Life goes on.... and on....

After my parents were up and running on generators and life had calmed down madi and I headed for home. Madi had been gone almost a full month so I was excited to have her home. She was such a trooper with the drive and it was fun mom/daughter time. 

We made a stop at bear world, it was neat. Not quite what I was expecting, but neat. There was a guy that talked about what bears do and such and he was funny.... But it was basically a fenced in circle with 2 bears in it. I guess I was expecting more, but for $8 it was worth a break on our trip. 

Chillin in the pool with a bone. 

She quickly fell asleep afterward so must have been stimulating to her brain! 

It was great to get home and get back to the daily routine of life. I was super blessed because I left mason with Brian and had arranged for a friend from church to watch him. She was so great! But it turned out that my sis-in-law and her family were coming through. They ended up keeping mason with them throughout the week so brian didn't have to worry about it! They went to my mother-in-law's house during the week so mason was well loved. It was a huge tender mercy for me. 

Considering i had never left mason anywhere overnight his first "without mommy" overnighter lasted a whole week! Yet he didn't miss a beat when he saw me. It was like "oh ya, hey mom. What's up?" But this little guy is growing up and it's fun to watch and see how he is changing. He is going through a shoe phase. He loves shoes, and any kind of shoe. He doesn't like to leave them on real long, but will make some serious gestures/noises to get some help to put the shoes on. Here we have him in princess shoes. Not really my favorite style for him, but hilarious to watch him try and walk. He feels the need for speed at all times and goes from a complete stop to a full run and these shoes don't accommodate that very well. He slows up and then tries to speed up again and does the wobble dance. It's so funny. We only get 2 attempts and then he is mad at the shoes and throwing a fit to get them off. Maybe he is mildly embarrassed because his mother is laughing at him?

I will be doing an 18 mo. Post for mason in September so I will save all his stories for then, but coming home from work, this is often the face that travels in the back. 

And this is the usual dinner/snack routine. 

Toddlers can find the oddest positions to sleep in. That doesn't seem comfy to me.....

Madi was right back to her norm of changing outfits at least 3x/day. :) I think this one is a winner though!

We went as a family to the Billings fair. Seemed like a good idea at the time. I often forget that a 4 yr. old and a 17 mo. old don't have the attention span to watch a whole supercross. So we taught mason about selfies. Ha ha we were doing anything to keep him happy for the last 45 mins. 

Getting the hang of it....

Here was madi showing off her skills. 

I have probably 75 pictures that range from this face...

To this face. 

After the race we went to the rides. Madi was in heaven! Mason just got packed around in the stroller. No rides for him yet. I'm surprised at how run down the equipment is, and how outrageously expensive it is. You buy tickets to make yourself feel better about spending $4 for a 45" ride on some metal contraption that looks and sounds like it has been around since 1970. But alas we did it anyways. Her face was priceless though! She had a lot of fun and that was fun for us. We even went on some of the rides with her. 

She got to go on this one by herself. She was loving the train. 

It was my turn to take her on the mini roller coaster. You know the little one you see at all the fairs that looks really slow and lame. Well being on it, it had a little more kick than it seems, and also seems to go in tight circles which make an old mom dizzy. Ha ha ha I guess I'm not what I used to be! But surprisingly fun. 

This picture is me shopping at albertsons. These carts are the greatest invention! They make my shopping much easier.... For the first 20 mins. 

Then this starts happening. She begins to pick on mason and just enough to make him yell and then she proceeds to look at him and ask him what his problem is. Then other times she truly does care and is pulling him to sit down because he is not being safe but he has ha enough already so then he yells again. I'm not sure how I really feel about these carts. Because you also have the drop-off of the cart, where everyone is mad and crying because they aren't done with the cart yet. It's a canundrum I tell you. 

But after a day of shopping this is my drive home. This is peaceful. :) and happy. 

It's good to be getting closer to the end of summer. We are establishing more routines and getting into a system. I'm excited for next week when madi starts her headstart program!