Me and She

Jonathan and Gideon hopped on a plane to Kansas for the weekend to celebrate our friends Kael and Melissa's fabulous "May the Fourth Be With You" wedding, so Mouse and I had to stay busy to avoid wallowing in self-pity that we couldn't go too. (If only kids flew free forever...)

On Thursday after work, we dropped off the guys at the airport and headed directly to Observation Park to watch the planes come and go. It's a good thing we lingered there for a while, because we got a call from Jonathan that their flight was delayed and they could either catch a flight in the morning, or be stranded in Atlanta overnight. Not a tough decision there. So we picked them up and headed home. Their flight left really early Friday morning, and after sleeping through the alarms I somehow woke up at the exact time they should have been checking in. Ensue the panicked rush to the airport, and they made their flight! Evelyn and I grabbed breakfast and headed to my office to pass the time before school opened. 

Watching some Word Girl. 

We had dinner and did some Target browsing after school on Friday, and then headed home for some rest in anticipation of a very, very busy Saturday.

First up on  an unseasonably cold Saturday morning was the Central Park School for Children's (my dream school) Strawberry Festival. We had some strawberry shortcake, did a cupcake walk, Evelyn got her face painted and a strawberry manicure, and then we booked it back to the car. Brrrrr.

A Strawberry Manicure

We got home just in time for a bathroom break and change of clothes (note the too-short sleeves in the manicure picture... I hate it when my fav clothes are outgrown!), and then it was off to our next door neighbors' house for their son's first birthday. The skies parted, the sun shone, and everything was perfect for some grilling, swinging, bounce-housing, and cupcake eating. What fun! I also finally met our corner neighbors, Dave and Wanda, and got the scoop on the news of the cul-de-sac. They've lived in their house for over 20 years so they know all the dirt.

Did you know you can buy these things? I want!

After the party, it was another quick pit-stop at home. Evelyn was inspired to write her full name, so we worked on that a little bit. This is her first "official" completely on her own name-writing:

Y is a tricky letter.

Then, it was in the car and off to the Club Boulevard Elementary (our second dream school) Manatee Mayfair!

The only chance for a nap lasted about 15 minutes. 

 The Mayfair was quite an event. An entire school playground and field with all sorts of activities. Evelyn and Linus bounced in the giant bounce house, threw pennies to try to earn candy, raced rubber ducks in a pool by squirting them with squirt guns, tried to dunk teachers at the dunk tank, got balloon swords and chased each other around with them until they popped, climbed and played on the playground, ate Loco Pops, got their faces painted, and did the cake walk. That last one was pretty funny, because Evelyn won during our round of cake walking! She didn't want to stand by me, so she was across the circle and I couldn't see her number. So when it was called, the people next to her got all excited and let her know that she won, but she just stood there looking skeptical. I finally went and got her, and Abby and Adrian showed us how to find the magical classroom full of cakes. Since she was a "first place" winner (the first number drawn in her round), she got to pick from the spread of premium, full-size cakes. There were so many delicious-looking homemade cakes but she zeroed in on the Food Lion polka-dot yellow cake. Womp womp. I tried a little bit to talk her out of it, but really she's the one who won, so I let her bring this puppy home. Also, when we were discussing the win this morning, she said, "They said I won but I'm three," which may explain her lack of excitement. All these people were saying, "You won! You won!" and she's standing there thinking, "What?! I'm not ONE. I'm THREE." Life is confusing sometimes when you're three.

You... one?

We zoomed home from the carnival to find our fabulous babysitter waiting for us. We were late! Eeek! Luckily she's my co-worker so she was okay with it. I pretty much left Evelyn, gave a couple instructions, and I was off to Cary to celebrate my friend Brandi's 30th birthday party. It was so much fun, but I didn't stay very long because, well, mostly because I needed to be able to drive myself home, but also because phew I was tired.

Today we slept in until 8 (amazing, seriously amazing) and then got ourselves together for breakfast.

Fashion by Evelyn

We put in some serious time at one of our favorite parks (Brier Creek Elementary's playground), did some more browsing at Target, and then it was home again home again for naptime. Both of us took very good naps on this gray day.

After nap, I prepped dinner (I want to like collard greens but this recipe just didn't do it for me... but the chicken and taters were great) and then we headed to Northgate Mall for some fun. That mall is really quite nice, but only like half of the retail spaces are full. I wish they could get/keep more stuff there!

Loving the Zebra.

Bungee Jumping!

I tried to talk her into strawberry, but she insisted on bubble gum ice cream with gummy bears mixed in. And then she danced around the ice cream shop dancing to "Sweet Child of Mine" 

What a day. We ate some dinner, read some books, and that was that.

Tomorrow morning, Jonathan and Gideon return from Kansas and things are back to normal around here. We pick up a new (to us) swing set tomorrow night! So excited!