#momlyfe

I am not sure if you are saying “what a weekend” in a good way or a bad way, but I do hope you are saying it as a positive! Please just note, even though this post may sound like many and many good smiles, there were equally amount of tears.

This past weekend we celebrated the 4th of July with many ups, downs and sideways. I wouldn’t trade a moment of what we went through for even a full nights sleep (which I didn’t get all weekend).

I can’t express enough about my next door neighbors. I don’t know what we did in the past life to get blessed with them but they are fantastic. Their oldest is now my daughter’s best friend. I know I know, little kids always say that so and so are their new best friend. This friendship is nothing like I have ever seen from a 3 yr old! I have to set the ground work here or none of you will be able to picture all of this weekend’s activities and meltdowns.

This entire weekend started on a Thursday night. YES!! A Thursday night. No, I am no longer in my 20s so of course this was a rough Friday for me, since my husband and neighbors were off on Friday. To start this festive weekend off correctly, we had fire with some sparklers for the kids and a couple adult beverages…. or more than a couple (remember, rough Friday work day). I personally think this night went smoothly. No meltdowns, no crazy fights, no ear shattering screams of toddler death. The kids jumped on the trampoline for what felt like 9 hours, exhausted our bubble maker and went home with little muddy feet.

Friday came along with me working but I made it through. This is the day things started to get hairy. The screams started to get a little louder with the lack of sleep but still good memories. When I got off work, my husband and I wanted to have a nice cookout out back with water activities. We got the baby pool all set up, the crazy noodle sprinkler going, water table filled up, bubble machine going…………. and a crazy non-detectable storm came through. Fast forward 20 minutes and meltdown because we are now inside. My husband’s thought, “how do I create something indoor to keep the kids happy”? Well, a HUGE living room tent made of sheets, blankets and pillow cases. Where was he when I was a kid!? Anyways, the kids loved it. We even let them eat dinner in this tent and watch their movie. The storm moved through so we decided to do smores back outside. Welcome my large 70lb German Shephard puppy. Her tail was wagging faster than I have ever seen it and hit a beer can and sent the lovely beverage into all the smore ingredients on the picnic table. Another meltdown. Luckily I had 1 marshmallow left and that became my daughter’s dessert. The night ended with lots of laughs with Gigi and Papaw Bill and my kid’s went to sleep with smiles on their faces.

Saturday comes, YES no work for any of us! We went to Mamaw’s backyard of paradise and swam all day. I mean ALL day long, like 8 hours worth. It was a blast! Nothing major happened that day except some fun memories being made and the kid’s laughing all day. Unfortunately, it was another late bed time so cue the cries all night long from being overly tired.

Now here is Sunday. This is the day that we had a couple parties to get to with an expectation of another LATE night. We celebrated our neighbor’s birthday that afternoon. We all had a good time. We got to meet a few new neighbors and enjoy a cornhole tournament. It was a classic hot afternoon celebrating a birthday leading up to a classic 4th of July evening. A few of the kids starting getting restless and sugars starting dropping for our sweet sweet boy with diabetes. After we got back to our neighbor’s house, LETS GO!!! The night is starting. Thankfully we got to put our son to bed on time and actually slept through fireworks. Shewwww. Well, now the fun times start! The alcohol beverages start flowing, bubbles are everywhere, sparklers are going crazy, red/white/blue smoke bombs are going (thank you Mr. neighbor for the poses), trampoline jumps happening, 100s of fireworks are going off turning the sky into blues, greens, yellows, purple and out come the red solo cups with two ping pong balls. Yes. Yes, that did start happening with us. I may be past my partying age but it was seriously so much fun! I love my hubs more than life but I will take my girl as my partner any day ❤

I know this post may seem like an entire weekend of fun and smiles, welcome to my Monday. I was supposed to go to my sis in law’s home for a family cookout. Well, my kids had other plans. I have never, I mean never, have I ever seen my kids like this. I don’t know if I did the correct mom decision of keeping them home but they needed it. They took a 4 hour nap and they were both still little terrors that afternoon. I kept them inside all day and just had a calm day. I hope I made the correct decision. This raises the question for me all the time, “am I momming correctly” “am I a good mom” “Are they going to resent me for this”. I feel like this feeling comes to all of us at least some point in time, unless you are like me and these questions hit every day. I think we all need to support each other and continue to tell one another “YOU are a fantastic mom and YOU are doing a wonderful job”. We all love our kids more than our own life and will do anything for them, I think that is what makes all of us a loving mother who should kick “mom guilt” right out the front door.

I want to make 1 more statement, I know weekends like this aren’t always about BBQs, burgers, fireworks or cute outfits. When my kids get older I plan to make sure they know what these weekends stand for. We come from military families on my husband’s side and mine, we have so many friends who have stood up to fight for this country. We will always say Thank You to serving and vets. This country means everything to us and that is why Thank You will always be taught to our kids.

Lyfe is crazy! Lyfe is fun! Keep your lyfe filled with love!

#momlyfe