Grayson is in preschool four mornings a week and the Grandma’s take him those afternoons which allows me to work four days from 9am-3pm. It’s awesome and the ONLY way I survived the fall busy season! I still work 6-7 nights a week but my goal for this year is to streamline and/or delegate some tasks so that I can start to have some evenings when I can just lay on the couch like a log if I want to!

In the fall, when I was supposed to be home with Gray on Friday’s I was so bogged down I had either the Grandma’s take an extra day or hired a sitter to help me. Last Friday was my first Friday with Gray and when I told him it was a “mommy day”… I wish I could have bottled up that smile! He LOVES having alone time with me and Chris!

I knew a cold front was coming in this weekend so even though he BEGGED to go to the Science Center I overruled him and we went to The Garden.

I think this is a great example of a time when I WANTED to bring my camera. Being outside and alone with my boy made me know I might have some shots I wouldn’t want to miss. And ones I wouldn’t want just my phone for. The FREEDOM I’m allowing myself this year of not having to pick up my camera every day is AMAZING! I am telling you that those damn 365 day projects must have seriously stressed me out because I just feel awesome so far this year! I don’t have shots everyday of my kids but for the last week, when I have taken out my camera, I’ve been super excited to actually edit the photos! That’s totally different than before!

All that to say, I’m not going to stop capturing my kids completely, just when I WANT to. I know that seems like such a stupid difference but for whatever reason it’s meaning the world to me so far! Like I am being kinder and gentler with myself this year. It’s just nice.

So we went to the garden and we bartered for at least 10 minutes about what he could bring. He wanted to bring his Beys (Santa brought him a bunch of beys and MAN do we all love this toy! C and I battle as much as the kids!) but I knew he would lose one and that would be DEVASTATING so I allowed his laser gun (thanks Uncle Tim and Aunt Linda!).

As we were walking in he told me he wanted to shoot squirrels.

The back story on this is that we have an insane amount of squirrels in our yard and they’ve been getting into the garage and attic. Chris got a Red Rider BB Gun for Christmas and has been shooting them. It’s not powerful to kill them or even hurt them, it really just annoys them I think. But he’s determined it will make them want to leave our yard. So now our kids are always on the lookout for squirrels for Daddy to shoot. It’s awful but also kind of funny and while I have nothing personally against squirrels I really don’t want them in my house so I’m ignoring every part of me that says it’s wrong!

When he pulled the trigger at the Climatron I asked if he had seen a squirrel to which he replied, “No, but it’s so big and glass, I wanted to make it explode!”

So then he started looking for things he thought his laser could explode.

Like statues. And buildings. And people. I had to say twice (before I threatened to take the gun away) that he couldn’t point his gun at people.

Why are boys SO different than girls???

I kid you not, when the girls are at the garden they are running and skipping and holding hands and stopping to look at the pretty flowers! Ugh!

I thought this hallway of gourds was amazing! I called Gray over to it because it was SO neat and what did he do?

Shot them.

And then was SO excited when he blew them up!

In his mind of course, it’s not a real gun!

There’s my sweet boy! He does this funny little half smile when I ask him to actually smile at the camera and even though it’s fake, it just melts my heart.

He was SO excited to feed the fish and thankfully by the third quarter we used the fish woke up a bit from hibernation and started eating! In the summer those fish are CRAZY but they were SO slow we could actually watch their huge mouths suck in the pellets of food. Gray LOVED it!

I’m telling you I am in love with that smile!

And his favorite way to end our time there? The bell tree. My kids all love that thing!

We had a GREAT morning together, then we grabbed lunch and headed to the girl’s school so we could eat lunch with Parker which was a HUGE surprise for her! She was SO excited and Gray thought he was super cool eating with the big kids!

It’s so nice for me to slow down sometimes and just enjoy my kids!

Happy Monday!