2.  Your child takes their blankie and curls up on the little kid couch in the waiting area of the Hourly Care center and starts to go to sleep.

3.  You say it’s time to go to bed, and your 2 1/2 yr old daughter walks around looking for where she needs to go and doesn’t realize she gets to stay home and go to bed.

4.  Your car looks like an adult and 2 children have taken up permanent residence.

5. You can’t find something, and realize that it’s probably in the car with the remainder of your belongings since nothing ever gets brought back into the house.

and….

6.  You haven’t sat down for longer than 30 minutes today and had a laundry list of things to get done in one very short day…and no, I’m not going to ask for more hours in the day…I’d just be even more tired!!!

I think the kids and I need a day off!

 Lara using the kickboard

  Ethan having fun using the kickboard

If you have facebook, there are some better quality videos.  The pool is indoors (we are in WA after all) and the flash makes the photos too dark.  But, this is with my little point and shoot camera and not my nice one.  

 Lara practicing kicks on her back

 Ethan practicing his kicks

On another note, I lost another 2.4 lbs and hit my first 5 lbs!  Next goal, 10 lbs so 5 more to go!

We spent the day with friends (what would life be if you didn’t have fantastic friends to help keep you busy during a deployment!?) and enjoyed our little town’s parade with lots of fancy sports cards (corvettes primarily), horses, a re-enactment group that shot blank rounds and sent Lara running into my lap, horses, a marching band and just over-all fun times.  There was then a free carnival with  train rides, bounce houses, music, balloons…you name it, they had it.  For having to handle two kids by myself, I was a little nervous, but, thanks to fabulous friends, we all helped each other out with the kids and the day went pretty smooth.  I then grilled some chicken burgers and hot dogs for dinner and we played outside in the back yard. I’d say it was a pretty good day….except for the fact that Lara didn’t sleep well and Charlie was a nervous wreck thanks to the fireworks going off in the neighborhood.  They are legal here, which is kind of a pain.  But, this year was definitely better than previous years with them stopping much earlier.

  Ethan’s orange balloon sword.

Here are some examples of our snacktaxi’s!  We LOVE them!

I love that I’m saving quite a few plastic baggies every time we pack a picnic lunch.  Plus, don’t have to worry about packing lunches only to find you’re out of baggies!  I have 4 of the sandwich sacks and 4 of the snack sacks.  Really, I bought them to see if I could figure out how to make them myself.  But, I think it’s alot easier to just buy them

Here are some photos from the zoo:

It was another warm day, but we had fun as usual. Of course, we always wish that Bryan was here with us!