This and That

1. I finished Lauren Graham's book this week. It was really good. If you are a Gilmore fan, I am sure you will love it!!

2. Tomorrow is Elise's birthday. If you missed my post with thoughts about her turning one check it out here. We are off on her birthday camping trip today. Look forward to a recap on that later! Will it be successful? Will we be regretting all the new camping gear we purchased? Will we be booking another trip for the end of the summer? Will mommy need a vacation when we get back?

3. Best podcast listen this week was this one "Secrets to a Vibrant Marriage". If you are married or plan to get married (soon or someday) you will definitely love this post. I think what she says about marriage is so important. It can also honestly be applied to parenting and friendship (it is much the same message of Lisa Jo Baker's book Never Unfriended). Best blog post was this one "It's Not Our Job to Make Summer Magical" and this one "Breathing Room." Breathing room gives me hope for my future and the other one gives me peace to enjoy each day without a summer bucket list. Also I think summer is magical because it just is, nothing special made my summers magical as a kid, it was just the occasional camping trip, the long days playing outside with my sisters and the endless freedom from school.

4. Summer reading program has started! I have such fond memories of summer reading. My mom actually made us read certain genres of books (and I am pretty sure we had to give her a little oral book report of sorts-very informal) and I am so glad she did because I learned so much from those books and slowly learned to love reading. (Thanks MOM!). My girls are obviously still in the 'read to me phase' and trips to the library are sometimes the highlight of their week. I still get to pick out most of their books too, so I love squeezing in educational books as well.

5. In other news Rowan is still not sleeping well. Give me your ideas for conquering the 4 month sleep regression!! He is not sleeping terrible, just not as great as before. He still is better than Elise was ever her first year of life. With her I don't think there was any opportunity to regress in sleep because she was always so very bad at sleeping. Millie was a great sleeper and I can't remember if she had a 4 month sleep regression or not, but I remember her being very scheduled in her wake ups (and her pacifier was a life saver).

6. Does anyone else just love picking out gifts for their kids? I just think it is so fun to curate a gift list filled with things you know they would love. I can't wait for Elise to open her gifts and am pretty sure she will be delighted by each one.