July 4th & 5th: Let freedom ring etc.

Uh oh. I'm already slacking on this daily writing thing. In my defense, I have been doing my writing at night and on the 4th of July we got home from a friend's house late and I wouldn't have even been able to start writing until midnight. I just didn't have it in me. I have no good excuse for yesterday, other than once you've missed one night it's a lot easier to say "I've already missed, so... I can be lazy again" -- why is the all or nothing mentality SO strong?! I just listened to a podcast episode by Jody Moore about this actually. She talked about how it really is just human nature to often have an all or nothing mentality. It's something we have to acknowledge and purposely fight the urge to think that way. So interesting. I really like her podcast Better Than Happy. So many good nuggets to think about. Our thinking is really powerful and simply changing your thought process about something when it isn't serving you can go a long way! I'm excited to listen my way through all her episodes.

ANYWAY, we had a great 4th of July. Adam snapped this picture of Maeve and I before we woke up. The ultimate snuggling! 😍

We had a low key morning and other than cleaning and getting ready for the day, we did some preschool catch up. We read the Gingerbread Man story and the kids had fun making some cute play dough Gingerbread men. They also pretended to be the Gingerbread man by "_____ as fast as you can" (running, skipping, hopping, jumping, rolling, crawling, dancing etc.) based on the action that they drew from my hand (all written on popsicle sticks - and Maeve read all the words herself!). They especially loved this game and wanted to play it twice. It's so cute to watch Rowan follow Maeve's lead and excitedly do whatever she is excited about.

The real 4th of July fun started with some pictures of the kids in their 4th of July getup on our front porch. I am such a sucker for matching clothes and I was quite excited for the boys to be able to match for the first time. TOO much cuteness!!

The outtakes are always the best! What 95% of the pictures end up looking like... 🤦‍♀️😂

The winner of the bunch 🥰

😍😍😍

We went over to a friend's house at 3pm for the rest of the day to celebrate. The kids had a ball playing in their kiddie pool and jumping on their trampoline. They also had a fun new jungle gym dome to climb on and that was a hit too. It gave us adults some good time to chat and enjoy each other's company and make all the food! We had burgers, hot dogs, corn on the cob, watermelon, chips and dip, and some bacon wrapped jalapeno poppers that were SO addicting I seriously wanted to eat them all. Gimme all the cream cheese and bacon!!! 🤤🤤 I will definitely have to make them again myself. We also did some daytime fireworks and nighttime fireworks and I quickly learned that both of my children now hate fireworks that go off too close to them but also are terrified of the sound in general. We had planned on going to watch a big fireworks show after doing our own, but ended up changing our minds and it's a good thing we did because I think Maeve would have had a nervous breakdown and never recovered. It was so odd because both of them actually loved the fireworks last year so I really thought they'd end up loving them even more this year, but nope. They hated them so much they both escaped back into the house after the first ones went off. Such a shame! We put on a movie for the kids and us adults enjoyed chatting outside for a while and then had a little jam session on the guitar (mostly Adam playing). We didn't end up leaving until like 11:30pm - it's been a long time since we've hung out with friends that late!! I blame Corona - once you get a taste of socializing after a long time of none, it's hard to let go haha. Here's some pics from our hanging:

Sunday was a nice relaxing day, as per usual. The kids did well for home church and Rowan is just getting better and better at singing all the songs. So cute to listen to! I got some ironing done, which has been piling up for longer than I care to admit. It's going to take a few ironing sessions to finish it all, but I'm just glad I finally forced myself to get started on it. As a mom to young kids, I feel like my to do list has about 20 items on it per day, 10 of which are always the same and then I only ever have time for about 15 of them total. Ironing was always between 15-20 soooo yeah. If only there were 1 million hours in a day. Surely I'm not the only one that feels this way and other moms can relate to never ending to do lists that never get finished all the way. 🙄 Other highlights of the day included:

~The kids playing in the playroom on their own accord for a solid hour and a half probably while Adam and I enjoyed a much quieter downstairs with Nolan. It was seriously a treat because that is rare for them to go that long without bugging us, and to top it all off I went upstairs later and found the playroom totally clean -- not only did they play, but they also completely cleaned up after themselves before leaving the room without being asked. I'm sorry, what?! 😲🤯 You'd think it was my birthday or Mother's Day. Proud mom moment for sure!

~Crispy sriracha "chicken" for dinner made with cauliflower. Our second time having it and it's SO good!

~I made some homemade vegan Challah bread. It was really good! I've decided Sundays are best spent making good food and baking.

~This one actually happened on Friday at Costco, but I forgot to write it and it dawned on me later -- I was trying to hold hands with Rowan walking through the store after taking him potty and he wouldn't take my hand and then said "Mommy, there are no cars coming". 😂 I replied, "Oh, so we only need to hold hands when cars are around?" to which he responded, "yes". Right after this, Maeve grabbed my hand, so then he decided to grab my other hand. Always gotta be like Maeve, no matter what!

I'll have to finish my catch up by blogging about today tomorrow. I'm about to turn into a pumpkin if I don't go to bed. Don't ever tell Maeve that though, she does not take jokes well (I know from experience...🤦‍♀️)

Oh and here's our dog's house that Adam made waaay back when she was a puppy, but never stained it. Finally just got that done. Should have prioritized it more than we did (she just turned 2....), but at least it looks great now!

Peace and blessings. ✌️