What we've been up to

To say the last few weeks of "summer" were boring, would be a complete understatement.  (I say it lightly because since we still have littles not in public schools and the temps are still 90+, its still technically summer in my book).


We crammed in just as much fun and memories as we normally do.  Probably more.  And because of that, blogging once again fell by the wayside. I know, I know.


So rather that write a bunch of recap posts, here's what we've been up to over the last month. 

1. Roadtripped to Rosemary Beach (aka the best family vacation spot ever).

We may already be planning our trip for next summer.  Even though the weather wasn't perfect (a tropical depression was in the area resulting in some rain and double red flags) it didn't even put the slightest damper on the vacation.  The perfect combination of fun, beach, pool, friends, family, activity and relaxation.



And rather than post the nine hundred photos I took, here is the Flipagram that I put together:

2. Eaten Donuts (Lots and lots of donuts)

Last fall, the girls (and the husband) had their first taste of Apple Cider Donuts.  To say they were a hit would be an understatement and much to everyone's dismay (and not just our family) you simply cannot get them in Texas.  Normally, Papa brings some on his visits, but because of his bummed knee his next trip is TBD -- but have no fear, a yummy treat arrived in the mail.  This was moments after the box arrived:

3. Muddy Puddles

Okay, so we didn't technically jump in any muddy puddles (que Peppa the Pig reference) but Texas has been unseasonably wet since we returned from Florida.  And the girls have loved wearing their raincoats and boots and playing in the rain.

4. Honey Do List

A bulk of our time has been spent working on the house (and yes, I still owe an update of the major project).  For the past few months, we've been fairly haphazard about our improvements.  A project there.  A project here.  May not even completed.  Well, we finally decided that we need to focus and work on one room at a time.  The lucky first choice: the master -- only because it had five hundred (okay so maybe only 10) paint samples on each wall despite selecting and buying the paint two months ago...

And of course Little Miss insisted on helping...and mom may have said "Sure and make sure you paint in the awful, too small shirt and tutu that you insist on wearing every other day" in hopes of getting paint on it and having a reason to throw it out!

5. Bikes, trikes and scooters

These girls are on the move constantly.  And now that Little Miss has figured out how to cruise on the trike and Littlest Miss gets the hang of the scooter, most nights are spent with a quick ride around the block...although sometimes they get cut short when we run into neighbors next door.

6. First Days

And last but not least, we did celebrate our "first days" this past week.  Little Miss was a little bummed (and didn't fully grasp why -- dang November birthdays and September cut offs) that she didn't get to start Kinder with her friends from Pre-K one.  So we celebrated her moving up to Pre-K to with the must.do.front.yard.picture. 

The outfit (including overalls request) was all Little Miss.

And more importantly, she loves her new class...but really loved that a bunch of her "old" friends still go to her school every day for after school care.  Win.win.

And then there's Littlest Miss, not to be forgotten.  We took an obligatory pic for her, even though it was just another day in Young Toddlers.  I did however put her in the same dress that Little Miss wore two years ago...think they are related?

Fun right?  I only wish "summer" would never end!

Weekend Recap: Little Fishies

If I had to pick one word to summarize this past weekend it be fishies.  or swimming.  Because honestly, both girls were in the water for the majority of the weekend.


After the previously discussed happy hour date with the husband, we headed to a friends house to swim and have dinner.  Sadly, because we were in the water the whole time, I wasn't able to snap any pictures.


Saturday morning started out just like every other Saturday -- with a mad dash to get out of the house and get to gymnastics on time.  With a stop at the Chic-fil-a drive through.  Somehow, this was our best one yet, as we were only 5 minutes late for Littlest Miss's practice.  And as soon as gymnastics was over, it was time to head back to...yup, you guessed it.  The pool.  For a sweet friend's 3rd birthday party.


The only bummer about the party was that despite all the other party-goers and friends hanging out exclusively in the kiddie pools, my girls refused to go in the kiddie pool, claiming that it was too cold.  So we swam and swam and swam. 


And jumped and jumped and jumped.


We only got out for cake

And playing in the sand.

After a quick nap, it was time to head to dinner for a friend (and partially the Husbands) birthday.  In the last few months we've become pretty close with this family, and I swear the Misses and their sweet daughter are three peas in a pod:

We will definitely be bummed when they pack up and move to Atlanta.


Sunday morning started off pretty uneventful, until Little Miss declared the new media room her
gymnastics room," which resulted in an immediate trip to Nebraska Furniture Mart, and a game of Ring Around the Rosie,  for some much needed furniture for the new media room. 

We didn't buy anything on this trip, but have everything picked out and will head up after vacation to official make some purchases.

And after a quick nap, some errands and house cleaning, it was back to the pool for yet another pool party.

 The crazy antics (i.e. jumping) continued, only this time from an even higher ledge. 


I think it's safe to say that Littlest Miss really is a daredevil. 


Maybe I should invest in more mats and the best insurance?

Five on Friday: Random Update

I have a few much overdue posts currently in the hopper, such as the end product of our recent renovation as well as the Husband's bday recap from last week.  But technology (the blogger app is having trouble uploading posts with pictures), time (there's never enough), and memory (I regularly forget to take pictures of the house until I am sitting at my desk) are to blame.






But since it's Friday and the blog's been kind of silent, I thought I'd link up with Five on Friday and do a random recap of everything that's been going on.

(1) Pokémon Go Guys

Yes, we play. Or I should say I play -- mostly as something to do on my never ending quest to get at least 10k per day.  However, I have introduced the girls to it and they are definitely fans of trying to catch "monsters."  And they love when the monsters land on them without them evening knowing.

(2) Nightly walks and bike rides

So largely because of Pokémon Go we've started doing evening walks with the girls.  Well, recently Little Miss has insisted that she get to ride her bike.  And low and behold, she's pretty good (yes, there still training wheels on her bike, but still).  She made it over a mile the other night before declaring herself tired.

This momma was pretty impressed.






And not to be out done, Littlest Miss insisted on pulling the wagon and made it pretty far as well. 

Although she was definitely worn out when she was done.

(3) Coloring is for paper

Or its suppose to be.  Well, apparently not in our house.  While making dinner the other night, the girls were quietly and peacefully coloring.  This should have been my clue that something was up, but for whatever reason the warning sirens didn't trip.  And then I found them looking like this:

and this:

Good thing they were washable.  Although it took some scrubbing.  Needless to say for the upcoming road trip, I bought them both the Crayola Colorsmart markers that supposedly only work on paper.

(4) Night time snacks

Being a momma and working full time is tough enough.  Nevermind when your kids won't go to sleep. 
We have one kid who cries every night while in bed that she's hungry.  It be one thing if she did this at her actual bed time (ie. 7:30 PM) and not well past her bed time (i.e. 9:00 PM) and if this momma didn't still have to workout, clean up and make lunches for the next day.




And trust me, I wish I could ignore it, but such is not the case when (a) she starts screaming and shares a wall with her currently sleeping sister and (b) when she's off the bottom of the growth chart for weight.  So she wins.  Every night.  At least she eats healthy foods.  Last night she was the blueberry monster.

And her sister hasn't been much better.  Just as I am about to go to bed (midnight if I am lucky), Littlest Miss has been waking up crying.  Twenty minutes of rocking later, and I can finally snuggle up and pinterest myself to sleep (yes, this is a legit thing!)




Needless to say its been a rough week in this arena.  Hopefully, we can all get on a better sleep schedule following vacation!

(5) Date Night Happy Hour

With so much going on in our lives, sometimes it feels as though alone time for the husband and I is slim to nothing.  And with so little time that we actually hang out with the kids, sometimes we just can't justify getting a sitter to do a date night.  Well, thank you Del Frisco's Grille for solving this dilemma.




While flipping through facebook the other day, I saw an add for their new happy hour:

And I immediately sent it to the husband and said "Happy hour date soon?"




His response: "Oh god yes"




Because of previously scheduled plans, we didn't think we'd get a chance to go until after vacation, but because of a last minute cancelation, guess what we are doing tonight?  Yup, ditching work a tad early and having a little date.  Great way to kick off the weekend!




Happy Fri-Yay everyone!

Weekend Recap: Super Girls

This past weekend we loaded up the car (lightly this time!) and headed down to Houston for our Nephew/Cousin's first birthday party.  We got there late Friday (just before 11 PM) so aside from a random picture of someone's Nike, nothing super exciting to share about Friday...other than it meant we got to get a decent night sleep and prepare for a full day of fun ahead...

...once everyone was up and at them Saturday morning, we headed over to the birthday boys house, not to play but to pick up his sister.  Loli and I figured it would be (a) nice for the party throwers to be one kidless while trying to get ready and (b) the girl cousins would really like the extra time together.  After a few bounces on the trampoline while the dad's switched the carseats, we headed out to get donuts and then to the splash pad.

Loli brought us to the CUTEST donut shop.  Only problem was that it wasn't really a donut shop...rather it was a French bakery/café.  Um, yum!  The girls thought so too...and thankfully too as it was not a cheap breakfast by any means!  5 pasteries, 3 milks, 1 tea and 1 coffee set Loli back almost $30...ouch!  However, the girls were fans (everything was gone) and I was definitely a fan of this sign in the café...

After a few bites, the girls just couldn't resist the splash pad or the very large green space.  It was two hours of pure happiness!

At times, they even had the splash pad all to themselves!!

And of course even with water fun, no morning in our family is complete without some combination of gymnastics and ninja practicing!

After everyone looked like raisins, the girls asked to go to the park.  However, despite having fun, they only lasted a short time as it was HOT.  Thus, we scrapped our plans of grab lunch and going to another park, and instead grabbed some lunchables and headed home, thinking that all three would fall asleep on the drive.  We couldn't have been more wrong.  Talk about second wind.  Thankfully, were able to get in an hour of some much needed quiet time.

And then it was off to the party...a Super Hero party!  The favors were absolutely adorable...super hero capes made out of white t-shirts and a bunch of fabric markers so the kids could each customize their own. 

There were also a ton of water activities and of course cake.  Cake for the birthday boy...(think he was a fan?!?!)

And cake for everyone else.

After the party had pretty much wrapped up, we headed out to get the girls some pizza and hopefully into bed at a decent time.  Somewhere during dinner, Pops taught Little Miss how to ambush the mint basket.  Think she's a quick learner?

Sunday morning we woke up, packed up the car, hung out a bit and then headed home -- where we had to cram in a full weekend's worth of errands into just a few hours.  One errand that the girls look forward to each week is helping the Husband with his garden.  This weekend was no exception.

And then it was time for dinner and off to bed, which shockingly wasn't much of a struggle.  But what was a struggle was waking both of them up the next morning.  I think these pics below were both taken at 8 AM Monday...so much for getting to the office early to start the week!!

Think they had fun?

What about you, how was your weekend (and yes, I realize that this question is a few days late!)?

Weekend Recap: Simplicity

Man, I love weekends.


Even weekends where we don't have very many plans.  Actually, sometimes these are the best weekends.  There is something about the simplicity of them, the family time that just warms my heart.  This weekend was one of those. 


Nothing grand.  Nothing extravagant.  Just good times with our family and some close friends.  See for your self.


Friday night gardening.  Yup, not at all what you'd expect.  The husband planted this earlier this summer and Little Miss (even clad in her princess dress) really enjoys it.  Her favorite thing may be picking all of the peppers that we've grown or the ginormous zuchinnis.  Sadly, the zucchini plant is done and before its demise it killed off the tomatoes.  Next year, we plan on adding a few more beds so hopefully this won't happen.

And gardening is hardwork, which makes you thirsty, right?

And tired.  At least for daddy who readily took over the supervisor role.

And once we were fed and bathed, it was time to watch Ragan and all the other Olympic hopefuls on the porch:

Despite going to bed rather late for the littles, we did make it to gymnastics on time the next morning:

And then headed to our favorite splash pad and park for a playdate with some neighborhood friends/classmates.

See saw.

And as expected, a nap was much needed.  At least for Littlest Miss. Not so much for Little Miss or her friends.

And because the three of them had so much energy, we figured what better way to end the day then to head to their house for pizza and laughs.  Boy are these three trouble.  Thankfully, the white bedding was spared of the stamps.

Once home, daddy found a frog on the patio and tried to find his prince.  Thankfully, it didn't work.

The next morning, we decided to skip church (bad, I know!) and just bummed around.  We also thought it would be a good idea to teach the girls to be thankful and respectful of the police officers...so we did what any normal family would do...and delivered them donuts.  Even though the girls may have hid behind me and whispered "thank you for keeping us safe" it was still a great gesture. And they were super excited to take their picture with the statute in front of the station.  I don't know about your kids, but mine may be slightly obsessed with statutes and mannequins.

After we got home, the girls spent the day bumming (aka watching the Disney Channel) while the husband and I continued on the massive cleaning purged we'd started the previous day.  I generally don't like them to sit in front of the tv for that long, but it was the only way I could ensure that the purged items remained in the trash can.  Clearly, Littlest Miss has this bumming thing down pat.

And that pretty much sums up our weekend -- other than doing our weekly grocery shopping and watching the rest of the Olympic Trials.  Neither of which were photo-op worthy. 

What about you?  How was your weekend?