Quick Takes-- June Updates Edition

Finishing up our June updates with some Quick Takes!

--1--

Friday (June 7) was our dance recital dress rehearsal.

A Friday evening rehearsal on the night when N also had her 5th-grade ice cream social at school an hour away meant that I drove a traffic-y hour to pick up C and L early from school (it turned into an on-time pickup rather than early due to the aforementioned traffic) while M stayed with N at the ice cream social.  We drove another traffic-y hour back to the dance recital rehearsal and made it with about four minutes to whisk J into the bathroom, do a bun in her hair, and slip on her costume while C applied blush and L applied lipstick at the same time.  She was only a minute late for her dance slot on stage.

As J was dancing I began doing hair and applying makeup to C, which is slightly more involved because she wears Allllll the makeup (foundation, powder, full eye shadow panel, eyeliner, mascara, blush, lipstick).  In about 30 minutes she was ready!

She danced the opening number plus her competition dance.

After all the frantic panic of the day I was finally able to sit for a minute and enjoy watching C, despite the fact that J asked me *quite literally* every 30 seconds for those next few hours whether her lipstick still looked good.  Since she asks to wear red lipstick almost every day, this was pretty much her best day ever.  It took a lot of convincing for me to get her to take her costume off even though she had long since finished rehearsing her routine.

It was nearly 8 PM when C was finished rehearsing.  We went home and got to bed, but not before swinging by Dunkin' Donuts and swiping what was left of the munchkins.  It was National Donut Day, after all, and our day had been so busy that we hadn't had a chance to enjoy it!  Tired but happy after that day.

The days that we're going in three or even four different directions are becoming more and more frequent.  Some of that is just the nature of having four children, and M and I have gotten used to "divide and conquer"... but we are looking forward to a little bit less craziness when we don't live an hour away from school.

--2--

Sunday (June 9) was the recital!  And I didn't take any pictures!

We had two showings of our house that day, so in the midst of the aforementioned makeup, hair, and costume preparation, we had to also make sure the house was sparkling clean.  Thank goodness Grandma and Grandpa had stayed overnight after our Sturbridge outing the day before... they were SO helpful!

We had some well-deserved ice cream afterwards.

It was a really gorgeous day, and our dancers did us proud!

--3--

Keva Planks make the best Saturday mornings.

--4--

Spring was SO busy for me that I spent most of April and May without exercising.  It's not my favorite but things were so busy, and with plenty of late nights, getting up before the kids to exercise was just not happening.  Those breaks are necessary sometimes, right?

But boy has it felt good to get back at it.

Our porch is currently housing a lot of things we have packed up into boxes, and since I also want to keep my weights out of the way for showings I have just been doing my workouts out there and then tucking the weights behind boxes when I'm done.

It has been really nice, actually.  Feels like working out outside!

I started Fitness Blender Sweat on June 1, and boy is it kicking my butt.  Granted, I'm forcing myself to do all the "extra credit" workouts because, silly person that I am, I tend to want to punish myself after two months of not working out.  I just finished week 2 and I'm already feeling stronger, so that's a good thing, right?  It sure is nice to have the extra time to do this; it really feels great.

--5--

My light-pink peony flowered for the first time this year!  So excited!

I cut these and put them on our dining room table before a showing once and when we came back they had filled the entire room with their wonderful fragrance.  I just looooove the smell of peonies.  My fave.

--6--

Allow me to highly recommend these:

With busy times comes more convenience foods unfortunately.  My plan is to work on more vegetable-eating over the summer, but in the meantime these have been a great substitute.  They have broccoli fries at our grocery store and we recently tried the cauliflower onion rings as well.  All super delicious!  Not exactly low-sodium, but not too bad.  Gotta love something that a Mama can just pop in the oven, no prep needed.

--7--

New 'do for N!

She was super adorable at the science fair the day after I cut her hair!

Although it did remind me just a little bit of this...

Thank goodness her school is awesome and they did 100% of their science-fair-projecting at school and we didn't have to help her at all at home.  If we had, after all the other things we've had going on, I would definitely be passed out by a tree with tape all over my face right now.  ;-}

Have a great weekend everyone!

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