Wrapping up summer~

My summer, or in other words, my second maternity leave, is almost up :-( I return to work full-time next Tuesday for three days to prepare my classroom. Then I've got a four day weekend for Labor Day before my new students start school on September 2. I've got really mixed emotions about all of it. I am excited to meet my new students but I'm absolutely dreading having to be apart from Lauren all day. Somebody else will be getting to spend the majority of each day with Lauren- somebody other than her mommy and right now that just doesn't feel right.

We have been very busy since I last updated this blog. We spent last Tuesday with my two students who had suffered the death of their mom this past April. They live with their grandma now and she needed some time to herself. So I took the kids to the zoo and they wore us out!!

Yes, that's Lauren sound asleep at the end of our visit to the zoo. I brought the kids home to my house for the evening. Chad made a big dinner for all of us and we ate it out on the deck. Then we enjoyed a fun game of kickball until their grandma came to pick them up. I think they really enjoyed their day. I know I did!

Here are a few cute pictures of mealtime. Westin and Lauren have already begun to conspire against me when it comes to clean-up time.

He doesn't miss a spot. In this case, she had green beans on her toes. Yummm......

Lauren has discovered a new favorite pasttime- riding on the swings! We've begun walking to the park across from our house and letting Westin run around while I push Lauren. She LOVES it! From the very first time I put her in the swing, she's done nothing but smile and giggle.

Just chillin'.

Showing off her pearly whites!

She pulled her feet up into the swing and was relaxing. So cute!

I wish I'd had another person with us at the park today to run the video camera. We had the FUNNIEST thing happen. I decided to take Lauren up onto the play equipment and go down the slides. So we climbed up the play stairs and all of a sudden....there was Westin! Not to be left out, he climbed up too. So there he stood, looking at me as if to say "are you going down first or should I?" I sat down at the top of the slide with Lauren on my lap. Westin, realizing that this is actually a pretty wide slide, decided to lay on his tummy beside me. Sure enough, he slid down first. Lauren and I were both laughing as he jumped off the bottom of the slide, wagging his tail and waiting for us to follow him. What a goof.

I tried to capture some playtime and some "almost crawling" moments. Enjoy :-)

I'll give you one guess as to who she is grinning at here. Hint: it's not me or daddy!

One of the downsides to having a giant pond in front of your house. Can you say goose poop?
My big girl now sits by herself for bathtime. Baths have gotten a lot more fun now because she plays with toys and splashes around. She loves it!

Today we went to our last Thursday morning storytime at Barnes and Noble. We've been going every Thursday morning this summer and I know I'll really miss taking her there once I go back to work. I followed that up with a little retail therapy at New York and Company, my favorite clothing store. I figured since I'm going back to work next week, I deserved a few new outfits. Lauren slept for an hour and a half while I was there. (Yes, you read that correctly. I was there for an hour and a half. It was really fun to try things on when I realized that my pre-pregnancy size is actually a bit too big for me now. Woohoo!! Gotta love the effects of breastfeeding on weight loss!)

Have a nice weekend. We'll be taking Lauren to Madison to hang out on State Street Saturday morning and Chad and I have a date night planned for Saturday night. Our nextdoor neighbor asked if she could watch Lauren for us. We couldn't pass that up!

Good night!

Love,

Mindy & Lauren