Daisies and Smurfs

It's Monday once again, my friends. And as always that means it's time to reflect on the things that made us happy over the past week. And of course now is also the perfect time to set the tone for a great week to come! 

If you missed my take on LML, you can find it here. If you missed the explanation of LML Monday, you can catch up here.

This week we officially registered my daughter as a Daisy Girl Scout, and I signed on to be her troop leader. And she's been excitedly telling everyone she sees "I'm a Girl Scout! And my mom is my leader!" It's absolutely heart-meltingly adorable every time.

I've taken the first couple of steps in my troop leader training (and so far I've been able to focus more on how much fun and how rewarding this is going to be, rather than how time consuming and exhausting it will also be.) In all honesty, though, I'm thrilled to be back. I've missed Girl Scouts, and I'm so excited to finally be getting to share it with my daughter.

We finally got around to taking the kids to see Smurfs 2 over the weekend. (My husband wasn't necessarily thrilled with the idea, but, bless him, he was a good sport about it.) The kids were thoroughly and completely entertained, so we had a good time.

For the sake of an honest review, I have to say that I was a little disappointed in the movie. (And this is coming from someone who usually really enjoys kids movies.) This one just seemed to fall flat. And as much as I love Neil Patrick Harris, his performance didn't seem up to his usual brilliance. (He almost seemed bored, and maybe a little embarrassed, throughout the whole movie.)

My feelings aside, though, the kids thought it was comedy gold, and their laughter was enough to keep me entertained the whole time.

Ok. I shared mine - now it's your turn! Please feel free to leave me a comment and share some of your recent LML moments. Focus on the happy thoughts, and let's all have a great week!

Play Dates & Mom Friends

It's Monday once again, my friends. And as always that means it's time to reflect on the things that made us happy over the past week. And of course now is also the perfect time to set the tone for a great week to come! 

If you missed my take on LML, you can find it here. If you missed the explanation of LML Monday, you can catch up here.


This week wasn't big for stop-the-presses excitement. Mostly just a typical week of routine stuff centering around home and school. (Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just one of those weeks.) But there was one obvious highlight over the weekend.

On Saturday the kids and I got to have a play date with some friends that we hadn't seen in a while. The kids had a blast playing together, and I was so glad to get to catch up with a dear friend that I don't get to see nearly as often as I'd like.

Having an adult friend is important (especially when you're a stay-at-home mom with mostly the kids for company.) And having an adult friend who is also the mom of your kids' friends makes it that much better. It was the most relaxing fun I had all week.

Ok. I shared mine - now it's your turn! Please feel free to leave me a comment and share some of your recent LML moments. Focus on the happy thoughts, and let's all have a great week!

And if you're a blogger and would like to get in on the LML fun, feel free to grab the code and join the blog hop! Your post doesn't specifically have to use the "LML" label (although you're welcome to use it if you'd like, and the graphic that goes along with it.) If you have any kind of happy, positive Monday message that you'd like to share you're welcome to join. The more happy vibes, the better the Monday!

I Literally Don't Know How to Feel

As you may have heard, the ongoing debate over the use of the word "literally" has been getting some renewed notice over the past couple of days. It seems that people - like Rob Bricken, who wrote this article on io9.com - are bothered by Google's definition of the word, which basically says that literally can mean literally or figuratively.

My first thought (and I'd bet I wasn't alone here) was "Darn it, Google! Just because people use the word incorrectly all the time doesn't mean we have to change the definition to make them right!" I mean, the word "literally" can be "used to acknowledge that something is not literally true"? Really?!

Then I realized that Google's new definition probably isn't an isolated incident. And I was wright. Merriam-Webster.com and Dictionary.com both have similar definitions.

And I just have to laugh at the usage notes on both of these pages. People might criticize us for giving a word two opposing definitions... but we're going to go ahead and do it anyway.

Coming, as I do, from a family of admitted grammar snobs, I think my initial reaction was understandable. We mostly come down on the "millions of wrongs don't make a right" side of the debate, particularly when it comes to language. But eventually my natural curiosity took over, and I started to wonder what other people had to say about it.

I read several articles, and the opinions were basically divided between "this is a travesty and we must all be angry about it" to "it's not a big deal - get over it." And most of them pointed out that this debate has been going on for a really long time (which sparked the thought that perhaps it isn't necessary to get quite so worked up over it any more.)

So, honestly, I find myself a bit torn between the two schools of thought. Part of me is still really bothered by changing things just to accommodate the ill-informed. While part of me doesn't know if it's important enough to expend energy worrying about it. Perhaps, like Martha Gill suggests in this article from The Guardian, "literally" has become one of those words that is becoming meaningless, and we should just stop using it. Or perhaps, as Tom Chivers suggests in this article from The Telegraph, it's not all that big of a deal, and maybe we should just relax a a little bit.

One thing is sure, though. If this debate is bothering you (regardless of which side you are on) there is a way to get over it. Watch this video, and the word will literally cease to have any meaning. Problem solved. ;)

Floats, Planes, and Sibling Love

It's Monday once again, my friends. And as always that means it's time to reflect on the things that made us happy over the past week. And of course now is also the perfect time to set the tone for a great week to come! 

If you missed my take on LML, you can find it here. If you missed the explanation of LML Monday, you can catch up here.

National Root Beer Float Day

This past Tuesday (August 6th) was National Root Beer Float Day.  And since root beer floats are delicious, this was another one of those little holidays that we just had to celebrate.

I'm not necessarily a purist when it comes to root beer floats, but Blue Bell and A&W make a pretty darn good combination.

 

See what I mean? Yummers!

These faces pretty much say it all. The floats were a hit. I absolutely love being able to share these little treats with the kids, and getting these great smiles as a reward. It makes my day every time.

Planes
I'm not sure who was looking forward to this more - my kids or my husband.

After a very long wait, the new Pixar movie Planes finally came out this past weekend. And of course we had to go see it. We all enjoyed it (as we do most every Pixar movie.) There were plenty of laughs for the kids and the adults... although after a while I did get tired of "What, Mommy? Why was that funny?" every time all of us adults in the audience would laugh. :)

I wouldn't go so far as to call this the best movie ever, and it wasn't necessarily the most original. But it was very entertaining, and definitely worth seeing. It was what Pixar movies are supposed to be - good, fun family entertainment.

Sibling Love and Support
This past week was the first full week of the school year, and I am happy to say that the kids are both enjoying it. And one of the best things is that my daughter is finally in school with her brother. She has eagerly been awaiting the start of kindergarten ever since my son started, and she couldn't be happier that she finally gets to be a student too.

This is what I'm treated to almost every morning when I drop them off at school. They walk in together, then share a big hug before heading off to their designated spots to line up. I find myself watching through the fence every morning, just to see those beautiful sibling moments.

My daughter is only there for half the day, but she always comes with me when it's time to pick up her brother. Again there are always plenty of hugs, and then they almost always walk arm in arm to the car.

You just can't beat moments like this.


Ok. I shared mine - now it's your turn! Please feel free to leave me a comment and share some of your recent LML moments. Focus on the happy thoughts, and let's all have a great week!

And if you're a blogger and would like to get in on the LML fun, feel free to grab the code and join the blog hop! Your post doesn't specifically have to use the "LML" label (although you're welcome to use it if you'd like, and the graphic that goes along with it.) If you have any kind of happy, positive Monday message that you'd like to share you're welcome to join. The more happy vibes, the better the Monday!

Watermelon and Wolverine

It's Monday once again, my friends. And as always that means it's time to reflect on the things that made us happy over the past week. And of course now is also the perfect time to set the tone for a great week to come! 

If you missed my take on LML, you can find it here. If you missed the explanation of LML Monday, you can catch up here.


So I took some time off of blogging this past week. The kids started school on Thursday, so most of our week was spent with last-minute preparations and getting back into our routine. They both did great, and they're loving school. But it did make for a very tired and time-constrained Mommy. Hence, no writing. (And very little of anything else that wasn't school or kid related.)

But this weekend we definitely made the most of our days off. Lots of relaxing, and having fun as a family. It was pretty much what weekends are made for around here.

National Watermelon Day
Saturday was National Watermelon Day, and since watermelon is one of my son's favorite things in life, this was one that we had to celebrate. I picked up a small seedless watermelon on Friday, my awesome husband was kind enough to go to the trouble of chopping it up for me, and the kids were treated to watermelon with brunch on Saturday. And I was treated to many squeals of joy and happy-slurpy-yummy sounds.

And since I had wanted to try this since I saw the idea online, my daughter and I decided to do our nails for the occasion too.

She wanted white seeds, since that's what our watermelon had, but then decided that it looked too much like a strawberry, so we had to add some black ones too. :)


Wolverine
Now that my son has reached the age of 1) loving super-heroes and 2) being able to sit through live-action movies, we've had a lot of fun bonding over the comic book films. A big part of our summer was spent introducing him to all of the greats, including the X-Men franchise. (My husband has never been a big fan, so I love that I finally have someone to watch them with.)

He's been asking me about seeing The Wolverine ever since we saw the first preview, and this weekend our long wait was finally over.

We had a great time, and it was a pretty good flick. Hugh Jackman was awesome, as always. And there was plenty of great action, as you'd expect from a movie like this. The only major drawback (for the younger crowd) is that quite a bit of the dialog is in Japanese with English subtitles. My son can't really read fast enough to keep up with subtitles, so I could see him getting a bit bored from time to time. But the action always picked back up and drew him back in, so for the most part he was able to enjoy it.

The movie was good. Getting to see it with my son made it awesome.


Ok. I shared mine - now it's your turn! Please feel free to leave me a comment and share some of your recent LML moments. Focus on the happy thoughts, and let's all have a great week!

And if you're a blogger and would like to get in on the LML fun, feel free to grab the code and join the blog hop! Your post doesn't specifically have to use the "LML" label (although you're welcome to use it if you'd like, and the graphic that goes along with it.) If you have any kind of happy, positive Monday message that you'd like to share you're welcome to join. The more happy vibes, the better the Monday!