Summer to Fall.

Summertime seems like a lot of work sometimes.  Sure, we had fun!  We went camping (2 times!), took kiddos climbing (twice!), floated the river (twice!), saw tons of friends (TONS!), went to some amazingly fun weddings and even took a sweet vacation river float trip sans kiddos.  We loved every minute of those activities.  

It was all the minutes in between the activities that seem to stress me out...  The planning/packing/babysitters/dogs/working/laundry/housekeeping/cooking/exercising/gardening/playing with my boys type stuff...  I can’t seem to find a good balance between family and home life, activities with family and friends, and work.  And I feel like I am constantly letting people down when I choose family over friends, or friends over family, or me over anything.  I am pretty sure it doesn’t get any easier as time goes on either… especially as the boys get involved in activities.   Yikes.   The age-old mom question, right?  Cause I am pretty sure I am not the only one who has these struggles!  So, hopefully eventually I just learn how to deal with the in-between times and find the balance I seek.  And hopefully I will just bite the bullet and hire a housekeeper.  I know Steve would probably appreciate that :)

All that to say… I am SO EXCITED to feel that fall is in the air.  The changing of seasons!  Fall means that activities slow down, the self-imposed pressure and need to introduce my kids to every type of fun activity that can be done under the sun slows down (along with less sun of course which is the bummer tradeoff), weeding the garden slows down, and in general, life just mellows out a little bit.  I need this little bit.  Of course work is picking up for both Steve and I, but considering that everything else is slowing down a bit this is a much more manageable time for that to happen.  

Coupled with the fact that I seriously do love the changing of the seasons every few months, and I just had a rare weekend to just be home for two days straight – I have been a little giddy the last few days.  And of course I merely spoke the word “fall” and Steve started drooling and watching ski movie trailers…  Aaaahhh, that’s just life married to a ski bum.

Now sit back and feast your eyes on the cuteness overload that I get to see every day...
As well as some other randoms of course...

This is one of the boys' FAVORITE things to do - ride around the field with Daddy on (in Forest's words) "Daddy's momo-psycho"

We are the best at self portraits.  Seriously.

Like I said, the best.

No, seriously.

I finally punched a hole in my nose.  See that tiny dot?  I LOVE IT!!

"Hello Mommy"

Barn party!

"Cheese"!  (Sent from Julie while I was at work)

I have been working a lot lately.  Bleh.

Mark took this lovely photo of Olaf and I after he got out of the pool last weekend.

And he took this lovely one too!  Forest is such a sweet little ALMOST TWO year old :)