Hi, friends! Today I bring you the latter half of summer. It has come to my attention that even with the hot weather, I can’t deny summer’s end. It’s the end of September, Cece has already been back to school for well over a month, and there’s  pumpkin spice coffee creamer in our refrigerator.  So, before we have snow on the ground, I want to document the best of the end of summer 2017.

July was a good month! The girls flexed their entrepreneurial muscles as they held a lemonade stand in our neighborhood.  It was a fun process for them as they helped get everything from the grocery store, set up, and then work it!

We also enrolled the girls in a two-week swim class at the Y. (Just look at that expression of… focus on Rosie’s face.) I wish I could tell you that they became rockstar swimmers, but…. they kind of ended up as swim class flunkies since they wouldn’t put their faces in the water. (Can you hear my heavy sigh?)

When not being girl bosses or flunking swim class, the girls got centered and zen by practicing yoga. (HA! Just kidding. We did a little bit of yoga once on a Sunday morning… which basically just turned into a balancing competition. But we also did some skin scrubs and painted our nails to make it a totally restorative Sunday)

Speak of yoga, I got to do the BEST kind of yoga at The Dancing House! Over the summer, Melissa held a couple  FREE customer appreciation events which consisted of a yoga class followed by wine. Look how happy I am chatting with my new friend Sheri! These were actually my first post-baby yoga classes and wow was it different and easier not having a watermelon attached to my front side.

Throughout the summer, our love of our neighbors remained strong. The girls played outside daily with their friends, riding bikes, zooming around in the jeep, making “nature collections’ and more. This is the kind of stuff I had always hoped they would do during their summers and I couldn’t be more grateful that we live in such a fun and social neighborhood.

As far as meals go, even in the summer, our tradition of big weekend breakfast stayed strong. (Thank you Joe!)

Much to the girls’ delight we managed an official picnic this summer. Much to MY delight, our food of choice was Lunchables so this was basically the most low-maintenance picnic ever.

Before summer’s end, I took the three kiddos to Stillwater by myself which I am still high-fiving myself about since even on a hot day, they were all well-behaved and adaptable when we had to change lunch plans. We visited Teddy Bear Park and cooled off with some frozen yogurt. Good times!

 I’m happy to report that Rosie’s love of Ares is still going strong. She calls him her best friend (but then again, she calls everyone her best friend, so I’m not sure how much weight that statement carries.)

Even though the girls have (fake) crabby expressions in the top picture, they loved the family  trip we took out to Crystal Cave. We panned for gems and learned a lot about caves and cave exploration. They still talk about it and have been asking to go back!

August rolled around and Ares turned 3 months old. Although I feel like time flew with each baby, I feel that his life is moving at a super accelerated pace! In a short time he went from snuggly infant to an alert chubby baby who loves babbling, squealing, reaching for everything, and watching all that his sisters do.

In August, I turned 31 in the very best way possible… with my family! My sister and Mom came into town and we enjoyed some amazing birthday meals. We had basically the best dinner ever at The Lexington where my brother works. Joe stayed home and watched the kiddos so I could really enjoy some time with my mom and siblings. It was one of the best dinners I’ve ever had. I pretty much had to be rolled out of the building.

On my actual birthday we went out to lunch at LOLO in Hudson that I’ve been wanting to try and it did not disappoint!

I think what the girls would find most notable about August is that we finally took them to Knoke’s in Hudson and they are obsessed… well I am too a little bit because chocolate.

Before Cece returned to school we tried to squeeze in all of the park experiences. We hiked to the waterfall at Willow River. The girls loved the waterfall, but were not exactly thrilled with having to hike back to the car. I carried Ares. Joe carried Rosie. No one carried Cece and she was not pleased about that. Roundtrips can be hard.

 As you can see, they were crazy about the new tire swing at Grandview. Minimal hiking required that day.

On Cece’s last day of summer vacation she requested that we go to the Crayola Experience at the Mall of America. So I packed up the kids and we did just that. Since it was a little crazy trying to manage everyone at the crowded mall, I didn’t take any pictures except this one that Cece wanted by the Minnesota Viking crayon.

August ended with Joe taking a trip out to Breckenridge, Colorado for his final Spartan Race of the season… the beast! He was gone for three days and ran an awesome race! He finished 33rd of 234 in the Elite group. He looks absolutely in his element in Colorado (muscles and mountains photograph well together, don’t they?) and I hope we can go out there together someday!

While he was gone, I held down the fort at home (barely). We missed him a whole lot and I give a TON of credit to parents who have a spouse who travels frequently. Every meal, dirty dish, wardrobe malfunction, and sibling fight, and bedtime story was all mine with no backup. Still, as tiring and as messy as those three days were, I’m grateful that I was able to take care of our boo boos and that we had no major mishaps!

If you made it this far, thank you so much for stopping by and reading about our summer! I hope you’ve been enjoying this weird, warm fall. Hoping I can start cranking out more frequent posts with one kiddo in school!