Denim Daisies

 Good morning! This year we decided to make things easy on ourselves and we will NOT travel for the holidays. After years and getting close to decades of Grant and I always heading out of town we are DONE. I couldn’t be happier with this decision because we have been able to prioritize spending time with our family and relaxing and resting which I hope means that we will come out of the holiday rejuvenated and ready. It also means that we’re not spending nearly as much on travel when we do go and our timing will be on slightly less busy times so that it’s not an overwhelming sensory experience.  Thanks for attending my Ted Talk I suppose… Anyway it was a beautiful thanksgiving and the boys and I had a lot of fun during the first three days just trying to find a good routine… news flash, swimming is their favorite but turning impossible for me to do alone with them so we might have to move that to an “after work activity” once Grant is off for the day so that I have an extra se...

 Hello, Today I’m going to go over a little bit of our homework routine as this worked for us and I therefore NEED to codify for future reference.  Jamie’s teacher mentioned that “boxes” work well and so we have something centering in his first box, homework in the second, and a treat in the third. We also use a visual schedule for our overall routine and visual timers for boxes 1 & 3 to make the transition easier. 🙂 Today we have outside time, homework, go get Daddy (we are a one car family and Grant can only bike two days a week to work as Wednesday and Thursday location is a little further out), and then dinner! (We also have tennis today but I couldn’t find the tennis PEC so I’ll have to handle that with our travel board. Our boxes for today were painting, homework activity book, then a piece of Halloween candy for a treat. Leo likes homework and so we do his while Jamie did his painting and then Leo got some tablet time so I could focus on Jamie for a few minutes. We...

 Hello! Today is election day 2024 and we've got Harris/Walz vs. Trump/Vance it will definitely be a historic election and we are both checking the news regularly and avoiding updates simultaneously. Grant showed me a cartoon from I think either the NYT or WSJ that will likely be the cartoon of the year and it depicts a dad voting and his daughter behind him asking "who are you voting for dad?" and he responds "You". I tear up just thinking about this cartoon because it is so relevant for us as a family.  We will show up, we will advocate, and we will keep doing it for our entire lives. Not because we will "win" because there is no winning. There is just continuing, to paraphrase Steve Irwin, to run up the football. On a lighter note, we made our sausage gravy with vegan chorizo and oatmilk last night and it was AMAZING!!! Next time we'll add a light green salad on the side but it was perfect.  This morning it was Ina Garten's gruyere omelets a...

 Hello! So this was a really fun weekend for the boys. We had our usual activities and had do do some change ups with some health stuff, but each boys got to have a sleepover with my parents and they LOVED it. I was still kinda happy though when they each wanted the other at bedtime and I love their close relationship even though I'm not a fan of the "let's chase each other around the house" game that mommy has to veto. Grant was also gone for the weekend for Army stuff so it was especially nice to take that time apart to do one on one time with each boy, though I always prefer to have Grant there, it's fun to find ways to make these times special as well.  Some fun pictures from friday at pick-up with my parents. Tonight is breakfast for dinner so we are making vegan sausage gravy with a vegan chorizo from TJ's and oatmilk and then vegetarian biscuits. The chorizo is AMAZING. I'll take some pictures to share tomorrow and I'll "church it up" ...

 Hello! We had such a wonderful time last night, I was convinced that it might be a rough holiday due to high winds and rain, but even though there were high winds earlier in the day and it rained a little on and off throughout trick or treating, it was a fantastic evening! We had our usual thursday pizza, thank you Kendra from the Lazy Genius for the encouragement to 'decide once', and then just before 6pm we all put on our costumes and headed out for some fun. Our first stop were our amazing friendly Lisa and Dustin who live right next door. We figured this would not only be fun, but would give us a chance to get a nice family photo and would be the least difficult for Jamie. Next was our awesome neighbors K & K who have always been so welcoming and sweet with the boys. We are truly grateful for our amazing neighbors!!! Then we headed off down our street which is kinda 'the place to be' around Cincy for Halloween trick or treating! :-) Jamie was really happy, but ...