Friday, July 29, 2016

The Highlights

We had a busy week filled with unpacking, home projects and settling into life in our new house.  We turned in our keys for the condo we'd been renting and are thrilled to have all of our stuff in one place.  Our living spaces are unpacked and pretty cozy and we're working on getting our bedrooms put together.  We barely have anything on the walls yet so I'm excited to start picking out spots to hang our favorite things.  It's been super hot in the Midwest so all this time indoors has been good for unpacking.

The best parts of the week were:

// 1 //
My kitchen island is done!!  I love how it turned out.  The yellow bar stools look perfect, I love the new hardware (it didn't have any before) and I LOVE how much storage it adds to the kitchen.  I've got baking items stored here, appliances and lots of kid plates/cups/utensils.  It's a huge work space and we use it all day long to craft, bake, eat, work and play.  It is easily one of my favorite spots in the house.

// 2 //
 Fletcher has been spitting up and drooling a lot lately so we were in need of new, manly, stylish baby bibs.  I searched etsy and everything I liked was nearly $10 a bib.  I had no intentions of paying that much  and was THRILLED to find this set of Daulia bibs on AMAZON!!  They look fancy like boutique bibs for a fraction of the cost.  They're soft, look absorbent and are thick enough do the job.  They came in a fabric bag that I'll definitely be reusing and I love all of the fabric options.

 // 3 //
Pizza Hut DIPPERS are pretty much the most delicious pizza I've ever had.  It's been a while since I've loved Pizza Hut so I was skeptical when my husband ordered the Dippers for dinner.  You pick 4 sauce options and there's no sauce on the dippers.  They were so fun to eat and tasted even better than I'd hoped.  We'll definitely be getting them again.  Have you ever heard of them???

// 4 //
I've been having some good hair days lately and it makes me sad because my hair is falling out like crazy.  Same thing happened when Olive was about 4 months old so it's not a huge shock.  However, it's no fun to feel like you're balding.  Postpartum issues are weird.  I'll enjoy the good hair as long as it lasts and am hoping to get a nice cut in the next week or so to ease the pain of all the hair I'm finding in my house.

 // 5 //
My parents came up to work/visit this week and we had a great time.  My mom helped with the kids because we had some furniture delivered and my dad was busy installing custom closets in Olive and Fletcher's rooms.  I wanted to bake a treat for everyone to enjoy, but it was super hot out.  My mom makes delicious chocolate no bake cookies so I asked her to teach me how to make them.  She gave me the recipe years ago, but mine NEVER turn out.  They're always hard, gritty and just gross.  Kevin loves these cookies so I figured a little tutorial would be nice.  She showed me how to do them, told me her secret tips and I'm hoping to try to make them again to see if I learned anything.
// 6 //
Favorite Kid Pics of the Week
 We unpacked Olive's books and she was thrilled to be reunited with them.  She picked out her favorites, stacked them up and sat and read for a long time.
Olive told me this week, "Baby Fletch is so a-dor-dable!"
Fletcher turns 4 months old today!

Best Posts of the Week:
 



I hope you have a really great weekend!!
Do you have any fun plans in the works?

at 9 comments:

Thursday, July 28, 2016

Confessions

 Lots of random confessions for you today...

Topher is naughty.  He loves to eat all kinds of things that are not food and then get sick.  It's his most annoying trait.  He loves the taste of roses and nibbles on my artificial plants.  I regularly text my sister and say that I'm putting him up for adoption.  I'm only kind of kidding.  How do you train a cat to stop eating things?

I was carrying Fletcher in his car seat through a crowded restaurant.  He's a solid 15lbs + car seat so it's a lot with the diaper bag.  I made my way through the place and headed to the door.  Some college guys were walking in and the last one stopped to hold the door open for me.  I thanked him and he said, "You're welcome M'am."  I instantly felt like an old lady.  Surely it hasn't been that many years since I was a college kid.

Olive is going through an extra bossy phase lately.  She's got strong opinions about everything and forgets to use her manners as she's shouting demands.  She was playing with my mother in law and Olive informed her that "You have to be obedient and do what I say" when she wasn't going along with Olive's plan.  I guess she's listening to what we are saying to her and has quickly learned to apply our rules to benefit her.

We went out to dinner the other night and I'm 99% sure that the only thing Olive ate was ketchup.  She's getting pickier and doesn't seem to eat as well when we are out to eat (unless it's Mexican food then she'll literally lick her plate)

I got caught throwing away Olive's art work recently.  She went to throw something away and saw it laying on top.  She said, "Dis is my art.  How'd that silly art get in there??"  I played dumb and hung it back up on the fridge.  Guess I need to bury that art work in the trash next time.

We moved to Indiana a year ago and I kept meaning to register to vote.  Well it never happened and I couldn't vote in the primary.  Turns out Indiana was important in the presidential race.  Now our governor is the VP candidate with Donald Trump so I got my act together and registered to vote.  Glad that's taken care of so I'll be ready when November rolls around.

I have been meaning to get my hair cut, well really trimmed, for a while now.  It's been too long and I haven't had a cut since last summer.  Over a year.  Yikes!  I have had a string of bad haircuts over the last few years and it's a lot of work to find someone you like to cut your hair when you move to a new city every single year.  So I keep putting it off.  Oh and I am not about to take the kids with me during the day so I need to A. find somewhere to get my hair cut and B. plan to get my hair cut when Kevin can hang out with the kids.  Wish me luck.

I never had any gray hairs before having kids.  The more kids I have the more gray hairs I find.  Bummer.  I've never colored my hair so I'm feeling anxious knowing that the time is coming to figure out the world of hair color because I have no plans of going gray in my 30s.  I also had to buy inserts for my shoes last week because my heels were hurting.  I'm getting old :)

I wish money grew on trees and I could just go to Lowes and pick out new appliances :)  We have a new washer and dryer that we got last year and bought a microwave a few months ago.  I'd love a new dishwasher, stove and fridge, but we'll just have to wait and replace them as needed.  Too many house projects and too little money.

We had big plans to swim often, meet up with friends and do lots of fun things this summer.  I feel like our house and moving has taken up all of our free time for June & July.  So that means we've got to pack a lot of fun stuff into August to make up for super productive months prior to that.

Several times lately Fletcher has been crying in public like at the dinner table when we're out to eat and neighboring tables have leaned over to see what all the fuss is about.  They smile and say just how precious he is.  He's bright red and screaming his head off.  I'm sweating and trying my best to calm him before he ruins someone's dinner.  It's hard to see the situation as precious, but I appreciate their nice comments vs please get your baby under control comments.

I love helping people decorate their homes.  I really enjoy picking out home decor, shopping for rugs, curtains and pulling a room together.  My in laws are working on putting the finishing touches on their condo in Florida so I had fun helping pick out things for their place.  We picked out new place mats, table runners, items to style the shelves with and art for the walls.  Olive photo bombed about half of these pictures.  I'll give you a little tour.  I'm not a huge fan of overly beachy decorated places so I think this once feels vacationy without shoving shells down your throat








 
Do you have any good stories or confessions for me today??
at 6 comments:

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Moving Sneak Peeks

Well we are all moved into our new house thanks to a ton of work, planning and a ton of family helping.  This was our first move where we didn't have to rend a giant moving truck and relied on family and friends to get us moved.  It was a nice change of pace to have everyone so close.  We were thinking we'd move slowly over one week, but we had a whole moving crew of 7 people show up at our door to get us moved in one day.  It made me teary eyed and then we kicked things into HIGH gear to get out of our condo.

One of my favorite move moments:
Olive decided she was excited about her new room and that this was our home about 24 hours after moving in.  She grabbed some decorations from our home decor pile, headed straight for her room and said we needed to hang some things on the wall.  It was sweet to see her wanting to settle in.
 
Olive thought all of the boxes were fun and enjoyed climbing on them.  She turned them into bed, pretend packed her toys in them and colored all over them.  She wanted to help us load up boxes, but was not really interested in packing up her toys to be moved.  So I packed up toys while she slept.

She was a good packing helper and only a tiny bit of a tornado.

Fletcher refused to go to bed the night before we moved so we decided to bake cookies for our moving helpers.  They were enjoyed by everyone.

The cats have made so many moves so they were barely phased by the process.  I found both of them sleeping like this on moving weekend.  I was kind of envious of their cat naps.

We were without cable and internet for a few days so I got lots of packing done thanks to some fun DVDS and lots of snacks.

 My MIL came up to help us move our entire kitchen and all fragile home decor.  Olive was sure Nanny was there to play with her and I was so thankful for the help.

 I took ZERO pictures of my family coming up to help us move.  That's super unlike me and shows you just how crazy busy we were for hours.  I was packing like crazy, my mom was watching the kids and everyone else was loading like crazy.  It was madness and I'm so thankful for that crew.  The cats were the last thing we moved to the new house.  I went over to get them and was excited to introduce them to our house.  They usually have an adjustment period after a move where they need some alone time.  However, this move was different.  They seemed to know right away we were HOME.  They explored and settled in right away.

 Real life: This move was hard on Olive and it made me so sad.  She's made many moves before and been completely unphased by it all.  This move was confusing for her and it was the first time where I saw her be old enough to feel sentimental about things.  She wasn't sure about leaving her old room and was not thrilled at the idea of graduating to a big girl bed in a new room.  
We had TONS of talks about our new house, new rooms and new arrangement.  We have owned our home and visited it for 4 months, but moving into it was a different story.  The talks seemed to help, but there were tearful moments on all parts when she'd say she missed her old room or that she really just wanted all of her old furniture back in her room.  I hated seeing her sad.  Luckily after about 24 hours she was sold on our new house and said she never wanted to leave.  Good plan :)
We are all happy to be here and still adjusting to life in a new place.  I'm regularly waking up to find a visitor in bed and hoping that each day that passes will make us all more comfortable here.


I've been unpacking like crazy so here a little sneak peek of our progress.

The yellow bar stools are just perfect for the island!!

Curtains have been successfully ordered and hung for our big windows and the cats love watching the squirrels all day long.

Our bonus room was where all of the boxes ended up so I'm slowly digging out of that space.  I'd say I've unpacked about half of the boxes so far which feels like a huge accomplishment.  I'm an unpacking tornado when Fletcher naps every day.

Our toy room is completely unpacked and Olive is back to her art projects.  She was the most excited about being reunited with her books!

 Our family room is coming together so nicely!  I love everything about it!!
I'm excited to style those book shelves and hang some things on the walls.

The kitchen is my second favorite space! 
Loving the yellows, stripes and mix of lots of my favorite decor items.

 It's been super hot all week, but we are enjoying our backyard any chance we get!  Nightly bubble chasing has become our thing.  Our backyard is shady, large and I think we are going to make tons of great memories out there. 

Thanks for reading, thanks for the encouraging messages and comments you've sent about our move and I'm excited to share more about the house as we settle into our new life here.
at 11 comments:

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Tuesday Talk: Marriage Matters

Kevin and I celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary on Sunday.  In some ways it seems like we were just getting engaged and planning our wedding and in other ways it seems like we've lived a TON of life together these past 12 years.  We've had far more happy times than hard times, would still call each other our best friends and we are excited about what the future has in store for our family.

We don't live in some fairy tale perfect life, we work hard on our marriage and are always looking to improve.  We've attending couples counseling, gone to Bible studies together and we both agree that our marriage is a big priority.  I do thoughtful things for Kevin and he does thought things for me.  We are a team and that how our family works.

The pictures I'm sharing today aren't the most glamorous or the prettiest, but they are all special to me.  They represent happy times, effort and thoughtful gestures.  I'd like to be better at posting these on Mondays for #marriagemattersmonday , but for now this post will have to do.  I picked 12 moments from the summer in honor of our 12 years of marriage.

1. We have had various house projects come up that needed to be done before we moved in and Kevin has learned how to do so many of them.  He's crawled all through our attic and in the crawl space, run wires to several areas for cable/internet and has problem solved several things to save us money.  It's fun to see him learning to be so handy around the house.  He sent me this selfie one day while he was working at the house.

2. Kevin loves these fun drinks, but doesn't always buy them for himself.  So when I'm grocery shopping I'll pick them up when they're on sale for him.  We drop them off at his office on our way home from the store.  We get to see him in the middle of the day and he gets a fun treat.  Win-win for all of us.

3. Kevin is always happy to help when I ask.  In the past I would expect him to be a mind reader and know how I'd like him to help.  I've learned that he appreciates when I tell him what he could do to help.  So I'll say it would really help me if... and then we make a game plan.  Here I asked him to hold Fletcher while I fixed lunch or he'll play with the kids while I try to get a few things done like running kid free errands.  It's nice to be specific and communicate how we can be helpful.
4. We love to go to fairs together.  He always makes plans for us to go on the coolest night of the week and gets us a yummy treat while we're there.  Usually a funnel cake, but this year it was ice cream.

5. Kevin's favorite cake is his Nana's homemade Buttermilk cake.  I try to make it for him every chance I get.  I had leftover buttermilk so I whipped up some cake for a surprise dessert one night.  He was thrilled.

6. Kevin has a busy work schedule, but always makes time for lunch dates with us.  We try to do lunch once a month and Jimmy Johns is usually where we end up.

7. Kevin loves my monster cookies.  They are his very favorite cookie I make so I try to make them regularly or make for him to take into work.

8. Compromising.  Kevin got a new car this year and he was anxious to take it on road trips.  It's slightly smaller than my car so I was concerned about all of our baby gear and luggage fitting.  He researched car top carriers for us and picked out a waterproof, really sturdy (yet collapsible) one so that we had plenty of room to pack comfortably on our trips.

9. We love to go on road trips and Kevin always drives.  I think I've driven once when he was really sick, but I rarely drive.  I'm the snack packer, car entertainment planner and he's the navigator.  Sometimes he calls in back up and asks Olive's beloved Bun Bun to help get us to our next stop.

10. Olive took a car nap while we were out running errands.  Kevin sent me into Homegoods to leisurely stroll around while she napped.  He knew I really wanted to go and shop so he was happy to stay behind with Olive.

11. He agrees to my crazy ideas.  I found this darling organizer bin on clearance, convinced him it would be perfect for toys and then he spent 15 minutes in the heat of the day trying to figure out how to wedge it into our car.  I was ready to go in and return it because it wasn't looking like it would fit.  He somehow squeezed it in and I was thrilled.

12. The kids were being crazy and we were still hours from home.  He spotted a Starbucks at an upcoming exit, pulled over and got us both our favorite drinks to make the ride a little more fun for everyone.  The kids fell asleep pretty quickly and it was just the restart we needed.

Linking up with my favorite ladies this week for Tuesday Talk.
Be sure to join us with a favorite post.


Polka-Dotty Place

at 11 comments: