Month: June 2024

June 2024

/ Ashley / Leave a comment

Well…that was chaotic.

June barreled in, and by the time I resurfaced, it was July. And I can’t really say what made it so overwhelming.

If I was a betting lady, I’d say it had a whole lot to do with Little Man’s 4th birthday party.

But more on that later!

We kicked off with Taz’s 10th birthday. Holy cow, all of my cats are a decade (or more) old!

She’s so sweet, though still skittish.

Then…Little Man celebrated his 4th birthday!

This year’s theme was Blaze and the Monster Machines.
We changed things up by having it in the park instead of at our house.
He made a new fast friend with my former coworker’s kiddo Kai.
He even had 3 classmates attend!
Weird phone pixelation but of course Nana and Grandad came.
And Grandma and Grandpa!

The wind was a big pain in the butt so I didn’t have things as decorated as I wanted, but we made due.

I still haven’t recovered from all of the company! We are so thankful both sets of grandparents were able to come this year. Little Man really enjoyed all of the extra attention.

The following weekend, we did our Lowes workshop Saturday and then trekked down to Mount Juliet’s Walmart to see Monster Jam’s Grave Digger truck/driver. I don’t know much about the monster truck circuit but Little Man was in awe of how huge the truck was.

Of course, we had to go inside to buy a truck so one of the drivers (this one was Tyler Menninga) could sign it.
He is all about Grave Digger now.

For Father’s Day, we took the Mister to see a movie (ok, really, it was for Little Man – Inside Out 2) and gave him his gift.

Little Man was so excited to give Daddy his “very own fishing pole.”

We also got official word about the Mister’s retirement! Hallelujah! We have orders for 30 September 2025. Six more months than he’d originally put in for, but what’s another 6 months after 20+ years? We are thrilled to have that sorted after so much time in limbo.

The following week, I met up with an old coworker from APSU for a last minute lunch. Three hours later, we emerged. It was really nice to catch up after so long (four years when we live in the same town is ridiculous!). Definitely won’t wait that long for the next catch up.

Then, swimming lessons started! Little Man hasn’t really been in a real pool for any length of time, so it was definitely a learning experience. Of course, the first day, a storm rolled in right as they were getting ready to start. Lightning meant no pool time, and a safety day was done instead. The next night went better and he got to get in. We struggled a little bit with keeping focused. Another boy in his group was ignoring everything the guards said and kept getting out of the pool and distracting the other kids (Little Man included). We had to have a chat about staying in the water and only listening to the lifeguards.

First steps in the big pool.
Caught a smile, so I think he liked it!
Practicing his front starfish float.
Gliding
Learning to float

Juneteenth, everyone had the day off. No speech and the Mister was off work. We did absolutely nothing, other than swimming lessons.

That weekend, I braved the heat to meet up with some old coworkers again for a catch-up. This time, Little Man stayed home with the Mister. I think we might have to keep this up. I forgot how nice it is to just chat with other adults besides my own family.

We capped off the month by finishing swimming lessons and Little Man getting his 4 year old check-ups/shots.

He did so well! He didn’t even cry when they poked him. He’s now 33.6lbs and 39.2 inches tall. Growing like a weed. He told me he was going to be brave and boy was he.

He also attended another classmate’s birthday party at We Rock the Spectrum. He enjoyed the huge indoor playground.

Zip line
Rock wall

July is looking to be a slower month (knock on wood). I think it’s one of the few months where I don’t have much of anything planned.

My dad is having hip replacement surgery on the 24th so I’ll probably trek to Nebraska for a bit to help my parents and whatnot. I wanted to go when the Mister goes to Texas so I wouldn’t have to be solo with Little Man for those 4 weeks but I’m not sure any of that will happen.

We’ll figure it out as we go along!

Until then,

May 2024

/ Ashley / Leave a comment

This is an interesting month.

We kicked off with both Home Depot and Lowes having their workshops on the same day, which also fell on Free Comic Book Day.  Talk about full speed ahead!

Then we celebrated Roxie’s Gotcha Day. How has this little girl been with us a whole year?

That weekend, we were lucky enough to be able to see the aurora borealis this far south.  Unfortunately for me, Little Man and I went to bed around 10:30, so we missed it completely. Luckily, an old coworker snapped a couple photos.

We tried to go look outside again the next couple of nights, but the neighborhood lights (which rarely turn on) were on full display.

We got to see a little bit, but only via night mode on my phone.

Mother’s Day came and went without fanfare, but given the mental health situation of our household recently, I didn’t get my hopes up anyway. It is what it is and getting frustrated about it doesn’t do any good.

The following week was Little Man’s last week at preschool for the year. We had a family picnic one day and his spring program on the final day.

His class tie-dyed shirts for Family Picnic Day.
Subway picnic (glad Daddy got to come).
Bluey made an appearance!
Group!

His last day of school was super short with only the spring program on the agenda. Next year will be preschool graduation.

He enjoyed his teachers and they loved him.
He spotted us in the crowd.
One last class photo.

He didn’t sing or dance during his program and yawned a lot while looking around. We’ll have to work on that this summer. My plan is to keep his schedule similar on his normal school days with some Highlights workbooks and lots of outdoors time. We are also planning to hopefully get into swimming lessons next month to get him more used to the water (he is fine with splash pads and in the tub, but I want him safe around deeper water).

Routine will be key since I think the Mister is planning to go to the inpatient therapy after Little Man’s birthday. Though, we still don’t have anything set. We are crossing that bridge (and handling it) when we come to it.

Finishing off the last of our “normal” routine weeks, Little Man got to attend another birthday party for a classmate at Chuck E. Cheese. No one in our family had ever been to one before, so it was a new experience for us all!

Waiting for pizza and dip’n dots.
Racing with daddy

The rest of the weekend, we went to a $5 movie at Regal and took a short trip to the local library for the first time.

We got our very own library cards and Little Man even got to pick out what design he wanted on his. He is so excited to have a card with his own name on it for his wallet.

He loves the “rainbow” on his card
Putting on a puppet show in the children’s section.

We will plan to spend more time at the library now that school is out. We have the calendar for the summer and are starting the 1000 Books Before Kindergarten challenge. I have no doubt we are already halfway there. We read between 3 and 5 books a night before bedtime, so it’ll be close by the time kindergarten rolls around in a year or two. It’ll be a fun project!

On the 21st, an old friend from high school was playing a show in Nashville. I decided to make the trek down to see him play. Since it was so late in the evening and we didn’t have a babysitter, I had to go solo.

I’m so glad I went. I hadn’t seen Jon Dell in 15+ years (we were still in college the last time we’d seen each other in person) and it was awesome to hear him play/sing live again. I have a couple of his vinyls and Little Man enjoys them too.

A few years older, but still a talented dude (as if that’d ever change)!

We were also treated to a surprise pop-up from the Rowan Brothers. It was so cool!

Such a treat!

On the 24th, the Mister and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary. We didn’t do much but did have a nice meal and even better dessert.

Tim Tam brownie was delicious.
He also brought me 11 roses — one for each year we’ve been married.

A windstorm ripped through over the long weekend, punching some holes in our porch roof and blew a bunch of branches down.  Clean-up wasn’t too bad, but we’re waiting for the insurance adjuster to come out and see what needs to be done to repair the roof and how much they’ll cover for that. It might be a blessing in disguise since the roof over the deck really needed to be replaced a while ago.

I’m glad I brought Hina in the night before on a whim.
Big branches everywhere.

The last week of the month was filled with panic cleaning for our company coming for Little Man’s birthday next month and a really unfortunate cold/allergy issue. I did not realize my nose could run so much constantly. It needs to hurry along out my system before the party because I am over it!

We also had our monthly potluck and the Mister won the disc golf portion of the individual games and his platoon won overall for the day. Not that his ego needs any more inflation, but he deserved the serotonin boost.

He just had to pose.

June will be a strange month, I think.

We kick off with Little Man’s 4th birthday (he even has several classmates attending as well as both sets of grandparents) then we may be trekking back to Nebraska if the Mister decides to go to Texas. It’s all up in the air, really. If not, I need to get swimming lessons sorted and start on Little Man’s summer learning routine. Either way, weird month ahead. We’ll see how it shakes out.

Until then,