Happy Earth Day! I meant to get this post out earlier, but my phone stopped working and I nearly lost thousands of pictures. Thankfully, I got it back up and running long enough to save everything to my external hard drive so I wouldn’t lose it! It was the kick in the butt I needed to save my pictures more frequently.

Taylor has been learning about the environment and ways we can help save the planet. We’ve discussed recycling, planting flowers, not littering, etc. to reinforce what she’s learning in class. When we were stopped at a red light on the way home from school the other day, she said: “You know mom. Your truck is really big and we could make the Earth better if we all walked places instead.” I was called out by a four year old!

Facebook’s “On This Day” feature reminded me of Earth Day last year. We celebrated by helping Taylor’s class plant flowers. It’s so funny to look back and see how small she was just a year ago. She is growing so quickly! This year, she HAD to have an outfit that looked like the Earth. I had purchased this one from a boutique site when it was on clearance. I’m still not sure how I feel about it, but she loves it. Todd thinks it looks like she’s wearing pajamas. T loves that it is perfect for “twirling” and is very excited, so that’s what matters. She also has an Earth Day hair clip!  I’m sure there are worse clothing choices for four year olds out there anyway. And like Diane once said to me, “That girl can make a brown paper bag look good.” Truth.

The “On This Day” feature also reminded me that we have lived in this house for exactly six years now! When Todd and I (and Ranger) moved in, we couldn’t believe how much space we had. The house seemed massive for the two of us and we joked that we’d gradually fill it up over the next few years. We were kind of ambitious I guess! Now that we have kids, I wish we had a bigger backyard, larger bedrooms, etc., but we love this house and our neighborhood so much. We seriously have the best neighbors ever and have amazing relationships with most of the people in our immediate area. Everyone looks out for everyone else and is so helpful. We have many impromptu play dates and dinners. It’s so wonderful knowing that our kids have so many friends their age to grow up with, and so nice to have adults that we love nearby! You can’t put a price on that.

Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t partake in the Star Wars franchise (or the Harry Potter franchise for that matter) at all. It’s just not my thing. Todd is into both, however, so being the awesome wife that I am, we rented “The Force Awakens” last weekend. He really enjoyed it! I couldn’t even pretend to follow along, so I read a book instead. Todd mentioned how much he loved the movie, so he’s now the proud owner of it, courtesy of my parents. They have shopping problems. My dad, specifically loves going to multiple stores every weekend and slowly perusing each and every aisle. (Hi Dad! You know I’m kidding.)

We had a pretty laid back weekend around here, which was a welcome change. We were sitting down and looking at the calendar, and Taylor has 7 birthday parties coming up! She won’t be able to make it to all of them, but the idea alone is daunting. If her social life is this busy at four, I don’t even want to think of the teenage years…times three. Joseph was not a good listener at dinner and practiced his aim with throwing food against the wall instead. He lost dessert privileges and got to watch his siblings eat delicious sugar cookies without him. He wasn’t happy, but he needed to learn. The kids went downstairs as we were cleaning up, and Todd walked in the family room to find that Joseph has used his Spider-Man climbing skills yet again, to get an entire economy size bag of animal crackers on his own. He had cheeks full and was eating as fast as he possibly could, knowing that he was going to get them taken away. This boy is fresh, but clever.