06 August 2010

Family Time

Eric and I have been doing a lot of talking lately trying to make some decisions for our family. One of the things that we decided was most important right now was to keep our primary focus on the Lord and our secondary focus on our family. Everything is easier when you have the Lord on your side and your family close as well. Today we spent our day at Easton Town Center having a family day. The blessing of Eric not working full time is that he has more time to spend with us, so we got to spend time together during the week when Easton was less crowded. 

The kids had been given money that they were told to spend however they would like, and they really wanted to spend it at Build-a-Bear. They each had one stuffed animal from Build-a-Bear from previous birthdays, but they had never been back other than to window shop. On a recent window shopping excursion, Ava and I discovered that they were having a sale that ended today, so it worked out for them to use their money to get a new stuffed animal, outfit and shoes! They were pretty excited about it. We were pretty excited to because we rarely just take the kids somewhere to spend money like this.

Lukas chose a wolf to have stuffed. When he was given the traditional heart to put into the wolf, he was so not into that part. Having stuffed animals is still cool in his world, though I'm sure it won't be for too much longer, but giving the heart a beat,etc...must not be so cool anymore. He named his wolf Balto and got him a Darth Vader costume and black boots, all for one flat price. It was a pretty good deal as far as Build-a-Bear goes. If it had been my money being spent, I would have flipped out at the total. Geesh! I guess it was worth it to the kids, but I can think of 50 things on which to spend that money off the top of my head. They don't get toys like that very often.

Ava took forever to choose her stuffed animal. A pink bear, a blue bear, a purple bear (why did it have to have I-Carley on it????), a pink and orange bear just like Maia's (her cousin), a brown bunny with pink ears, and on and on it went. She finally chose a polar bear, the one she had originally said she wanted last week when she was window shopping. Go figure! When it was time to stuff her polar bear, she was very much into making sure her bear's heart was all set to last forever. She groomed her and then named her. She wanted to name her "Polar" until we convinced her that it was already part of her name. She decided to name her Blizzard, and she planned to call her Lizzie. Since coming home, Lizzie is out the door, and she just calls her Blizzard. Heehee! I love that girl!

When we were finished with Build-a-Bear, the kids and Eric had ice cream while I drank a fruit smoothie, and then we headed to the Easton fountain where the kids got to splash around for a while. Lukas was so excited to go to the fountain, and then he was tired of it after about 10 minutes. I guess he's growing up. Little things like this are popping up more and more all the time. The other night, we had a storm come through around 3:00 in the morning. The next day, he told me he had heard the storm, and it immediately occurred to me that he never came into our bedroom. Both of our kids always wander (more like race) into our bedroom when they're awakened by a storm. I won't be surprised if he arrives at my bedside again some time, but it is possible that he won't. It's one of those bittersweet moments when, on one hand, you're watching a little bit of their childhood slipping away, and, on the other hand, you're thinking about the day when you can sleep right through a thunderstorm unless it's loud enough to awaken you. Heehee! I'd rather be awakened by a child at this point in my life, but I'm sure the day will come when I'll appreciate that sleep....maybe.

We've done several very free but fun things this week. I guess Build-a-Bear wasn't free, but someone else paid for it, so I can't complain. We're going to do our best to enjoy the rest of our summer together with hopes that God has a job right around the corner somewhere for Eric. We're planning to hit a free beach on Lake Logan soon so that we can use the restaurant.com certificate that we printed and couldn't use the last time we went to Logan, and we may head to the art museum before the summer ends. I hear that admission is free during the summer, and when I mentioned that, the kids got pretty excited. Family time is the best, and summer allows for some great memory making opportunities.

Someone recently posted on facebook about a fall kick-off for something, and I wanted to scream, "Noooo!" I'm not ready for fall to kick-off yet. I love summer. Actually, I love so many things about fall too, but I love the extra free time I have with my family in the summer. June was an extremely busy month for us (2nd only to December for us). July wasn't much better. August is our month for refreshment. It seems to work out that way for us every summer. It's a good thing. We'll be ready to get our school year started soon enough! In the meantime, the McEvoys will continue to enjoy our summer time together!



No comments:

Post a Comment