first things first - yesterday's 10 on tuesday link-up was so so fun. i loved reading everyone's posts and i can't thank you enough for participating...the 34 of you who did.

for everyone else...you're dead to me.

kidding. for real - i'm kidding.

what i really mean is that i need the rest of you! i'd really love is for this little link-up of love to continue to grow week after week. so next week...i'm shooting for 50 gals. tell your blog friends.

now that that's out of the way...

i'd really love to tell everyone about my single parenting this past weekend.

as mentioned last week, my farmer ditched his farm chores and headed to colorado for an extended ski weekend to celebrate a college friend finally deciding to get hitched.

the gals and i were on our own for four days...and i know that it seems ridiculous to even discuss this, but being down one parent day in and day out of a 3 and 1 year old...so hard.

or maybe it's not hard, exactly. but it's definitely exhausting. not to mention...i'm sure my best gals totally got sick of waking up and me being like, "just us gals, again! yay!"

they were like - yay. (straight-faced emoticon)

we kept our schedule as full as possible so the days would zoom by. the hard thing when living on a farm is that it's not like we could just buzz to activities easily. it's an entire process.

+ pack up everything
+ wait for sawyer's nap
+ make sure we have ample snacks
+ make sure iPad is charged
+ load everyone in the car
+ try to keep kaye quiet for the first five minutes while sawyer dozes off
+ drive forever

so...i decided two days in the big city would be great.

one of the days the gals and i drove, did lunch, gymnastics, washed the car, zoo, and dinner with my mom. i was positive one or both of the girls would fall asleep on the drive home. i mean...i'm exhausted just thinking about what a full day that was.
bad attitude


zoo...



kaye has finally hit her photogenic stage.




the following day we just hung around the farm. it was so terribly windy and disgusting outside we had a mandatory inside day. we baked these muffins...and they continue to be a hit every single time. however, the next time i make them i'm going to replace the sugar with agave or honey and see what happens. i highly recommend you whip these up. they are so good and mostly guilt free. AND i have no qualms with letting my best gals enjoy them as dessert.

we made the muffins - we played gymnastics (ran around in a circle acting like different animals) - colored - finally got dressed - drove around the farm - played blocks - and probably watched way too much tv. i can't really remember. my judgement was cloudy.

on sunday i had big plans. we were going to take the stroller and kaye's strider bike to boise and ride // jog along the river on the greenbelt. it was going to be perfect. until it rained, sleeted, stormed all day. that was a fail. we ended up meeting my mom for lunch and then taking the girls to a movie.

yes...i know. i took sawyer, my 17 month old, to kung fu panda III. judge as you may. i'm judging myself.

regardless...she killed it. the theatre wasn't very full and every time she started to wiggle i'd let her walk along the chairs in front of us. it was only the final 20 minutes of the movie that she really lost it. i left kaye with my mom and scooped up the offender. we ran down to the lobby and walked around looking at all the people and movie ads. she loved it. kaye loved the movie. it was a win in my book.

the next morning i knew our farmer was going to be home (having arrived in the middle of the night) and i'd once again be able share some parental duties. *breathes sigh of relief*

the girls were beyond thrilled that their farmer had magically appeared in the middle of the night...and i immediately made plans to guilt my farmer into taking the gals to work with him so i could go watch the bachelor with my girlfriends.

mama needed a break.