April 26th - May 2nd, 2021: Party in KY

Look at me, sticking to my goals to get updated and back on track. Whoop whoooop! 👊 Here we go headed into the week before last...

👆 I said that because I wrote this whole post the day after I posted my last post, but the only thing I didn't do was add captions to my photos. So that was the only hold up to actually clicking post aaaaand here we are 5 days later finally doing that. 🤦‍♀️

Monday, April 26th:

I really only have some funny stuff that was said throughout the day to share from this particular day, so let's get laughing...

~Nolan was guzzling down some water and I said to him, "Is it sooo yummy??" to which Rowan responded, "No, it's so drinky! Cause you drink it! Drinky!" Then he laughed at himself, proud of how clever he was. 😂 I see what you're throwing down there dude, pretty good, pretty good! I'll give it to you. 

~We had some real fun during preschool when I let Rowan pick the second movement for our teddy bear poem. The poem is:

Get your teddy bear from the ground.
Then go [insert movement] all around.
Hold him high and hold him low.
As [insert movement] all around you go. 

Usually we do dancing, skipping, hopping, running, jumping... something like that. I asked him what movement he wanted to do during our second run through and he confidently threw out "Skop!" 🤔 I asked him to demonstrate and I fully expected him to just kinda stand there unsure of what motion to do considering it was made up, but he busted out his own made up move so confidently and to be honest with you, it really did look like a mash up between a skip and a hop, so for all I know the name he chose was intentional. 🤷‍♀️😂 I was cracking up pretty good and he was pretty proud of himself for making me laugh. Skopping is a thing now in our book! 

~Another laugh during preschool was when we went to read our book. I normally tell him the title and ask him what he thinks it's going to be about. We read "Corduroy" which is about a teddy bear named Corduroy. Considering he's never even heard that term though, I said, "You're probably not so sure what this book's gonna be about, huh?" and he responded, "I think maybe they're cording something...?" *shrugs* 😂👌 A solid guess, little dude. 

~Maeve and Rowan were waiting for something to happen (I don't remember what anymore) and they got into this lovely feud and I honestly couldn't help but laugh:

Maeve: "It's taking FOREVER!" 
Rowan: "No, you mean 'it's taking SO LONG!'" 
Maeve: "Nooo, I mean, it's taking FOREVER!"
Rowan: "NO! YOU MEAN 'IT'S TAKING SO LONG!!!'"

Apparently Rowan doesn't know what the word forever means... 😂

~Rowan is obsessed with headbands and had on a particularly girly headband of mine with a bow on it. He wanted to go outside to play and I told him he probably should take that off before going outside because it's especially girly. His face lit up and he said, "AH HA! I know! We can go to the store and look for BOY headbands!!!" 😂🙈🤷‍♀️ He literally kills me. 

Tuesday, April 27th: 

Tuesday can be summed up in four words: Walmart. Playground. YW Activities. That about sums it up. A pretty typical day in the life. 

Wednesday, April 28th: 

We ventured all the way to Costco to restock up, which is always a win because since it takes awhile to get over there, shop, and get back home, I always splurge and get us all pizza. Which yes, is a total splurge considering it's a whopping $4 total to feed the boys and I. 😂😜 The real splurge this time was spending the extra couple bucks to get some frozen yogurt too. I must say, it all hit the spot!!! That vanilla fro yo is so perfectly smooth and creamy and for being so cheap and basic, their pizza really is amazing. Costco knows how to do it. We also stopped at my old Ortho office because my retainer case wouldn't clasp shut anymore, so it worked out well to be able to drop in and get a new one. The rest of the day was spent doing laundry, cleaning, and packing to get ready to head to my sister's house in KY the next day to spend the weekend there. 

Thursday, April 29th: 

Since I got most of the packing done the night before, I just had to do the final push and spend the rest of the morning and early afternoon cleaning the house and car/showering. It was probably the most chill day I've ever had getting ready to leave town because usually I am hustling way more and end up not getting to quite everything I hope to because I run out of time. I am a true procrastinator by nature. 🙈 I was pretty proud that I got to everything I wanted to besides putting on makeup without being so super rushed. Baby steps! We dropped off Zoey at my bishop's sister's house and they were all soooo excited to have her and thought she was the cutest so I knew she was in good hands. We had to leave her behind because Rach got a new puppy the day before and was a little worried to have her, Tilly, and Zoey all together. Probably would have been too much stimulation, so I totally understood. It was nice not to have to deal with her on the road, to be honest, so it all worked out. We also did something we've never done before on other travel days to KY and that was for me to drive to Adam's work to meet him there and then just leave his car there and drive the rest of the way from there. It was way nice and saved us good time for sure. Plus we avoided traffic that way. Total win win. I'm sure we'll do it every time now. As for the drive, I have to say that road trips with a 17 month old are such a joy. The whole time is literally offering snacks around the clock until those have run out and then offering new toys every 2 minutes, because it only takes that long for each toy to be chucked and he's ready for something better. 🤦‍♀️🙄 Heaven help us. At least it wasn't longer than a 3.5 hour drive!

Friday the 30th - Sunday May 2nd: 

We had ourselves a fun little weekend! We got to be with Rach's fam and my Mom and Dad, who were still there since my Mom stayed with Tess and Zach while everyone else was in Utah for a hiking trip with Josh and Dan as well. They had just gotten back a couple days before we showed up. I was bummed to be the only one to miss out, but what can you do with the little ones at home! There's always next time. As always, the weekend ended too quickly! The highlights include:

~Running errands
~Each child getting $25 from Gram and Gramps to spend so they had fun at Target picking out some new toys. Maeve and Rowan also ended up picking out some birthday presents since their birthdays were both coming up. 🙌
~All the kids also got to hit up the dollar store and spend $5 each on random treats and trinkets, which they also loved. 
~Little Caesars & Culvers for lunch on Friday and Saturday respectively
~Hit up the Nike store to get new sneakers for Maeve and Rowan in the next size up. Got some good ones!
~A Birthday party for Maeve and Zach, the birthday twins. Maeve was soooo excited for it. Rach came up with some fun little games to do last minute - one of which involved nerf guns and we all learned that Rowan has impeccable aim. It was cracking us all up because he could even hit us if we were moving!! 🤯 He was pretty obsessed with the nerf guns from that point forward until we left their house. 😂
~Going to church
~Lots and lots of time playing outside! Maeve learned how to get some air doing a front flip on the trampoline and I was impressed she was brave enough to try. She was pretty proud of herself! Rowan also entertained everyone with his newly invented skop. 😂
~Getting to try out Rach's LED light face mask which was pretty cool! I might have to ask for one of those for an upcoming birthday or Christmas gift.
~Rowan scored an extra Nike sweatband that was probably Bennett's or Liam's and he was quite thrilled to have a new "basketball headband" 😂👌

That about wraps things up! The drive home was pretty uneventful, other than picking Which Wich to stop at for dinner, thinking they'd have a drive thru, but showing up to find out it was attached to a gas station so they didn't have one. So much for a quick stop. Then it took FOREVER for them to make everything too. Oh well, at least it was way better and healthier than getting burgers again, which if Maeve had it her way we'd get every single time. 🤦‍♀️ We had one SUPER excited Zoey to see us again, which was pretty heartwarming. She knows who she belongs to that's for sure! 

And now for pics from the week: 

Lover boy looooves exploring the playground. I can barely keep up with him! 

Konked out 😍

Cracks me up that he enjoys sitting jnside this toy basket. Not the first time he's done it! 😂

Looooves his Aunt Rach and Tess. Just winning him over with screen time. 😂

Rach couldn't help herself but try out a pony in the back of his hair where he's got the most bulk. Worked quite nicely. 😂🙈

Zach was beeegging me to convince Rowan to do his hair just his like his so that they could be twins. Wasn't easy, but we eventually got what we bargained for. 😍

Romper & sandal twins. 😍 These cousins all just love finding any ways they can be the same! Fresh lipstick courtesy of Gram. 🤣

Tess is the cutest with this little lover boy. She was his little mama all weekend as often as she could be! 😍

😍😍 I can't even. He loves her right back! 

😍

Just acting like they aren't little sittin' in the backseat of Rach's van with no boosters or car seats.... 👀

Marshmallow cup game! Timed to see who could get the most marshmallows in the cup in one minute. Bennett and Liam were quite competitive for all the games and pretty sure one of them won every single game. 😂👌

Sneaking marshmallows 

Birthday twinners 🥰

A cute little pic we got of Zoey while we were gone from the family who watched her! 😍

And here's a couple videos of Liam totally cracking up Nolan every single with the same sound effect. Too cute! 😍😂 

https://youtube.com/shorts/dbzc-b_vUtA?feature=share

https://youtube.com/shorts/VeLGKys5TII?feature=share

Side note: As I rewatched these videos to trim them and share them here, Nolan is currently sitting next to me awake (should be asleep, but fought it hard) watching them and laughing at himself laughing. 😂 Gotta love it!

Peace and blessings. ✌️

April 19th - April 25th, 2021: 0/2 for Consistency

Remember that one time I thought maybe I could scale back and blog once a week? Apparently I am now learning that for the sake of consistency and keeping up the habit that miiiight not work. Cause here I am now updating on the last 3 weeks... 🤦‍♀️ Oops! Except, truth be told, I'm only gonna get through one week in this post before I have to wrap it up, so I'm gonna have to break it up. 

Monday, April 19th: 

I realized I goofed and called the title of my last blog post "Are you ready to broke your butt?" which was probably very confusing when I didn't even mention that phrase once in the post. 😆 That's because that phrase was actually said on this particular Monday instead and I didn't even write about that day in that post. Total fail on my part! Allow me to clear up that confusion in a minute. Mostly I just have funny stuff to share from Monday, so here we go: 

~I actually don't know what Rowan was looking at when he said this, but whatever it was, there being 8 was A LOT because he said "There's 8! That's like 1,000!!! ... Nooo, actually like 20!" 😂🤔

~We were trying to get Nolan to practice walking and he wasn't really cooperating. The goal was for him to walk to me in order to get a particular stuffed animal. He wasn't really walking, so Rowan and I proceeded to have this exchange:

Rowan (noticing he wasn't cooperating, he picked up a different stuffed animal): "The loser gets this one"
Me: "OK so if he doesn't walk he gets this stuffed animal as a prize instead?" 
Rowan: "Yeah" 

😂😂 Clearly he didn't understand the point of rewarding only the walking so that he would want to walk... 

~Getting ready to play some pretend game with Maeve after she was home from school, Rowan said to me, "Welllll, actually... Maeve is supposed to be the Mommy. I know she's small cause she's 5, but it's just pretend!" 😂👌 

~Just before starting preschool, Rowan said to me, "Mommy! Are you ready to broke your butt?? *laughs* No no, I mean, do preschool??" 😂🤦‍♀️ An easy mix-up to make... 😏

~Everytime I go into the files on my phone to open the preschool program Rowan thinks I'm going to Amazon and exclaims "Amazon!" Not sure where the confusion came from on that one... 😂🤷‍♀️

Other than that funny stuff, there's just a few other noteworthy things to mention from that day: 

1. Rowan let Zoey back in the house from one of her potty breaks all by himself for the first time! I have missed having a child at home all hours of the day that can let her in for me. 🙌 Exciting milestone! He was so proud. 

2. We're literally almost to the end of the school year and out of nowhere, Maeve was beside herself that night and the night before because she was going to miss me soooo much at school. What in the world!? I have no idea why we are experiencing a regression after months of being used to it. Kinda mind boggling. 

3. I got Maeve to admit to me that she lied when she told me someone in her class was allergic to beans. She only said that so that she wouldn't have to bring beans in her lunch anymore.  Little stink! Turns out she's just tired of taking them, but I guess thought that even if she told me that I'd still make her take them. Now she knows I'm not THAT mean!  

Tuesday, April 20th: 

Just a few noteworthy items to mention... 

1. Rowan came up with the bright idea of lowering our over the door basketball hoop to hang from the oven bar instead so that Nolan could easily shoot baskets with him. It was too cute and they had so much fun with it!

2. Bella came over to play in the afternoon, which is always fun. I took her and all my kids to the store when I realized I needed one more thing for dinner and they looooved that they all got to sit in the backseat together. I had to let Rowan join in on the fun and ditch his regular car seat because he just needed to be like the big girls! I figured no big deal since Kroger is right down the road. Bella's mom was fine with her not having a booster seat and then Bella said "Oh yeah, she lets me skip using it when I'm with her sometimes too - I just have to give her the puppy dog eyes and it works every time!" 😂👌 At the store they literally all stole 1,000 of the green zip ties that can be used with the produce bags before I even noticed. 😬🙊

3. Over the course of the afternoon Rowan got mad at Maeve more than once and clobbered her so many times she ended up with multiple scratches all over her face... 😡 Kill me! That boy and his rage is just too much sometimes. He has been doing better overall lately, but every now and then just has a bad week again! Poor Maeve's face looked so sad. 

4. My work out was interrupted because Rowan knocked my water bottle over and spilled a bunch of water behind the TV... so super fun! Recently Nolan did the same thing, but it was actually worse because it spilled down into the toy basket too so I had to empty most of it and wipe down a bunch of toys.... 🙄🙄. The joys of motherhood. 

5. We're seeing a turnaround in Rowan allowing me to do his hair without fighting about it and it has me all sorts of happy!!! Sometimes if he sees Maeve doing her hair, he'll say "oh, let's do mine too!" and then this particular day after initially saying "No, no!" and starting to run away when I said it was time to do his hair, he caught himself and said, "Wait!! I can be brave!" with a huge smile on his face and proceeded to cooperate perfectly. So stinking adorable and heartwarming! 🥰

Wednesday, April 21st: 

Ivy and Roman came over to play for a bit before dinner. Otherwise, all I have to mention are these two funny things:

~Rowan and I had this conversation when it was almost time to do preschool:
Rowan: "Let's do preschool!"
Me: "But you're eating"
Rowan: "I can do it while I eat"
Me: "Do you have your teddy bear for our song and poem?"
Rowan (referring to his strawberries): "No, but it's okay, these won't go bad if I go get it. They'll just change flavor. Welllll, actually, they won't, cause you just bite them!" 😂😂🤔 Don't ask me!

~Maeve was trying to remember what new 3D shapes she learned about at school and couldn't remember one of the names of them so she said, "Look up 3D shapes with your phone. Or big kid shapes." One in the same, right?! 😜😂 

Thursday, April 22nd: 

This doesn't really have to do with Thursday specifically, but I just have to mention that Maeve and Rowan LOVE the word "actually" - I've been noticing that they say it so often and it cracks me up because it's always pronounced "atchally" and they say it with sooo much expression. It is too cute and funny! And Rowan's still coming in strong pronouncing "because" without the b sound at the front. 😂👊

What we actually did after school was pick up some new plants for our porch that Adam ordered that are supposed to thrive literally ALL year round (we'll see about that! 😉). Maeve insisted she was famished and claimed she had no food left in her lunch box to eat, so we stopped for some fries on the way there. Cause I'm such a nice mom, ya know! Well, COME TO FIND OUT she worked the system and actually did have pretzels left in her lunchbox, but those didn't sound good, so she pretended those didn't exist! Big fat LIAR! 🙄 I was not too pleased she got fries out of me given that. Lesson learned I have to check her lunchbox myself. 

Thursday night I had the joy of going to traffic school to get that speeding ticket taken off my record that I got on my way to church the month before. It was supposed to be from 6 to 10pm, but I was singing praises when the instructor said that beginning that it definitely wasn't going to be 4 hours. We were done around 8! 🙌 Hallelujah! He was a pretty cool officer and said that he personally doesn't pull people over for stuff he is guilty of doing - ie. not coming to a complete stop at stop signs (cause who ever REALLY stops all the way!? No one!) and going 10 MPH over the speed limit. He only pulls over for 15 MPH+ and even said that they come up with what speed limits should be based on knowing that everyone will drive 10 MPH faster than what is listed. So if they don't want people to go faster than 75 MPH, they will make it 65 MPH. Interesting! I guess it makes sense to do that considering most people are guilty of speeding. Anyway, I appreciated his style. 

Friday, April 23rd: 

That night we got invited to go over to the Pylant's house for a donut themed birthday party for Zia! Amanda's sister's family came to town to surprise her for her baptism and it was super fun to meet them! They were awesome and so funny. Her sister's husband was a man from another planet!! He was literally cleaning the whole kitchen after most of the party guests left and it turns out he is just a total clean freak. He said he works late most nights, but still stays up till midnight every night making sure their house is in perfect shape before he goes to bed. WOW! Truly one of a kind. It was a super fun night with lots of friends and we stayed late playing games after most everyone else left, because we're the favorite friends. 😜🙌 Not to toot my own horn, but Amanda was hoping we would stay late, she said so herself, sooo ya know! 😊

In other news, my laugh of the day was when it was raining and Rowan said, "It's OK if our windows are wet because in the summertime they'll dry" 😂🤔 I guess they'll be wet for another almost 2 months... darn. 

Saturday, April 24th: 

We had a fun-filled Saturday hopping around for a bit. Maeve had dance and then we all went to Zia's baptism. It was a sweet little service and they displayed a bunch of cute pictures of their kids through the years and it was fun to see their older girls Zia and Zoey so tiny! We got some lunch afterwards at Culver's and Oscar's (Oscar's for me and Culver's for everyone else... I just really wanted some tacos!). The only downside to picking Oscar's was that I had to watch everyone else eat their custard. Ironically, I decided to hold strong because I wanted to get Crumbl cookies that night as my treat, but then when I went to get the cookies I found out 2 of the flavors that I wanted most were sold out!! 😭😭 So it wasn't even worth it and I walked out with nothing. Such a letdown!! Should have gotten custard after all. I settled instead for some break and bake cookies from Kroger and ya know, they were pretty dang good, so not all was lost. We did also go to Home Depot for some stuff Adam needed to finish building his planters for the front porch plants. AND we got some marigolds for the back patio - it will be so fun to see some flowers and other stuff blooming again over the summer! 😊 

Sunday, April 25th: 

We stayed home and watched church. Only because I was originally asked to give a talk this particular Sunday, but I ended up rescheduling when I thought there was a potential for us to be at my sister's house that weekend if my mom and dad's trip got cut short because of his work schedule. Since that didn't happen, we were able to stay home, but I felt too weird showing up after rescheduling when in the end I could have done it. 🙈 Oh well, better safe than sorry sometimes!! 

Since we had no major plans for the day, I decided to make some homemade braided Challah! It was supposed to be kind of a sweet bread, but it didn't really taste that sweet. 🤷‍♀️ It was still SO fluffy, soft and amazing so I'll take it!! It was a hit for the whole fam! The braid turned out great too, which I was happy about, since the first time I made Challah I totally failed - granted that braid was more complex that time, so I knew to go with a simpler one this time. The weather was great, so since I was stuck with the bread making, Adam took Maeve and Rowan on a bike ride to the playground.  Rowan fell off the swing while they were there and said to Adam, "Dad, will you tell Mom when we get home that you let me fall off the swing? I want her to know so she can give me a hug." 😂🥰 Kills me that he couldn't take the ownership of falling off and also that he's so stinking sweet needing a hug from mom to make it all better! 

After dinner, we did also make a fire and have some S'mores before the kids needed to get to bed! A great Sunday for the books for sure. 😊

Well that sums up the week and throughout the week this week I plan on finishing the weekly updates for the last two weeks as well. Stay tuned! 

Here's pics from the 20th-26th:

Cute little bros who both share a strong love of basketball already! 😍

He's too much! 😍 Getting way too big and smart for his own good! 

He knows he's trouble and proud of it!! 😂 That cheesy face is killer 😍😍

He is so obsessed with putting on any and all shoes. He constantly brings them over to me and then holds up his feet one at a time so I'll put them on. 😂😍

Another spot they found for the hoop 😂

Cute Bella had them cracking up big time in the car!! It was the best 👆👇

It's as if he's angrily saying "get outta my crib!" 😂👌

He's always always pulling himself up to steal whatever snacks and drinks he can from the table. 😏

Trouble!!! 

Just Elsa and Olaf watching a show together 😂😍

Cool baby 😎

Yum!! 

Again, the obsession with shoes. Naked with shoes on. It's a regular thing! 😂

Adam put this cute random note in Maeve's lunch one day during the week and she just loooooved it. She got in the car after school and immediately exclaimed, "It was sooooo sweet what Daddy did! He wrote me the sweetest note and gave me candy!" I asked to see it and the Smarties were still intact. I asked her why she didn't eat them and she said, "It was just so sweet, I didn't want to mess with it!!" 😂🥰 She kills me! She's clearly a sentimental little one. 

Right when we got home she proceeded to follow suit and make me this and handed me a marshmallow when she gave it to me. 😍🥰 I just love her and her cute little heart so much. 

Zia's baptism! We sure spend a lot of time with this cute fam and love every minute of it. 😊

Also, here's a few videos of Nolan tricking us into thinking he was going to really start walking for good!! He was walking up a storm and literally went back to crawling the next day. 🤦‍♀️ He's so lazy! 

https://youtube.com/shorts/5HRGecLAQGI?feature=share

https://youtube.com/shorts/FMqUldjqtjs?feature=share

This one cracks me up how Maeve is copying his stumbles and then Rowan leaves him in the dust saying, "I'm the faster!" 😂👇

https://youtube.com/shorts/zHveC07PGdU?feature=share

Peace and blessings. ✌️