Month: June 2023

Lincoln City Kite Festival

by Ariana Peters, posted in kids, life, travel

We took a quick overnight trip to the coast to spend some time with friends and see the kite festival. This was my first time going to the kite festival…….and will probably be my last hahahaha. The kites were cool but I found it pretty lackluster as far as a festival goes.

It will go down as a good memory and I’m glad we did it but it was absolutely not our best executed trip hahaha. We had a fair few tantrums.

The kids napped on the way there.

We played on the beach until we had access to the AirBnB we were going to share with friends

The house was right on the beach and had a great view

We can’t go anywhere without injuries hahahaha

After an early afternoon of playing on the beach and walking around we played on the rental houses deck and ordered a pizza

Little man slept in a big boy bunk bed!!!

Sleeping was absolutely terrible. The room was facing west so we had the sunset which in Oregon is not until 9:30 with full darkness, not until about 10: 30pm and while he doesn’t sleep in a completely dark room, it’s a pretty dark room so it took him forever to fall asleep. He did not go to sleep until about 10: 15 p.m.

Then the casino about a mile and a half away had fireworks and some drunken neighbors decided to sing along to them, thankfully this did not wake either kid up. Then at 11:45 p.m. drunken people on the beach set off a huge fireworks that lit up the entire room for about 30 minutes which woke the baby up.

The next morning was a slow leisurely morning (I ordered Starbucks through door dash because I could not keep my eyes open). Little man woke us all up at 5:30am We had breakfast with the whole house then played on the very windy beach.

There were lots of tantrums a long the way hahahah
Cheese!!!
We went through so many outfits with the sand and water hahahahhaha

My friend and her family were in the house with us too. The babies played together a bit

Then it was time for us to pack up and head home!

Both kids were asleep within about 15min of leaving and slept pretty much the whole way home.

It was an absolutely exhausting trip and I’m still exhausted today even after going to sleep an hour early, but I’m glad we did it. I’m going to try and go to sleep early again tonight

Book review: Balanced and Barefoot

by Ariana Peters, posted in baby, books, healthy lifestyle, kids, life

I skipped through a lot of this book. Just sort of reading some of the section headings and a few sentences here and there. I thought it was pretty dry. But that could be because a lot of the information I feel like I already read in “There’s no such thing as bad weather”.

But there was a lot of good information and some very interesting things. I found it really interesting where they talked about how many teachers now have to tell kids no to so many things on the playground that they can’t do anything during recess. There was a teacher in New Zealand who decided to get rid of all the rules for recess and just let the kids go wild like they used to and they saw a bullying go down, concentration go up, etc

Another thing that was really interesting and I saw translated to our real life is talking about how kids used to play in the early 1900s and even late 90s and how strong the kids were because they weren’t restricted to what they could do on playgrounds or at recess and they were climbing on top of things, around things, swinging, and going crazy. I actually had a mom in my son’s gymnastics class, be somewhat amazed at how strong my son is. And how his gross motor skills are so well developed for a two and a half year old. And I think that’s because we don’t restrict his play. We let him climb on things we let him run around. We let him be crazy. We try and do it as safely as possible but we do not restrict or overly helicopter parent.

I do see how in America we have become more and more restrictive on what we deem safe for our children. And as a mom, I absolutely understand that it’s a balance between raining in my own fear and keeping them safe. We’ve also become a very litigious society which makes it so difficult for caregivers to give children that freedom to be children and run around and climb and jump and bounce and be crazy.

It’s overall I found it to be a very dry book and I skipped and jumped through a lot of it. But I think it’s definitely worth parents taking a peek at it and maybe doing the same kind of skipping, jumping, and stopping and reading where you are interested and skipping the parts that you find boring or redundant.

A week of homeschooling

by Ariana Peters, posted in homeschooling, kids, life, school/studying

Wednesday –

AM – 3 worksheets done and 1 book read

Then gymnastics and the library

Thursday – AM

Two worksheets and 1 spread in ‘things to spot’ as he ran around the house hahaha

Then into the stroller the kids went for a 2 mile run. Then some time to run around the backyard.

Back inside we ‘worked’ on a puzzle, which means I put the pieces in place and he stomped them down hahaha. But I do try and get him to point out 1 or 2 things to me each time and I name the continents and oceans.

We also played with the bunny boo game. It works on spacial awareness and directionality

PM – I read to them for 15 min

Friday AM – 3 worksheets

Saturday – OFF

Sunday – OFF some Sundays we will do a little bit but today we went to visit the grandparents

Monday AM

4 worksheets and 1 spread in our ocean math workbook

After this he had a lovely toddler meltdown compete with ear splitting screaming.

After he calmed down I loaded the kids in the stroller and went for a 3 mile run then we did some exploring and gardening in the backyard.

Tuesday – AM

Got 2 worksheets done, and even that was like pulling teeth lol.

And that is a wrap! That is a week of homeschooling with us. Some weeks we get more done and some less. This month we are really busy with swim lessons so each week we have 1 gymnastics class and 2 swim lessons. Since we are so busy I am pushing school a little less.

Because it is preschool level and he is only 2.5 I try and keep it light and not make him do things he isn’t feeling that day or time, I want to foster a love for learning not destroy it.

Thanks for joining us!!!

Weekly Workouts

by Ariana Peters, posted in healthy lifestyle, life, training

Sunday – OFF

Monday – 2 miles

Tuesday – full body strength (I also took over an hour nap while holding the baby for her nap hahahaha.)

Wednesday – Core and more workout

Thursday – 2 miles

Friday – 2 miles

I forgot to take a picture post run lol

Saturday – 3 miles

Total Miles – 9.15 miles

Book review: 50/50

by Ariana Peters, posted in books

This was a fun book to read. I enjoy reading about people who do awesome, crazy things.

You get a little information about each marathon and what might have gone right or wrong, and sprinkled in are tips and tricks for running faster, better, or more efficiently.

I would have actually enjoyed more on the day to day marathons but I understand that the book is about that and the secrets he learned.

Overall a fun read.