Glass Slippers and other favorite moments from today

Three-day weekends are the best. It completely changes a Sunday when you still have a work-free Monday to follow. Today we did our usual bit of erranding, cooking, and cleaning, but we enjoyed quite a bit of fun in between the productive pieces of the day.

Rather than do a blow-by-blow of the day, I'm going to highlight a few favorite parts.

1. Water table time. Kids play, Daddy mows, Mommy types on her laptop from 2 feet away. I will never get tired of watching, and listening, to the two of them play together.

2. Family Erranding. I usually run errands during my lunch break at work, but I've been so busy lately that billables and recruiting have been the only things happening between 8 and 6. So today we ran all our errands as a family and it was FUN. We hit up Walmart, Party City, Academy, HEB, and Costco- basically a month's worth of errands done in one day. The kids were so well behaved and it was so nice to not feel like I was wasting time standing in line at Target while the time I could be spending with my kids was quickly ticking away. And now we're all set for our impromptu beach vacation next weekend (we own our first set of folding chairs and a giant umbrella; mommy's skin does NOT do well in sun) and Landon's birthday party the weekend after that (scheduling a trip the weekend before a 9:30 a.m. Saturday birthday party was perhaps not my greatest idea, but we're ready for it).

3. Glitter shoes. I bought a pair of clear, sparkly jelly flip flops from Old Navy last week (for $1.75, I love that store). When I wore them out of my room this morning, Landon asked, "Mommy! Where did you find those glass slippers?!"

4. 7-being-simulnap. After all the shopping in the 103 degree heat that feels like 125 degrees of lifeforce-sucking misery, we were tired. We tucked the kids in their beds at 2:00, JP snuck off to take a nap at 2:05, and I wandered in to bother him at 2:06. By 2:30 the whole house was asleep- even me!! I can't tell you how rare that is, and it was everything I hoped it would be. We all woke up 4:30, refreshed and recharged and SO glad it wasn't a real Sunday so we could continue in our wasting of the usually-oh-so-precious weekend minutes and head to the pool.

5. The pool. I love it. My kids do too.

Clairebear, my fierce little diva


Lanman, our brave little fish


JP, the one who makes my heart flutter

We splashed around for an hour, came home, ate dinner (bbq pulled chicken sandwiches, mac & cheese, and pineapple), and tucked the kids in bed at 7:30.

Claire read the bedtime story; she rules that relationship

It has been a lovely day, and tomorrow we get to enjoy another one! Yay America and yay for 3-day-weekends!