A week of Saturdays

Matt was home the whole week this past week ... hooray! It was like having an entire week of Saturdays :) I think we're all going to have a rude awakening tomorrow when real life begins again.

Some of the highlights included Mommy having a whole afternoon to herself (of course, part of that alone time included a trip to the grocery store and a visit to the doctor, but still ...), a trip to the Betty Brinn Children's Museum in Milwaukee (awesome, awesome, awesome!), canning 14 quarts of salsa, having a playdate with Abby and Jessica so Matt could have some "alone time", freezing the corn (around 120 cups!), cleaning out the garage, a handful of bike rides for everyone but Kate, and today we're canning 14 quarts of spaghetti sauce. Whew! All that and Matt was able to get a bunch of items crossed off on his "honey-do" list :)

There was also quite a bit of just plain hanging out around the house or outside in the yard. Anna was certainly in heaven having both parents around all week and I was definitely spoiled in terms of having help with all of the normal house stuff (diapers, dishes, dirty laundry, etc.)

It was hard to stop long enough to take many pictures this week, but here's a few that provide a snapshot of our lives.


As you can see here, Anna has no problems eating corn on the cob, as long as it's cool enough. She's getting much more efficient at it, too :) As a side note, while we were starting the corn process on Friday morning our creative daughter decided to play with the ears of corn that were too young to freeze. She kept herself busy with these for a good half hour ... putting them down the slide, placing them in a watering can, describing to them things in the yard, putting them in the basketball hoop, etc. :)



Kate loves sitting in her Bumbo (which is a perk we didn't have when Anna was younger). This way she can keep an eye on whatever is going on around her, as well as discover her feet! She still gets tired pretty fast in it, though; all that work to keep her crazy head up.



A great phrase Anna is becoming very adept at using is "Mommy, what is that?", although seen below I believe it was "Daddy, what is that?" We hear that often when we're someplace new, or even if there's something in the kitchen that wasn't there the last time she looked.

Anna was able to spend a bit of time with Matt in the garage over the past few days and I think Matt was asked the question a LOT.

Another phrase we've heard a lot from Anna recently is "I need ___________ right now!", often accompanied by tears and frustrated cries in the midst of a tantrum. Ahh ... being 2 ...

The only real downer for the week was that Kate and I contracted another cold. Kate seems to be handling it much better than me, but of course she gets to nap during the day. What a summer of colds we've had! Must be this crazy weather with 40 or 50degree temperature swings every week or so. Well, back to real life ...