TTT: Season 3, Episode 24

1. It's been a pretty long day here at the Asmussen Ranch. It's safe to say that we've come down with our first (and hopefully only!) summer cold. Coughs, runny noses, watery eyes...just a whole bunch of the plain-ol'-don't-feel-goods. Kolbe and Rudy try to soldier on as if nothing is wrong, but Rudy has nearly no voice left and Kolbe voluntarily got in his bed during quiet time...he said to read books...and ended up taking a full nap. When Kolbe naps, you know he doesn't feel right! But Grant has definitely been the worse. Poor fella. His little nose is like a faucet. And he rubs his eyes constantly because they're watery. And on top of that, he's got two little red spots on his bottom gums. Possibly time for a few more teeth. Hopefully this all blows over pretty quickly, because we've got a lot going on in the next two weeks! Vacation Bible School next week, then the birthday weekend extravaganza (Mark's mom, dad, brother and sister-in-law are all coming to town to celebrate Grant's first, my thirtieth, and Mark's dad's sixtieth!), and then a week with G-ma. Can't be sick for any of that!

2. So last week I went on a rant about Mark working long hours and just feeling totally spent with taking care of the kiddos. Luckily, we had a fantastic weekend and Mark was able to take the boys several times and give me a break. So I got to start the week with my batteries recharged. And reading back through my rant, I realized that I probably sounded a bit cuckoo. Because the truth is, I've got it good compared to most people. And so does Mark. Mark finally has a job that he's enjoying, co-workers who treat him really well, and a lot of room to grow and learn with what he's doing. Not to mention the fact that the dreaded pager is a thing of the past and he's on-call way less frequently than before. And hello! I'm getting to live out my dream job in a great house with great children. My husband works hard for us so we can have all of the things we need and many of the things we just want. Life is good. So good. I've got a blessed life and have absolutely no room to complain. So I won't. That is, until the next time I feel totally overwhelmed. (but I'll try not to!)

3. Last week I also mentioned needing to take some sort of action with my little shop. I don't even know why I call it a little shop any more. Being honest, it's not little. Not little when it comes to just one person running it. It went from "steady business" meaning six to ten orders a week to "steady business" meaning six to ten orders a day. And though I try, I feel like I've reached the point where it's just too hard for me to keep up with it without sacrificing time or the quality of the time I have with the boys. I've never wanted my shop to become one of those shops where it takes multiple weeks for orders to ship. I've been running on a seven day production time for months now and that's the longest I want to go. But it's reached the point where I'm intentionally not renewing listings because I know I can't take any more orders for the day. And I always wake up the next morning to several "convos" (as they're called on etsy) saying "I'm trying to order two changing pad covers from you and it says they're unavailable. Are you still making them?" Responding with "Yes, but I purposely didn't re-list because I knew I wouldn't be able to get your order done within the next seven days" seems crazy. So anyway, I'm sure you get the jest of what I'm getting at. I've reached the point where I either decide to keep struggling along, find a way to cut the business off/ slow it down, or find someone to help me with it. And I've decided to go with the last option. I'm shutting the shop down for a week while Mark's family is in town, but when I open back up I'm planning to have a new helper in place. I've got to work on creating a job responsibility list and finding someone to fill the spot. I'm hoping to find a high school-age girl who can come by a few times a week for a few hours at a time to help with cutting fabric, folding, tagging, and packaging orders, printing shipping, and keeping up with the inventory. We'll see how it goes. Hopefully I'll be looking back and saying it's the best move I ever made for my not-so-little shop.

I'm sure you've all heard the saying that when you have kids and it suddenly gets quiet, something bad is probably going on. Kolbe has finally reached the point where that's not always the case. He often disappears now and can be found coloring or writing all on his own. He's turning in to a real boy. Bittersweet.

We had a whopper of a storm the other day. I was on my way to my parent's house and as I left the sky was dark so I checked the weather ap on my phone and it said we only had a 30% chance of rain. But by the time we got to my parent's it was full-on chaos. I was supposed to be in that turning lane above. Not so much. So many trees fell in The Woodlands. They were everywhere!

Last Friday I was working on some laundry and asked Kolbe if he'd fold and stack all the wash rags while I got Grant down for his nap. Twenty minutes later I went down to my bathroom and found this. How awesome is my kid!?! He said the stack kept falling over so he just laid it sideways. Ha! Usually I just fold them in half once and then in half again...he opted for the three fold process, making them look like tiny spa towels, and I simply couldn't bring myself to change them. They went in to the drawer just like that. He was so proud. And so was I.

My precious little baby and me! (I'm going to keep calling him that as long as possible, because it's definitely fading away way too quickly)

Peekaboo, Grant!

Two brothers sliding at the mall playground (that's probably where we picked up the cold!)

The Woodlands has thirteen different pools and we're on a mission to hit them all by the end of the season. This one was a lot of fun! This entire play structure area is only a foot and a half deep so it's super easy to let the boys go wild without having to worry too much about them.

Kolbe during his voluntary nap...they're all about the swimming and now all about the goggles! I walked in and found him just like this.

Trying out their new goggles in the bath tub!