We got to go to church!! Which is a pretty big deal because thanks to COVID church everywhere has been closed since the beginning of March.

It was fun to get everyone up and ready. As the law requires, we all wore our masks. Though the girls didn’t keep theirs on the whole time.

Highlights of church included: meeting new people in the area, taking the sacrament at church, Ruby rolling around in the floor under the pew (especially fun when the entire world has a heighten awareness of germs), Haze rubbing her face mask up and down the pew, and Hazel singing, not so quietly to her self at especially quiet moments “booty, booty booty, booty…”, and Levi the most handsome baby boy you ever did see in a seersucker suit.

So Marc and I just giggled to our selves about the girls and took turns snuggling our baby boy in his Sunday best. Our ward should thank us for providing such quality entertainment.

When we say family prayer at night I try to remember to go around and ask what was everyone’s favorite part of the day. The unanimous answer Monday night was going to the splash pad.

A family with boys similarly aged to my girls brought an adult electric toy car. And it was wicked fast made only more awesome by skidding around in the puddles. So the kids had the time of their lives chasing it around the water.

But no one enjoys the splash bad as much as Levi. He has a skip/ waddle to his crazy fast crawl and he toss his head back and forth like a happy puppy.

Hazel was done with the water before everyone else, so I sat and snuggled her on the bench. But we headed home when the thunder started cracking.

Tuesday was an overcast daydream and not suitable swim weather, so we invited Chelsea and Teddy to the zoo.

It is just amazing to me how green Waco is.

It started raining then pouring. and it didn’t stop pouring. We all ran under a giant ramada and had an early lunch, but the rain didn’t lighten up. So we dashed to the indoor aquarium exhibit. We were all wet wet wet. There is one tank that is just filled with fish from Finding Nemo. It’s really fun. Though the Nemo fish (clown fish) actually is quite hard to find as it hides behind the large rocks in the back of the tank most of the time. So Hazel was trying to convince it to come out, “Hey little Nemo fish, you can come out. It’s not scary. We are nice.”

Marc got home early Tuesday night so I walked across the street to the library to get us some new reads, and have a few kid-free moments to myself. I found some fun short reads, Charlotte’s Web for our new family read aloud book, and some fun books for me- Martha Stewart Organization, Joanna Gaines Home Body, and Bakerita for healthier-ish baked goods. My go-to books are almost always “learn something” and “eat something”. And that sums me up in a bit shell.

We spent the morning playing and reading all of our new books (most several times through, like Dragons Love Tacos. It’s good every time!) I love watching how much my kiddos love pouring over new books.

It was fun at quiet time, where both girls opted for laying on the floor next to me over their cozy beds. And I was more than happy to be the center of my baby girl sandwich.

To ensure I actually made recipes from my new library book, I had my girls pick out things they wanted to make. Everyone was very happy, and then hungry to try something new. Tonight we made homemade baked chocolate donuts. And even though they were refined sugar free, gluten free, and dairy free- they were super yummy!

I have been thinking about how this move really feels like a “new semester” in life or we got a “bonus New Years”. A fresh start to really look at our life, goals, and priorities and build on habits that will make us happier kinder people.

A real game changer for me, is in my kitchen I hung a menu board and every weekend we plan the meals for the week and grocery shop accordingly. It relieves the stress of the day of the looming question of “what in the world am I going to make for dinner??”

Marc and I have been super diligent on using the gym at our apartment complex.

And I have been venturing out on trying new recipes. Jo told me about how she wants to make a “best of dinner recipeS” notebook. Where you take your favorites from all your other cookbooks and blogs and print them out and have them all in one place. And it’s only for tried and true favorites. Because I struggle to think of what to make for dinner or even remembering what we all like to eat for dinner. I mean we eat dinner everyday, why is this so hard? So I will make my life easier. The sausage and veggie sheet pan dinner tonight is definitely going in the book. It had a whole bunch of fresh rosemary…. mmmmm.

This boy!! He has really gotten the hand of waking this week! And we are all just his biggest fans. We all just cheer him on and he just grins with all the toddler pride and joy he can muster.

But he keeps some of the baby things like a fresh baba in the morning. He cracks me up with his one hand holds. It’s such a good life being this boys mama.