Five Friday Facts

1.  This February started out pretty dreary and grey, and while we don't get inversions up here in Idaho Falls (thank heavens!) the clouds were pretty thick for a couple weeks.  But this week the sun has been shining and it has been wonderful.  Started dreaming about our summer plans and even booked some reservations for a fun getaway (with the kids of course) for this July.  Oh and we  I picked out a new outdoor play set for the kids that we will be getting in a few weeks.  I think they are going to have a blast playing on it!  Hopefully for MANY years to come.

2. Too many treats.  This past Wednesday I helped plan a Blue and Gold Banquet for cub scouts.  We had some leftover treats so I brought a few things home for the kids.  That, combined with a few treats that I picked up at the store the day before and the kids officially have eaten too much sugar this week.

3. Naptime.  The kids have a very specific nap time routine.  It involves a sippy cup of cold milk and a graham cracker.  They each have their own favorite blanket that they like snuggled by their pillow.  Adalyn naps in my room and Jensen naps in their room (he wishes he napped in my room though).  They each like a stack of books next to them and Adalyn often asks for a pen and notebook too.  They always like me to set the timer on the stove (currently I set it for about 45 mins.).  They have to stay in their rooms until the timer goes off.  Jensen falls asleep 90% of the time and Adalyn falls asleep 10% of the time.  Jensen usually comes out once for a potty (pooping) break and Adalyn comes out once to ask how much time is left.  Luckily other then that they are fairly well behaved.

4. It has been fun watching Adalyn with her babies.  She has finally branched out from her one favorite doll that she has loved since she was 1 and has started playing with the new dolls that she got for Christmas.  She is a good little mommy!

5. Declin stopped eating real food.  He would only drink milk all of last week.  It is driving me crazy because he turns his nose up at EVERYTHING.  Luckily I found a tooth coming in towards the back of his mouth (2 year old molers maybe?)  So that softened me up a little and he was sick so we let him have his space.  But seriously something has to change.  He eats oranges, oatmeal, crackers, tortillas and cheese, and toast with jam (if he is really hungry).  Other then that the food goes on the floor during meal times.  Not sure what we are going to do with that boy!

Bonus-

Jensen fell asleep at the dinner table the other night.  I wasn't home so McKay took a picture.  I love everything about this picture!  His sweet hands on the table, the fact that he fell asleep, and the fact that McKay took the picture without me asking him too.  Just makes me smile!

Happy Friday!

        

Celebrating My 26th Birthday

Wednesday, February 17th was my 26th birthday.  Nothing super exciting about this age except that I no longer can be on my parents insurance (no more "free" babies for us since I will no longer have triple insurance coverage).  Other then that it is pretty normal.  Weeks before my birthday I had asked McKay to take my birthday off work so that the day could be a little more relaxing.  He agreed, but then got super busy at work so I did not know if he was still going to take it off.  Luckily he is a sweetheart and still took it off anyways.  Love him!

Saturday, Feb 13th McKay and I went on a Valentines/birthday date so we did not have major plans for my actual birthday.  But I enjoyed being able to do whatever I wanted to do for the day.  I slept in then went and got a hair cut.  After the hair cut we hung around home and I read everyone's sweet birthday messages that they sent to me.  Around 4 pm a friend and I got to go to an afternoon Zumba class while McKay watched our kids.  I could write a whole post dedicated to Zumba and how much it helps me mentally, physically, and emotionally.  Not that the the moves and dances are that amazing, but the chance to get out of the house, see sweet friends, and do something that makes my body feel good is exactly what I need.  It seriously keeps me sane and happy as a mother.  So it was a huge treat to be able to go dance on my birthday.

Confession:  I had McKay take these pictures BEFORE Zumba on my birthday (even though we weren't really celebrating until that evening) so that I at least had a few nice pictures on my birthday with my new hair cut.  I know it is silly but I look crazy after I workout!
 

After Zumba we had dinner with our friends and then stuffed ourselves with yummy pumpkin cream pie and cheesecake (thank heavens we had gone to zumba in preparation for the yummy desserts!).  Our friends that came over are the Packs. They live down the road from us.  It is a ways down the road so they are not in our ward, just in our stake.  Josh and McKay met through riding the bus out to work together.  The boys introduced Heidi and I a few months later.  The Packs are also both from Utah and both went to Utah State so we have lots in common.  Heidi was pregnant with their oldest when we met and Adalyn was just one year old.  Throughout the years of us all living in Idaho we have swapped babysitting, helped each other with home projects, gone to garage sales together, traded babysitting for temple trips, and attended work functions together.  Heidi has been a great help with my kids through the miscarriages and all the doctor appointments.  She also is my very dedicated Zumba buddy which always helps to have someone pull me out of the house!  We are so grateful for such great friends that help us out and love having our kids over to their house.  Our kids seriously play awesome together which is so nice!

All of our cute kids together-  one 4 year old, two 3 year olds, an almost 2 year old, and a 1 year old.  

After our friends left I finished off the evening with a few Gilmore Girls episodes in bed.

I would say the day was a success!  The kids were even well behaved all day for McKay which has been rare these days so I was grateful for that birthday miracle as well!

Before the Snow Melts

Yesterday morning the kids got really excited because they could finally "see the grass" in the yard.  We have had a lot of snow this year and we have not "seen the grass" since mid December.  So we took the opportunity to go for a little walk while the weather was warm (40 degrees).  Ha!

The past few months I have been on a mission to embrace the weather.  I want to be better about having the kids get outside everyday and experience all the seasons.  I feel like it is SO important for their bodies to move and they are at a perfect age to learn so much while just simply playing outside.  Since we live in a place with long winters embracing the weather involves a lot of layers.  This year has been the perfect year to start the transition of getting outside more because the snow has been so fun.  This blog post has helped me figure out the best layers for my kids to wear so that they stay as warm as possible.  Now I just need to get myself some snow pants.  I am usually the one that is freezing!    

Over the past couple of months the kids have happily gone outside in the snow everyday unless it is too cold or windy (if it 10 degrees or colder I say it is too cold).  They have loved riding their sled down all the random piles of dirt in the neighborhood and shoveling the snow with their kid sized snow shovels.  Some days they only stay out for 30 minutes, but other days it is for a couple hours.  Also on the weekends we have been going sledding as a family for a fun activity.  Previously my kids would not play outside for months on end in the winter time so I feel like this is a big accomplishment in my world ;)  

These pictures are from the kids first time sledding.  We went to a tiny bunny hill to start off with.  Since then we have gradually worked up to bigger hills and Adalyn has even gone on a few jumps.    

   

  As the weather has been warming up Jensen has loved all of the puddles around the house.

Adalyn LOVES playing with friends.  Luckily our house is surrounded by some pretty great neighbors.  Whether she is out front or in the backyard she can usually find someone to play with.

Sledding down a dirt pile with neighbors 

  

 This has been a fun winter in the snow!  

Valentines Day 2016

This year Valentines Day was on a Sunday which makes it a little bit different then your normal Valentines date night.  So McKay and I decided to go out for our traditional valentines/my birthday date on Saturday evening.  We went to Chili's and then I dragged him around shopping with me.  I know shopping was not his first choice of date night activities, but McKay was a good sport and didn't complain.

Saturday morning McKay surprised me with roses and a gift card for eating out since he knows that I love any excuse to not cook   ;)

Sunday (the actual holiday) we went to church as normal.  Random side note, Jensen gave the scripture in primary for his first time on Valentines day.  Nobody could understand a word of what he was saying since he had his mouth pushed way up against the microphone.  But he had a great time saying it and I am glad that they are given the opportunity to speak in front of others at such a young age.

 After church we had a our semi traditional family valentine's "red" dinner.  Our "red" dinner is where we make some red food (usually our favorite Manicotti), dress up, decorate the table and enjoy a nice dinner as a family.  It usually also involves gifts and cards for each other.  We have not had it every year, but at least 5 out of the last 7 years we have done this tradition.  The only thing that was different this year was that the kids did not dress up.  Addie and Jensen both came home from church feeling sick so we let them change out of their nice clothes into cozy jammies.

 

 The kids enjoyed their gift basket from us and HAD to open the snacks right away.  Declin didn't touch most of his dinner so he was especially grateful for the bonus snacks before bed. 

  
After dinner we decorated some cupcakes and let the kids go wild with the red sprinkles.  

They both only eat the frosting on cake and cupcakes.  Drives McKay CRAZY!

The recipe that I used for the vanilla cupcakes was just a random one off of pinterest (Here), but it actually turned out really good and I plan to use it again.  It is a recipe that you use a cake mix and then just doctor it up.  So easy and yummy!

In the end it was another successful Valentines day!

Early Birthday

I love birthdays.  Especially my birthday.  I love having an excuse to do fun things and not feel guilty about it.  My 26th birthday is coming up in a week and a half.  My parents were sweet and came up to visit us this weekend and to help celebrate my birthday.  They came up on Saturday around noon.  The whole morning before they showed up McKay and I ran around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to finish up some random items on our to-do lists.  McKay has been working TONS of over time ("tons" at least in my book, I am not very patient with him working overtime). So we have just been putting things off for a few weeks while we lived in survival mode.  But Saturday we finally got some clothes hooks up downstairs for the kids dress ups, I went to the temple, we cleaned the bathrooms, took another large load to DI, etc.  By the time they showed up we were ready to play.

When they first arrived they made a little treasure hunt for the kids that ended with some cute Valentines gifts for everyone!  The kids loved their fun presents and I loved that they included chocolate and my mom's amazing sugar cookies.  They truly out did themselves this Valentines!
   

After the fun gifts we had lunch.  I made chicken, bacon, avocado wraps.  One of my favorite recipes (although they aren't the healthiest).  After lunch my mom and I headed out to the store to pick up my birthday/ Valentines gift from McKay.  Yes I bought my own gift, but he earned the money... so technically it is from him.  This was a gift I have been SO excited for and have been patiently waiting for the right moment to buy it.  Folks I finally got a new camera!  I love her!  I don't really know how to use it so I am currently in Auto mode, but someday we might venture to manual.  I got a Canon Rebel t5.  Not the latest model out there, but still perfect for my blogging needs.  I have been in a blogging funk for a while.  My old camera and my phone camera were both terrible quality and with kids that don't slow down I was just not getting any quality shots.  Especially when I would try and blow them up bigger to post them on here.  So while I have no plans to try DIY photo shoots with my kids or take our own family pictures I am excited that our daily lives came now be documented in better quality.  After we bought the camera I proceeded to take pictures during any spare moment of our day.  Bedtime?  oh yeah.  Bath time?  Yep.  Dressed up for church?  Perfect.  Love it!

After camera shopping my dad and McKay took the kids sledding on a little hill in a field down the street from our house.  Declin was taking a nap so I opted to stay home and chat with my mom.  We had fun discussing what type of women we are in Carol Tuttle's Beauty Profiling system.  If you haven't ever looked into it I highly recommend it.  I feel like it helps me understand my personality and nature and why I act the way that I do.  We also were reading her book "Discover Your Type of Beauty" that goes into details about each type and how to figure out which type you are.  My mom is totally a type 2 and I have finally decided that I AM a type 1 even if I sometimes don't like the idea of being called "cute".  If you haven't looked into it I highly recommend it.  Once you know what type you are check out her you tube videos and website to help figure out what fashion/clothing colors are best for your type. (you could buy her system that would spell it all out for you about what colors, cuts, styles to wear, but it is expensive so I just try and figure it out from the you tube videos).  Anyways I digress....  

After sledding we grabbed our favorite babysitter for the kids and the adults went out for a fun birthday dinner.  I got to pick the restaurant and I chose a local favorite, Snakebite, that we have never been to before.  The food was awesome and while I expected a more casual atmosphere it ended up being less of a cafe and more of an actual restaurant.  We all had fun trying new things off the menu.  I got a burger with my favorite new topping, Blue cheese.  I have always thought that I didn't like blue cheese, but recently I have loved adding blue cheese or feta to some recipes or green salads.

Our evening ended with a *tiny* bit of shopping (stuff for the kids of course) and a few cupcakes at the Cocoa Bean.  Wonderful evening with my parents!  They are the best.

Sunday we got to sleep until 8:00 am since the kids went crazy and finally slept in for once.  The rest of the morning was spent bathing the kids and prepping for 1:00 church.  Of course we took a few pictures before church and Adalyn was super excited about the pretty braid that we did in her hair.  Not sure why this braid was so special, but I am glad she felt pretty.  After church we had a fun breakfast dinner and played one last game of settlers before my parent headed home.  So grateful that they spent their weekend with us.  It was a nice break from the same old winter stuff that we have been doing for the past few weeks.

        Happy February!  Hoping we get some more sunshine this week!