Amazing how you can go from feeling beat down and discouraged in your parenting one day, to having a great day the next.  I'm sure that I'm not unique in this, but I struggle a lot with feeling guilty about who I am or how I'm doing as a parent.  Not present enough, easily distracted, frustrated easily with Aspen, not spending enough one on one time loving or snuggling with each of the kids (well, the older ones), don't lay in bed talking with Aspen often enough, too focused on keeping/getting the house clean, don't read enough to the kids, never help them build puzzles and rarely play games with them, don't spend regular or enough time with God, spend too much time online, have a tough time remaining emotionally engaged with the kids and my husband, and on and on it goes.  I was having one of those days yesterday.  And I've been wrestling with where to put Journey in Kindergarten for the past couple months - our local public school or Portland Christian with Aspen...

With only 2 weeks left before school starts, I'm really trying to enjoy each laid back morning of summer left.  Teague woke me up at 7am this morning.  Mom and Dad stopped by just after I woke up to drop Winston off.  Aspen is babysitting him for the next three days  :)  I made some coffee, and got to spend the first 15 minutes of my day with Teague.  Aspen, then the girls woke up a while later, we had a simple breakfast of toast and yogurt, and after some cartoons the kids were happy to go outside and play with Winston in the bright morning sunshine (something we haven't seen much of here in August).

After Teague's first nap, I took the kids to the sandhill.  I tried to get some group pictures...  not the easiest thing to do with 4 kids who would rather run up the sand hill!  They all climbed to the top, Aspen multiple times and made friends with other kids there.  We stopped at a Mexican food cart, and brought tamales home for lunch.  Fun to try something new, and honestly, I wasn't feeling like making another mess of the kitchen!

One of Aspen's "chores" of the day was burning....  He LOVES that chore  :)  When I went outside to take some pics, he was in the middle of explaining heaven to the girls.  "Heaven is where there are all the blankies you could ever think of....."  They would ask him if there was a red one, grey one, etc.  He told me to watch Willow, she was getting so excited about heaven that he said he was worried she was going to jump in the fire and kill herself, haha  (where does he get these things?).

After the fire was almost out, we packed up and headed to the beach.  I surprised the kids once we got there by telling them to change into their swim suits that I had packed.  They rarely get to play in the ocean for two reasons - 1.  mess  2. safety.  It makes me pretty nervous to let them play in the ocean when it's just me to watch all three of them in the water.  Today the ocean was fairly calm, and the beach was just beautiful.
They had a blast!

We ended our day watching Beetoven while eating dinner.  The kids crashed by 8pm, and I still need to clean up the kitchen and make cinnamon rolls for Willow's birthday tomorrow....  Every single birthday I ask myself why in the heck I started this tradition.  But then I make them, and am glad I did the next morning.  Mark went home to work yesterday, and will be back late tonight in time for Willow's birthday tomorrow.  A busy, but typical day in our life right now.