It's time for my monthly favorites list!  I can't believe we're nearing the end of June.  It's been a weird month, with the constant rain and steamy temperatures.  I can remember a day when by the end of June, my skin tone was four shades darker.  To date, I still don't have a visible tan line.  We'll hopefully make it to the pool soon, in between rain showers.  

{Photo credit:  Andie Case//YouTube.com}

{Photo credit:  Cupcakes and Cashmere}

I hope everyone had a great weekend and blessed Father's Day.  It seems like this weekend flew by, and I feel like I could sleep right through Monday all together.

This weekend was my (twice yearly) ballet performance, so ballet took up most of the second half of the week.  The studio where I take ballet class has a performance show twice a year (one in June and one in December).  Katherine really enjoyed herself this year and did a little aisle dancing of her own.

{Katherine's jumper: Gap from Rung}

For Jason's Father's Day gift, I ordered him his favorite cheesecake from Top Tier Cheesecakes.  You may have seen my cheesecake photo on Instagram on Friday, if not here it is again:

The New York Style with Amaretto Cherry sauce (Jason's favorite) was perfect!  This is the same kind of cheesecake that I ate a ton of on Jason's birthday when I was pregnant, the night before my glucose test.  Rookie mistake.

We spent Father's Day as a family, going to church, visiting my dad, and eating Jason's favorite meals.  Jason's an amazing dad and I'm so thankful that he's Katherine's.  He's such a devoted father.  We're both so lucky to have him!

Happy Father's Day to all the dads (including my own), and for those who have lost a father I pray you find peace today.

There's not been a whole lot going on around here lately.  It's been hard to plan out our days when there's always a spontaneous rain shower or storm, or temperatures already in the upper 90's.  We've watched Monsters Inc. and Monsters University more times than I care to mention, and had lots of impromptu dance parties.  Kris Kross will make ya jump jump.  

One thing I like to do in mid June is get out our patriotic decor.  It always feels a little more like summer when red, white, and blue adorn our home.

I made this wreath a couple of years ago (read about it here).

I found the wooden American flag ($1) and light up star ($5) at Target, and the Stars and Stripes Forever canister at Hobby Lobby (old).
 
 These garlands are available in my Etsy shop.


In Katherine's room:
This "4th of July House" sits in Katherine's room.  I found it at a yard sale years ago and never could find a good place to display it (it sat on our mantel one year), until now.  It lights up and has "fireworks" popping behind the house.  Katherine loves it and insists that Tinkerbell lives there.  I'll have to explain that the 4th of July house is Tink's summer home when it's time to pack up the 4th of July decorations in a few weeks.  

Also in Katherine's room are her America themed books that we put a little more emphasis on during the summer months.  She has yet to sit through an entire reading of the story of Gettysburg.    

The summer already seems to be flying by.  Time slow down!

We were told to keep Katherine out of "dirty environments" for the next few days, so I had planned for a weekend of inside time complete with movie watching.  That was, until Friday morning when a heavy thunderstorm blew through and completely killed our T.V.  I spent a majority of the morning trying to figure out what had happened and why our T.V. wouldn't recognize any of our devices (cable box, Playstation 4, Wii, DVD player, etc.).  I finally gave up and decided to wait until Jason got home to fix it.  

I mentioned back at Easter that Katherine had to start wearing glasses because her eyes would involuntarily move inward when she was focused on something up close.  After weeks of wearing her glasses, her eyes had not improved and had gotten a little worse than before.  Her ophthalmologist suggested she have surgery to correct the problem now, before it gets worse and while she's young.  Jason and I came home from that appointment and researched both her condition and the surgery suggested.  We decided to go ahead with the surgery in hopes of getting Katherine out of her glasses for good.

Katherine had her eye surgery this week.  It's always hard to see your child have to have a procedure done, and I can't even begin to imagine what it's like for parents who have children with serious health problems that require long hospital stays and multiple procedures.

Before her surgery the sweet nurse let her pick out a new pair of sunglasses to wear home.  Seriously brilliant.  They would come in very handy later.

I literally cried when I kissed her goodbye before they whisked her off to surgery.  Katherine was fine.  She had been promised she would see balloons and candy beyond the double doors that led to surgery.  (She apparently did see balloons and candy because she mentioned it later in the day after her surgery.)  The poor nurse tried to make me feel better as I blubbered all the way down the hall back to the waiting room.  Jason, of course, knew this would happen.

I thought the worst part was over.  Then there was the wait.  When the doctor finally came out to tell us that she had done fine and was still sleeping, I thought the waiting was the worst part.  I thought I had prepared myself for what she would look like after surgery.  She was having surgery on her eyes after all.  She would be puffy and swollen.  When we rounded the corner and I saw a nurse cradling my almost unrecognizable baby I cried again.  My poor baby was so red and swollen, she looked like she'd been in a bad accident.  The nurse pointed to a recliner and offered one of us to sit down to hold Katherine, but before she could even get the sentence out I had already parked myself in the chair (sorry Jason).  Katherine was handed off to me where she tried to wake from her groggy sleep.  Her swollen face was definitely the worst part.

I seriously questioned what we had just let happen to our baby.  Her eye muscles were still swollen and uncontrollable and her eyes were red with blood.  All normal, but still.

{All smiles on the way home wearing our new shades.  And also still a little loopy.}

We went home and by that night, her eyes were almost back to their normal size.  By the next morning she looked like herself again and was already acting like her normal two-year-old self.  Her eyes are still red.  I call them her "vampire eyes."  She has no idea how scary her eyes look, so she just rolls with it.

"Just put these drops in her eyes 3 times a day and then put this ointment under her lower lid 3 times a day as well and don't let her rub her eyes."  Ok.  You realize she's 2 right?  Eye drops and ointment are a nightmare.  She fights and cries and won't hold still, causing me to waste most of her $90 eye drops.  Yes $90.  We've bribed her with M&Ms which has helped very little.

At her post-op, everything looked great but she would have to continue to wear the glasses.  I'm still hopeful that eventually we can ditch them for good.

Any tips for getting eye drops in 2 year old eyes?  I'm all ears.  

We ended the week with #NationalDonutDay and a trip to Tony's Donuts, where Katherine picked out the sprinkliest of the donuts.  Happy Friday!