they get the wax out of their ears??" 😂😂 I might be a little obsessed with checking their ears for wax... Side note on that: Rowan used to hate it and somehow everything changed and now he asks me to do it often, and it's pretty much music to my ears. It's bedtime, but you want to get out of your bed so you can ask me if I'll clean your ears? Sure, no problem! Come on over. (That has happened more than once... 😂🤦♀️ he's a smart one and knows how to prolong bedtime)
Wednesday, May 26th:
A big exciting day for sure!! It was Maeve's last day of school and since it was a half day, the day ended up being pretty packed with lots of stuff going on. While she was at school, I had a presidency meeting for YW and then went straight from there to pick her up. She was sooo excited to be all finished, but a little sad to say goodbye to her teacher. Our plan was to celebrate by going to pick up lunch from Chick-fil-A and eat it at the Fountains at Gateway. We love that place, it's such a cute setup. The craziest thing happened though at Chick-fil-A - we ordered our food and then before it was time to pay the dude was like "gimme a minute, my ipad is acting up" ... then he comes back and says, "I'm not sure how this even happened, but for some reason even though you didn't give me your card yet, it says that your meal has already been paid for. It's happened already once today with someone else too, and I'm not sure how to explain it, but you're good to go!" 🤯 Say whaaat?! So uh, yeah, we hit the jackpot there walking away with free Chick-fil-A. I sorta wonder if the car in front of us paid for our meal or something, although if that had happened you'd think he would have known...? Who knows, but we appreciated it for sure!! We had a great time eating at the Fountains and then the kids enjoyed running around and exploring for a bit. It's just a fun, cute place to walk around. They were a little bummed they didn't have their bathing suits to play in the splashpad area, but it didn't make sense to go home and get them.
After we got home, it was little bit like pulling teeth to get Maeve's last day of school pics taken on our porch, but it was really fun to have her wearing the same dress as she did the first day of school so we could compare them to those first day of school pics and see how much she had grown! She really did grow up a lot this school year and got quite a bit taller. My little girl is slipping away from me! 😭
This is where the week started to shift to being ALL about dance, which was nice timing that school got to wrap up before that happened. That night Maeve had her first full dance recital rehearsal at the studio where they went through the whole show. I was able to just drop her off and go pick her back up, so I didn't have to sit there the whole time, which was nice. I got there at 8:30 in case they finished early, but they ended up going past 9 because some of the girls were struggling with their cues. They wanted to get through the curtain call practice without anyone messing up, so they had to start over many times and a lot of the teachers were getting pretty frustrated. 😅 Yikes. I'm sure it would be hard to be the one in charge of that kinda thing! Especially cause the young girls were starting to lose focus. I think we got out of there at 9:20 so it was a late night for Maeve, but she had fun with her little dance friends and it was cute to see them together.
Thursday, May 27th:
We kicked the summer off with a bang by having some neighbor kids over so they could all play and enjoy the freedom of not being in school! They had fun, until they weren't having fun anymore because they couldn't agree on what to play together. 🙄 Kids sometimes. Then Maeve didn't have the guts to tell them she wanted them to go home since they weren't agreeing on what to play together, so I had to be the bad guy. Gotta love playdate drama. 🤦♀️
From 4:30-9pm I was off with Maeve at her dress rehearsal at Patterson Park Community Center, in costumes and everything. I probably could have dropped her off again, but I kinda wanted to see the full show run its course so I could see all the dance numbers. It was fun to watch and there were some seriously talented dancers!! A couple of the girls were in 4 or 5 of the dances and I have no idea how in the world they kept all those dances straight and could remember all the routines perfectly. That must have taken so much practice! I was super impressed. The costumes were all so fun too, I just loved it. Maeve did great for her dance number, which made me feel good cause I was little nervous that she didn't know it well enough since we never practiced at home. Turns out she was fine without the practice! Also, it was super cute because she was feeling nervous about the performance, but when we walked in and she took one look at the stage, she said, "Oh, this stage is AWESOME! I love it! I'm not nervous at all anymore, this is gonna be FUN!!" 😂😂 I had been worried that she would end up freezing and be unwilling to go out on the stage to perform, so that was definitely music to my ears. She was loving it all!
The whole time we were at the rehearsal I was craving a milkshake so bad that I ended up going out to get one after I dropped her off at home and got her in bed. The crazy part though is I had to drive to literally FOUR different places to finally get one. I started at Wendys, but they were out of chocolate shakes, so then I went to Sonic, which ended up already being closed, so THEN I tried Arby's and their stinking machine wasn't working. 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️ At this point, it seemed like fate would have it that a milkshake just wasn't in the cards for me, but I kinda just couldn't give up after trying so hard 😂 so McDonald's came to the rescue. Who would have thought it would be so hard to get a dang milkshake on a Thursday night!? Cray cray.
Friday, May 28th:
I honestly just did a bunch of cleaning leading up to heading out early with Maeve to go get ready for her recital. I was all panicked cause there was a 4:30pm SHARP arrival time, but I was supposed to show up at 4pm so that her hair and makeup could get done. Traffic made me show up closer to 4:15pm and I was so nervous we'd be in trouble with not enough time to get her ready. Little did I know that we'd be one of the first ones there, before even the dance teachers and owner showed up. Sooo I'm glad we weren't "on time" at 4pm, haha. It was still a relief that I had nothing to worry about, though it was kind of disorganized cause someone else was supposed to do her makeup, but there wasn't really a makeup station set up, so the owner pawned it off on her dance teacher, who did the eye shadow, but then I still had to find someone with lipstick and do that by myself. It is pretty dang hard to do a good job putting bright red lipstick on a 6 year old, let me tell you. I was feeling like I did a pretty crappy job, but the owner was nice and said it was great. 😅 The show must go on anyway, right! Even if she was lying. 🤷♀️ Adam and the boys showed up with my Aunt Deb literally just time in time for it to start, and Maeve had no idea my Aunt Deb was going to be there. It was a fun surprise for her! She did so great for her performance and was all smiles afterwards and of course super excited to see Aunt Deb!! All the other dancers did such an amazing job too and it was so fun to watch it all. Makes me sad I never was a dancer!! It all just looks so fun. The teachers even did a number and man, is Maeve's teacher talented!! She was actually on So You Think You Can Dance and made it close to the end before being eliminated I think. The girl can dance. They actually also put together a Mom dance and Dad dance for the dance moms and dads. Of course, Adam and I are not skilled in the dancing department so we did not participate, and I'm glad I didn't because all those moms would have put me to shame!! They did an awesome job and it's a toss up on if they were better or the dads were better. Maeve dances at a studio with mostly a black demographic and they know how to moooove. Her teacher was white though, but still could totally keep up. 👌 It was a great night and so much fun to wrap up the semester!
Saturday, May 29th:
The party continued on Saturday because that day we had our Memorial Day weekend get together with my Aunt Deb and Uncle Chuck, cousin Little Chuck (who isn't even little anymore, but the name will always stick 😂) and his family, and my sister's family. We did it at Little Chuck's house and the original plan was for it to be a swim day outside in their pool. Unfortunately, the weather went nuts and it ended up being super cold that day - so cold that we were all in pants and sweaters...! Like what in the world?! Such a bummer. Then it ended up even being a little rainy so that threw off our back up plans too of just playing croquet and badminton and such outside. A crazy turn of events for sure, but of course we all just enjoy visiting and chatting, so staying inside ended up being just fine too! The kids did play outside and jump on the trampoline a little while, until they were too cold. Trish had the place decked out with cute party food and cupcakes, with festive decor as well. They know how to put on a great party! We grilled out burgers and hot dogs and enjoyed all the delicious food. The cupcakes were from a local bakery and both looked and tasted amazing! Little Chuck's son Cam ended up being in a tournament baseball game that afternoon, so we braved going to that for a bit in the cold. It was breezy and seriously so chilly, I wished that I had a coat! Cam loved having us all there cheering for him and it was super cute to watch. We had a great day with family, but of course Nolan had to biff it in the parking lot as we were saying goodbye and getting in the car. He was a bit of a bloody mess cause he knocked his mouth good enough, poor dude. Always something with the little ones! I think everyone besides driving Adam fell asleep on the way home, ha.
I felt so lazy the rest of the night, but we did all go out to Walmart - I don't even remember what for now - but Rowan had us laughing when he showed us a treasure saying, "I want this!!" and we turned to look and noticed it was a glow in the dark bug zapper. I think he just thought it was a tennis racket! 😂 Too funny.
Our other laugh of the day was when Rowan was so proud of himself in the car for putting a bandaid on himself, and said, "I put it on ALL by myself!! *looks down* Oh.... I put it on the wrong finger." 😂😂 Oh man! We were dying. Only a 3 year old!
Sunday, May 30th:
We accidentally slept in too late to be able to make it to church in time, so we did a little activity from the Friend for the kids instead to sort of make up for it. Then we got ready to go.... drum roll please.... CAMPING! We were a little nervous about trying it out since Nolan HATES the pack n play at my sister's house, but it turns out it must be that he hates being in the pack n play in her laundry room because it went well and he went out without a peep. 🙌 The kids were super excited for our camping adventure and it was a hit. We got all set up and they had the time of their lives for a little while jumping on the air mattress we set up in the tent. All you need is a tent and an air mattress to light the fire under a few kids! 😜 Our campground spot was right next to a horse stable so the kids also had fun going to look at them and Maeve even got to pet a couple of them. We got a fire going and cooked up some hot dogs, checked out an overlook from the edge of the campground that was really pretty (when Maeve saw it, she said "Woah, is this the whole world!?" 😂), and then made some s'mores before getting the kids settled into the tent for bed. We were pretty surprised at how quiet it was after we laid with them and got them settled and assumed they were all asleep after we heard no noise for a bit. Turns out though after Adam and I enjoyed the fire for a bit on our own and then were looking up at the stars we heard some noise from the tent and it was Maeve saying she couldn't fall asleep. So the lucky girl got to stay up later with us and she just looooved that! It was pretty cute though because she told me that while Nolan was trying to fall asleep he got a little sad and she just rubbed his face and said "It's gonna be OK" and then he just laid down and went to sleep. 🥰🥰 Such a sweet little sister taking care of her baby bro! Warms my heart. Then, based off of her success with Nolan, she said, "I think I am getting older to have a baby now! I was looking at Nolan and he's just sooooo cute. Babies are so cute!" Oh dear. 😳😅As Adam always says, time for the birth control!
A couple other funny and not so funny tidbits from the day:
~The kids needed to go to the bathroom at one point and I was the one that took them, but instead of calling it the women's restroom, Rowan said "We need to go in the mother's one!" 😂
~We brought fruit loops for the kids to have for breakfast and they were honestly probably most excited about that then anything else. 😂😏 Before going to bed, Rowan exclaimed, mixing up his words a little, "In the morning, we can have breakfast for FRUIT LOOPS!" 😂😂
~It was perfect weather for camping so during the night it wasn't too cold to sleep well luckily. It would have gone down as the most successful camping night in history with three little kids if Maeve hadn't of woken up in the middle of the night needing to go potty. I didn't want to go out in the dark to take her to the bathroom myself, so I woke up Adam up to take her and during the time it took him to get up and ready to take her she just kept saying she REALLY had to go. I was nervous she was going to pee her pants so I told him to just help her go right outside the tent in the grass. I'm not sure if it was because of his tired state, but unfortunately that went south and she ended up kinda peeing all over him. 😳🙈 Ooooops. So that was a bit of a fiasco for him, but life with kids right...? 🤷♀️
Aaaaaand that leads us to pictures from the week!
