Tuesday, May 31, 2022

Pretty Pastel Party

Olive's only request for her 9th birthday party was she wanted everything to be PASTEL.  

She's obsessed with that color palette.  Always and forever.  Her first favorite color was purple, then pink and blue and now all the pastels.

I had the best time collecting everything pastel for her.  Luckily I knew the theme back around Easter time so I grabbed some Easter M&Ms and a few other Easter pastel things for the party.  The rest of the items I found at Target, Amazon or Hobby Lobby - it's a popular color combo right now.

I always make birthday invitations on PicMonkey (pay for a monthly subscription $7 and then cancel after a month) and text them out to family and friends.  We did a party with my family on Friday and Kevin's family on Saturday.

These two are the best helpers when I make a balloon garland.  They can blow up the balloons by themselves and then hand them to me to tie.  We make a good team.  They laughed the entire time.  Fletch said his stomach hurt at the end :)  Then I do the garland assembling.

For less than $15 you get a HUGE party statement.  I always end up with enough garland to do a big one in my kitchen and then a smaller one on my mantle.  It's wild.

Pastel foods!






I loved all the party decor!

We've been collecting Olive & June polish for the past few months.  We added a couple new colors so that the girls at the party could paint their nails.

Olive LOVED everything!

We put together favor bags with all of her favorite things - Fun Dip, fidgets, Blow Pops and Mochis - to send home with all the kids.

Perfect pastel thank yous.

What a pretty party theme!  We'd highly recommend throwing a pastel party.

Monday, May 30, 2022

Happy Birthday Olive!

Olive turned 9 yesterday!



We had the best weekend celebrating her with family and friends.  Stay tuned for a full pastel party recap or two later this week.

9 Favorite Things About Olive:

1. I love that Olive loves to craft.  She wants to do arts and crafts all the time and is always eager to learn something new.  She's headed to art camp this Summer hoping to learn some new things.  My mom taught her how to crochet.  She's mastering her first stitch and eager to learn the others.

2. Dad loves that Olive loves to read and that she has started to love coffee.

3. Fletcher loves to play with Olive.  They have great adventures and usually have the best time playing together.

4. Leo loves that Olive is always looking out for him.  She will sit and snuggle him and make sure he's taken care of.  She's a sweet big sis.  She regularly says she wishes she could freeze time to keep Leo little.

5. She loves all the cinnamon, caramel or spice flavors.  Snickerdoodles, pumpkin, PSLs, carrot cake, ginger snaps and any pumpkin treat is her favorite.  Fall flavors are the best flavors in her book.

6. She gets chattier with age.  She loves to talk, has good stories and has a great imagination.

7. Self care tasks are her favorite - DIY manicures and pedicures, fun hair tools, spa days and massages are her dream.

8. She tells everyone she wants to be a teacher when she grows up.  She loves to read, loves school and loves to learn so I wouldn't be surprised if this comes true.  Her teachers often call her a leader, the perfect student and the hardest worker.  She won the Goal Setter award at the end of the year.

9. Olive filled her birthday wish list with Barbies and Squishmallows.  She warned us that this might be her last year asking for toys and it made me extra sentimental.  She was thrilled to get new Barbies, a Barbie RV and lots of fun Barbie babies.

We love you, Olive!

Friday, May 27, 2022

May Favorites

I cannot believe we're already here - the end of May, Olive's birthday, Memorial Day weekend and the start of Summer.  These past few months have flown by for us.  We're excited for fun Summer plans and are eager to reminisce over the highlights of a very wild school year.  I'm so sad to read all the stories coming out of Uvalde Texas.  Being an elementary school teacher and having 2 elementary aged kids, it just breaks my heart.  Praying for their community and championing changes to keep everyone safe at school.   

If you would have told me in August that we would relocate mid year, I would have told you that you were CRAZY with a capital C.  Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that God would move our family and move us FAST.  We could not have orchestrated all the moving details without Him green lighting the plan.  Literally everything that needed to happen for us happened.  We're super thankful and we are honestly still processing/letting the dust settle.

The best parts of May were:

1 // Alstroemeria

I cannot get over these flowers.  You can get a gigantic bouquet of them for $7.98 at Sams and they look beautiful for WEEKS.  If you belong to Sams, add these to your next pick up order.  You can't pick the color, but you can pick the type of flower. 

2 // Charcuterie Season

Summer & Charcuterie just go so well together.  It's the perfect hot weather meal that requires little to no baking and you can prep things ahead of time.  My family loves them.


3 // Jordan Bakery Box

I had some really fun baking to do for teachers and for graduation this week!


4 // Last Day of School

Fletcher & Olive wrapped up their school years on a very rainy, chilly May day.  They both had really good years and weren't quite ready to say goodbye to their friends and teachers.  They're both excited for the prospect of no longer being the new kids when school rolls around in August.




5 // Wildman Leo

Strikes again.  He's back to climbing all the things and getting into everything.  Two in a nutshell.


6 // WWE Live

I'm pretty sure that Kevin has been dreaming of this day since the kids were babies.  He's a big wrestling fan.  He never convinced me that wrestling like he did with football, but he's enjoyed watching it since childhood.  He took the kids to the WWE event that came to town.  He ordered them shirts.  They made posters and it was a whole experience.  They rolled into the driveway late on a school night after a fun adventure together and have been talking about it all week.  We even went back and watched to see if you could spot their signs on TV.  Spoiler alert: You could!






7 // Graduation time

My cute cousin Layla graduated high school this week and we had a great time celebrating her!


Leo + Harper.  So cute!!  Leo is lucky to have cousins that love him so much!

8 // Crochet the day away

Olive is working hard to master the art of crocheting.

Bonus: Penny alarm clock

I snuck in a nap this week and woke up to this silly girl in my face.  If you're under a blanket, she's coming to snuggle you.


 I hope you have a great weekend!!  See you back here next week!

Wednesday, May 25, 2022

Easy Summer Charcuterie Dinner Board

I feel like charcuterie boards are the perfect hot weather food.  They're easy to prep ahead of time.  You don't have to turn on your stove or oven for very long and the clean up is super simple.  My family loves a good charcuterie board.  I added them to the menu this week.  I buy enough meats/cheeses and supplies to have it for dinner twice and then we eat any leftover items for snacks and lunches.

Here's a charcuterie menu that would be easy for anyone to pull together this time of year.

Menu:

5 meats & 5 cheeses 

(you could definitely get by with 2 or 3 instead of 5, but we enjoy the variety!)

a mix of all the salty crackers/chips/snacks we had in the pantry

(save yourself lots of money by using the things you already have on hand!)

sweet pickles, olives and spicy mustard

(again - use the things you already have and love in your fridge instead of buying lots of new stuff)

fruits & veggies

& soft pretzel sticks!


You can prep the majority of these things ahead of time.  I chopped everything in the afternoon and then stored it in the fridge.  Dinner comes together very quickly if you prep things in advance.


I grabbed a box of these Bavarian Soft Pretzel Sticks in the frozen food section at Aldi last week.  Have you had them?  They were around $6.  I thought they'd be a fun splurge for the board.  They only take 8 minutes to bake and we all loved them!  These things tend to be seasonal so I'll be going back to Aldi to stock up on a few more boxes for my freezer.


I grabbed this Delicatessen Trio from Sams and it was pretty good.  We really liked two of the meats, but all agreed that we probably didn't love it enough to buy it again.

Silly Fletcher.  But seriously, this is my family's reaction to seeing charcuterie boards on the menu.

A big bonus of planning a charcuterie board for dinner is that you can add any leftovers to lunch boxes.  It really cuts down on lunch prep time.

 

Let me know if you have any charcuterie questions!

Would your family enjoy a big charcuterie board for dinner?

Tuesday, May 24, 2022

Day in the Life: Kids Ages 8, 6 & 2

I wanted to squeeze in a day in the life post before the school year finished up.  It seems like just when we are hitting our stride and feeling comfortable in our routines, they change.  Is that true at your house?  

Summer is almost here and a new routine will need to be established for June and July.


 

Our school year routine for 2022.

6:45am My alarm goes off.  I get up, get ready and get the kids up by a little after 7:00.  Many days the big kids wake up first, get themselves dressed in the clothes we've picked out the night before and they have a little tablet time.

7:15am I make the big kids breakfast and do all the things to get them ready for school.  Lunch boxes are assembled.  Water bottles filled.  Check my planner to make sure that all the school things are done.  They request nearly the same breakfast every morning - peanut butter oatmeal for one and cinnamon toast for the other.

7:30am Leo usually wakes up on his own.  He gets some milk, gets dressed for the day and then goes around to do his good morning greetings.  The big kids are more excited to see him than anyone else in the mornings and they compete for his snuggles.

7:40am We do all the things to get out the door - teeth brushed, hair done, grab jackets/lunches/backpacks and give kisses as we head out the door.  I take them to school.  Kevin stays behind with Leo to get ready for his day.

8:00am I'm back and Leo has my full attention.  Have you seen the "Find Mom. Sit on Mom." stories that I post some mornings?  That's our routine.  Hang out together at home.  I grab his breakfast and he watches a show.  I catch up on blog things, email and social media.

9:00am We often head out of errands, a walk or just play outside.  We try to get all the things done during this morning chunk of time.  Some days it's all at home - laundry, cleaning, etc. and other days we are gone all morning.

11:30am Prep lunch for me and for Leo.  We almost always eat together.

12:00pm Leo heads to bed.  I rock him and snuggle him and then he naps.  I do all the business things of the house, cleaning, cleaning up, organizing, blogging and such during this chunk of the day.  It's quiet and calm.  I usually listen to my Spotify playlist and do jobs that are hard to do with a toddler around.

2:30pm Wake up Leo and head to school to get in the car line.  We grab the big kids and head home.

3:00pm Snacks for everyone.  The kids come home starving and a little cranky from all the hard work at school.  I feel them for a while and then once their bellies are full they love to chat about their days.  I try to do dishes and unpack all their backpack/lunch boxes during this time.  Sometimes I prep last minute dinner stuff now if I didn't already do it during nap time.

4:00pm We turn off all screens and usually head outside or to the playroom to play.  The big kids like to play together most of the time and Leo likes to do his own thing.  I like to read a book (or sometimes my phone) while they play.  If the kids have homework we like to take care of it during this time.

5:30pm We like to squeeze in a family walk before dinner when Kevin gets home.  If that doesn't happen, we like to hang out on our patio or play outside before dinner.

6:00pm We almost always eat dinner together.  We chat about our days and eat good food.  We also watch an episode of Family Matters.  We have watched Full House, game shows and are currently going through Family Matters right now.  Those vintage shows are gems!

6:30pm I clean up the kitchen and Kevin is on kid duty.  Sometimes that's games, sometimes it's bath time/shower time and sometimes they go back outside and play.  I clean up dinner and then pack lunches for the following day.  It's so much easier to do this now then at the very end of the night.

7:00pm Everyone in their pjs and they we hang out.  We often end up in the playroom watching a show together or playing a game.

7:45pm Leo heads to bed & Kevin and the big kids hang out.  I join them when Leo gets to bed.  We tidy up the toys and the house so we can all relax together.  Team work makes this easier!

8:30pm Big kids to bed.  Sometimes Kevin reads a book out loud, sometimes we chat and sometimes silly stories are told.  He says goodnight and then I stay a little longer to snuggle the big kids.  They are always chatty at the end of the day.  They fall asleep and I head to hang out with Kevin.

9:00pm We like to hang out or watch a show together or debrief about our days.  I'll show him cute pictures of the kids from our days and we have a snack.  This is the last chunk of the day to get things done.  I set out all the things that we will need in the morning to make that go smoothly.  I make sure everything is finished and try to head to bed around 10:30/11pm.

11:00pm Make sure everyone and everything is all tucked in and go to bed.


Do our days look similar??

 

A few snapshots of regular moments in our days:












Cheers to figuring out our new Summer routine :)