While Daddy's Away...

The last Friday in June Jared took off for Alaska - fishing for the week. The weather was supposed to be nice that weekend so I had all sorts of great ideas for the kids and I. Unfortunately Saturday ended up being super stormy. We literally had thunderstorms all day (when they had thought it might be for an hour around 3 pm). So instead of being outside, we took a trip to the grocery store and the craft store. We colored. And importantly we got naps. Ellie had woken up at 4 am (needing to pee) and that is about the time the storms started, so the questions ensued. And singing, yes, singing...."its raining, its pouring, the old man is snoring..." at 4:30 in the morning people. She was awake for at least an hour....I finally wrapped my body around her to get her to hold still and fall back asleep.

 

On Sunday, we had much better weather! In fact it was sweltering - the beginning of 100+ degree days. We headed out early to Cat Tales Zoo - their purpose is to rescue large cats! Its amazing that this is just in our back yard of Spokane. Ellie loved when the tiger hopped in the pool and she really loved the male lion. Ryan was nearing nap time so he was less enthused.

That afternoon while Ryan napped, Ellie and I had some quality time - with the sprinkler and the back yard. And when Ryan woke up we went back out. Maggie had fun too!

Showing their dance moves

Both Ryan and Maggie like to try and drink the sprinkler water.

 

On Monday the kids started at a new daycare. We certainly didn't want to leave our current daycare provider, but she was looking at going back to teaching full-time now that her kids are all in school all day. It was a tough decision, but it will be better in the long run. Unfortunately, the kids didn't take the change all that well. They had breakdowns at daycare, failed to interact with other kids, and were just exhausted at days end. There are probably 3x as many kids in each of their rooms than they previously had at the home based daycare they were at. That alone was overwhelming for the two of them. We're at the point now after 6 days of being there (Mon thru Wed last week and again this week) where they both still cry when we leave them, but at least they are well adjusted and not having breakdowns in the middle of the day or when we pick them up. Here's their 'first day' photos.

 

 

The rest of Monday through Wednesday was a challenge for all of us with the emotional highs and lows of the kids. We still had some fun in all of those tears.

 

The kids love to pull out the Tupperware from the cabinet, but they took it to a new extreme by pulling out a bunch of juice from the pantry too. Ellie says "were garage sale-ing".

Our Receptionist at work was cleaning out her storage closet and found some old props from a party. They included these crawdad/shrimp, some starfish, sand buckets and shovels. Both kids liked the shrimp best!

Whilst avoiding eating dinner, Ellie threw me this sign. When I asked her what it meant, she replied "it means lots of tired mama".

 

More pictures from the latter part of our week in Moses Lake for Independence Day to come!