Our week so far

My baby turned 18 months old yesterday and learned to jump off the ground with both feet in the evening! My other kids didn't learn that until around 2. This one keeps going, and going, and going... We took him to the children's museum during the day, and at night we had a mini half-birthday celebration for him with cookies he didn't care for and popsicles he definitely did.

The very happy half-birthday boy:


Meanwhile, the older boys finished a 4-day art camp yesterday at an ice rink. I went ice skating with them on Wednesday. Very fun!

Blurry pic of me on ice, taken by my 7-year-old:


Tonight we're trying a "Parents' Night Out" again tonight for all 3 boys. Last time we tried one, we were called to pick up the baby because he wouldn't stop crying. This was the first week he's ever played in the church nursery instead of crying or sleeping the whole time--still cried a lot, but played in the middle--so maybe it'll work, but I'm not getting my hopes up too high!

Oh yeah, and our computer broke this week! It says it cannot find the operating system--yikes. That's the family computer. I still have this laptop, so my husband is going to remove the hard drive from the other computer and hook it up to this laptop to see if the data is still accessible. I sure hope so, because it has our whole lives on it...photos, documents, etc., going back about 13 years!

Advice for new parents

Something they don't tell you when you're expecting...

1) Stock up on crazy hats.

2) Stock up on shoeboxes.

Seriously, between preschool, school, camps, etc., we've probably had 6 or 8 Crazy Hat Days to contend with in my 10 years of parenting, and I expect them to continue for a while. And even if you homeschool...kids like crazy hats. Storybook character outfits also come in handy.

And I can't tell you how many times I've been asked to send a shoebox for something or other. Every time I'm tempted to throw one out, I have to remind myself that one of these days, one of my kids is going to tell me he has to have a shoebox tomorrow! And probably a decorated one at that!

Happy 4th of July!