Snow Day Fun

After two straight weeks of not seeing temperatures above zero degrees (I wish I was kidding), we were beginning to go a little stir crazy. I just said to Mike this weekend that, while I always feel bad when I wish time away, I always am happy to see the next four or five weeks fly by. January and February in Minnesota are just tough. Especially with little kids who don't know how to communicate when they are cold or need to go inside, it gets difficult to take them outside, or even to run errands. There is a LOT of bundling up that goes into a simple trip to the grocery store when you are dealing with temperatures that are twenty degrees below zero. But yesterday, we finally saw a break in the cold and for the next few days we will be enjoying temperatures right around 30 degrees; that may not seem very warm, but keep in mind that is fifty degrees warmer than where we were at a week ago. So, we had to take advantage and take the boys over to my in laws for some sledding! All of the cousins were there, and we had so much fun playing in the snow. Jackson quickly figured the whole situation out, and was carrying his own sled up the hill just to set off on his next run with zero assistance. Lincoln was as happy as could be being pulled in the sled, riding down on the tube with his brother, and acting as though he was going to lick the tree. Not sure why he thought that was funny, but he is my silly second child and he never actually licked it, so I just played along ;-) Feel free to scroll down below for a photo dump of our fun. We were outside for what must have been a solid hour, and all of the kids were treated to hot chocolate and whipped cream once we went back inside. It was one of those bright spots that make winter almost (maybe) bearable!

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Weekending

Another weekend come and gone. I am in absolute disbelief that this was the last weekend of June! I mean, seriously, how is next weekend already July. Time, slow down!

On Friday, Mike had a golf outing planned, so when I picked up the boys from daycare, I decided to veto cooking so we ran to Target to kill some time. We basically browsed the toy aisle, but our daycare pickup time of 4:30ish leaves us with that awkward window where it is a little bit too early for dinner, but it isn't worth going home for half an hour. So, we browsed ;-) Afterwards, I was planning on grabbing Little Caesars pizza, but when asked if he wanted pizza or chicken nuggets, Jax was alllll about the nugs. So, to Chick Fil'A we went! My mom happened to be in town, so she and my dad swung over to say hi. Both boys love CFA, and we all do, too. It opened in town about nine months ago, and I totally understand the hype now!

 Can I just say these stick on placemats for babies who love to throw plates on the ground are absolutely genius!?

 Just a boy and his fruit cup ;-)

Once we got home, I threw on my favorite new tank, poured a glass of wine, and tended to two rowdy little boys. We watched cartoons, cuddled on the couch, and took it easy!

On Saturday, Mike's family was butchering chickens, so before they started I brought the boys out to the farm to see the cows and play. We took the ranger out into the pasture with my mother-in-law, so we could see all of the calves. You guys, in nearly eight years with my husband, I had never actually gone off the main farm and out into the pasture, it is so beautiful. It was a cool morning with temps in the upper 50's, there was that bright morning light, everything was so green..it felt like a scene out of a movie. Sometimes I just love living a bit away from it all.

When it was time to leave the farm, we went back to Target, in large part just to bribe Jackson away. But, he loved those cows, and was having a blast feeding them, so the tantrum of the century followed. I finally got him calmed down with a bribe of a donut, and he crashed in the car on the drive home!

After naps and a late lunch, we dropped the boys off with my in-laws, and Mike and I ran some errands and had dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings. We picked up a new pool for the boys to use next weekend, and some wind chimes. If I didn't love our yard before, sitting out and listening to those chimes may just be my new favorite thing! Once we got home and put the boys to bed, we finally watched the new Beauty and the Beast. It was so good, and I definitely had all the feels in the final scenes. It was so beautifully done, I thought it was amazing!

On Sunday, we ran to the grocery store as a family, and then spent a lazy morning and early afternoon at home. Once we got Jackson down for a nap, I headed out to the final bridal shower for my brother's fiancé! It was hosted by my aunts, so it was fun to catch up with everyone! Of course, I didn't manage to snap a single picture, I may have been too busy eating desserts and chatting ;-) I cannot believe we are already through the final shower. Only a month to go until their wedding!
Once I got home, we had pizza, were super lazy, and once the boys went to bed Mike and I watched Fear The Walking Dead. We are ready to dive into this week, we both have Friday off and then are on a long weekend through the 4th!
Happy Monday everyone, may it be quick and filled with lots of coffee ;-)


Linking up with Biana today

 

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Weekending and A Little Confession

Hello hello, my friends! I took a few days off from blogging last week, really without any planning or intention. In all honesty, I have been feeling slightly burnt out of the social media world lately. Despite my best efforts, it can often feel like a rat race, and I have gotten caught up in it. While I love this space and the opportunities that it has allowed me, I never want to deviate from being true to myself and remembering why I started blogging in the first place; because I love to write, and because I love having family memories to cherish and look back upon. Family and real life always come first, and in the dangerous world of social media it can be easy to slip into a gray area where your priorities may not be quite as they should be. At the end of the day, I love blogging, but if I need to take a week off because life is hectic, I'm not going to beat myself up over it. I am learning to say no to things I do not truly believe in or feel passionate about. I don't know if I would call what I am doing 'taking a step back', but I want to get back to focusing on my family, what we have going on, and the things in my life that are truly most important. And with that, onto our weekend!

On Friday, I got a last minute call over the lunch hour to go see the wedding dress that my future sister-in-law was in love with. My calendar was wide open (does anyone actually have meetings on Friday afternoons?) so I took the rest of the day off to go enjoy watching her try on dresses! The one she went back for didn't end up giving her all of the feels like it did before, BUT..she found her dress! She looked so beautiful, and the more time I spend with her the more it because so obvious that her and my brother are a perfect match. While I would love to share photos..it's bad luck to see the bride before the wedding ;-)

Once I got home on Friday, we made dinner and fed the boys, and I got Lincoln put to bed. And then I got ready to head out for some appetizers with my sister-in-law and our high school friend. I drove over to meet them, and the second I walked in the door, I checked Jessie's left hand (she has been dating Jer for 7 years) and THERE IT WAS! He finally popped the question! Poor Jessie got tackled by me, but I didn't care :-) I am so thrilled for one of my oldest childhood friends-it was a total highlight to start the weekend! I rocked my fun new top that I plan to share with you all soon, and it felt so nice to wear something that wasn't covered in slobber and baby boogers ;-)

On Saturday, Mike offered to smoke some pork for my nephew's confirmation, so our whole day was pretty busy between all of the meat preparations, going on a walk with the boys, and getting ready for our first church attempt in nearly six months. And you guys..we lasted half an hour. We really tried. We did. But our kids made it R.O.U.G.H. They were so squirmy, and the only thing that would quiet them at all was snacks. So, when both of us had left for the entryway because each child was being so unruly, we decided to call it a day. I must say, it didn't leave us particularly encouraged to go again, but I suppose we will keep trying. Or bring books. WHY IN THE WORLD DIDN'T I THINK TO BRING BOOKS OR CRAYONS. Next time!

The rest of the night was spent having dinner at my sister-in-laws to celebrate my nephew. We stayed out late (for the boys) and didn't get home until around 8pm ;-)

Sunday was the ultimate lazy day. I went to the grocery store, Jackson never got out of his jammies, and I actually managed to prep dinner. All of the boys took naps, and we watched The Office, which is just our all time favorite.  

Did any of you do anything fun this weekend? Here's to a great Monday and a smooth work week!

Linking up with Biana today!

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Weekending

Another Monday, another 5am wakeup call by the kiddos. While I hate to see the weekend go, this one was a good one!

On Friday, I got some news over my lunch that my younger brother and his fiancé had picked their wedding date, and it is four months away! I had already known they were entertaining a fall wedding and would likely have a shorter engagement, but apparently a deal came up that was too good to pass up, the pastor was available, and that was that. SO, our family is in total wedding planning mode now!

Aside from the excitement of the wedding date being set, on Friday afternoon my brother and sister in law came over to get food prepped for Saturday. My husband and BIL both have smokers and decided to make their own recipe for ribs. And for those of you with smokers, you know it is a labor of love ;-) So while they prepped I got to hang out with my SIL for a bit, which is always fun. The kiddos played and by the time Jackson finally was put to bed, he was so tired from a day spent at grandma and grandpas and playing that he closed his eyes and was out before I even laid him down all of the way. Now if only he would do that every night!

On Saturday, we were up and at em and made an early grocery store run for dinner. On the menu was ribs, potato salad, corn bread muffins, and homemade banana pudding. If you have ever had Famous Dave's, they sell their corn bread in the stores, and it is SO good. Lincoln was just along for the free paper crown.

Once we got home, two of my sisters in law came over while the guys started up the smokers. And you guys, they totally took over and cleaned my house! Katie literally disassembled my couch and vacuumed every last nook and cranny of the thing, and Laura organized the toy room, which is already back in shambles (sorry Laura!) You just can't keep that on clean for longer than thirty seconds. But still, I think I need to invite them over more often because I don't know if anything is better than someone else vacuuming for you ;-)

The banana pudding custard took SO long to make, I honestly declared I would never make it again. I swear I stood there stirring it to thicken for almost an hour. But then I tasted it at dinner, and it was that good. So good that it is worth standing over the stovetop for an hour. The recipe is out of one of our books, but I will try to share it soon!

After dinner, we all hung around, we took a walk around our little neighborhood, it was just so nice out! Mid sixties, and we had all of the windows open while the kiddos ran around outside pretty much all day. These are the spring days that we dream about all winter! We eventually got the kids to sleep, and were so exhausted, we watched a little bit of The Chapelle Show and were down and out early.

We woke up to a cloudy and raining morning Sunday, so most of the day was spent inside. I made an early grocery store run with Lincoln, to get some breakfast items and stock up on some things for the baby shower I am hosting at our house next weekend!

 

My sister in law called shortly after, and we ran into town for some party supplies, and we came back and worked on some projects for the shower! I am really excited to pull all of the little pieces together, I think it is going to turn out so great!

After she and my nephew left, we lounged around the rest of the day. Our kids were having one of those days, so it was basically a countdown to bedtime. We watched The Office, which I was just told is going off of Netflix next month!? I have no idea how I will survive. Buy the entire series on Blue Ray I suppose. We have watched the entire series through three or four times, and I don't see us stopping any time soon.

We went fancy and threw in frozen pizzas for dinner, and finished off the night with the season finale of The Walking Dead. You guys, if you watch it, IT WAS SO GOOD. One of those finales that is just insanely gratifying and has me dying for it to be October so we can watch again.

Don't forgot, tomorrow is the first day of the Tuesday Outtakes linkup! Join in and share all of the photos from the month of March that didn't quite make the cut :-)

 

Linking up with Biana today.

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Weekending and a Giveaway Winner!

This weekend, like all of the rest, flew by much too quickly. We were promised some warm weather, but it really don't show up until late Sunday, so that was kind of a bust! I am so ready for spring weather that sticks around for the long haul! Our weekend was pretty low key, but it was a fun one!

..AND, if you entered my Freshly Picked giveaway, read through to the bottom to see if you are the winner!

On Friday, we got the grand news that the bishop had lifted the meat restriction for Friday due to St. Patrick's Day, so HELLO PIZZA ;-) Aside from photo shoots of the boys in their St. Patrick's Day shirts, it was a pretty laid back evening.

Please note that Lincoln has a Nick Viall hair tuft going on. I made fun of him that whole episode for his hair, and then looked at my baby and he had the exact same thing going on. I personally think Lincoln pulls it off better ;-)

 I also whipped up some of my Special K bars. And maybe I am biased, but my Special K bars are seriously the BEST and I will share the recipe I use soon. The pan didn't last long!

On Saturday, Mike worked, which isn't common, but he has had a few weekends the past few months where the projects couldn't be done during the weekdays. So, me and the boys were on our own. Once we woke up, Jackson did a happy dance at the mention of going to grandma and grandpa's house, so we headed that way in the morning. He did lots of playing, and mama drank lots of coffee.

Jackson found this old backpack filled with my little pony toys, and wanted to wear it and kept announcing he was going to ride the bus. Stop growing up, Jackson!

We came home for afternoon naps, but then ended up going back to my parents for dinner. It was a celebration of my sister passing her boards and my brother and his new fiancé getting engaged! It was such a nice night, full of wedding talk :-) I just love me a good wedding, and my brother's fiancé is one of the sweetest people I have ever met.

My parents pulled out my brother's old Fisher Price castle, which I honestly think is worth a small fortune, and Jackson was SO excited he started jumping up and down and declaring 'DASTLE! DASTLE!' I wish I could be half as excited about things as that sweet boy is.

Once it was time to leave, I loaded up the boys, took the long route home, and was able to get them both directly into their beds, sleeping, all on my own. I definitely cracked a beer in celebration of that one! Mike got home from work a little before 9, yay for 14 hour work days! So we relaxed and watched an episode or two of The Office before calling it a night.

On Sunday, we finally decided to get our taxes done (yay returns!) and went to my in-laws to use their program. While we were there, my sister in law announced she was coming over to give us a little gave to announce if they are having a boy or a girl. I'm not quite sure I'm at liberty to say yet or not, so I suppose I will have to share that another day ;-) So, what was a morning doing taxes turned into most of the day! We did lots of planning for my other sister in laws baby shower, and came up with so many cute ideas that I can't wait to share afterwards!

I had some Gap Cash come my way, so I did scoop up these chinos, and this utility shirt dress from Old Navy. In case you didn't know, Gap, Old Navy, and Banana Republic all share a shopping cart and go towards the same shipping minimum, and Gap Cash if you have a credit card works at all three!

Once we got home, it was finally warm enough and sunny so we threw the boys right into the stroller and enjoyed a walk around our neighborhood! They held hands and were so sweet and it was so obvious how happy they were to just be outside. So PLEASE mother nature, keep sending nice weather our way because my babies and everyone else is so much happier when we are able to step outside of the house!

For dinner, we had a dumpster meal, basically eating up any and all leftovers that were in the refrigerator. We are so bad about putting things in tupperware and then just throwing them away a week later, so sometimes it feels good to make an effort to be less wasteful with our food! 

The evening was capped off with The Walking Dead. Only two episodes left this season, I have a feeling the next two weeks are going to be so high intensity!

And now, the winner of the giveaway is...

Sarah Rose!

Congratulations Sarah, you will be receiving an -mail from me shortly!

Linking up with Biana today.

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Weekending: A Chilly March

Hello friends, and happy Monday! We are coming off of a long weekend as a family, and I am always amazed how an extra day off can be so good for the soul. I just feel a little bit more ready to start the week. Of course, an indefinite weekend is ideal, but in the meantime, I'll take the extra day.

We started off Friday by both taking the day off of work to spend with the boys. We decided to head down to the Mall of America to go to Underwater World! Jackson, as we expected, loved it. He was so excited to see the seahorses, and of course the sharks. Lincoln was pretty into it all too, and loved looking around and taking in the sights.

After we finished up checking out the sharks and fish, we thought it would be fun to take the boys to the Rainforest Café for lunch. Well, we ended up being seated at a table right next to some sort of a cheetah/leopard type animal, and it would randomly growl throughout or meal. The boys were terrified! Lincoln even curled out the lip and some big crocodile tears, while Jackson kept trying to escape our booth to get away from the thing. I felt bad for them, but it was also just a tiny bit hilarious ;-)

Once we got home in the afternoon, I saw I received this dress from Old Navy. It is so cute, and has me dreaming of summer days when I can finally wear it! I am thinking with sneakers and a jean jacket for the cutest little casual outfit to wear to dinner!



I cleaned up the house and prepared for my parents, older brother and his wife to come over. My brother was home from Iowa for the weekend, so we decided to hang out and have pizza so they could see the boys! We hung as late as we could manage..which was about 8pm. HA! The boys were both up around 4am, so we were absolutely exhausted.

On Saturday, we had a pretty slow start. For whatever reason, we were all just kind of wiped out this weekend! We lounged around and ate cold leftover pizza for most of the morning! Mike's parents ended up telling us we should go check out the local home show for ideas for how to begin landscaping our yard, so we pulled ourselves together, dropped the kids with them, and took off! The show was kind of a bust, we both joked that a year ago it would have been AWESOME to go to..when we building our house! We walked away with a few ideas for the yard though, I totally found the design for my dream pool ;-) I am pretty sure that it where it will remain though..in my dreams!

Once we picked up the kids, we went home and took it easy again. I whipped up some homemade alfredo pasta and peas, we gave the boys baths, and were all lazy in our jammies the rest of the night. Mike ended up coming down with a migraine, and I was just so tired, so once I put Jackson down we both went right to bed. Around 8:30pm. #adultingsohard

So Sunday. Daylights savings. Maybe I sound crazy, but this year is honestly the first time I kind of enjoyed springing forward and losing an hour! Hear me out people. My kids wake up early. Their wakeup time would have been 5:30am, but because of the time change I tricked myself into thinking I was treated until sleeping in until 6:30am, which is what the clock read ;-) Now, if the clocks had been turned back, that would have been a 4:30am wakeup time, and one heck of a long day! In all honesty, when the kids wake up as early as they do, it was kind of nice to have the ridiculously long early morning cut a bit short!

Mike continued to have a migraine Sunday, so I hung out with the boys while letting him sleep and rest throughout the morning. I managed to take Lincoln into town with me, where we did some damage at Target. On nothing but groceries and household products. #howdoesfoodcostsomuch #takeallmymoney

Once we got home, Jackson was already down for his nap, so I fed Lincoln and got everything put away. He went down for his afternoon nap shortly after, and I decided I was going to go out to the garage to work out and do Insanity. Literally as I was changing my clothes, I looked over at my bath tub and realized the house was quiet and both boys were sleeping. So, I kicked the workout clothes aside and filled that tub up, turned the TV in our bathroom onto Fixer Upper, and did some much needed relaxing instead!

The rest of the day including more lounging. The boys woke up in great moods, so I even managed to squeeze in some quality time to work on the blog, which honestly doesn't happen nearly as often as I would like. I have bought a trail mix at Target that is called 'bunny bait', and we taught Jackson to call it 'bunny crunch', which he pronounces 'bunny bunch', it is so precious!

I got an e-mail that Gap and Old Navy were having awesome sales, so I finally scooped up this swimsuit for Lincoln's Easter basket, and these socks. I have been struggling to wear flats or slip-on sneakers lately because it is too cold to go without socks, but I also don't like the Michael Jackson look of white socks with low cut shoes ;-) At 40% off, I scooped up a few pairs!

We capped off the evening with leftovers for dinner, and The Walking Dead. I never like Sunday nights, but I do always look forward to TWD and finishing off our weekends on a fun note! AND, who is looking forward to The Bachelor finale tonight?! I can't wait, and I also can't wait for the next season of The Bachelorette to start, with someone a little bit more likeable than Nick vying for love ;-)

 

Linking up with Biana today!

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