A Working Mom

      I have been back to work for 5 weeks now and it has really been taking a toll on our family and the life we are used to. I have worked almost continuously since Lillian and Claire have been born, but this is the first time in 3 years since I have worked full time outside of our home.
    I am enjoying my job, but our evenings always seem packed full and bedtime gets pushed much later than it should most nights. Those three hours from when I walk out of the doors at work and until bedtime flies by. I run to pick the girls up from the sitter, rush home to try and make a decent dinner, eat, clean up dinner, spend a little bit of family time together and then it is time to get Lillian and Claire ready for bed.
    We do get a lot more snuggle time in during those short evenings treasure those minutes we do have as a family. I wish more than anything I could stay home or I could find something part time that would allow me to have more time with Lillian and Claire, especially since this is their last year before the start kindergarten.
   Claire broke my heart tonight while we were in the car. She said, "mommy, do you think you could ask your boss for a stay home day so you can spend it with us?"
    This evening when I got home for work I sat and snuggled with the girls and chatted with them while Josh worked on dinner. He asked if I could come into the kitchen to help for a minute. Lillian refused to let go of me, she said, "I need snuggles now because I didn't get to snuggle you this morning."
   The wave bye every morning while I pull away from our house, the sitters or grandma's, depending where they are that day. The days they are home, they come running down to the garage as soon as they hear the garage door open and most of the time I am not even out of the car yet.
   I miss my girls. I feel blessed that I was able to spend be a part of so much their first four years, but now I feel like I am missing out on so much. I am no longer the one taking them to speech therapy twice a week, taking them to the playground or play dates, I am not the one working on their letters or getting covered in glue and glitter while crafting with them. I spend my day sitting at my desk and looking at my picture of them missing them and wishing I with them.

Smile

Lillian and Claire love the song "Smile" by Uncle Kracker. They have the song on their pad computers and they turn the volume as high as it goes and will sing along. Right before I took these videos, I was sitting in the living room and they were belting it out singing every word. Once the camera turned on they sang softly and didn't sing as much as they danced. If you notice at the end of the first video, you can see how they lined up some Barbie's and other toys to be their audience.

 

Lakeland Family Camp

   Every year at the end of August our church goes to camp for a weekend. After hearing about it every since we started attending Lakeland, Josh and I decided this year the girls are old enough that we all could enjoy it together and so we went.

   Friday after I got out of work, Josh had the car all loaded up and we met up with our Pro Deo caravan buddies for dinner and then the hour trek west into Kansas. That first night we arrived with enough time to unload and head to the meeting room/chapel for the opening night events. We headed back to our cabin to make our beds, layer on the bug spray and grab some flash lights before walking over to the camp fire for s'mores. We ate some delicious treats and headed back to our cabin. At this point it was already an hour and a half past the girls usual bed time and because of their slight s'more sugar high, they were away playing in bed until 11:30pm.

  Saturday morning brought a bright shining sun and two very excited little girls ready to explore camp. Before each meal everyone met in chapel for a devotional and prayer. I loved the community it brought and sharing this time with Lillian and Claire since during our usual Sunday service they are in their classroom at church. After breakfast we explored the camp grounds, the girls climbed rocks, ran through the fields trying to keep up with the big boys playing Frisbee and even did a craft project before getting their swimsuits on for the day.

  This was our view from the back of our cabin. The buildings you seen on the other side of the lake are more cabins. Each cabin has 4 rooms with two sets of bunk beds in each room. Down stairs is a large community room and the bathrooms. Lillian and Claire shared a bottom bunk, Josh slept on the other bottom bunk and I was the lucky one who climbed up to the top.  

   At camp there are a ton of water activities. They have a pool with a diving board.

A huge water slide!

 



Claire got board while Josh was waiting for his turn to go down the slide. I am not a fan (actually, I am scared) of water slides and Lillian ad Claire were unsure about going down. Since the line was long and it would not have been fun for them to make it to the top and chicken out, Josh went down by himself.

He made it!

After lunch Josh played in the ultimate Frisbee game and paint balled, so Lillian, Claire and myself hung out with friends and they loved riding their scooters in the back of the cabin. It was a beautiful weekend and we spent almost all of the daylight hours outside enjoying it.

After paintball ended, Josh and some of the other adults took their turn on the blob. The picture kind of explains it all, but you jump off the platform onto this giant air inflated pillow type thing. You can't see him very well, but there is a teenage boy at the end of this blob on the red stripe, when the jumping person lands they other person gets launched up and sometimes off into the lake. After Josh jumped a few times we took the girls out in one of the paddle boats, but those things are not built to have extra passengers, so it was a short trip before heading back to the dock.

Lillian, Claire and many of the other little kiddos became obsessed with these bag worms. They were all over some of the shrubs by the dinning hall, so of course my bug loving girls had to check them out.

We skipped the Saturday night bonfire and spent some time hanging out just the four of us at the cabin blowing bubbles, coloring with sidewalk chalk, riding scooters again, and enjoying the beautiful evening.

                                     

 

Sunday ended our weekend at camp, but before we left we had church with some fantastic worship, I think even Josh started to sing along at one point, which he never does. Lillian and Claire were sad to leave, but as long as Josh has off, next we year plan on returning.