May/June

 We've had a busy few summer months.

After the concert we celebrated Mother's Day.  Caleb got me a record player and it's been really fun listening.  I can't wait for some White Christmas on it.

The kids finished school June 2 so we've already had quite a bit of summer.

Arya got to go to a few nights of theme park camping with a friend.

Caleb got the start of a really really amazing second sleeve, but I don't want to post pics until it's finished, which I suppose will be months from now.

Casen also got to spend a few days with friends.  He worked putting in hay on a horse farm making a few extra bucks and he also got to go on a chartered fishing boat for a birthday.

Casen got to spend a week at summer tech camp, which he really enjoyed.  He did some 3d printing, flying drones with coding, and even putting characters in video games.

Arya will be heading to a theater summer camp next week.  I'm so thankful their schools are offering so many opportunities in these no school months.

We celebrated Father's Day and my birthday.  They're only one day apart and Caleb unfortunately had to work Father's Day, so we did a little joint fancy dinner at our favorite local steak house.

I also was surprised when amazing Crumbl cookies were delivered to my doorstep.  Twins really do know what ya need.

Since Caleb works midnights, summer months can be a little tricky for us.  The kids don't have school to keep them busy during the day time sleeping hours so I tried something new this summer and so far it's been working really well.  

I made them summer binders.  It has full calendars of all the planned activities and events i'm aware of as well as Caleb's work schedule. It has a daily loose schedule of tasks my kids somehow forget are supposed to be done daily. I added a lego build challenge calendar (which I think has been the biggest hit.)  They have a reading challenge calendar, which Casen has already gone through once.  I really didn't expect five long chapter books to be done as quick as he did.  Lastly, it has a schedule of the days they're in charge of their own laundry (learning to wash loads themselves, dry, fold) and day's they're in charge of dinner.  They find the recipes, they come with me on grocery shopping days with a list and get their own ingredients, and they're in charge of cooking.  It has been so much fun.  I'm thankful they're learning really important life skills and we're able to make it into enjoyable activities.  Also...highly highly recommend summer binders!

Casen chose a salmon sheet pan dinner as one of his meals

And lastly, Casen somehow turned 12.  I say somehow, but his age is definitely showing these days.  He's way too cool for us, is finally liking sleep, and would choose video games over most else.

He informed me he may be too old to have birthday decorations, but that doesn't really fly with me, even Caleb gets the cheesy decor.

The kids always get to pick anything they want for birthdays.  Casen had simple requests.  He wanted blts for lunch, dad's homemade wings for dinner, get to play games with his friends during the day, and play games with us for the evening.  We had a lot of fun.  If you have older kids, you should definitely check out the game You've Got Crabs.  And his last birthday request was chocolate cupcakes with chocolate orange frosting and he wanted to make them himself.  They turned out delicious!

Now onto July, which means the annual New York trip :)

March/April

 What a two months it's been!

I just have to start the whole thing saying how truly incredible my husband is.

After working way more than 12 hour days I see this walking through the door after 10 pm

Unfortunately, he's had to attend too many funerals this year.  This month was particularly hard because Henrico lost one of their own.  I'm just so proud of Caleb and I'm not sure how he does what he does, but I'm so so thankful for him.

Thankfully, the sad parts didn't take up our entire time.

We finally had some visitors, which we always love.  I should have way more pictures, but for some reason I can't get them to attach.  The kids loved all the game playing and hikes they got to squeeze in and it was really nice to have a happy note in all the sadness.

Caleb, unfortunately had to work this easter, but we made the best of it.  

Since the kids are older, this year instead of eggs we decided to hide these especially hard items Skittles came out with.  It was so much fun and the kids both said they loved it even more than an egg hunt.  We've actually stumbled on a few from lawn mowing that they never did find.

 We welcomed another sweet little niece to the mix.  I can't wait to snuggle Raegan this summer!

And we got to end our month having one of the most fun moments I think we've ever had as a family.  If you've ever visited us you know that it's pretty rare to not hear music playing somewhere in our house.  Friday nights are spent checking out any new music, doing music trivia, watching old music videos.  Thankfully, everyone in our house just loves music.  When we found out we'd be able to get tickets for all of us to head to some of our favorite artists we couldn't pass it up....also not sure how we hit the jackpot and have kids who have the best taste in music!

I planned on getting a lot more photos and definitely a video or two, but it was just way too fun watching the kids have the time of their life.  I think Casen lost his voice a bit from singing so loud and Arya's little rock hands never left the sky.

I think we're able to be peeped in this one :)

We've been really loving all of our family time.  It's been so awesome watching the kids grow and get to hang out with them in a different way than we were able to when they were little.  They have such cool interesting personalities.  Our family walks each evening after dinner and connect four tournaments have just all seemed a little sweeter.

February

 We started the month with Arya's birthday.  I think this year might go down as her worst birthday ever.  The morning started out well.  She got to have a really fun art themed birthday and open a few presents and then she headed to school.  Around lunch time I got a call from the school nurse saying Arya wasn't feeling well and had a fever so I went and picked her up.  She came home and went straight to sleep.  She didn't want her birthday dinner or even her birthday cake and then her fever and throwing up stuck around for three days.  We put everything on hold and told her we'd have her cake whenever she was feeling up to it again.

Fast forward almost a week and she finally was feeling herself again.  We got out her cake, she requested and icecream one this year.  Unfortunately, we kind of overlooked the fact that this one happened to be gluten free....and it was terrible.  Sooo....we felt bad and had a birthday round three with a new normal cake that was edible.

I had a nice day with all my valentines this year too

And we discovered a super fun German spot near us that we've been enjoying

January

Basically the only photo I have from the month of January. We actually had snow a couple of times this month and the kids loved it.  Thankfully, we are now back to 60's and sun and my kind of winter. 

After 2 years we finally all caught covid and that's been our month.  

Onto February :)

 

December

 December was a super fun month for us.

On the first we got our tree up

We picked out our yearly new ornament

Caleb was able to go with our family friends from California to go see the Army/Navy game at Metlife stadium.  

We got to eat lots of delicious Virginia chestnuts 

We made yummy Christmas cookies

And then we celebrated Christmas.  Caleb unfortunately had to work so we had to push our Christmas up a few days...no one in our house really minded

I got a fancy waffle maker this year so we got to have a yummy breakfast for dinner on the actual day

And then we just got to celebrate what we've realized is the holiday we thrive in.  With Caleb's midnight schedule we are all night owls and sleep in late when there's no school.  We made a bunch of fun appetizers and the kids made it until just about 4 am.