February 25th, 2021: The Playground is on fire

Oh boy. This morning started off with immediately finding pee AND poop upstairs on the carpet in our room and the kids room. But what I didn't see is that there were also little poop remnants in the hallway... I apparently walked right through them and got poop on my socks, which then transferred to my workout leggings. 😳🤬 Stinking Zoey! I knew this was probably the case when she was whining to get back in our bed at 6am. She clearly jumped off and did that business then. 🤦

And then there's this... we were on our way home from dropping Maeve off at school and I was listening to the Come Follow Me for us podcast and the host was mentioning some different serious sins and said the phrase "cheating on your spouse" and -- I kid you not when I say this -- Rowan lets out a laugh and mutters kinda quietly "cheating on your spouse...!" as if it was silly that was on her list of serious sins. 😳🙈 It was mortifying, bizarre, and hilarious all at the same time that he even clung onto that phrase and was listening well enough to repeat it. And heaven knows he doesn't know what cheating means or what a spouse is... I'm throwing my arms up over this one, but it was truly wacko. 🤷

This morning was also one of those mornings where all odds were against me to get a solid workout in. For starters, I decided that enough is enough and I'm not helping Rowan go potty anymore. He's done it on his own off and on lately (pulled down his own pants and made sure he was aiming in the pot), but then 75% of the time he still insists I help him do that. So 15 minutes into my workout when Rowan needed to go potty, I insisted he do it all himself, but he remained stubborn and would not, but I was also stubborn and not willing to give in and help... soooo I had to deal with the major meltdown that ensued. Whyyyyy can't that be one of the things that he insists he do by himself because he's big and independent?! Because there sure are plenty of things he's like that with that he actually does still need help with, but won't let me until he struggles for a while. I can't win!! 😭 So frustrating. I just don't want to baby him anymore since he's almost 4! Send help. Anywho, back to the point, I had that going against me and then I also had our Chromecast wigging out and disconnecting every single time I paused the workout to assist Rowan or Nolan with the millions of things they needed me to do. So I threw my hands up at the halfway point of the workout and called it quits. I still felt like I could do a quick ab workout though, so I put on one of those, BUT had to stop that halfway through too because Nolan would not stop plopping himself on top of me. 😅🤦 And that's when I had to laugh and say to myself "oh well, I tried" and at least did my body some good. 

So ya know, the morning may have been a little shaky and annoying, but I did manage to get a lot of cleaning and laundry done upstairs today while Nolan was napping (and he took a nice long nap for once!! 🙌🙏), which felt great so I was feeling like a million bucks after I got that done and got all showered up. Rowan was not a happy camper as I was going into the shower because he really wanted me to go back downstairs with him, but I told him I would be so fast and he said "oh because the water is fast??" Yep, you got it dude, whatever you say! 😂

After I buckled Rowan into his seat to go pick up Maeve, he said with remorse in his voice, "I should have run, done cool moves, and jumped into my seat! But I can't. I can't do cool moves. It would hurt myself. That would be a disaster!" 😂😂 This kid kills me sometimes. Such well thought out sentences. 👏

After school today, Maeve was SO hoping to play with our neighbor Ivy and hung out outside for a while in hopes that she would come around, but it didn't happen. She claims she said she was going to come by our house, but who knows. 🤷 I knew I needed to re-make all the beds since I washed the sheets so to try and drum up some excitement, I said, "Who wants to go upstairs and help me make all the beds again!?!" Rowan came right in with a resounding "me!", but I got nothing from Maeve. I asked again, "Maeve!? What about you??" and she said, "...I'm not interested" 😂🤦 Who is this girl and since when does she use the word interested?! I had to laugh at that response. Don't worry though, she still followed us upstairs when she realized she had nothing better to do. Before long, her and Rowan were having a party playing underneath their beds. They only wanted to kill each other a couple of times, but no visible injuries resulted so that's a plus. 

The awesome news of the day is that Adam got promoted at work today! 🙌🙏 Exciting day for him, for sure!! I think a lot of good things are in store for him right now and I couldn't be happier for him about that. This is the first time he's really in the groove with his job and loving what he's doing since we've been married really. I'm sure it's a great feeling for him!! So grateful that he gave anxiety meds a chance about a year ago. I'm sure that's a big contributor now that he's less in his head! 👏🙏 

As for the rest of the evening, the kids were really cracking us up tonight. Here's a few good laughs we got: 

~We were asking Maeve if she likes any boys in her class and she said there are 2 - she likes Spencer because he plays with her friend Sarah and she likes Ben because he knows our neighbor Ivy. Ivy is in 1st grade though so I asked her how she knows that they know each other and we got a really confusing answer that basically came down to something about Ivy having a baseball statue of a boy that looked like Ben, so therefore they are friends...!? Adam and I were totally laughing because nothing was adding up or making any sense. Who knows what any of it really means, but I wish I could figure it out! 

~The kids both insisted only I help them get in jammies because they "only love me" -- but then Maeve retracted and said, "Well, I love Daddy too because he makes good smoothies and is tall and can reach high stuff" 😂🤦 Some solid reasons, for sure. I know Adam felt great about himself hearing those reasons. 😜

~Maeve and Rowan spent some time drawing on their electronic tablets before going up to bed tonight. Rowan drew this picture of himself. 👇

He pointed to the circled part on his face and said, "it's dripping because it's snot. No! It's water." 😂🤔 and then he drew the other circled part, pointed to it, and said, "That's my butt. No! My penis." 😂😳 Crazy kid. Then he drew a picture of a playground with a sign next to it and said, "This is a playground with a sign next to it that says 'Don't go in' because the playground is on fire." 😳🤣 Then he drew a second picture of a playground with a sign next to it and said, "This is a playground with a sign next to it that says 'Don't go in' because the playground is broken." 🤔🤣 and THEN he drew a third picture of playground with a sign next to it and said, "This is a playground with a sign next to it that says 'It's open' and there's a dance party!" Phew, I'm glad there was a happy ending there. Gotta love that little boy's imagination!

That's it from today's update, but I realized today that I forgot to share a few funny/cute things from yesterday. They are:

~While at the grocery store yesterday Rowan found a hot wheels car that he really wanted to buy. I had told him that if he was good while we were at the store that he could have ice cream when we got home, so then I bargained with him and told him he could have that car if he wanted in place of the ice cream. He liked that idea so we bought the car and when we got home as he was getting out of the car, with his car in his hand and some giddy excitement, he said, "I gotta show Daddy! It's so surprising!" 😂 - which really meant, he'll be surprised. 

~Normally every time we play with Rowan's wind up race car book, I use the red car and he uses the yellow car. Yesterday though, he decided that he didn't like the yellow car anymore because even though he likes lemonade, which is yellow, he does not like that the sun is too bright sometimes, and it's also yellow. So with that logic, he switched to the red car. 😂🤷 Impeccable reasoning. 👌

~Rowan has been putting up a BIG fight with getting dressed lately, but the other day when I was getting zero compliance yet again, I said "Oh! I know!! Let's set a timer and see if you can race and get dressed before the timer goes off!" BEST IDEA I've ever had - he immediately went for it and was all smiles and giggles hurrying to get those clothes on. 😍 It has worked every time since then and he is always SO proud to finish before the timer goes off. It is quite possibly the cutest thing ever. 

Well, that's a wrap! Here are a few cute pictures I got today of Nolan. He might not be walking yet, but he sure is a troublemaker! Usually he destroys as he goes. 😂 He has also outsmarted Zoey's dog food house because now he can move it away from the wall himself. So much for that. 🤦 He's lucky he's cute!

 

He escaped a diaper change 😂🤦

Peace and blessings. ✌️

February 24th, 2021: Are you checking for bugs?

Adam worked from home today, so I almost thought I was off the hook having to wake up the boys to put them in the car to take Maeve to school UNTIL he reminded me he had an appt. at 7:30am to see a Chiropractor. 🙄 Laaame. That's a major plus side of when he normally works from home - that I can leave the boys in their beds and let them wake up when they want to. It's SO nice, but didn't quite work out this time and Rowan was quite the cranky boy being dragged out to the car last minute. He kept muttering "I'm tired! I'm tired!" through his tears. Poor little boyfriend. Luckily most other days when he has a few minutes to regain consciousness and get out of his bed himself he is fine and happy to be awake and get in the car. 

Anywho, after my workout this morning the boys were very much wanting my attention so I skipped my scripture study to play with them some - sometimes it's just good better and best and I've gotta alter the course as I go. So today it was doing wind up car races for the 100th time with Rowan, reading a few books to Nolan, and then letting both of them climb all over me on the floor at the same time. As it always is, it was nice to slow down and just be in their little world for a little bit with no distractions. I'm grateful everyday I can be at home with them and just be all eyes and ears when I know they need me or just really want my undivided attention. 🥰

Before I put Nolan down for a nap, I planned out dinners for the rest of the week and made a grocery list. Then I plopped him in bed with the hope of taking a quick shower and heading to the store without him while he slept - another perk of Adam being at home - but his nap was way too short and it didn't happen that way. 🤦 So I fed both boys lunch, did some tidying up while they ate, and then we grocery shopped and headed straight to get Maeve on our way home. Due to covid, I have been hauling Nolan into stores in his car seat all these months instead of letting him sit in the front of the cart, just so he couldn't touch the nasty cart. But today, I actually thought about it and realized I could just wipe down the cart with the sanitizing wipes they provide before sitting him in there. Now I'm kicking myself I didn't start doing that months ago. 🤦 Almost 15 months old and Nolan got to sit in the front of a cart today for his very first time. He loved it and was cute as a button sitting there. And it was glorious for me to ditch the car seat that weighs a ton of bricks with him in it! 🙌🙌 Rowan gave me a good laugh while we were shopping - I was examining the apples before I picked them to make sure I got good ones without bruises and he asked, "Are you just checking for bugs?" 😂😳 No, no I am not little buddy. I don't think I would buy apples if I had to check for bugs before taking them. 😂

Ivy and Roman came around to play after we got back from the school and I was putting away the groceries. They seem like sweet kids and love seeing our dog and little Nolan. Maeve and Rowan played outside for a little bit with them in the GLORIOUS weather, might I add. It was SO nice today, literally 74 degrees, which is insane considering last week it was 20-30 degrees and snowy/icy the whole week. We're going from one extreme to the other, but I sure do love the nice weather that brings the kids outside to play. Maeve went over to Bella's house at 4 and then at 5 they both wanted to come back over here and play until dinner time. 😂 Just playing musical houses, cause why not!? 🤷

We had some tasty black bean tacos for dinner, which I've made a couple times before and kinda forgot about, but they're so good. You top the black beans mixture with this marinated lime corn salad and avocado and it is 👌👌. It was bath night for the kids and now they're settled in bed and here we are. 

Before I sign off, I just have to also say that seeing Rowan in a helmet is one of the cutest sights. He is going to be 4 in 4 months and for some reason that does not seem possible. He still seems so small and his raspy voice is still so little sounding. I am not complaining about that one bit though! Gotta hold onto those little voices for as long as I can. 😍

Also also, not only did Adam get me a stand mixer for Valentines day, but he got an attachment for it that you can make homemade ice cream in. 😮😮 It just came today. His boss has a caramel custard recipe and we will certainly be trying it out this weekend. 🙌

Until next time, feast your eyes on these cute pics of the boys at the store today. 👇

Overjoyed to be holding the garlic 😂😍

Always watching his silly older brother 😊

Rowan discovered a more fun way to ride the car cart 🤣

Of course Rowan is being a total goober in the background when Nolan nails his smile. 🤦😂

Aaaand there's another way to ride along too 🤦

Trouble! Had to load up on Kix cause they were majorly on sale. 😂

His little feet underneath him in that position were killing me 😂😍- he got some extra admirers in the check out line while sitting like this! 

Peace and blessings. ✌️

February 23rd, 2021: I'm just hungry for it

I had the worst night's sleep last night and was very much asleep off and on for what felt like 20 minutes at a time all night. Somehow I willed myself to workout still and make pancakes for breakfast, but once Nolan was settled down for a nap I most definitely put on some educational shows for Rowan and took drifted off to sleep for a couple of hours on the couch. I just had to! I was fading quickly while sitting at the kitchen table after eating breakfast and after about the 30th time Rowan was still insisting I wind up my little race car so our cars could race around the tracks in his racecar book. Something had to give cause my eyes could not stay open. 😴

Eventually I willed myself off the couch and we ate a late lunch and got dressed to go pick up Maeve from school. The weather was SO nice today that I insisted that we all go for a walk around the neighborhood after getting settled in at home. Maeve chose to ride her bike which I was happy about because it's like pulling teeth to get her to choose it. But I swear, that girl is never going to learn how to ride a bike. She is still so over the top cautious and slow even with the training wheels on. I wish the neighborhoods around here were more flat so she could get some better consistent practice and not be afraid of it. At least she got on it though. A couple neighborhood kids saw us leaving and came with us and then we also stopped at Bella's house and asked her if she wanted to come out and play so she rode with us back to our house. She on the other hand is only a few months older than Maeve and is riding like a pro without training wheels. 🤦 Granted she is the youngest in her family with older sisters to keep up with so I know that changes things. Maybe she will be good inspiration for Maeve. 🤞 Back at our house, the kids drew some hopskotch courses with chalk and did hopskotch for a little bit before coming inside to play until dinner time. 

And now here I am, back from youth activities. It was combined YM/YW and they all played volleyball. Which reminded me of the few times I've ever played it and how bad it hurt my arms. Not really my thing. 

A few laughs of today/past days that I realized I never wrote down: 

~One of Rowan's Christmas presents was Osmo games, which is like a set of special interactive educational games that go with his tablet and they are seriously so cool and fun. I thought he would be obsessed and want to do it all the time. For the first few weeks he did do it most days and then after that he has now been showing zero interest and never wants to do it. I asked him today why he doesn't like to do it anymore and he said, "I did it for too long one day" to which I responded, "Oh, so did you just get sick of it?" and he said, "No I didn't. I just get hungry for it." 😂🤔 Haha, I literally have no idea what he meant by that, but I'm pretty sure it is in fact that he just got sick of it and he doesn't understand what that phrase means. 

~I forgot something funny from last night, which was at bedtime when Maeve showed us how she lays with our shirts in her bed (she has been sleeping with a shirt of each of ours for long time because it's her way of having us with her so she doesn't miss us too much while she's sleeping... 😂🥰). She said "I take Nolan's sleeper and I wrap it up in your shirt Mommy, like he's in your belly. And then I wrap Mommy's up in Daddy's and it becomes like a nice pad and I lay my head on top of it and snuggle with it." 😂😍 She is too much! 

~While Rowan was pooping today and pushing kinda hard for it to come out, I remembered how so many times recently when he's having to work hard to get it out, he says, "I eat a lot but it's still hard [to poop]!" 😂🙈 ... as if he thinks that just eating more food is what will make it easier for him to poop. Too funny. 

Well, that's about all I got for today. Enjoy these pics of Rowan that I took during my work out. He was cracking me up. And now you can see for yourself how ripped the girl is that posts these work outs! 🤯The good news is Adam has been telling me he thinks my muscles are getting more defined everyday. 🙌 I am basically always sore so things must be changing! I definitely know my ab muscles are getting stronger because I can do the ab hold for twice as long now without a break, so I'm happy about that! 

😂 He's my favorite. 

Peace and blessings. ✌️

February 22nd, 2021: I'm gonna poop on you

The kids played so well together this morning in their room for so long that I almost had to pinch myself to make sure it was real life. They would have stayed up there if I hadn't told Maeve she needed to come down and do her school work on the computer. She literally said "Mom, can I play just a little bit longer??" when I asked her to come downstairs. They just love being in their own little world together now I guess, and it's pretty awesome. So our morning was pretty great cause I got to enjoy the quiet while I did my work out and scripture study. 🙌

After Nolan's nap and lunch we headed over to the Pylants' house for a playdate. Always a fun time! When we showed up Nolan immediately glued himself to me and I'm not sure if it's because the last time we went to their house it was to drop the kids off for a date. Maybe he thought I was going to leave him again - either way, I was happy to have some serious snuggles for a good few minutes. 🥰Another friend Sarah was there too with some of her kids for a portion of the time I was there so it was fun to chat with her as well. 

I started making mushroom burgers for dinner when we got home before I realized we were out of Worcestershire sauce, which is a pretty key ingredient. Adam decided to wing it and throw in a bunch of other random stuff to make up for it and I was pretty skeptical since it was missing the main ingredient that gives it good flavor. He joked and said, "I'm the main ingredient" to which Maeve responded matter of factly "No you're not Daddy, you're too big!! You can't fit in a burger! You'd have to stand up in it and then it'd be really tall..." 😂😂Love her and her two cents. 

Rowan was a hoot to put to bed tonight. When I was trying to convince him it was time to put his pull up on, he said, "No because I'm gonna poop on you" 😳 - um, no thank you, I will pass on that. Ha and then he insisted that a jammie top didn't go with a certain jammie bottom even though they most certainly did match, so he picked a different top instead. I put on the jammie bottom that was already out and when he realized I put that one on, he said "Nooo Mommy, I wanted to put on the pants that go with the other top I picked out instead" 🤦 - I tried to convince him it was silly to take the pants back off since he'd already put them on, but to no avail. He ended up picking basketball shorts instead and then told me those were actually what went with the initial jammie top, not the other pants. He said, "you oopsied picked the wrong pants..." 😂🤦 Crazy kid! Ya never know what you're gonna get with him. 

I was listening to a podcast episode on my way to Amanda's house that shared this quote from Elder Holland and I thought it was so insightful. I think many might misinterpret the scripture in Moroni 7 about charity to mean that if we don't always show perfect charity, we are nothing. But he clarifies that it really means that without Christ, we are nothing, since Christ is the only one to ever show true charity at all times. Love that distinction and love his words below! 👇

“The greater definition of ‘the pure love of Christ,’ however, is not what we as Christians try but largely fail to demonstrate toward others but rather what Christ totally succeeded in demonstrating toward us. True charity has been known only once. It is shown perfectly and purely in Christ’s unfailing, ultimate, and atoning love for us. It is Christ’s love for us that ‘suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not.’ It is his love for us that is not ‘puffed up … , not easily provoked, thinketh no evil.’ It is Christ’s love for us that ‘beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.’ It is as demonstrated in Christ that ‘charity never faileth.’ It is that charity—his pure love for us—without which we would be nothing, hopeless, of all men and women most miserable. Truly, those found possessed of the blessings of his love at the last day—the Atonement, the Resurrection, eternal life, eternal promise—surely it shall be well with them. 

“This does not in any way minimize the commandment that we are to try to acquire this kind of love for one another. … We should try to be more constant and unfailing, more longsuffering and kind, less envious and puffed up in our relationships with others. As Christ lived so should we live, and as Christ loved so should we love. But the ‘pure love of Christ’ Mormon spoke of is precisely that—Christ’s love. With that divine gift, that redeeming bestowal, we have everything; without it we have nothing and ultimately are nothing, except in the end ‘devils [and] angels to a devil'" - Jeffrey R. Holland 

Now that the kids are settled in bed and I'm back from a quick trip to the store to pick up a few things it's time to relax and probably watch a show. So I'm gonna say peace out now and leave you with this cute pic of Nolan just laying on the floor. He loves to just lean back and stretch out sometimes and it makes me laugh. 😍 Oh and also this pic of my kitchen sink last night after I finished the dishes. I consider it a skill that I was able to pile them so high without falling over. I do whatever I can to avoid drying dishes by hand, that's what the drying rack and air are for after all, right? 😂🙈

Peace and blessings. ✌️

February 19th - 21st, 2021: Dog breath, Culver's, & Feeding the missionaries

The weekend is coming to a close, but is it really? Kinda doesn't feel like it, considering school was out all last week and is STILL out tomorrow. All the days kinda feel the same. Adam will be ditching us and going back into the office tomorrow though, which really just means more freedom for the kids to be wild and crazy and for me to do stuff in our bedroom when I please (his desk is in our bedroom so when he works from home it's pretty much off limits). Anyway, let's talk about the weekeeend. 

Friday morning I woke up and started putting on my workout clothes, only for Adam to say "don't forget about your doctor's appt", which I had totally forgotten about even though it was on my mind the night before. Mom brain is a real thing and I guess that means I should have had another reminder go off that morning. 🤦 Luckily Adam saved the day and I swapped my workout for a shower. So off I went to drive on the snowy roads to go to my annual appt. at with my OB. Luckily there were only a couple dicey spots and all went well driving slow during those parts. I got back and the kids were in the middle of putting on a show for my Mom on facetime, so I still managed to get a workout in once I was home and it worked out well since it was only a 30 minute one for that day. Most of the time they're an hour long and that would have been a bit much. 

I did find out on my way home that my friend Amanda was at the doctor because she thought she had a ruptured cyst on one of her ovaries. She spent 8 hours at the doctor figuring it all out and after some ultrasounds and a CT scan she found out it was actually an infection in her colon. Poor girl!! She just can't catch a break. I offered to help her in a million different ways, but she didn't take me up on any of it. 🤷 We had planned on watching their kids on Saturday so that they could go on their Valentines date, but considering the circumstances, that didn't end up happening. 

Adam stopped working at 2pm on Friday and then went out to try and buy some better more waterproof gloves for the kids and a sled. He came back with gardening gloves and an inflatable mattress, so uh, I guess that's what you get in Tennessee. 🤦🤷 Then we all went outside and built a snowman that looked like Olaf. The kids helped some, but it was mostly Adam. I did my part my providing the supplies for his face and buttons, so A+ for me. I learned recently that Adam is more of a snowball fight, snowman building kinda guy and I'm more of a sledding kinda girl. So luckily it works out for us for him to take the reins on the building. 👏 

After he finished his work of art - it really did look pretty legit - we thought about going to Culver's for dinner. We attempted to go on Thursday after sledding, but it was closed. Since it was on our minds, we figured we'd try again. Still closed! The one in Franklin wasn't and the kids were BEGGING to go to that one, but driving 30 minutes for Culver's seemed a little crazy so we ended up just making dinner and eating in. I made this sweet potato bruschetta that was actually pretty good! A different take on it, but I enjoyed it. 

Lately I've been letting Zoey lay in bed with Maeve while she's falling asleep and she loves our bed so much that she will stay there for a while, which is so cute. Maeve cracked me up when I was putting her to bed because Zoey was licking the crap out of her face and she said, "Zoey's breath smells like basil" 😂🤔 - basil was in our dinner, but she didn't get any of it, so who knows - maybe the smell of basil was just in the air haha. So random. After the kids were asleep, I did some jump roping while watching The Good Doctor while Adam was out getting something at the store. He took so long that I was about ready to call a friend and get them to go search for his car on the side of the road, but luckily he showed up before I pulled the trigger. We ended the night by pulling out the Couples Game again, so go us for not being boring. 👊

Saturday morning (yesterday) I got Maeve ready thinking I was going to take her to her Musical Theater dance class trial round 2, but they ended up being closed. So that didn't happen, but what DID happen is Culver's was finally open yesterday, but only until 4pm so we ended up going out for lunch. It hit the spot like it always does and Maeve even impressed me by eating ALL her food (she has a newfound love for hamburgers) and adding M&Ms to her custard instead of just eating it plain. The girl is growing up. I'm so proud. Never thought I'd be proud of my kids for adding more sugar on top of sugar 😂, but sometimes you just gotta expand your horizons and learn that custard is always better with toppings mixed into it. Am I right or am I right? 😂

We also had fun on Saturday pulling out the Science Experiments book that I got Maeve for Christmas and we did a few fun experiments. We learned that salt will make string stick to ice cubes because it changes the melting point of the ice temporarily and then it refreezes to it. We also learned that a balloon will pop when held over a lit candle, but it will NOT pop when you put cold water inside of it because it keeps the balloon cool enough. Pretty cool stuff! We also did another one that involved a pitcher of water, an orange, a postcard, and a paper towel tube that is not worth explaining, but we learned some facts about motion from that one. The kids also played outside on our back patio where the snow was still untouched and experienced sliding down their little slide when it's all covered in snow and there's a pile of a snow at the bottom. It was pretty anticlimactic because they're getting way too big for that tiny slide, but luckily the novelty still made it kinda fun for them. If Nolan liked snow at all, he would have been all over it! I'm sure he will be going down that slide on repeat this summer. 

It was smoothies all around for dinner after our heavy lunch, but unfortunately that made Adam and I snacky by the time the kids were in bed and we were relaxing. We caved and decided to get cheesy bread from Domino's and eat that while we finished the 3rd movie in the To All the Boys I've Loved series - the devil made us do it. 🤣😳 And we washed that down with some sour candy cause you know, in Adam's words "we need(ed) to get rid of it so it's not a temptation anymore" 🤦. We'll just chalk it up as a bad day as far as food intake is concerned and say tomorrow's a new day. 😏 The kids said a lot of funny things yesterday so here were our laughs of the day:

~While at Culver's Maeve was talking about how Chick-fil-a doesn't have burgers and she said, "cause you know... chick-fil-a!" I responded, "Yep, like chicken" and she said, "Yeah! ... Get it??" 😂👌

~We stopped at Walmart on our way home from Culver's to pick up a few groceries, but on the way there Rowan needed to go potty so we stopped at a gas station and I took him in. While on the pot he was looking at how there were multiple rolls of toilet paper hanging up and he said, "I think there are so many rolls of toilet paper in case someone has to go a lot of poop"! 😂😳

~I was taking care of the flower arrangements Adam got us for Valentines day and Rowan was watching me and after I was finished he noticed a flower that was pretty wilted and he said "I think we need to get rid of this flower too because it's wacky Mom!" 😂 I told him that the fact that I added more water and food and trimmed it might make it liven back up. 

~While Maeve and I were in Walmart, Adam was in Home Depot with the boys and Rowan needed to go potty again. This time while he was in there examining the toilet paper holders (again 😂) he saw the ridges on the bottom of the holder and said, "I think those are there so you can rip it off easier" - so surprising and pretty impressive that he would pick up on that that little detail and draw that conclusion. 👏👌

~At night when I told the kids they could have their screen time, Rowan decided he wanted to just watch Maeve's tablet with her instead of get his own out so he told me, "I'm gonna watch Maeve's screen time Mom, I don't need mine" 😂

~Rowan has a pretty bad rash under his lips right now, but he tries to avoid us putting medicine on it at all costs, so when I said I needed to put some on before he went to bed, he said "No, it's late" (which it wasn't) but I said, "Oh, it is?" and he said, "Yeah... if we put it on, then it will be daytime! Ahhh!" Apparently it feels like eternity to him when we apply the creams. 🤦😂 Despite his attempts to evade putting the medicine on, I told him it had to be done and that he could pick who put it on - himself, Maeve, Mommy, or Daddy. He was thinking about who would be the best one to pick and it was taking him a while, so Maeve chimed in and said "Someone has to be the best, so... I will!" 😂🤷

~Rowan usually fights getting dressed or changing into jammies at all costs, but make it a race and he is completely overjoyed to do it. He was literally all smiles and giggles racing Maeve to see who could get their jammies on faster that night! 🥰 

~Every single night it is routine for me to scratch bellies and backs of Maeve and Rowan. Lately though, while I'm doing it, Rowan has started to direct me to spots that I'm missing or that especially itch. It goes a lot like, "Here!... now here! ..... now here!" and then sometimes he even throws in a spot on his leg. The little stink! I get a good kick out of it. 😂

Today church was cancelled because of the roads. I guess some are still a little dicey in neighborhoods. So we at least still took the Sacrament and the kids watched the Friend to Friend Broadcast from yesterday. Maeve was a fan and Rowan said he liked it "a little bit" - honestly, for me, a lot of the day was spent in the kitchen. I mopped and once it was dry in there again I got going on food prep since we had to feed the missionaries tonight. They didn't get to eat with us, but they came to pick up the food. I decided to make some homemade rolls using the melonpan recipe we love, but only making the main dough part and shaping those into normal rolls. Turns out they make really awesome dinner rolls when the cookie crust is not around them!! I also made some cheese tortellini meatball soup and a fruit salad. Of course we all ate that as well and it was delish. While I was doing some of the prepping Adam took Maeve and Rowan to a playground to get out some energy. Other than that, we had a zoom call with my family tonight to catch up with everyone and that's about it. 

Our two laughs of the day today were the following:

~Rowan saw a tie he didn't recognize in his drawer and said, "I think Daddy got this for his birthday and didn't like it and was like 'nah!' and threw it in my drawer" 😂😂 (I was not in the room when he said that, but Maeve was and she thought it was funny so she told me about it afterwards. Love her for it!)

~This morning Rowan told me he wanted Chex cereal and lemonade for breakfast. After saying that, he asked me if I was going to work out. I said no and then he said, "Oh... then I want Cheerios and no lemonade" 😂🤔 ... I have no idea why my choice to work out or not has anything to do with what he's in the mood to eat, but whatever! Cheerios it was. 

Well that's a wrap on our weekend! Here's a few pics:

Had to zoom in on this face 😂😂

All he needs is a cup with a straw for his dreams to come true 😍

Oh my gosh, his little head poking out is toooo much. Daddy's boy through and through! 😍😍

Peace and blessings. ✌️

February 18th, 2021: A Winter Wonderland

Today was pretty magical because it snowed so much last night that we woke up to 5.5 inches of snow! It's been a long time since we've seen that much snow somewhere we actually live, so it was pretty crazy awesome!! 🙌 The day also started off magical in more ways than one because Nolan was the first one to wake up and that wasn't until 8:45am. 🤯 Say whaaaat!? I'm pretty sure the kids were still asleep then too because it was very quiet in their room, but they did wake up a few minutes after him. I have no idea why that even happened, but the extra sleep was awesome. To make it even more awesome, the kids stayed in their own room playing until 11am. They did not even come downstairs for breakfast! 😲 It kinda felt like I was living in an alternate universe - lots of snow outside, kids sleeping in way late AND playing happily on their own in their room for a little over 2 hours!?! I must be living right. 😂 Nolan kept me company during my workout though and luckily didn't get in my way until the last 10 minutes when he just insisted on sitting on my stomach while I was trying to lift some pretty heavy weights while laying down. Not the best combination, but I usually humor him for a little bit because he always gives me the biggest grins while he sits there. 😍Before long though he was back in his high chair playing with a straw so that I could finish. 

Soon after finishing my work out, eating breakfast, and doing a little bit scripture study I got Nolan all bundled up to take him out in the snow to see if he might like it a little bit more now. I plopped him down and he was not a happy camper. 😂 So I held him for a little bit just taking it all in and throwing a few snowballs. I figured getting him out there would get the other kids interested in joining us and sure enough, before long they asked me to get their snow clothes on them. Jackpot! We all had fun in our little winter wonderland for a bit throwing snowballs, making snow angels, falling face first in the snow for fun, and even eating some snow. Rowan declared it proudly every time he took a bite of snow. 😂 I will never get enough of him in his snow hat that he loves putting on by himself. Too cute for words. He also was so very excited about putting his mittens on correctly and actually getting his thumbs in the thumb spot. It's the little things for 3 year olds! 🥰

Adam stopped working at 3:30pm and suggested we go sledding, which I was all for, except for the fact that we don't have a sled. But then he said "you don't need a sled, all you need is a cookie sheet" 😂😂, so there you have it. We searched high and low for our snow pants that we never did find before going to CT, but I know they are in our attic somewhere. We didn't find them, BUT while searching we did find the little bag I could never find when we moved in that has all the baby ties/bow ties and suspenders in it!! 😲🙌 I could not believe my eyes and was SO excited to have that back in my hands over 2 years later. It is sad though because inside the bag there was a tiny Christmas baby tie that Nolan could have worn for the last two Christmases if I had had access to it. 🙄 What a bummer. Another bummer is that I also knocked my head really good with the ladder stairs when I was trying to put them back up one handed while holding Nolan. Just a word to the wise, you cannot really do that easily with one hand and I had to learn that the hard way. Now I have a headache and a bump on the side of my head that does not feel so good. 🤦

We found a hill for sledding that was apparently a popular spot, but it's a good thing we were around other people because the cookie sheet was not working out so well and some people next to us felt bad and offered us a sled since they had a few with them. So nice of them and totally saved us! The kids loved it and we earned even more points when we picked up dinner for them at Burger King on the way home. Adam and I remained strong and decided to have healthy food at home instead, so go us. I usually put on 10 lbs after I stop nursing and so now I need to be a little more careful with how often I consume treats and other junk. If only I could have the benefits of nursing forever without actually having a baby tied to me. 😏

We discovered tonight that Nolan is smart enough to open our baby gate now when it isn't locked. The little stinker! Time to start locking it again. He also zooms up the stairs now whenever the gate does get left open. Nothing but trouble! He had us laughing this evening when he pulled a box of cereal out of the pantry and then sat on it. 😂 And another good laugh when he was over by a toy bin just whipping one toy out after another as if the only fun is in emptying out the bin haha. 

Some other laughs of the day include:

~While I was eating a poptart (Adam is trying to kill us both - he saw salted caramel pretzel poptarts at the store yesterday and just had to try them. They always get you that way!), out of nowhere Rowan looked at me and very seriously asked me, "Do you have no teeth?" 🤔😂 - I have no idea why considering the fact that I was literally in the middle of chewing, but it made me laugh. 

~It's very clear that Adam is Zoey's favorite and tonight Maeve said to him, "I think Zoey is your favorite because we got her from your parents instead of Mommy's parents." but then she motioned to me and said, "but it's okay Mommy, because you have baby Nolan", 😂 but ironically he also heavily prefers Adam over me. I just do the dirty work around here and receive no love in return. It's fine. I'm fine. 😏

~I got some new face mask stuff with my Christmas money and a few times now I have put it on in my bathroom while Maeve is getting settled into bed. Tonight while I was laying in bed with her she said, "Why haven't you been doing your face mask??" and I admitted I had been slacking and needed to do it. She was quite proud of herself to have reminded me and it made me smile. I guess that's more cute than funny, but whatever. Gotta love that my 5 year old can keep me on track!

~Rowan loves watching Maeve do her math and reading school work on the computer and tonight he knew how to do what she was doing and really wanted to do all matching that had to do with the number 3, because - duh! - he's 3. 😂 His love for the number 3 is out of this world simply because that's how old he is. Anytime we're doing anything where the number 3 or 5 is involved, Rowan always claims 3 and Maeve claims 5 and there's a whole lot of excitement surrounding it. It's only natural. 😂😍

~I forgot to share this yesterday, but Adam was wearing some sweatpants and a non-hooded black sweatshirt that has a red and green picture of the top of a suit with a tie in the middle. It's meant to be an ugly Christmas sweater, so it's REAL classy. He asked me if he should wear that to Walmart instead of changing and I said, "Yeah, if you want to end up in one of those people of Walmart videos" 😂😂 - he got a good kick out of that response. And then he - you guessed it - changed his clothes. 😉 

~Rowan has been rocking backwards shirts more these days now that he is dressing himself more often. I had to laugh when I looked over and saw him with his backward shirt, Maeve's beanie on his head with a headband over top the beanie, and a long necklace around his neck. And walking around like it was nothing. 😂😂 3 year olds are the best! 

I think that's a wrap, so here's some pictures of us enjoying our winter wonderland today!

Notice Rowan ready to nail Maeve 😂

😂 He's too much 👆👇

Cutest little marshmallow 😍

I give him an A+ for effort considering he did everything in his power to figure out how to eat with these gloves on instead of just taking them off 😂👆👇

Gotta love the pretzel stuck to his hat in front of his mouth 😂

Peace and blessings. ✌️

February 11th - 17th, 2021: Smoothies, Valentines, & Snow for days

By some miracle it's the next night and I'm actually HERE. Go me. I have one more week to catch up on to get back to the present, so let's get to it!

Thursday Feb. 11th I started my cycle, so I kinda felt blah all day. It has kinda come back with a vengeance since entering the picture again after having Nolan and the first day is always pretty gross so I feel gross. It made me want comfort food and to just be super lazy. I pretty much gave in to that, only did half of a work out in the morning, and then lounged around with the boys the rest of the day until Maeve got home. I showed Rowan how he could follow the recipes that come with his pretend smoothie maker and boy was he obsessed. He made me about a million smoothies that day. I kept waiting for him to be done with it and decide to move on to something else, but I swear that would not have happened if I didn't intervene and put on Letter Factory to save my sanity. 😅Sometimes I justify extra screen time during the day if it's at least educational, so Letter Factory came to my rescue. We did do preschool that day and made a food graph on the floor. He would not stand or sit still though and kept jumping around too close to the food, which had me worried he was going to step on something and cause a big mess. I kept asking him to be still, to no avail, and sure enough he stepped right on a cherry tomato and the guts squirted all over the place, including on my coat and face and our rug. I was not exactly a happy camper after that and definitely snapped a little, especially considering the fact it's exactly what I was worried about. One of those I told you so moments that are so annoying. 🙄😡 I will say I'm proud of myself though because despite feeling gross that day, I managed to grit my teeth and clean all the bathrooms still, which really needed to be done. As Rowan would say- Boom!

Friday Feb. 12th was a highly anticipated day for Maeve because she had her school Valentines party. She was so beyond excited for it and it was fun to see all her Valentines from her classmates and she got a pretty good haul of candy and treats too. Her teacher made her an adorable little goodie bag too with cute heart classes, a heart straw, a heart pencil and cute stencil, and some candy/treats. It was obviously a real party! That day also happened to be Chinese New Year and I had gotten a little story time kit from the library for the kids to do - so they watched a video about Chinese New Year and listened to a story about how it came to be and then had a coloring page and activity page to do. The kit even came with little necklaces with Chinese coins on them. They loved it! Adam stopped at Trader Joes on the way home from work and came home with a bunch of pretty flowers for all of us for Valentines Day, so that was fun! He is always able to make little arrangements with flowers that are supplied at his work, but then he also got a bigger bouquet from Trader Joes. So lots of pretty flowers on our table right now! The kids love that even they got little vases of flowers. 🥰 Of course he brought home potstickers too, so that made dinner easy! We quickly ate and Maeve and I had to book it to get over to her trial hip hop class at a different dance studio. I found this one through a google search and was so surprised when I found out it would be $15 a month cheaper than the other studio she tried. It is a nice little studio. She was the only white girl there, which is cool - I like the idea of her experiencing diversity. She kept up pretty well with the hip hop moves, but afterwards said she didn't like it because the music was too loud and she had to wear a mask the whole time, whereas she didn't have to at the other studio. 🤦 Hip hop might not be for her, but they also have a Musical Theater class, which is kinda a cross between jazz and hip hop and then they also have a ballet/tap combo. We will see what she settles on! After her class, I dropped her off at Bella's house so she could celebrate her birthday with her. They had cake and watched a movie, so the lucky girl got to be out till 10:30pm. Meanwhile, Adam and I enjoyed girl scout cookies and a loaf of focaccia bread that Adam found at Trader Joes (it was delish!), while watching a movie ourselves.

Saturday Feb. 13th Maeve was a cranky mess while getting ready to go back to the dance studio to try out the other two dance classes. Turns out it's not the best idea for her to be out late, considering the fact that she often doesn't sleep in to make up for it. So it was kinda like pulling teeth to get her there, but she cheered up once she got going. Unfortunately, there was a major accident, so the real teacher for Musical Theater got stuck in traffic and didn't make it in time to teach the class, so someone else "taught" but she had no idea how to run the class so it was kind of a free for all. Luckily, we will get to do another free trial this coming Saturday to actually see what it's like. But she did get to do Tap/Ballet afterwards and enjoyed it. Her attitude is still that she'd rather go to the other studio so that she doesn't have to wear a mask, but who knows - maybe she will just love Musical Theater and I won't have to burst her bubble that we're going to pick this other studio to save some money. 🤞 After we got home, Adam rocked the kids world by making a major fort for them in the living room and I worked on preparing my YW lesson that I had to give the next day. It was on the Priesthood and Adam and I got to talking about how it's kinda fitting that men and fathers specifically can hold the Priesthood because it gives them a different special way to bond with their children, since they don't have the special bond that is created through birthing babies that mothers have. I had never really thought about it that way, but I like that. I always tell Adam that I feel bad for him that he doesn't get to experience carrying our babies like I do (it might not be a walk in the park, but there is nothing like it!!), but he does hold the Priesthood and will get to lay his hands on our children's heads multiple times throughout their lives and speak the words that God would have them hear in those moments. That is pretty dang special and amazing too! Anyway, thanks to the Pylant's, Adam and I got to go out for a Valentines date on Saturday night, so we dropped the kids off at their house and went to BJs for dinner. We waited almost an hour, which stunk, but the food was awesome - we got some really good avocado egg rolls as an appetizer and then Adam got an Asian salad and I got a quinoa power bowl with salmon in it. It was so good and had lots of different flavors going on - my favorite part though was the pickled onions! I love the tang that they added. I had never had them before, but they were so good. We also ordered a salted caramel pizookie and it was heavenly! We were stuffed to the brim walking out of there, but it was so nice to enjoy our food and have some quiet time away from the kids. 🙌 We stopped at a few stores on the way back to their place in hopes to get some Valentines goodies for the kids, but it was a serious lesson learned to not wait until the night before to get little gifts. The joke is on us because there was just about nothing to pick from! 🤦 I had hoped to get them some squishmallows, but they were all gone, so I got Maeve and Rowan each a balloon and then a little stuffed hedgehog for Nolan. I also got Rowan a box of chocolates since he didn't get the candy haul from school like Maeve did. It worked out well enough and luckily the kids didn't know I was planning on getting them squishmallows. 

Sunday Feb. 14th we had ourselves a fun little Valentines Day. Although it started out in a not so happy fashion, when Rowan would not cooperate in the slightest to get dressed for church, so I had to pin him down. Then he attempted to charge at me and the baby in his anger once he was all dressed. The poor boy has some serious anger issues and it's a little overwhelming for me, honestly. I just hope and pray it's a phase considering he's still 3 and that he will grow out of it as he gets older and hopefully learns how to manage his feelings better. 🤞🙏 Heaven help me. Adam was worried about the roads on the way out because it was a bit icy that morning and he almost wanted to just turn around and go back home at one point, but I told him so help me if we don't go considering the battle I had with Rowan. That wasn't going to be for nothing! 😅 Luckily church was a breeze for me because the boys are obsessed with their Daddy, so it was Adam that got the short end of the stick and didn't get to listen super well. It's called balance - where one parent gets put through the ringer and then the other parent gets put through the ringer. It's how we survive these days with little monsters running around. 😂😜 Anyway, after we got home from sacrament meeting, the kids got their Valentines gifts from us and Adam's parents also sent some stuff for them too so they got to open that stuff as well. I also made Maeve and Rowan little Valentines cards where they had to check the box "yes" or "no" if they would be my Valentine and Maeve was so excited to make the check marks for her and Rowan. Luckily they both answered yes 😉 and Maeve immediately decided to completely copy my card design and make the same cards for me and Adam asking us if we'd be her Valentines too. 😂Gotta love 5 year olds. After this exchange, I sneaked upstairs and did some last minute prep before my Zoom lesson, which went pretty well, except for the fact that I got about zero voluntary participation from the Young Women, but what can you do. It was like crickets, but not surprising considering it's hard enough to get them to comment in person face to face. Anyway, the rest of our day was filled with Valentines fun - such as a fun little craft with the kids where we "painted" hearts by dipping them in a shaving cream and paint swirl mixture and then scraped off the excess to reveal a cool swirled design. It was pretty cool! I also made my traditional homemade Reeses hearts, which are always a hit. And then I also made some homemade refried beans to go in a soup that I made after those for finished that we all ate for dinner. It was pretty tasty! So lots of fun in the kitchen for me. 😏 Adam made another awesome fort that day for the kids and they both attempted to sleep in it when bedtime rolled around, but Rowan would not settle down so he had to go up to his bed. Maeve on the other hand did last all night! Once she was asleep, Adam and I hung out in our bedroom upstairs and finally played the Ultimate Couples game that I bought him for our anniversary in October. We have a really bad track record when it comes to doing things together other than vegging on the couch and watching shows/movies. It's kinda lame, but for some reason it's usually all that ever sounds fun. But it seemed like an appropriate way to celebrate the day and it ended up being pretty fun! Lots of random questions where we had to guess what the other person's answer would be and a few silly challenges to do too. It was a nice change of pace from how we normally spend time together. 

Monday Feb. 15th was Presidents Day, so no school for Maeve and no work for Adam. We all got to sleep in a bit, which was awesome, and the kids are so great these days about just playing in their room for a while when they wake up until Nolan is awake too and I'm ready to go downstairs. It is kinda the best and something that just started happening out of nowhere recently! 🙌🙌 Adam basically ran the show with the kids all day on Monday because I had a presidency meeting and then after my meeting, he had requested that I make melonpan so I spent the rest of the day in the kitchen doing that. BUT the coolest part about is I got to use the new stand mixer that Adam ordered for me for Valentines Day. He looked up a bunch of reviews and decided to go with a Cuisinart version that looks pretty similar to a Kitchen aid and operates nearly as well, but is half the price. I was on the fence about it, but decided to stick with it and it was pretty nice to have it do all the kneading for me!! The dough came out great! It's always fun to have a new kitchen gadget to work with. I made a double batch and it is soooo time consuming to make melonpan since you have to make two different doughs and then wrap one around the other before you bake them, but man they are SO good! I was pretty happy to be finished once 7pm rolled around and they just had to rise one more time and then go in the oven. The kids got to stay up late to eat one fresh out of the oven, which worked out considering the next day ended up being a snow day and school got cancelled. Lucky Maeve! 

Which brings us to Tuesday (yesterday!) - woohoo! One of our neighbors that has a daughter close to Maeve's age invited us to go play out in the snow and I am sad to say that Maeve was a total wimp and wouldn't do it. She did not want to go out in the cold, the little stinker. So we had a low key day spent inside, but it was pretty cute because she still got dressed up in a pink dress with tights to match her baby doll that wears a pink dress with tights. 😂😍 Leave it to Maeve to wear tights on a day she is just lounging around the house. Another highlight of the day was when Maeve randomly remembered one of her primary songs that they have been learning and started singing it. She got stuck and couldn't remember all the words so we looked it up and practiced singing it a bunch until she had it all learned. It was pretty cute how much fun she had practicing it and getting it mostly memorized. While we were doing that it got me remembering that if primary was happening in person right now, Rowan would be a sunbeam! I told him that, which then got us singing Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam. I was holding Nolan while singing it and would jump every time we said "beam" and before long was laughing and laughing every time I jumped. Maeve and Rowan thought it was so hilarious that he was laughing, so then they kept laughing hearing him laugh, which only made me laugh too! It was a total laughing party! 😂🥰 I just love all their little laughs and hearing them certainly warms my heart. 

In other news, I gave the kids their nightly piece of candy before bed and Rowan decided to steal Maeve's laffy taffy and take a bite out of it. When I went after him to try and get it from him, he decided to chuck it across the room in typical Rowan fashion. Afterwards, when I was talking through what he did wrong I said, "Should you have thrown it across the room or handed it to Mommy?" His response was "no" 😂🤔, I repeated myself to try and stress better that he was supposed to pick the right answer and he still responded with a no. 🤦 I swear, that kid is always confused! Every time I ask him what he should do instead of scream or hit someone when he gets mad, he responds "say sorry" -- he has the order all wrong in his head and no matter how many times we talk about it he always says the same wrong answer. 🤦🤷 3 year olds! 

Oh and I guess I should also mention that last night Adam thought our bedroom smelled like poop and he ended up finding a poopy diaper of Nolan's open underneath our bed and Zoey had apparently eaten all the poop out of it. 🤢 She is so gross!! Needless to say she got a bath and we rubbed some toothpaste around in her mouth to try and overcome the overwhelming poop breath. It reeked so bad! Dogs are so gross sometimes. 

Oh man, I did it! I'm finally talking about TODAY now! Hallelujah. Maeve had another snow day today and currently more snow is coming down strong so she has tomorrow off too! She has been so excited to just kick it at home. The kids played pretty well together this morning while I got my workout and scripture study in and then after lunch we pulled out the playdough and had some fun making different animals, aliens, bugs, flowers, and gummy worms. After work (Adam's been working from home all week too), Adam decided to venture out to the store before the snow started coming in again to get a few more things we needed to get through the rest of the week. Maeve and Rowan went with him so I got some quiet time with Nolan, which was nice. He said so many shelves were bare just like they were when Covid became a scare. Dang! Apparently that's what happens when it snows in Tennessee - people get frantic and stock up haha. Luckily we got what we needed for the most part. On another note, what is it with my kids and potty words?! I swear, they're always talking about poop, farting, or butts. While getting them ready for bed tonight, Maeve was hopping around sticking her booty out chanting "fart! fart! fart!" and then Rowan exclaimed, "Don't let Daddy put my butt in your butt!! (referencing me)" 😳🤔and then Maeve chimed in, "Don't put on my jammie poop!" And that's when I put my head in my hands and accepted the fact that I live with a bunch of hooligans who speak nonsense 75% of the time. 🤪 So yep, that about wraps up my day today! Oh and also, fun fact - today I learned that melonpan is ridiculously good with strawberry jam in the middle of it. 

And now for pictures from the last week: 

BJ's date 

Doesn't get more cozy than that 😂😍

Oh my, Maeve's pose 😂🤦

Sweet sibs! 😍 Rowan isn't pictured because he had no festive clothing to wear 🤦🤷 - can't win them all 

😍😍

She's worn this top for the last 3 Valentines days I'm pretty sure. It started as a dress! 😂

Trouble!! Chilling in the mop bucket 😂

Reese's hearts! 

I think Rowan could use a little more personality, don't you? 😜😂

Showing off her heart craft! 

Melonpan 😋😋

He got this icicle off the car! 😂

He loves to get himself stuck behind this chair. Witness below! 👇

Peace and blessings. ✌️

January 28th - February 10th, 2021: Dancing, Birthdays, Girls Nights, and Homemade rolls

Behold, the final stretch to get completely caught up. Halle-freakin-lujah! This update starts with January 28th, which was a Thursday, and usually weekdays are pretty basic. But not Thursday, January 28th. That Thursday was anything but basic, and let me tell you why. Rowan pulled out a bag of tortilla chips in the morning and somewhere in his little brain decided that a handful of those chips was especially meaningful. So meaningful that he told me "I'm going to hold these until we get Maeve from school and show them to her" - I laughed and honestly thought he wouldn't have it in him to hold them for 6 hours. When he was still holding them 45 minutes later though, I thought to myself, I better not say a word and just see if he can really pull this off. I mean, it was ridiculous, but also kinda hilarious at the same time, that he even wanted to do it. Preschool time rolled around and he said, "Hey mom, let's do preschool! Oh wait, I'm holding chips, so we can't do preschool. Nevermind!" I laughed and gave him the pass, because I just had to see how this was really going to play out. Soon after, we went upstairs to get dressed and when it was time to put his shirt on and he realized what needed to happen, he was paralyzed and looked at me as if saying, "But what will we do!?" knowing that he couldn't keep the chips in that same hand the whole time.  😂😂🤦 I told him he would need to switch back and forth temporarily to put each arm through and he was cool with that. He then ate his whole lunch with just one hand. My friends, I was astonished, but those chips were in fact still in his hand when Maeve stepped foot in our van in the carpool line. He was dedicated and determined and I applaud him for that. It definitely gave me a good laugh and also gave Maeve a good laugh when I told her that they had been in his hand for 6 hours. She thought he was pretty weird for it, but he showed them to her, shared half of them with her, and eventually they were all gone in their bellies. The sweet boy just needed to share some chips with his sister I guess. 😂🤷

He kinda went next level the following day when he pooped and got mad at me after I flushed it down the toilet and said "But Mommy! I wanted to show it to Maeve!" 😂😱😳 Oh my word, child. I assured him that was disgusting and that Maeve would not care in the slightest to see his poop. I will add here that before said poop got flushed down the toilet, Nolan stuck his hand into it and retrieved some poop. Yep. Poop is a hot commodity around here. 😂😅 Then we went to pick up some ties I ordered for Adam and the boys from Belk in Franklin (it was worth the drive because they were a TOTAL steal - all Mens ties were $6 and all the boys were $2 each! 🙌🙌🙌). To make it more worth our while though, we stopped at Costco since we were close by. I decided to order us all pizza afterward for lunch and we got to the car and Rowan said, "I want to show Daddy my pizza before I eat it". He didn't even care that that would mean waiting to eat it until dinner time. He was so dead set on showing him. I suggested facetiming with him so that he could see it over video and he didn't even go for that! It took explaining to him that we were going to the Pylants' house for dinner that night and meeting Daddy there, so we wouldn't be able to show it to him and eat it right then, so we'd have to just save the pizza to eat the next day in that case -- for him to finally budge and accept the facetiming option. Ironically, once we had Adam on videochat, Rowan would not hardly crack a smile or say a word to him about his pizza. 😂🤔 He might be the weirdest child I've birthed...! But it's also kinda heartwarming that the things he loves most - chips, poop, and pizza (yep) 🙈 - he has to share with the people he loves most - Maeve and Daddy. 🥰

Carrying on -- Friday was also a momentous day because Maeve had her first ever (trial) dance class! It was so fun for me to see her put on a leotard, tights, and tutu more than just for fun! This girl was born to dance. She was SO excited to try out this class and was ready to sign up for it when it was over. It was a ballet/tap combo class and she cracked me up by continuing to refer to it as "tip tapping" 😂😂. We're going to do some trial classes at another studio this week, which is actually significantly cheaper, so I really hope that we like the vibe and teachers of this place more!! 🤞 

Friday night we hung out with the Pylants at their house. We had a delish asiago chicken pasta dish and some homemade rolls that were 👌👌 and the adults played some more Slendor while the kids all played upstairs. Amanda also got a key lime pie, Adam's fav, knowing it was his birthday the next day. Key lime pie isn't exactly my favorite, but this one was so good! It was a fun night as always!! 

Saturday the 30th was Adam's birthday. 33 years young! 😉 It was pretty cool that it fell on Saturday, but ironically work was SO busy that week with some deadlines that he had a bunch of work to do that day, which usually never happens. Since we couldn't dedicate the whole day to celebrating, he decided to hold off until the next Saturday. But I did let him sleep in that morning and we were able to go out to lunch with his Quality RRC boss and wife, on them, as a birthday treat. We got Indian food, which we love and hadn't gotten for a long long time. It did not disappoint! After that, I took the kids over to the Pylants' house so that we would all be out of Adam's hair while he needed to work. Amanda and I vegged watching chick flicks while the kids played, which was awesome. It is not often that I relax and watch a movie during the day! We planned to have Adam meet up with his at a Hibachi restaurant once he was finished with his work. The time rolled around for that and off we went to the restaurant, only to find out it was a 2 hour wait. Access denied! Sooo we decided to try for another Hibachi/sushi place, but the Hibachi area was not operating there and you could only place to go orders, so the men ordered for the adults and the rest of us went back to their house and we made mac and cheese for the kids. Then like an HOUR later the guys showed up with the food. We had no idea it would take 40 minutes for them to get the food after ordering it, so that was about the most anticipated dinner we've ever had.. 😂 We were able to get hibachi and some sushi and it was all really good with lots leftover! It was nice to have those leftovers plus the Indian leftovers to eat off of the next couple days. 🙌 Love me some restaurant leftovers. To humor Adam for his birthday we decided to play Euchre after we ate, which is a card game that he has tried to convince me and my family to play a few times and we've always denied because it sounded too complicated. We dedicated ourselves to trying to figure it out, and I will admit that once we got going, it wasn't too complicated in the end and we all understood what was going on. Dare I say, it was actually pretty fun too. A birthday miracle for him - someone playing that game with him and actually liking it! 🤣

Something I forgot to mention in my last post is that basically since 2021 started, I have been doing this new work out program led by a different chick on Youtube that posts free work outs. It was recommended to me on Youtube based on my subscription to Kristin Andrus, but this chick's name is Caroline Girvan and she is buff! Definitely next level. She lifts anywhere between 18 lbs - 33lbs x 2 dumbbells. My jaw about dropped when I first saw those numbers, but I have realized that I can also meet here with with those weight amounts on some of the moves. There are still some that I have to go lower on, but I have definitely been pushing myself!! Things are ramping up around here. It's kicking my trash and most days I am more sore than I've ever been and I love that. Sometimes I act like it's hurting and Rowan says "What Mommy? Does it burn?" 😂 Why yes, bud, yes it does. These workouts are mostly successful, except for the moments when I'm trying to do moves on the floor and Nolan is done eating breakfast so he's loose and is either crawling right underneath me when I do planks or attempting to sit on top of me with his butt in my face when I'm laying on my back. Most of the time he wins and I end up crushed by him, so I have a number of do-overs before all is said and done. 😂🤦 Gotta love life with mobile babies. 

Thursday Feb. 4th was Maeve's 100th day of school, so she got to dress up like a cute little Grandma. It was pretty funny to see her with silver hair and granny glasses on. She fit the part the for sure! The Usborne books I got were delivered that day too!! I threw a party for a friend and earned a bunch of free and half priced books. I was quite pleased with how many I was able to get and these books are SO cute and fun!! The kids scored some awesome activity books, sticker books, some good reading books with life lessons, and some other fun books that have repositional stickers and stuff like that. Rowan even got a wind up race car book that has a few tracks on it and these wind up cars go around the tracks like nobody's business. Honestly, I think it's pretty cool too! 😂 He's obsessed. 

Okay, confession - I wrote this whole part above 👆👆 on the 8th, with the intention to finish the post the next day and here we are 8 days later on the 16th. I just can't fully get it together here. I've lost my drive a little bit - but it's in part because I've already let myself behind and it always feels like "what's one more day?" when nighttime comes and another episode of some show is calling my name or something else is going on. 🤦 Shame on me!! So help me if I don't get myself caught up in the next two days! 

So I'm going to keep chugging along sharing noteworthy stuff from Feb. 5th through today, the 16th. 

Friday Feb. 5th, I about had a heart attack when I went into Nolan's room after his all too short nap. I let him cry for a bit when he woke up, because I was hoping he'd fall back asleep. Eventually his cry started to sound different, like maybe he'd hurt himself, so I went to see what happened and found him with blood pouring out of his nose! Somehow he hurt himself and gave himself a bloody nose, but it slowed pretty quick thankfully. It gave me some serious flashbacks though to the 2 bloody messes Rowan had in his crib during his days with ITP. 😱 And then I was reminded that Rowan was 15 months old when he got diagnosed and Nolan is 1 month away from being that age!! So crazy. For a minute, I was worried on the inside thinking "oh man, here we go again!" - but the chances of that are slim (supposedly - it's a rare disease so who actually even knows...). I will say though interestingly enough, in the last 8 days he's had like 4 other times where he's hurt himself and ended up with some pretty bad mouth bleeds. 😳 So here we go, time to embrace the constant bumps and bruises from a clumsy baby transitioning to a toddler. Although heaven knows this boy doesn't want to walk anytime soon! 

ANYWHO, moving on, we went to Amanda's house for a playdate in the afternoon, but stopped at Sonic on our way over to get her her favorite Sonic blast because the poor lady has just had it rough lately. She recently found out her sister got diagnosed with a pretty aggressive form of stomach cancer and then to top it off, she found out the night before this playdate that her youngest son tested positive for the same syndrome that her other son has - which has been stressful and involved lots of seizures, tumor growths, and eye problems. To think she might end up going through all that same stuff with another child now too is just so overwhelming!! I had to do what I could to give her a little boost. I just feel so bad! When it rains it seriously pours. She also just texted me and found out that her sister's cancer is even more aggressive than they thought and has spread to her lymph nodes. UGH. Cancer is the worst. But we had a good time chatting during our playdate about the sad stuff and some happy stuff too to keep it balanced out. Ironically, that night she had already planned a girls night with a bunch of other girls and I'm not sure if she was wishing that hadn't already been planned or excited to have some needed girl time to cheer her up, but I think it ended up being good for her to keep her mind off everything for a little while! So I helped her prep some food for it and then took the kids home and had some quick dinner and went back over there. It was a really fun girls night with a few other girls I already knew from some Bachelor viewing parties that I went do during Peter's season of the Bachelor, but then also some girls I didn't know that were really nice! Lots of funny conversation, but also lots of heavy conversation that left me feeling like this world is a total mess and way too much disturbing stuff goes on in schools and behind closed doors in homes of even LDS families. I am kinda terrified for my kids to get older and be exposed to some potentially terrible stuff. 😳😱 And also some of the food/treats that were brought were so good, I was dying. Like homemade brookies (brownie and cookie mixed) and this cinnamon roll sheet cake. To die for!! Seriously what dreams are made of. SO GOOD. 

Saturday Feb. 6th, we celebrated Adam's birthday more as a family in the evening, so while he was gone roofing I made some healthy homemade gummy bears. He has a serious addiction to candy and since he is trying to lose weight right now I figured I needed to come up with some healthier options that still feel like candy. I made some with lime juice, lemon juice, cherry juice, and orange juice. The cherry and orange ones were not very good, but the lime and lemon ones were WAY better! Nice and sour, the way we like it. So that was a hit, which I was happy about, considering the sour patch grapes were kinda a bust (though I brought those to Amanda's girls night and they were a hit there! 🙌). I also helped the kids make cute birthday cards for Adam and Rowan did so good with his! It is fun that he's old enough to join in the card making now. I will say - I wish I could say that Saturday was all fun and games and we had a great birthday celebration that was purely fun, but unfortunately the kids were not very well behaved that day and we had a couple fiascos that were not so pretty. Like the fact that Rowan managed to slap me before Adam got home from roofing and then also the fact that the kids had to fight over who sat where and got which plate SO MUCH before we could sit down and eat dinner that Adam got annoyed enough to walk away from his own birthday dinner - yeah, I was not too happy about that. 🤬 Like can't we keep the peace and happiness when we're having a fun birthday celebration!?! Why is that so much to ask!? That's what I was asking myself more than once that day and probably said it out loud too. So uh, yeah, there were a few ugly hiccups and some ugly tears, but we're all still alive and still love each other so that's something. We were able to turn the corner enough to share some laughs while he opened his cards and presents and enjoyed some key lime pie - his request, since he enjoyed it at the Pylant's house so much, had to have round 2. Go Amanda! In addition to the gummy bears, he got some new ties that he liked, so that was good too. 

Sunday Feb. 7th, I woke up in the morning and my throat was hurting so I ended up sleeping in and missing our Zoom sacrament meeting. I later asked Adam if the kids asked why I wasn't there and he said "yep, and I told them it's cause you're going inactive and that it happens to people sometimes. They start to hate Jesus and that's the end of that." 😂🤦 Oh my, leave it to him to always throw in a good joke. He definitely did not actually say that to them. The only other noteworthy thing about Sunday was that I managed to make some copycat Texas Roadhouse rolls and they did not disappoint! They were pretty spot on and were even better the next day. I also made the homemade cinnamon honey butter and it was divine. It's really fun to practice all this bread baking, but I am going to get fat soon! I plan on sticking to healthier recipes though for the most part. I can't splurge every time! 

I don't have any notes written down for Monday, so it must have been pretty low key, but Tuesday Feb. 9th I wrote down a couple funny things that the kids said. Rowan and I were reading one of those early reader books so each page just said "I see the _____" - fill in the blank with lots of different places like police station, library, grocery store, etc. and of course there were pictures of each place so he could basically read it himself. He cracked me up though because when he got to the page where there was a grocery store, he said "I see the store station" 😂😂 - granted the page before had a police station on it, so I guess he was just stuck on the station part of it. It was pretty funny! Maeve sure had me laughing too when I put her to bed and she noticed she had forgotten to put her baby in jammies. She said, "I keep forgetting to put my baby in jammies! Ugh. I should write on a sticky note to do it and put it on my dresser where my jammies are so I will remember to do it when I put my own jammies on!" 😂😂 Bless her smart little heart. A solid idea, I'll give that to her! I also have to mention that on Tuesday night I had youth activities and Jessica, the YW president, brought a box of fruit by the foots as a treat. Bring me back! I had to snag one because it has been years and years since I had one! 

Wednesday Feb. 10th, I finally broke down and went to the doctor over my cold sores. I have had them for like a couple months now and I just cannot get them to completely go away!! They are so ugly and it is driving me nuts. Like thank goodness for covid and masks, but still, there are situations where I'm with people and my mouth is not covered and it makes me feel self conscious. Basically, the doc thinks they may not even be cold sores, so she gave me anti-fungal medicine to try instead, but that has made them worse so YAY. Who knows when my mouth will ever look normal again. 🙄 Anyway, I took advantage of being out and also did a Walmart run with the boys. It was actually really nice weather that day and on our way to pick up Maeve from school, Rowan gave me the idea to clean the van. My children are smarter than me sometimes! I had been needing to clean it for awhile but it is so hard to stomach cleaning it when it's so cold outside, so I told myself I'd take advantage of a warmer day. I'm so glad my 3 year old can remind me of my own ideas that he's never even heard. 😂 As I was walking outside with the vacuum up walked Maeve's little friend Bella and her mom from our ward - they live in neighborhood next door. After chatting for a few minutes, Maeve ended up going back to their house with them while I cleaned the van. Man it felt so great to get that done! It was long overdue!! 

Alright, for the sake of time, I have to stop here, but I am FORCING myself to write about the last week tomorrow night so that I will be officially caught up. Once and for all I just have to do it. 

Before I share a bunch of pics, I have some other miscellaneous laughs to share from the last couple weeks: 

~One morning while getting Maeve ready for school, Rowan yelled out to me as he awoke from his sleep as if the world had ended, "Mommy! Mommy! Your forgot to give me my vitamin!" (referencing the night before) 😂😂🤦

~Showing me a package that we got from off the front porch, Rowan asked, "Is this for Daddy McKarns?" 😂😂

~Rowan was singing the clothing song for his preschool clothing unit (the unit that we've been on for weeks and weeks now because I've been a total slacker since things got crazy with Covid and then the holidays 🙈) and he came up with some lovely verse renditions... 

        -- the first one he prefaced by saying "This is a               dangerous one, but not really dangerous ...                 'this is the way we put on our dangerous hat,             put on our dangerous hat. This is the way we             put on our dangerous hat so early in the                     morning.'" 😂😂 I laughed and wrote it down             so I would remember to write it here, but                   then he followed that with...

        -- "'This is the way we put on our face, put on                 our face, put on our face. This is the way we               put on our face so early in the morning.' Is                 that a funny one Mom? Write that down!" 😂            😂 

        --"This is the way we put on our toe, put on our             toe, put on our toe. This is the way we put on             our toe so early in the morning." which was               sung while putting his foot in Nolan's face,                 while Nolan opened his mouth so wide so he             could try and eat his toes.. 😂😂🤦

~One morning I had put some blueberries on a waffle I was eating for breakfast and I had to microwave it again with the blueberries on it because it had already cooled down too much and it made one of the blueberries burst so it was kinda wrinkly looking. Rowan saw it and said, "Is that a spider?" 😂😳 Little does he know, I don't eat spiders.

~Another morning, I was eating some yogurt with strawberries in it and since it was mixed together, the strawberries weren't totally visible. Rowan saw the red and said, "Is that blood?" 😳 Um... what? What kind of sick person does he think I am?? 😂🤦 

~Nolan's new favorite thing to do is put fingernail clippers in our shoes that sit on the tray by the front door. Adam has found them in his a few times and the other day I was trying to put Rowan's shoes on and he said "Mom, it's not working, there's something in there" and sure enough, it was a pair of clippers. 😂😂 Too funny! 

Aaaaaand now for some pictures: 

Here's Rowan holding his chips while eating lunch that he held for 6 hours so he could show them to Maeve after school... And also here's a funny video about that too. https://youtu.be/REMeEfcqoSw 😂

This cracked me up when I saw the baby hanging with the jumprope around its neck... Pretty sure that was a total coincidence 😂

Excited before her first trial dance class! 

Rowan's creative expression on a card he made 😂😂... At least the long lines are consistent! 

I found him with both legs out in the straddle position with each hand grabbing a foot and it was sooo hilarious. Of course I didn't have my phone out and he wouldn't do it again, but this is the best I got! 😍

He grabbed the hat and put it on himself backwards all on his own 😂😂

This what Rowan does when I ask for a normal picture. 😂🤦 He has no normal bones in his body so I shouldn't have been surprised! 

The granny glasses, princess dress, jean jacket, and that face. On point! 😂

My ministering sister brought me over some Valentines treats. Such a cute little heart basket! 

😂

I'm not really sure what's going on here, but it had to be documented. 😂😂

Sour patch grapes. Took a lot of time to roll each one around in the Jello powder and they still aren't that pretty! 😂

He looks like Eleven minus the fact that it is marker instead of blood 😂

Birthday celebration for the big 33 year old! Nolan was too tired and cranky to stay up for it, so poor boy missed the pic. 

Sometimes the outtakes are just too good! 😂

Texas roadhouse rolls! 😍

He loved this preschool activity so much he said "That was incredible! Let's do it again when it's not preschool!" 😂😂

Just chilling slanted courtesy of big bro like it's nothing 😂

Saw this on FB and it made me laugh 😂😂

100th day of school photo of Maeve's class! 

My cute 100 year old 😍

Maeve's teacher sent me this done with an aging app and it gave me a real good laugh!! 😂

From our girls night! Amanda Pylant (the friend I talk about all the time on here) hosted and is in the middle in the green sweater. 

Peace and blessings. ✌️