Happy Memorial Day Weekend! As the kids are getting a little bit older, we are taking the opportunity to teach them about more serious topics, in an age appropriate way, of course. This weekend, we taught them about Memorial Day and how we are celebrating the lives of the soldiers who died in order to keep us safe. As we were leaving our local aquarium, we passed a statue that had information about a local service member who lost his life in Iraq.

He was protecting a children’s hospital when he was killed. Taylor asked a lot of questions about all of this: what happened to the kids / where did he go when he died / was his family sad / where are the rest of the soldiers, etc. We explained everything on a five year old level, until she was satisfied. We explained to her that there are always service members protecting us from “the bad guys” which is why we get to live the life we do. She seemed pleased with our words. It’s such a hard thing to do, as a parent. We didn’t want to give her too much information to the point where we’d scare her and keep her awake at night, but we did want to be honest with her and help her learn and understand.

We had a very fun weekend and kept quite busy. We celebrated a friend’s birthday, went to the aquarium to see the new flamingo exhibit, went to playgrounds, went out for ice cream, took walks on the beach, etc. It was nice to have a few days all together.

One of the things that we did with the kids, which they marked as one of their favorite activities, was making smores. The marshmallows we bought were obscenely large and the smores were a mild disaster. We decided to make a smores dip instead, which was an absolute fan favorite. We ended up using the microwave for it, which excited the kids to no end. They stood on top the the counter and watched as the marshmallows expanded. Their faces were priceless and filled with such child-like innocence. I love when simple things that require very little effort make them so excited. It really is fun to watch!

We may have had to give a few extra baths this weekend and we may have sticky furniture (compliments of sneaky little children) but we are happy, we are healthy, and we are making memories.