A Close to Home Weekend

Hello, hello! Happy Monday to YOU. How was your weekend? I hope it was a lovely combination of fun and relaxing!

Our weekend kicked off on Friday night with Chase’s first soccer game of the season. This is the first year Chase has been on a real team that competes against other teams (it’s still just a rec league so nothing too serious) but oh my gosh, I was NOT prepared for how stressed I would feel watching him play!

I admittedly don’t find soccer to be the most interesting sport so I honestly thought I might be a little bored on game days but apparently when I have a child on the field, everything changes.

I was majorly invested and Ryan kept laughing at me and asking how I was doing because I was stressing so much! I can’t really pinpoint why I was so invested but know my feelings were rooted in my desire for Chase to have a good first-game experience (win or lose). I didn’t want him feel any of his mistakes too deeply and just wanted him to walk away with his love for the game still very much in tact. And he did!

Chase’s first game was really cool and a big learning experience for Chase and his teammates. They won and Chase had two really awesome blocks and really gave his best effort on the field. On the car ride home, Chase said game days are awesome and is already looking forward to his next game on Friday. Let’s just hope my heart can take the stress again. Ha!

Saturday

On Saturday morning we kept things low key. (Well, the boys and I did. Ryan is all-in on his half ironman training so he spent 2.5 hours biking and then ran 9 miles on Saturday morning. Phew!) Chase seemed a little low energy on Saturday and said he wasn’t feeling 100 percent so we took that as a sign to stay close to home.

After digging into banana bread protein pancakes for breakfast, the boys mostly entertained themselves in the morning but seemed down for a walk around the neighborhood before lunch. We stopped for a a little playtime at the park near our house (we were the only ones there) before heading home and digging into sandwiches, cucumber slices and strawberries.

Eventually Ryan got Rhett down for his nap and I settled Ryder in his room for some quiet time with books and toys before it was time for our big event of the day: Picking up fertile chicken eggs to care for over the course of the next 21 days!

Chase accompanied me on the drive to Two Little Acres Homestead in Steele Creek where we picked up our eggs, an incubator and instructions for the Hatch-a-Chick Experience our whole family is thrilled to be doing together.

The experience is an educational experience offered by a local family who raises pasture-raised chickens and other animals “with lots of sunshine, fresh air, access to bugs, grasses and shrubs” and the animals “eating the way nature intended.” During our 21 days with the eggs, we’re responsible for keeping the eggs warm in the incubator (99.5 degrees + 50% humidity) and will be able to watch them hatch and keep them for a couple of days until we will return them to the farm. I will never forget hatching chicks and ducks in my elementary school science class and can already tell the boys think this whole experience is amazing.

Once we had all of our eggs set up in the incubator and Rhett was awake from his nap, we took the boys to the pool for one of our final swims of the summer!

(I love the above pic of Ryder. At what point do we stop jumping into the pool with utter abandon? There’s just so much joy in that jump!)

The water was COLD but you know that didn’t stop our boys from splashing around!

We stayed at the pool until dinnertime and then headed off to Five Guys for burgers with the boys already sporting their pajamas.

(One of my favorite mom hacks of the summer has been changing the boys into their pajamas before leaving the pool in the evenings.)

We also could not resist grabbing some frozen custard from Andy’s located in the same shopping plaza before calling it a night!

I opted for the s’mores concrete which was delicious but I’ll be sticking with my usual go-to order (the Snowmonster — aka strawberry with melted chocolate chips) in the future.

Sunday

On Sunday morning our plans centered around visiting the house and checking on progress.

We’re a little more than a week into painting now and most of the effort has centered around painting windows and trim and priming everything so the house is looking very white at the moment. I’ll be excited to see some color added through paint and wallpaper soon!

I also wanted to see how the kitchen pendants I bought would look over our island so we brought one of them by for Ryan to hold up and I’m happy to say I think it will be perfect in that space.

For some reason kitchen island pendants have taken me the longest to choose (they just feel so visible and central to our home) and it feels good to have that decision done.

The boys spent most of our time at the house playing in the rocks and sand out front. Since they seemed content, Ryan and I took advantage of their imaginative play and sat on our new front steps and chatted while the boys played and brought us various pretend smoothies they made in the sand pit.

After our time at the house, we came back home, played baseball in the yard, ate lunch and then Rhett napped while I stayed back with the big kids so Ryan could head out to help his dad move into a new apartment.

I managed to squeeze in a little work time while the big kids played and then Ryan arrived home and we spent more time hanging outside before wrapping up our weekend with movie night (aka an episode of Alaska Animal Rescue), story time, baths and bed.

This week is the first week all of the boys are back in school on their normal schedules (Rhett and Ryder’s preschool does a staggered start so they’ve been on and off) and I’m looking forward to getting into a real rhythm and officially beginning the school year for our family. I hope you all have a great week and, as always, I appreciate you making my blog a part of your day!