Friday Favorites

Happy Fri-Yay!  I thought it was Friday several times this week before it actually was so it feels like a long time coming.  We had a nice week with plenty of favorite moments.

Leo has learned to grasp onto things.  He's pulling hair, holding onto hands and the big kids think he's adorable.  It's really sweet.  This moment was a favorite for sure!!

We got outside lots this week!  We enjoyed a roll around campus.  We saw no one which worked out just fine, but was really weird for a usual bustling college scene.

A friend gifted me the prettiest planter!  We had to cover our flowers twice this week due to frosty temps.  I can't wait to do some flower shopping and planting of my own.

These two are the best buddies.  Olive is determined to teacher Fletcher how to swing.  She's got a good thing going and I am guessing he'll learn fast.

My yellow Mother's Day roses are still beautiful!

I started biking with the kids again this week.  It felt great to get out and about.  

I mentioned the Personal Librarian services our library is offering right now in my post on Wednesday.  The kids have had the best time reading all these new books this week.

Leo is growing so quickly.  We're retiring his newborn clothes and exchanging them for 3 month outfits.  It's fun to see him in new outfits, but I feel a tiny twinge of sadness to see him outgrowing things.

Olive's school had an end of the school year parade this week.  It was precious and we had all the feelings waving bye to all of our favorite teachers and staff.  We are hoping and praying for school to resume in the Fall.  School at home is just not the same for us.

My sister got to come up and meet Leo.  I haven't seen her since Fletcher's birthday party weekend back in early March.  We're slowly introducing our family to him.  He loved teh snuggles and the big kids loved visiting with Aunt Haley.

The kids are loving playing outside and trying new ice cream treats!  Drumsticks, Outshine fruit pops and Reese's ice cream are their favorites.

Hope you have a great weekend!!

Linking up with Momfessionals

5 Ideas to Have Fun @ Home

It's time for my monthly post to share ideas of ways you can have fun at home. 

I'll be honest, we have all kind of hit a wall with being home so much.  Kevin's work has been really busy, we obviously have a newborn, the weather is getting nicer and we are missing our people.  The kids are getting a little restless after two months of being home.  I'm thrilled that Indiana is opening things up more and the hopes of life resuming in the near future are exciting.

We are doing our best to be upbeat and positive.  We are trying to plan new things to do and adventures to go on.  Hopefully some of these things are things you could do with your own family.

1. End of the School Year Celebrations
Do your best to join in and participate in all of the end of the school year Zoom meetings, school parades, drop offs and goodbyes.  It'll give your kids some much needed closure to wrap up a very strange end to the school year.  We've done a virtual teacher appreciation week, Zoom meetings, made posters for our end of the school year parade and are attending a going away drive through party for Olive on Friday.  She's super excited.


2. Curbside Library & Personal Librarian Services
We are big fans of the public library and are really missing going to story time each week.  Olive told me the other day, "I am really nervous that I am going to run out of books to read at home!"  Sweet girl!  That statement motivated me to jump on our library website, sign up for a Personal Librarian to pull books for us and schedule a curbside pick up. 

Does your library offer a similar service?  You just fill out a form with details about your child or yourself, request certain types of materials and then they'll call you when your order is fulfilled.  It's AMAZING!  We picked up FOUR giant bags of books for the kids.  The kids acted like it was Christmas.  It was so sweet to see which books our librarians chose for the kids.  We had a few familiar favorite books and lots of new titles.  We can keep the books for one month if we want to.  They even surprised us with a superhero mask craft kit for each kid.  I LOVE this service and will definitely be doing it again - maybe even for me!

3. Go on outdoor adventures
We have taken the kids to walk around the college campus where Kevin works.  We've also gone on short little hikes and gone on walks as a family.  The weather has been lovely/chilly so we are bundling up to be outside.  We made a wish list of parks and outdoor spaces that we can check out as a family in the coming weeks.  We are also getting into a good routine of biking together again.  One parent stays home with the baby and the other parent takes the big kids on a bike ride.

4. Try new foods
Our stores are pretty well stocked these days, but we are still having to substitute items since we are trying to limit our trips to the store.  Grocery shopping has given us lots of opportunities to try new things during this seasons of extra time at home.  Instead of being annoyed by having to swap out things on our grocery list, we are trying fun new things like Drumstick ice cream treats, Reese's popsicles and new cereals.  The kids are finding new foods to enjoy and that's always nice.  We've decided that anything that the logo Reese's on it = delicious!

5. Put things on the calendar for summer
I know.  There are a lot of question marks surrounding Summer plans.  But I know that I love to have things on the calendar to look forward to.  We are starting to make plans for Olive's birthday, dreaming about a trip to the ocean and looking to have a few road trips on the calendar.  We're hopeful and excited for some Summer travel.

What fun things are you doing at home right now?

Mother's Day Top 10

I hope you had a nice Mother's Day weekend connecting with those you love most. 

We made many more calls and Facetime calls than usual to connect with our favorite moms.  We rarely travel on Mother's Day because this weekend is graduation weekend for the university that Kevin works for.  As with all colleges right now, graduation festivities were moved online and our plans for the weekend changed.  We stuck close to home and enjoyed our first holiday as a family of 5. 

The weather was windy and freezing so our usual tradition of buying flowers for our flower pots and planting all of them had to be postponed.  Despite all the changes to tradition, we still had a wonderful weekend.

1. My #1 request was my usual - a picture with me and my kids!  I love this tradition.  I'm lucky to be their mom!  Leo is a little more alert every day. 

2. This holiday was really hard for Olive.  She was so sad and frustrated that she couldn't go shopping for me for Mother's Day.  She wanted to go to the store so badly.  It was the first time with all of these shelter in place recommendations that she really struggled.  She's been so good about being home for the last two months.  We haven't taken the kids anywhere other than car rides and to play outside.

She was in tears because she couldn't go shopping for me.  It was very sweet and kind of heart breaking at the same time.  So we came up with a game plan - write a very detailed list for Kevin to go to the store to pick up supplies for her.  She agreed that this was an okay plan B.  He helped her pull of lots of surprises for me.  It all worked out wonderfully, but it was a good reminder for me to be flexible and realize that the current COVID-19 events are hard on all of us in different ways.

Surprise #1 Yellow roses.  My favorite color and my favorite kids :)

 3. Surprise #2 My favorite dipper pizza from Pizza Hut

4. Surprise #3 Bonfire - I'd been wanting to burn down the pile for weeks and they added in a yummy treat.

Surprise #4 S'mores!

Cute big kids :)  They gathered all the sticks to keep the fire going.

5. Kevin made us some delicious s'mores.  I enjoy eating them, but don't really enjoy making them.

Leo fell asleep as we were working on the bonfire.  He stayed warm inside napping while we did some fun things with the big kids.

6. He woke up for a little bit so we bundled him up and headed to the bonfire.  He hated it!  He fussed the whole time so we went back inside.  Bonfires and babies aren't great combos :)

Lots of baby snuggles all weekend.

7. Kevin grilled us a delicious steak dinner on Mother's Day.  He's the best!

8. I made Derby Pie for dessert.

9. One tradition that Kevin kept going strong was stamping the kid's hand prints.  Although their hand prints have gotten so big that they no longer fit on my cards.  Sweet notes from everyone!

10. Olive wrapped up the weekend by losing her 2nd front tooth!  She's got the cutest toothless smile now.  Look at all those freckles!

 Lots of little moments together added up to a really sweet weekend!

Leo's Newborn Pictures

Months ago I booked a photographer friend to come to the hospital for a Fresh 48 session as well as a lifestyle newborn session at our house.  I was really looking forward to it and then all of the COVID-19 madness played out.  All photography was put on hold and it left me feeling so sad.  Newborn pictures are super important to me!  Babies change so fast and those tiny days are just precious.

Instead of sulking, I got busy making plans to shoot my own newborn pictures of Leo.

I was determined to capture his tiny days and do it well. 

I ordered a few neutral baby items, some signature baby items like the lion hat and used lots of household props to make these pictures happen.  I also incorporated some sentimental things - hat from my sister, blanket from a sweet Great Grandma and a fruit quilt from another Great Grandma. 

I'm REALLY happy with how his pictures turned out.  I feel like I captured newborn Leo well.  I would have loved some sibling pictures or some family pictures, but those will have to wait a bit until we can book a photographer for a family shoot.

I took these pictures over his first few weeks vs one big session.  It's hard for me to settle on a favorite picture.  Tell me your favorite Leo picture in the comments!

Sweet Leo!  I'm so thankful for this little guy.