A Splendid Day

We had a really nice day today. Jenn and her 19 month old daughter, Holly, came over for a playdate this morning. The three kids did play the whole time, but they didn't interact with each other that much. Ian tried to play with Holly, but she was just as interested in playing with him as Nadia is. I really enjoyed some adult conversation as aside from conversations on the phone with my mom and mother-in-law, the only adult I generally talk to over the course of a week is Paul (and not very much with him as I often don't stay up very long after Nadia goes to bed). Thanks for coming over, Jenn! After they left we had lunch and played some more and then I put the kids down for a nap. Ian didn't take a long nap, BUT it was the first time since I can't remember when that he didn't cry very long after I put him down. As usual he then continued his nap in my arms. I can't type while he's napping in my arms so I've been using that time to edit my blog (deleting sections of posts and entire posts in preparation for printing it at some point this year).

After Nadia woke up we headed to the playground because it was just plain gorgeous outside. I put matching Steeler windbreakers on the kids (gifts from our neighbor who bought them at a yardsale), but honestly we didn't need coats. It was so lovely outside. I can't wait for winter to be completely over. Have I mentioned that winter is by far my least favorite season of the year? Well it is! We spent an hour at the park. All three of us had a blast. Ian now LOVES to swing. I can't wait until trips to the playground become a regular part of our schedule again. All three of us wore our green for St. Patrick's Day. Here's to hoping it's not raining tomorrow afternoon so we can go back and enjoy another day with temps in the 60s!

Dinner didn't go well. Feeding a toddler is not such a fun experience. In the end I just let her eat a banana because I figured eating fruit wasn't a horrible option although I plan on serving her dinner to her until she eats it tomorrow. The crazy thing is that it's a casserole which has macaroni and cheese in it, and she likes macaroni and cheese. Ian however ate 10.5 ounces of baby food today! WOOOHOO! That's a new record!!! It was all fruit (three different kinds), but still he ate all of it by spoon!

I also got some cleaning done today, and believe it or not that's part of the reason I thought today was such a great day. One of the tasks on the planner today was to clean the tops of the kitchen cabinets. Oh. My. Word. I am wondering if anyone had EVER dusted up there before. It was really, really disgusting. However, I like cleaning tasks where it feels like I really accomplished something, and that definitely happened today. Another task on the planner today was to clean out the cars. That was an easy task for my car, but that would be a major project if I truly cleaned out Paul's car. I did take out some garbage from his car this morning. A little cleaning is better than none, right? Looking through the sheets I am starting to figure out the frequency for various tasks - the refrigerator gets totally cleaned out once a month although that's broken into many smaller tasks (ex. just clean out the drawers one day), the downstairs gets vacuumed once a week, the upstairs gets vacuumed every two weeks, etc. I am not sure how often she says to sweep out the garage, but I added that to today's list because I figured if I cleaned that it would decrease how much dirt we track into the kitchen. I didn't finish dusting Paul's office yesterday, but as I looked at next week's list I saw "dust the office" is on the list for next week. I guess when it says "dust children's bedrooms" I only need to dust Ian and Nadia's bedrooms. Live and learn!

I haven't been very good about taking pictures lately. I'll make up for that by posting a few extra ones in this post. Enjoy!