"Oh, What Do You Do in the Summertime?"

It's been a few weeks since my last post and I must admit, it has been an adjustment with the boy since I stopped working. I decided to adopt a summer schedule, a routine we could have so that boredom and cabin fever wouldn't set in...as much.

I'm a bit of a cheapskate so I assumed that doing activities with the boy would be too expensive. Apparently, there are lots of free things or inexpensive ways to spend our time. I took the boy to the movie theater last Friday and was expecting to pay $4 (not expensive, just expecting to pay) for the summer promotional kids' price but was pleasantly surprised to get in for FREE! I couldn't have expected anything better; the first time I take the boy to try out a movie we got in for free so it didn't cost me anything to experiment. By the way, he loved it! I was his seat the whole time though, at least I wasn't cold.

When you live on the surface of the sun otherwise known as Phoenix, Arizona, there's very few outdoor activities to do, so a mom's gotta get creative. Pinterest strikes again!

I have a love/hate relationship with Pinterest. There are tons of great ideas but with that comes the anxiety of trying to carry them out.

So I've decided to take the boy to the library on Mondays, play in the water on Wednesdays, take him to the movies on Thursdays and drop in on friends on Tuesdays or Fridays. With all of these activities I still manage to get regular house maintenance done. Even though the boy is a lot like me, I think it's good for him to be home and play with his own toys.

What do you do in the summertime?

~Lady Jane

Hostess Without

I like parties. I love meeting and talking to people but there's a reason I still haven't held a housewarming party and we've been here for 9 months and 23 days. I crumble under the pressure of being responsible for other people's happiness. Maybe that's why the boy is so bored now that he can walk, talk and basically have other little toddler friends.

I found an old notebook where I planned a pretty cute 2nd birthday for the boy a year ago and to be honest, if someone else had been in charge of carrying out my vision, it would have been an adorable party. He was obsessed with Toy Story at the time and so I thought it would be fitting to have star-shaped cantaloupe, cool ranch and barbecue chips with the appropriate quote from the first film, Teddy Grahams and strawberry frosting for Lotso Huggin' Bear, and other themed food. Sounds cute right? I hope. We did half the stuff that I mentioned and we didn't even really decorate.

So for the boy's 3rd birthday, I kept it really low-key. I mean really low, like two octaves below middle C. We invited our dear friends and their sweet little girl and my parents for a barbecue. I even asked our guests not to bring the boy any more toys (he has plenty to play with and I'm starting to wonder where to store all of it in an orderly manner). I love that the boy was born in March, it is so beautiful in AZ. There was a lovely breeze that allowed us to open the windows and doors and breathe in the fresh spring air. I knew this was the last year I could pull this off, so I did the least amount of work possible.

I think the reason why I feel so pressured to do something amazing for the boy's birthdays is the recent invention of Pinterest. It's an amazing site for all things, house and pretty much life related, but I wonder how many people actually pull off the parties that have been planned by SAHM, not a professional.

And one more for good measure...

Stay tuned for my thoughts on personality types :)

~Lady Jane