Guilt be Gone....

Paul canceled our gym membership today. I'm actually a little sad about it. For those of you who know me know that I really don't like working out. I do it however, because you are supposed to and to set a good example for the kids and all that (plus I would feel guilty for paying all that money for something I didn't do). I went pretty faithfully last summer and I went a lot over the school year because the gym is close to the preschool. The gym is not close to our house however and since school has been out - going on 4 weeks now - I've been approximately 1 time. It's just not near where I'm out and I just can't justify going out just to go to the gym (hence the guilt). Paul doesn't use it much either - he belongs to a gym closer to the house so he made the decision that family gym membership needs to go. With the crazy price of gas (I know..I'm sick of it too) and Paul's new job we need to make some cuts and one easy way to save $100/month is to cut the gym. We did buy the wii fit and since I've not been going to the gym I have been doing the wii fit every day. At least that's something right??

I will miss showering in peace while my kids are in the daycare. I think that might be the best part of the gym membership. I know though that even when Lily is back in school and I'm 36 weeks pregnant going to the gym will be the last thing I want to do. It was a good financial decision to cut the gym. I'm sure we will revisit after Christmas when the baby is a little older and I'm ready to work out again. But until then - it's wii fit or bust!!

Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!

Paul is back at work today! Yeah!! He started his new job at Dicks Sporting Goods this morning. He's been off of work for a month so it was a little tough for him to get up to be at work by 7am this morning! Overall I've really enjoyed having him home. He was great help with the kids and he did a fair amount around the house. Still a few projects lingering but hopefully they will get resolved while he is in training. It was hard to be in a routine while he was home though - every day felt like a Saturday. I feel like now that he's back to work we can get into our summer routine - whatever that means.

Also after a 2 week period of no health coverage I feel like we can breath a little easier today knowing we have health insurance. (Of course we had the cobra option but who wants to spend $900 for 2 weeks of health insurance if you don't have to and thank heavens we didn't) So today is a fresh start in our family. I'm hoping Paul is having a great day!!

Graduation Parties

Today we went to a graduation party for a son of some friends of ours. Two things struck me: 1. How am I old enough to have friends that have a son graduating from high school and 2. Half of the "kids" at the party were born the year I graduated high school. Seriously. Born the year I graduated. That means they only know Paula Abdul from American Idol, they never, ever had cassettes and they always remember the internet. I remember as a teen any friends of my parents were old. Just old - I mean my parents were old so their friends were old too. (By the way the older I get the older I think old is and my parents are so not "old"). It is amazing how fast time flies - I remember high school graduation pretty vividly!

In other thoughts about graduation parties my neighbors are throwing their 5th grader a graduation party. Yes, I said their 5th graders since she's going to middle school next year. Apparently times are achangin cause I don't recall any 5th grade graduation parties when I was that age. In fact I don't recall any preschool graduations or kindergarten graduations for that matter. Now there's a graduation for every thing. I guess I am old....

My love/hate relationship with...

Walmart! Dare I admit that I've been to Walmart 2 times this weekend!! I think that doubles the number of times I've been to the evil empire (as it's more commonly referred to in my home) in the past year. Prior to this week my husband has pretty much banned me from spending his hard earned money at Walmart but now that he's on longer employed by Target it's fair game. I must admit that while my shopping experience was not anything like a Target expererience it really wasn't that bad. In fact, I found the low grocery prices exciting (hence the love part of my relationship with Walmart). The checkout experience not so great (hence the hate part of my relationship) however, I am willing to give it a whirl. I'm going to try my weekly food shopping there this week - it's a heck of a lot closer to my house than the SuperTarget (sad..or I would keep shopping there even without the discount) - and a heck of a lot cheaper than Harris Teeter (which is the closet grocery store). So I'm looking forward to seeing if it saves us any money shopping there. I'll report back...

Emma's on to me...

We're at dinner tonight with some friends. The girls asked if they could go to the pool after dinner and the other mom and I said "we'll see." So Emma says: "My mom says we'll see when she doesn't want to do something." While that is entirely accurate I just didn't realize that they knew that!! I thought "we'll see" works better than a flat out "no" so I've been saying that a lot lately. Apparently too much. Back to the drawing board for me....

Schools Out - Scream OR Shout

Summer vacation is here and I have a real love/hate relationship with it. On one hand I love that we really don't have plans, that we don't have to rush out the door in the mornings and that we can be lazy if we want to. On the other hand I miss the routine of school days and the getting up and getting moving we have to do. With Emma starting school in a month this summer will be a short one and I'm thankful for that. I talked to a mom at gymnastics yesterday who was so happy her kids were out of school - she said she felt less stressed than she had in months. Other moms think summer is so stressful because the routine is gone - people are so different! Paul starts work on Monday and then I think we can get into a "summer routine." I need to have some structure in my days so that I can feel like I'm getting something accomplished. Of course we'll have 4 weeks of a routine then have to figure something else out when school starts but that's OK - I like it like that!

On another note I took all 3 kids to the pool by myself today (we've been almost every day since we got back from the beach but either Paul was with me or I had just the 2 big girls). I was SO thankful their were other moms there to help keep an eye on my kids. It was fun but a lot of work - well not so much at the pool but when we got home! Seriously - the hardest part was getting everyone dried off, cleaned up and getting the wet bathing suits/towels into the laundry room to dry. Unfortunately for me all my children seem to love the pool so I guess we'll be doing this lots this summer. Yeah me!

Bedtime

My kids are pretty good sleepers but my older 2 girls sometimes have a hard time going to sleep. They are great about staying in their room but we often hear their little feet running around their room. So about a month ago we started a sticker chart for them so that if they stay in bed then they get a sticker on their chart. When they get so many stickers they will be allowed to pick out a webkin. We've been allowing them to have 2 books and a leapster in their beds and that's it. So the sticker chart was a good idea except they don't really care and most days they don't earn a sticker although every night they say they are going to stay in bed. So, Friday night I go check on them before I went to bed and here's what I found....




Clearly my sticker chart is working well....