Brief Weekend Update

This weekend went so quickly!  It was packed with lots to do and lots of fun in between.  Here's a quick breakdown.  

On Friday, I had Koen's parent/teacher conference (and therefore he had no school).  Doug was on kid duty while I went to the conference.  Koen got great reviews and despite some tough (albeit totally normal 7 year old boy stuff) behaviors at home, thankfully at school he's really holding his composure and is enjoying learning just as much as I thought he was (he loves school!).  It was a positive way to start the day.  Next I stopped at Home Depot to once again pick up some paint.  Yep, that's right.  The kitchen wasn't enough, might as well repaint the dining room since the first floor is a wreck right now.  I've been wanting to paint it for a long time, so seemed like the perfect opportunity.  My sweet friend Taylor agreed to help me with it and Doug was on kid duty.  He took Koen and Penn to the library and out on errands, then picked up Tav from preschool and took them all out to lunch before returning for naptime.  Taylor and I were done by 4pm (started at about 11am).  She is such a fun painting buddy!  We chat and work hard and feel so accomplished when it's done.  Here's a glimpse of the old paint (covered with paint options the day before painting).

And here's the finished product (with the mess around of course).

Doug had to head out just as the project finished up.  He took Koen and Tavin with him to a wedding rehearsal he had to do up in Wexford because then from there they headed to the Penguins game!  Doug had found out earlier in the day that he had free tickets from a friend.  He was excited to take the boys.  For Tavin, it was his first real hockey game (he had attended scrimmages in the past).  Tav was thrilled.  Can you tell?

The game went to a shoot out and unfortunately the Pens ended up losing.  Thankfully it was Light Up Night in Pittsburgh, so right when the game let out the boys got to see fireworks being set off from the river and all the city's lights ablaze from every building and bridge.  That'll cheer you up.

On Saturday, the boys had early swim lessons at 9am.  We went out as a family and I ran an errand with Penn while Doug watched the boys swim.  They are both enjoying their classes so much, it's worth the drive and early Saturday morning rush.  Although we do look forward to when the British Swim School comes to the city in 2015!  We returned home briefly after lessons before again leaving as a family to meet a dear friend, Miss Megan Magee, for lunch at the Spaghetti Warehouse in the Strip District.  Whenever she comes to town she manages to get us into her busy social calendar and we all appreciate it so much.  Thanks, Megan!  Sorry I didn't get a pic of you and the boys this time!  After lunch, it was naptime again and then Doug had to head out to do that wedding and go to the Saturday night service at Oakland.  So it was me and the boys.  We had a very nice, low key indoor evening.  I think we all need to chill after the busy days!  I got all the boys down by 7:15pm too.  The older ones were exhausted from their late night the day before.

Today we woke up to much warmer temps and we went to the 9am service at church and then headed to the playground at Schenley for some good fresh air time.  It was beautiful!  The boys ran around and collected sticks for a project later this week (Thanksgiving place cards...stay tuned).  And then lots of hide and seek and swinging and playing.  I did snap this picture of Penn who totally surprised me up at the top of this playground structure!

We headed home at lunchtime and then it was naptime.  Lately I've been using naptime to reorganize the kitchen cabinets since about 2/3 of them are installed.  It's quite a mental game and it is time consuming, but I like an organizing project (minus the fact it means I'm on my feet all of naptime which is when I usually catch a little feet-up time).  After naptime I got the boys back out to a playground until it was getting dark.  We arrived home in time for me to get dinner on the table, then it was bathtime and bedtime.  Unfortunately the last 2 hours of the day were high stress and high emotion amongst the boys and I.  They are really pushing with pulling each other down with sillyness sometimes and other times complete disobedience towards me or meanness towards each other and it is totally grating my nerves!!  I shed a few tears tonight, but thankfully all in all things ended OK and everyone went to sleep with a prayer and kisses and loves.  Doug's out of town again for a few days and tonight I felt like I might not have the grace and patience to make it through, but I'm hopeful it'll be OK when I wake up tomorrow hopefully refreshed and ready to start fresh with the boys.  They are great kids, I just can't let myself get caught up in every little thing.  Relax, chill out, ignore a little, stay consistent and love on them.  That's my advice to myself tomorrow.  Pray I can do it!