Slow Week // Fun Saturday

You know what I've discovered lately? That even my daily women's devotional emails or posts on social sites become too repetitive ... and that sort of bums me out. I guess even reading devotional words of wisdom can sometimes also become mundane. I think at one point or another everything does. I believe it's natural to feel this way but I also know that reading these emails and newsletters from inspiring sites is what helps me cope when I'm feeling stressed out and reminds me to stay humble when things are going good. It also has me looking up scripture which is good because I immerse myself in His word. I tell myself that its ok to want to take a break from all this, after all I'm not abandoning my faith ... I'm just setting aside my deep scripture readings for a day or two. But, praying ... I always ALWAYS pray, nightly and throughout the day.

One of the topics that I continually come across is comparison. We all know we shouldn't compare ourselves to others. We're all on different missions in life even if we have some things in common. We all live different lives. I've learned long ago to not be envious of anybody, to not compare myself to anyone, to not wish I had this or that. It just robs you from living your days to the fullest. If I like something someone has or is doing something fun I give them props. I truly am happy for other peoples happiness. There are things that I know I will never get to do in life but the way I see this is that one can live through the lives of others especially if they're constantly traveling the world or living a more glamorous lifestyle, which is not my thing but fun to see nonetheless.
I know that if you work hard for things and you pray about them that eventually you'll get what you dream of ... but this happens on God's timing not ours. If it's meant to be it'll happen. At least this is what I believe in ... and you know what? He's come through every single time. Again, it may not have happened when I wanted it to but it happened in His timing.


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Right now, during summer I have a lot more free time on my hands. There are many days when I have no important errands to run and on these slow days or better yet, on these free days I take Riley to craft stores or Party City or Target.
I love the toddler stage because they are so easy to please. It doesn't matter if you're spending a dollar or twenty. We went to Party City to look around. We walked through the entire store and stopped at almost every isle. We saw several Toy Story decorations. He tried on a few baseball caps and masks.

It looked like they had just gotten a shipment in because they were setting out their Halloween costumes. So exciting. Something to look forward to. Planning for Fall and Winter activities is the best. He spotted a Buzz Lightyear picture and watercolor paint activity set. I got that for him and as we were paying he saw a Lightning McQueen balloon, a jumbo one and I said no. I wasn't about to spend ten dollars on a huge balloon but I did get him a smaller one. He was so happy and was careful to not move his arm so the balloon wouldn't fly away. Target is in the same shopping strip so we walked there. I got myself a dish towel because I have a slight addiction to them. And I finally bought Princess and the Frog. I really like that movie.

Thank goodness for watercolor paint. Riley loves to paint and he'll stay engaged for a long time. Sometimes he'll ask me to draw him a picture and I really dread it because I am horrible at drawing. I can't draw worth a lick. The one that can is Jacob. I should have him draw Riley pictures of his favorite things and have Riley color them during the day. Hey, how come I hadn't thought of this before. Brilliant!

Honestly, taking the kids to the doctor for whatever reason is such a drag. First, its the parking because where we go the parking spots are small and some people don't give a toot about parking straight which is so annoying. Second, its the waiting to be called and waiting again for the doctor.
Anyway, I scheduled Sydna and Nathan's yearly physical. Most of the time when Sydna is seen she goes in by herself. She's old enough to where she can do that and less embarrassing for sure. She's all caught up with all her vaccines and wont need any for two more years.

About every night last week I kept waking up in the middle of the night. Sometimes I would wake up at 1:30 and other times at 3:30. I go to sleep fine. I actually fall asleep praying most nights and when I wake up in the middle of the night I don't wake up with something on my mind so it's not like if I'm worrying about something or thinking too much about something. I just wake up for no reason. Falling back to sleep is the problem. Sometimes I even pray but there I am still tossing and turning for a couple of hours and before I know it I've fallen asleep.

Another thing too is that I've been getting tension headaches. Not sure if its my pillow causing them, allergies, or what but I've been getting them quite often lately.

To destress you know what we do? We go on drives ... just the two of us and Riley, and if we're lucky he falls asleep during our little getaway.
Sometimes we stop and grab some coffee and we get Riley hot chocolate. He downs that in about a minute. Geez! If I would do that I would definitely get a stomach ache.

We usually don't have a destination during these little escapes but we always seem to stumble upon nice neighborhoods. We came across one that had a cozy feel to it. We were in awe at how pretty these houses were and how spacious every single property was. They were just awesome houses.

The pumpkin and corn farm that we go to began selling their sweet corn over the weekend. I remember it was so sweet, so yummy. I told Jacob that I wanted to go and pick some up. I don't know why Jacob thought that the place was gonna be up and hopping. When we arrived there were only a few cars parked so he thought it must be closed. I laughed. I told him that they were selling their sweet corn and that their country store was open but that was it. He said he felt cheated, lol. He's such a goof.

We got our corn, pumpkin butter, and some taffy. I've been having Riley help me whenever possible and he just loves it. It makes him feel more grown up I guess plus, he loves the hugs and kisses that I shower him with. I love my little guy!

There's not many places that we avoid driving through or stopping at due to a different element than we're comfortable in but we recently had an inconvenient experience that made us not want to go back to a particular street on Capitol Hill. First, the ambiance of the area is way WAY out there and second, the initial pizza place that we had hoped to have lunch at wasn't kid friendly. They had only two tables right at the entrance that seated only two people each. We're a family of five so that wasn't gonna work. They had booths that could seat all of us but that was near the bar and no one under the age of 21 could sit there. Isn't that rude?! To only cater to family of no more than four? I think that's BS. Obviously, we left that stinking joint real fast.

We drove for several more minutes and ended up in Queen Anne and had lunch at Pagliacci's. We found a parking spot right in front of the restaurant too. I guess it was meant for us to eat here. We've eaten pizza at two other different locations but never at this one and compared to the other two this location is more inviting, comfortable and in a way better area than at E Pike Street on Capitol Hill.
We were starving. I had my very first Italian beer there. It tasted a lot like Coors Light ... my kind of beer.

Since we weren't too far from the Science Center we decided to stop by. It had been a while since we've been here. The boys entertained themselves a while at the fountains. It was their first time shooting water out of these gun looking things.

It's a pretty cool thing for a toddler to do. He didn't want to leave.

We were all over the Seattle area on Saturday. After we had our fun at the Science Center we stopped by Molly Moon's homemade ice cream.
I got their "Scout" mint ice cream. It's vanilla ice cream and they crumble girl scouts mint cookies in it. It was very yummy and the waffle cone was good too. It was too much though ... I couldn't finish the entire thing.

We've had very warm and sometimes hot weather here lately. {It sucks!} On Sunday we stayed home. Hot weather makes me very sluggish and since I had been suffering from headaches I really wasn't in the mood to go anywhere let alone be around people. Once it cooled off we drove through some back streets and picked some blackberries. It is so awesome that wild blackberries grow everywhere in WA. Wherever you drive you will see them. Jacob promised to make us blackberry cobbler. I'm looking forward to that.

Six weeks left of Summer.