Dirty Dawgs

This is the end result of an entire day of playing outside. I actually had to fill the tub, drain it, and refill it to wash the kids as the water got so disgusting. We had a great play group this morning, and I learned that there is absolutely nothing funnier than putting a sliding board into a kiddy pool ~ The hilariaty was contagious watching the kids slide wet and slippery and squealing into the quickly filthy water. We came home for their naps, then I took the kids for a run (pushing 76 lbs of children in a 30some lb stroller is WORK, let me tell you) then spent the rest of the afternoon at the park right behind our house. I made my first batch of popsicles, which I gave to the kids after stripping them naked. Popsicle stickiness mixed with a mulch toss between Luke and Jules resulted in these pictures. Notice that my son is not put off by a little dirt, and swooped right in for a kiss on his sticky mulch encrusted sister.

I'm having a hard time finding balance lately. It's hard to find the right mix of doing for your kids, and doing for your house, doing for your husband, and doing for yourself. I seem to have weeks where all we do are play dates every morning, which is both awesome and terrible for me ~ awesome because I am with my girlfriends and the kids are playing with other kids, but terrible because I have learned that if I don't go to the gym in the AM, I don't go. I seem to have weeks where I to the gym every day except play group day, but then at the end of the week find I am missing my friends terribly. So I go on a play date frenzy, meeting up with someone every morning somewhere (park, playground, moon bounce, Please Touch Museum, Zoo etc) and don't get to the gym at all except to use the pool with the kids. It's always such a work in progress. My new goal is to try to map out gym mornings and play date mornings at the beginning of each week, so that I mix things up better. Summer is in full swing, and I love the freedom of being outside all the time. I am trying not to dread the fall, as it is my favorite season, but lurking stealthily behind fall is the dreaded winter, of colds, and jackets, and too much time inside.

In other news, Luke has officially embraced "I" and "my/mine/me". Up until now he only talked about himself in the third person (you know, like TO)~ "Luke want that", or "Luke likes that". Every day new phrases tumble out of his mouth. Little gems like:

~ But Mama, I don't like dat one big bug! (a spider)
~ Yeah, me too! (which still makes me laugh every time he says it)
~ My finger is in Julia's yogurt Mama!
~ Oh my gosh, its rainin Mama!

The oh my gosh thing also immediately made me laugh out loud. My baby is using slang. He is already endlessly entertaining, I can't wait to see what this fully conversational little person has to say.