Just a little ray of sunshine : November 2nd - November 4th, 2020: 11 months, Election day, & soft nugget

I got a few days to catch up on. Starting with Monday. Which was the day that Nolan turned 11 months old. I have been sooooo bad about taking his monthly shots, but by divine intervention I was dressing him in a white onesie anyway and right before I put his pants on I remembered he was 11 months old - and I thought to myself, there is no time like the present! So right then and there, I got set up for a little photoshoot and also by divine intervention, I managed to get some great shots. He definitely crawled away from his spot and got sat right back down there a bunch, but we got it done and there were lots of smiles to be had. Some of the outtakes were really making me laugh. He's busy and dangerous and we sure love him right now! Here are the best outtakes. 👇

I think I was entertaining him by holding the plug part of his nightlight between my lips and taunting him with it. It kept him looking at me and laughing! 🤣🤷‍♀️

That hand tucked under! 😂

Not sure why his eyes got SO big, but they sure are pretty 😍

😂😂

This one really shows his 2 cute bottom teeth 😍

The ultimate winner! 😍

I honestly don't remember much else about Monday, which probably means there is nothing else worth noting. Although, I did write down something funny that I caught Rowan doing - he was at the table eating some crackers and he used the clothespin that was holding the package shut to hold each cracker as he was eating it. He just put it on the bottom of the cracker, and then held the clothespin with his hand while he was eating it and then transferred it to each consecutive cracker that he ate. 😂😂 Funny boy!

Yesterday (Tuesday), Maeve had no school because of Election Day. I am feeling very guilty to report that I am not a true US citizen and did not vote. Up to this point in my life, I haven't cared about politics in the slightest and just haven't honestly educated myself about any of it. It all just seems confusing and overwhelming, and I've heard one too many political debates between friends or family members that just give me headaches, so I've honestly had zero interest in it. That being said, for the past couple of months I have felt the need to engage even though it still overwhelms me, because I do know that I have a voice and my voice is just as important as anyone else's - and all of our voices combined determine the future of America. It's time to grit my teeth and figure it out. Unfortunately though, I didn't really know where to start to figure out enough information about Trump and Biden before voting day arrived yesterday, so instead of going to vote based on Adam's opinion or my other family members' opinions (which I did last election, and I really regret that 🙈 - it was really just Adam's vote again on that paper and not mine), I just opted to not participate. BUT I vow to get my act together before the next election and be fully ready to get that vote in confidently and proudly. Unless the world ends before then - which you never know these days - it just might... 😅😅

ANYWAY, back to the day itself, Adam also chose to work from home so we all were looking forward to the ability to sleep in just a little bit. Even Maeve kept saying the night before "I get to sleep in tomorrow! I get to sleep in tomorrow!! Yaaay!" Aaaand then she came into our bedroom at 6:45am, which got her an extra 15 whopping minutes of sleep. 🤦 Rowan and Nolan gave us no mercy though and were up at 6:30am, so every last family member was in our bed by 6:45am. 😂 It was kinda cute though because it turned into a major snuggle session and the kids were just all over Nolan. At one point, they were each grabbing (and moving around) an arm and a leg of his while Maeve chanted "Time to work out! Work out! Work out!" 😂😂 He always just remains straight faced during those kinds of shenanigans and it makes me laugh. Before long Maeve and Rowan were also both arguing over who got to be right next to me and Nolan for snuggling purposes and they were back and forth playfully shouting "No girls allowed!" "No boys allowed!" x5 because neither of them wanted to back down and miss out on the opportunity to be next to us. 😂 They sure love their baby brother and he's getting more and more attention and love. I'm still trying to instill in Rowan's brain though that his love doesn't have to be rough. That boy has zero ability to be calm and gentle. 😅 Poor Nolan puts up with a lot and really handles it like the champ that he is! His name means champion after all. 😊

What started out as a sweet heart warming morning for me, quickly turned into me wanting to rip my hair out 30 minutes later and giving Maeve a talk on how there are kids in the world who have no clothing and no house to live in and gosh dangit if she is going to act like her clothes aren't good enough for one more day I'm going to throw them away and she will have to be naked for the rest of her life. 😂😭😂😭 What got us to that point, is the fact that literally the day before, she told me how excited she was that because she didn't have school the next day, she'd have no pressure of picking out an outfit quickly, but instead be able to pick it out on her own whenever she wanted. Fast forward to Tuesday morning when I was making her bed and I had to hear her whine that she had nothing good to wear so she didn't know what to wear. What kills me the most is she has like 6 long sleeve shirts/sweaters that she has not even worn ONCE yet, but seemed excited about them when she tried them on at the time I bought them/pulled them out of storage. Whyyyyyyy!?!? 😭😭 As much as I felt a little crazy jumping to the extreme of other kids having no clothing and telling her she needed to be grateful and willing to wear ALL of her clothing, favorites and non favorites, it seemed like it kinda opened her eyes a little bit. So fingers crossed that I have less issues to deal with on this front moving forward with her. 🤞🙏 Time will tell. It also didn't help that while I was dealing with those woes with Maeve, Rowan was throwing his pull ups all around their bedroom, and Adam was trying to get a few extra minutes of sleep on the couch downstairs. Before I knew it, in my rage I was carrying and dropping Rowan at the bottom of the stairs and yelling at Adam "Time to get your butt off the couch before I murder one of our children!" 😂😅 Bless his heart, he didn't know that some craziness was already unfolding, otherwise he would have been helping. Truthfully, I'm surprised I didn't have a heart attack that morning with how quickly the blood got pumping through my veins as I turned into my version of a rage monster. 😅🙈

A few tears, and a Xanax (I wish) later, things mellowed down a bit as I got some other light housework done and then worked out. Sometimes (all the time) I need those work outs to get all my frustrations surrounding the kids out... 😂😂 After feeding the kids lunch, we went over to an awesome new playground that I found out about. It was definitely a few steps up from your typical playground as it had a zipline and some other cool stuff that I don't even know how to explain. The kids were a bit intimidated at first, but by the end they were braving most everything (or at least Maeve was). We all had fun as you can see! 👇

It was cracking me up looking at this pic and the one below and noticing that the bar either blocked her eyes or her mouth but between the 2 pics you can tell she was cheesing it! 😂👆👇

I call this the wimpy zipline, which both kids did and loved, but by the end I convinced Maeve to do the real zipline.

After the kids went to bed, we coped with the election stress by drinking milkshakes from Sonic and that was that. 😂

Two other funny tidbits to mention about Tuesday (maybe I should call them Tuesday laughs....?):

1. We got a package during the day and Rowan ran inside after we picked it up off the porch and shouted "We got a package!!! Everyone chill out!" - and don't worry, everyone was nothing but calm before he said that. 😂🤷‍♀️

2. I had this conversation with Maeve while trying to figure out what should go in her school lunch for Wednesday (today):

Me: You ate a granola bar the other day. Does that mean you like those again? Do you wanna take one of those?"

Maeve: No, I only ate that because I was hungry and there was nothing else to eat.

Me: Oh, so you ate it all even though you didn't like it...

Maeve: Well, I liked it, just not a lot

Me: So you liked it, but didn't love it enough to choose it again. Gotcha.

Maeve: Well, I loved it, I just didn't looooooooooooooove it.

😂😂🤔 She's crazy and I'm convinced half the time she doesn't even know what she thinks or likes!

And that brings us to today. A pretty typical day of housework, a work out, scripture study, doing puzzles with Rowan, reading books outside on our warm front porch bench (the sun was out, so it actually felt colder in our house), and doing preschool. Adam got home from work early, so after I picked up Maeve from school we all went to a different playground today. It's really so fun watching the kids run around these days, cause they're both old enough to do it all without hesitation. Maeve always says "Rowan, come on!" and off they run from one thing to the next. I love that they've got each other and that they'll have each other for the rest of their lives! 🥰

Tonight while laying with Maeve in bed for one minute she snuggled up to me and said "Mmmmm! My soft nugget!" 🤔 I was so thrown off and tried to get to the bottom of why she was calling me a nugget and ultimately she said it was because "saying my soft Mommy doesn't sound right".... I literally don't even know, but before long it morphed into "my soft nugget Mommy" and we were both laughing. 😂🤷‍♀️

That's all she wrote! Let's hope the world doesn't fall apart when we find out who our next President is. Here's a few more pics from the last few days:

It's a rough life when your bib gets turned around 😂

Maeve won an award at school on Monday for being ready to learn during the month of October! Her teacher said she was jumping for joy!! She is holding the certificate above her head in this pic because she wanted the ruffles on her dress to show. 😂 So proud of her for being an engaged little Kindergartener!