Wednesday, February 20, 2013

A lovely long weekend



A long weekend is a huge blessing. A long weekend that doesn't kill our budget is an enormous blessing. After spending years as an hourly consultant, any time I took a day off, it lcost me a day's pay.  That translated into almost never taking time off. So, suffice it to say, I don't take an actual paid holiday for granted.  This is cause for major celebration people!  We got in as many activities into our long weekend as our long weekend could handle. Since Josie had both Friday and Monday off of school, I actually took most of Friday afternoon off as well (it's true!) so we had a really lovely long weekend that included a trip to the zoo and our favorite park. AND we hosted the mother/daughter book club at our house this month (which will get it's own separate post soon).

Here are some photos from a super great weekend!

The girls and I spent Friday afternoon crisscrossing the city combining errands with fun adventures. We went to see our friend Julie at Sewn Studio who graciously donated two bags of Cincinnati's best fabric scraps for our book club craft on Saturday. We stopped by the glass studio to pick up the hearts we made on my birthday. We spent an hour playing with toys at King Arthur's Court with the hidden agenda of figuring out what piques little (soon to be birthday girl) Bea's interest these days. And, of course we stopped at Starbucks for a Triple Grande Vanilla Nonfat Latte and two kids temp hot chocolates (a special treat beyond the usual plain steamed milks they usually get).

On Saturday, we played and prepped for our Mother/Daughter Book Club (here's the sneak peek).
I put finishing touches together while Bea napped and Josie had her first group piano class.
(Note to Lou - send me those videos!)

The bookclub was SUPER fun. We are just getting into the swing of hosting people at our house again, now that we are finally settled into our new place.  We've also vowed to start doing Sunday brunches for friends once or twice a month. So far, that's been super fun. But I digress...

Anyway, Saturday night was good for cuddling!


We started off with big plans for Sunday, but decide to chuck our busy bee instincts out the window and spend the day in our pajamas. All of the watercolors from the book club were still handy, so we spent a solid hour on Sunday morning with all four of us around the kitchen table listening to a great "kid's roots" playlist on Spotify and turning out masterpieces.
Like any trip to Michaels, we came home from our Saturday AM trip there with an extra project. Long story short, Josie saw a ceramic bird and wanted to paint it. I said we should get two and they could represent both girls. She wanted to do one for Lou & me, but there were only two birds. And, well then we ended up with an Owl Mama and a Gnome Papa.  Pretty fair representation, am I right?


While our painted family dried, we took the sunny afternoon as an occasion to finally clean and organize the greenhouse because (woop woop) we can start our seeds SOON!


Our garden family found a new home in the greenhouse. (How well did Lou paint his gnome?)

And, sometime during the process of showing the plants some love, Josie & Bea decided it was high time to have a birthday party for Dear "Iguany." (Josie's very favorite stuffed animal which is an admirable feat when you are one of a zillion members of the "Animal Army.") Iguany came all the way from our last vacation way back in St. Thomas.  The girls made in cards and a "cake" and wrapped him presents. Then we all sang happy birthday! (Being a parent really is super fun!)

On Monday, we went to our old haunt - First Watch downtown - for a yummy breakfast then headed to the Aquarium on President's Day - like every other family in the tri-state area. There was literally an hour long wait just to get to the door (even for members). We gave the Aquarium a big "peace out fishies" and drove over to the zoo, which ended up being much better.  It was the perfect mix of crisp, sunny and pretty quiet that makes me LOVE mornings at the zoo!



Tell me this guy isn't the exact one from "The Princess & The Frog" Movie?!


Do you own "The Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed"? If not, get it.
 Then you'll be just as excited as we were to find these at the zoo. 



After letting Lou return to his lawyerly duties, the three Schneider girls decided to skip naptime and head to our favorite park - Lunken's Land of Make Believe. (Or what will always be known "The Pig & The Whale" according to Josie.)  It was windy as all get out, but sunny and bright.  I love chasing the girls around the park.













My girls have fierce smooches!

It was so warm on the way home that we popped open the sunroof and sang songs at the top of our lungs. I snapped this quick pic on DeSales Corner out the room - a beautiful end to a beautiful long weekend.