Adventures in Zombieland

The past few weeks have been so busy and surreal or maybe it just seems surreal because of the extreme heat (100+ degrees every day for the last 2.5 weeks) and sleep deprivation. Whatever it may be, I am soooo ready for life to S-L-O-W D-O-W-N a bit. I am STILL trying to catch up on sleep lost from before our lake party last month.

I shouldn't complain because we did this to ourselves. Well, actually my dad did the lake party to us (we had planned on skipping the party this year) but every weekend since Memorial Day (including that weekend) is all on us.  We hosted gatherings in our back yard with lots of people and kiddos and hobos and WASPS!!!  Note: The flying stinging insects were out in force this past weekend so I am resolving to craft a pretty wasp catcher to hang AWAY from the pool and popular gathering areas of our back yard. It's hard to relax on a flotation device with my favorite beverage (Modelo Especial with a whole lime, please!) when the bees and wasps are constantly buzzing us. Of course it's also hard to relax when we have a house/yard full of guests and the temperature is 106 in the shade too...and the kids are awake...

This past weekend may have put me over the edge on gatherings for a while. Maybe a weekend or two of only seeing my family's faces around the casa will make me feel like socializing again. As for now, I am planning on laying low and taking it easy for a bit...

In other news, we donated Aubri's bed last week and moved her into David's old toddler bed. David upgraded to Emi's old twin bed (and he looks so small sleeping in the twin bed) and Emi is now upstairs in HER room (finally).  [A friend of my sister's needed a toddler bed so that was the impetus to get going on the move.] I also went through all of the kiddos' things and winnowed things down again. I took 2 big boxes and 4 bags of clothing/shoes/toys to the Salvation Army today. So glad to have that space free in the basement. The piles of stuff were mocking me as I was making my way through the piles of laundry on the other side of the stairs.)  From what I can tell, the new sleeping arrangements are affording the kids some quality sleep. Emi said she's had the best sleep ever upstairs (good for her!). Kirby likes to sleep in the Little Ones' room and Abbey likes to sleep upstairs with Emi. Kirby sometimes oversteps his boundaries and jumps up on Aubri's bed (the only bed he can manage to get up on) and she cries until we remove him. I think she likes the idea of him on her bed, but then he cramps her style.

Totally unrelated but worth a mention: When putting Aubri into her car seat last week she said to me "You look like Michael Jackson!" (Dear God! Is it the new shorter do or the bags under my eyes?  Either way, where's the propofol?)

* The photo above was captured last Friday when I picked Emi up...those clouds were a teaser!