March Activities

-We did our 2nd Lowes kids workshop and it went of without a hitch (other than I registered for the wrong location, but they had enough to let us do it still). I registered all 3 girls to build a bird feeder and they all said it was so much fun. Pierce even got to hammer at the "table" so he even had fun. I get so excited to do this each month and the kids seem to like it. 

-Right after the Phoenix trip, we decided Pierce is ready to bein his toddler bed (since he kept climbing out of the pack n play we figured it would be better to get him used to it before the Disney trip). So far he loves sleeping on the floor under his big bear. He makes a huge mess with the books every night and also kept taking the dresser drawers out and almost ruining them so we took out the dresser and switched his tall bookshelf for the shorter one in Cara's room so he has less distractions. He still makes a mess, but there's less to make a mess out of haha.

-Lucy is officially potty trained. She was doing really well last month, but we waited, again, until after the graduation trip to make it official (I didn't want her to have an accident on an airbnb bed). She's so excited she gets to wear underwear all the time. Unfortunately, we have a lot of princess pull ups left over, but we figure Pierce is young enough he won't notice or care (also sometimes he fights getting his diaper changed and so I have to put one of those on for nap time...at least we're getting our use out of them haha).

-March is our calm before the storm before our "birthday season" starts up. We also had St. Patrick's and Easter this month so we've been quite busy with all the prep we've had. But honestly, it's been fun. Now that I know it's coming I've been doing what I can to prep as ahead of time as I can.

-We had an "art night" at Cara's school. There were so many awesome projects and cute projects. The best part is it was warm enough to play on the playground for a bit afterwards. Pierce LOVED the swings and slides (as usual), the kids all had fun running around. It was a good night for all of us. 

-Cara got to do a date with mom this month so I took her to this playground place (Uptown Jungle Fun Park) and then went to the Tropical Smoothie Cafe place next door for a smoothie. Cara LOVED trying to lose me in the playground place and climbing the fun climbing walls area. It was such a fun place, she made the other girls want to go when we came back and they heard how much fun she had haha.

-Gwen got 1:1 this month. Larry took her hiking and to a playground (just before a storm hit that day). I was going to do a playground, but since it started to rain (turning to snow) I decided to take her to get a minicure at Sharkey's and go to Costco for treats (strawberry ice cream for her and the big cookie for me. It was too much for both of us). She had so much fun and loved being careful with her pretty new nails!

-I'm doing my nails again (it's been SO long). I figure one Friday night a month I can do them while watching my movie. I decided on a teal this month and ordered a coral color for next month. I'm so excited to have time to do those again!

-Silly kiddo pictures:

She said "look, mom, I'm Saturn!"

St. Patrick's Day 2024

After Valentine's Day I knew I really needed to step up my game for holidays. While St. Patrick's may not be a big one, that just happened to be the next one so that's where we started haha.

I knew one of my biggest issues was not prepping ahead of time and being ready in time, so that's what I did this time. I wrote things down that I needed to remember about a month ago and wrote things down in my calendar spreadsheet what I needed throughout the month. I got the chocolate coins a while ago so we had that in time (AND in time that the kids would forget I got it). I made sure to get our decorations up after we got back from Phoenix and pulled out the scavenger hunt cards (I made sure to only grab half of them so that it wasn't as long of a hunt and we could mix and match them each year. I think I may need to print more to add some in throughout the next years).

We built the leprechaun trap (I had the girls each do a separate part of it) this last week. Unfortunately, the kids thought this meant the leprechaun trap was coming that night so we had an awkward morning the next day when they asked why it didn't catch the leprechaun and I had to explain I hid it and so we have to actually put it out to catch him haha. I also found out this trap meant more "presents" for the kids so I stopped by Hobby Lobby to get some fun trinkets (some fun headbands and necklaces) for them. I had already gotten them the chocolate coins, but I also got them some lucky charms cereal cups (I don't usually get them that since they won't actually eat all of it). Nothing big, but fun stuff.

I made sure to get corned beef sandwich makings and jello at Ridley's this week so that we could make those. We made the jello on Saturday, since we were doing rainbow jello cups so that took time to make all the colors and let them settle. 

Last night we set out to the "treasure" and set up the scavenger cards. We colored milk green for them to be surprised. I was debating if I should get up early on Sunday with Larry (that's usually my sleep in morning), and I decided to still sleep in and let him handle things and I'd just hope to hear about it when I woke up.

I was very excited when I did wake up and the girls were SO excited to tell me about the green milk, the treasure, and that there were even green eggs. I told them that the dentist told me the food turns green because the leprechaun dips his toe in it. Gwen said that was gross, but maybe he was a good leprechaun because she liked it haha. Luckily. Larry recorded them finding the treasure, so I got to see that. He also helped them pick out green clothes as well (I made sure to put on a green shirt before I went down so they didn't have an excuse to pinch me haha).

All day long the kids have been asking for green foods (green mac n cheese, more green eggs, all of it haha). I made the corned beef sandwiches for dinner, most of the kids didn't care for it, but Gwen said she loved it (I love how not picky she is). I still love having them (SO yummy!).

Larry Graduates...Again

We have another degree under Larry's belt! He's worked so hard this last year to get his Master's with honors (a 4.0 GPA while working full time, helping raise the kids, and going along with all my weekend and vacation plans on top of everything else). 

His graduation was set in Phoenix so we knew we'd have to drive down and make a weekend of it. We invited family, but only his mom and Jim were able to make it down. I already had the day before we had to leave planned to take off (it was Leap Day) so that gave me a day to get everything ready before heading out. I got some laundry done, I got things to pack up ready, I got an appointment in for getting my fingerprinting done to volunteer for any school events. We also got Gwen and Lucy to their tumbling and got a bath in for the kids. I was able to get so much done (and I found out packing for only 2-3 days is SO much easier than a week long trip...obviously, but still!) that things went very smoothly the morning we had to leave.

I will say it's weird that the last time he graduated (almost 8 years ago) we didn't have any kids, we were living in the condo, we were just two crazy kids celebrating a huge milestone. This time our lives have changed so much and it's so exciting to see the changes in a fairly short amount of time. 

One thing I learned on this trip is that Subway is my road trip treat haha. I refuse to spend money on sandwiches I could easily make at home, but I do love their food. Since you can't make lunch meat sandwiches on the road I figured that's my excuse to get it haha. Plus we learned there's a Subway at almost every stop anyways so it's perfect!

We had left on Friday so we could take our time on the drive. We loaded up on snacks and movies and hit the road fairly early. We made as many stops as we needed, saw a lot of fun sites that I might want to visit again one day that I had no idea existed. We had made plans with Marie to do some fun things Saturday morning before his graduation and then going out afterwards (there were SO many fun things to do out there, I was hoping we could fit enough in) so we wanted to get in Friday to get settled a bit before such a busy day. We ended up stopping at this Mexican restaurant in Arizona (it was one that Guy Fieri showed on his Diners, Dives, and Drive Ins...or whatever it's called) where we had some amazing food (I got the Navajo Taco that Guy got and it was delicious). We even had an older guy stop by our table to tell us our kids are gorgeous and thank us for having so many kids and contributing to America (might be a little racist, but it's still nice to hear compliments about our kids when we go out)

Our Airbnb was RIGHT next to the event center, which meant when we got there late Friday night there were TONS of cars around because something must have been going on there (we never figured out what haha). So we definitely put up our security bars before getting the kids to bed. We got there late so once we unpacked the car it was a whole get a last snack, get ready for bed, and sleep!

Unfortunately, almost nothing about Saturday worked out as I had hoped. We found out on the drive that we needed a clear bag that I didn't know about so we knew we'd have to go around to find that Saturday morning. We had made plans to meet up with Marie in the morning, but she mentioned she tends to have migraines in the morning so we made different plans that we'd drop the older girls off with her at lunch time (while we went back to the house to do nap time with Lucy and Pierce), the girls would hang out with Marie, they'd get lunch, and then go get her rental car (she couldn't pick up until the afternoon). So we woke up, went to Denny's for breakfast (that had such slow services there were numerous times we almost just left because we were being ignored...if the kids weren't so excited to eat there we would've), we then headed to Wal Mart to get the clear bag and it turned out they didn't have one (but they did have some good, cheap movies and shows we could get to watch on the road), so then we had to run to Target, where they, luckily, did have one (that was even pretty cute) so that was great, but at this point it was time to take the girls to Marie's hotel. So there went doing anything fun in the morning. 

We then headed to the Airbnb for nap time....yeah that didn't happen. The kids were so riled up from being stuck in the car all morning after having, essentially, cake for breakfast (the funfetti pancakes...I mean, come on) so they were not about to settle down to take a nap. Pierce even started climbing out of his pack n play so that's when we called it. We put shows on while Larry and I took turns showering and getting ready. I had left dresses with Marie so she could get the girls changed before bringing them back (in case they came later when we didn't have time to get them ready). Larry had to head over to the center about an hour before we had to be there so I figured once Marie showed up I'd finish getting the girls ready and then we'd head over to grab some good seats. Unfortunately, I didn't communicate that well enough to Marie because she didn't show up until we had to be there (we were walking and it was about a ten minute walk), so I got a little frazzled until I realized I should've told her my plans better. 

We rushed over to the center and actually found some decent seats. We watched the ceremony, with the kids handling it fairly well (they were very wiggly, but we brought lots of snacks to keep them entertained as long as possible). It was so exciting seeing him walk across the stage and get his diploma! I was (and am still) SO proud of him for all the work he's done and the accomplishments he's achieved in his life. 

After the ceremony, we went back to change into regular clothes and get ready for dinner and this fun island place that was supposed to have some fun rides for the kids. However, we went to this burger place and got there around 6 and I noticed the park place closed at 8 so I was nervous we weren't going to make it in time. Then our food didn't even get to us till close to 7 so we realized we really weren't going to be able to make it to the fun place. I was SO bummed, but we ate, then headed back to the airbnb to visit for a bit. That was fun at least. I was pretty stressed out over all the things we missed out on and was bummed we didn't do ANYTHING we had planned except the graduation. I knew the rest of the night would be packing up and then this morning we had to leave as soon as we could so we could get home at a decent time (we knew it was supposed to snow which could delay us quite a bit).

We did end up grabbing some fruit at the store when we looked for bags so we had that for our breakfast and just hit the road as early as we could. The drive wasn't too bad, it did get pretty snowy at some points (and at one point there were like 10 cars that had slid off the road...all within 1/4 mile area so it was a lot at once), but it was fine. We stopped for lunch at this fun kitschy restaurant and then for dinner we had Subway (of course). We were able to get enough that we just had snacks until we got home for the rest of the drive. I was hoping I'd have time to read during our time in Phoenix, but that didn't happen so I decided to read on the drive and ended up finishing my book (I was reading The Family Game by Catherine Steadman, it was decently good) so that was a nice check off a list I didn't know I had for this trip haha. We even had a funny moment close to home where someone honked one quick honk and we weren't sure why so I made up some joke about maybe he sneezed and hit his horn so everyone kept mimicking that going "ah, ah, ah-honk!" and then we'd all laugh haha. That was one of my favorite memories of the trip.

The lunch place had this cute setup
We HAD to get a picture!

Once we got home it was "unpack the car, get ready for bed real quick, and put the kids down." They have school and we have work tomorrow so it'll be a busy day. I only got 1/2 the laundry done before we left, so I plan to do the rest of it tomorrow with anything else we'll need washed for the rest of the week, hopefully it isn't too bad. 

So anyways, while I had hoped to squeeze in more for our trip, I'm glad we got the graduation done and that's the real reason we went down so I'm happy we got that done. As I've said, I'm so beyond proud of Larry's dedication and how smart he is! Our lives are, seriously, so much better than they should be because of his persistence and drive to make himself a better person. He's a great provider, husband, and father and such a great role model for his kids! We love you, babe!

February Activites

-This month started with Larry working at home again (which we're big time celebrating)! Luckily, he had one more Friday off so we squeezed in vet appointments. Unfortunately, this turned into such a nightmare! I wanted to get Charlie in to get him scheduled for his neutering, but decided to schedule for all the cats just as a checkup. The appointments were fine enough (all cats got a good bill of health), but afterwards they started fighting like crazy. We've been working on getting them used to each other again, but Charlie and Minnie literally tear each other apart so we've had to keep a VERY close eye on them and now Charlie and Otto sleep in the basement (hopefully once he gets fixed things will get better). I do sleep on the couch on Thursday and Friday nights so Minnie can have the master room just her and Larry and then the boys can have a night not in the basement, but this is definitely not ideal and I REALLY hope things get better soon. If Charlie wasn't SO good with the kids and they didn't love him I'd honestly think of finding him a new home, sad as it is to say. Wish us luck!

-While the Home Depot kids workshop hasn't worked out as much as we'd like, the Lowe's ones have been a HUGE hit so far. We did the first one this month (a chalkboard message board) and the kids LOVED building it and say they want to do more of them. I just love that they have you register for it and actually make sure they hold a kit for you.

-I've been really enjoying finding time for my puzzles and reading more. I think I've done like 5 puzzles now and I'm in my 4th book. I know it's not a lot compared to others, but still an accomplishment for me. I've been working on my smaller puzzles to start with and I've been doing good with not looking at the boxes (which is a huge feat for me). It's been nice for my brain to get the "exercise".

-In preparation for our Disney trip, I made a list of  movies to watch that the park either has rides for or experiences of and we've been watching one of those each week. It is SO much better watching with the kids for their first time. I have never been a huge fan of Snow White or Alice in Wonderland, but watching them with the kids I actually, legit enjoyed the movies. It's been so much fun watching them through their eyes. We also watched one of the newer Haunted Mansion movies and it was SO good (highly recommend it!), so that's been good too. It's definitely getting us all even more excited for the trip.

-For a fun Family Date idea we decided to take the kids to Tepanyaki for dinner one night. It was a lot of fun and I forget how good the food was. Unfortunately, it was a bit expensive, Lucy was scared, and the kids hardly ate anything, but they did enjoy the show and we had lots of leftovers especially with the Superbowl food haha)

-My Grandma has alzheimers and had to be put into a memory care center last month so I decided since I had President's Day off we should go visit her. Mom took the day off too so she could show us what it's all about and seeing her was so nice. I've never been to one of those places so I wasn't sure what to expect, but everyone LOVED seeing the girls (I kept Pierce behind with Larry) so they were all over them. We got to see Grandma's room and see good pictures from a long time ago. It was a quick visit and we went to lunch at Arctic Circle after so the girls could play for a bit. While I was sad to think of her being in one of these places, it was actually really  nice and the food smelled amazing so I know she's in good hands.

-We had to take the van in for some recall updates and a burnt out light replacement. I love car maintenance appointments because I know I get to read a bunch and have a quiet couple hours haha. I was even able to take our donation stuff to Savers on my way up and grabbed some lunch from Wendy's as well. I was able to read like 5 chapters of my book and it was a nice little break.

-I've been experimenting with some cleaning routines and what makes it easier and sense for our house as well as is efficient and doesn't make me feel like I'm losing time with kids. This past Sunday I was cleaning our upstairs and Larry mentioned we should go get some ice cream after dinner and I thought we should totally do treats on Sunday nights. We all pitch in with cleaning and to have a treat together would be such a great addition. I'm very happy to add that to our weekly routine (plus it incentivizes us to make sure we get our cleaning done...no cleaning, no treat haha).

-So after I watched that episode of Modern Family where they take Leap Day off (because it's an extra 24 hours you're gifted, why spend it at work?) I totally knew I wanted to start doing that. Take the day off and make use of the extra hours we get. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to do anything too fun because I had to get ready for our Phoenix trip (post to come) so today is spent doing things we'd normally get done on Sundays as well as some fingerprinting errand for possible field trip chaperoning in the future. There wasn't really anything I could do about what needed to be done this time, but I am glad to have it off work and get things done that need to be done and I look forward to future ones and making them fun.

-Silly kiddo pics:

Man, it was a good month!

Christmas Coupons

For Christmas we gave the kids some coupons to use throughout the year. I'm pretty proud of this idea and, so far, it's been so fun picking things each month and I definitely plan to do this in future years!

This month Cara chose a date with dad. Larry took her to a nickel arcade and she had an absolute blast playing games and turning in tickets for all the prizes. 

Gwen chose a sleepover with mom, complete with ice cream, masks, silly filters, and playing a silly vet game (where she pretending to poop all over me haha). It took a while to get her ready to go to sleep,  but man am I glad to have a king size bed so we had plenty of room for each other!

Lucy chose a date with Mom, so I took her to Kangaroo  Zoo (with bouncy houses and slides) and then for Froyo. She was so cared of most of the bounce houses and slides so she just stuck with a couple of them and only spent about 30 minutes there before she was done, but she had fun and it was cheap. And Froyo is always a hit and is cheap enough so it was fun to add that in.

Overall it made the coupons even more fun and the kids now want to do what the other one picked for their next month picks haha.

Valentine's Day 2024

UGH do I feel so horrible about Valentine's this year. I ordered gifts for the kids early enough that I thought I was on top of things. The first week of this month I kept telling myself I needed to plan more things than just presents, but then I'd tell myself I have plenty of time left. Then suddenly it's the 13th and I have NOTHING planned.

I also realized the weekend before that I got them gifts, but not any candy. I forgot to make breakfast plans or read our holiday books, and I never felt like I had time to put up our decorations.

In my defense, I really feel I've still been trying to get caught up and used to our new normal schedule with the activities we have and making sure homework and reading is done. Also, we couldn't make valentine's boxes since the teachers sent emails out saying they were providing bags to decorate for the kids so we only had to get valentine's cards and candy for the classes (but I feel like decorating a box is a big part of celebrating).

I will say we did have fun with the gifts. I had planned to give them their stuff in the morning, but then Gwen wanted to play Bingo earlier this week so we told her we'd play Bingo for our gifts so they looked forward to that ALL day long. They also had a lot of fun with the anticipation of giving out valentine's and getting them at school. 

The other bad part was I didn't really wrap their gifts, I kind of repurposed bags my mom gave her gifts in the day of so that didn't feel like I put too much effort in to it. I also felt SO cranky that night. I felt like ALL the kids were asking for my help all at once and weren't being patient with me as I was helping each of them (Larry was breaking down boxes for garbage day tomorrow) so I felt like I was snapping at them a bit. No matter what I did, I just couldn't stop yelling at them even though I could tell I was doing it and needed to stop.

The good news is, they all said they had a good day. They loved the candy they got, they REALLY loved the gifts they got. For Cara, she got a diamond art keychain kit and some non toxic (kid friendly) nail polish. For Gwen, we got her some play dough tools, paint brushes (she loves to paint), and some snap pop bead set. Lucy got some play dough character accessories and popcorn pens. Pierce got socks, a pillow case, a magnet toy, and some puzzles. I also got them new thermos straws since Pierce chewed through the old ones and they all got to pick out an outfit at Carters. The girls all picked out dresses and for Pierce we got him a new swim suit set. I was pretty happy with what I got them and was happy they liked what they got as well.

As for Larry and me, I got him a shirt that says "V is for Valentine Video Games" and a tuna press tool (the kids have become obsessed with having tuna lately and so this strainer is supposed to make draining the cans easier). He got me flowers (stargazer lilies, my absolute favorite) because that's what I told him I wanted. No candy, nothing special. I honestly forgot it was Valentine's this morning when I ran upstairs to grab his things and just hand them to him haha. It wasn't our most romantic moment, that's for sure haha. 

So while Valentine's Day was a bummer and I wish I had done so much better, I am glad the kids are happy. I promise I'm going to do better next year. I know I say that all the time, but I've got plans to do better for the rest of the holidays this year to get more used to doing more and how much time I need to plan them out.

Super Bowl 2024 - My Favorite Time of the Year

Well it's the end of the Football season and my seasonal depression will probably kick in now haha. I absolutely LOVE Football season and the Superbowl is so bittersweet for me (fun to watch, love the food, but hate that when it's over I have to wait 5-6 months until the next season starts up). This year was sad since I went into thinking The Packers would do awful (so many new players and I figured we'd chalk it up to a learning year), but then they did awesome and got SO close (almost winning the Divisional Playoff round was SO amazing to watch), maybe next year.

For the past few years we've done big buffets for the day of and while those were so fun, it was also a TON of work! So this year we decided we're doing a big pizza feast. As in, anything I've ever wanted on the pizza place menus, I'm ordering. We got pizzas, breads, desserts, pastas, and salad. We got sodas and some chips with dip at the store so we didn't need to worry about adding that to it (which is good because everything I ordered was pretty pricey). We were set and excited to have food, football, and the fact that we don't have to cook or plan anything (just leave the food out and eat when you feel like it)

I decided to invite Mom, Will, Andy, and Rachel and though maybe this will be MY thing. Everyone has a favorite holiday that they'll go all out for and I think the Superbowl will be mine. 

I wasn't sure which team I was rooting for this year (I really didn't want the Chiefs to win because it would be ALL about Taylor Swift and the 49ers beat my Packers so I didn't really want them to win so I was very undecided). I will say not knowing who I was rooting for made for a very boring 1st half for me. The 2nd half got better, and going into OT is always pretty exciting, but I kind of bowed out once we put the kids down and just "watched" the game on my phone while (real) watching a movie and doing laundry. I did love the commercials and the half time show though and we ate SO much but still have quite a bit leftover (no problems with that though). 

Now that it's over, I'm excited to just focus on household things and look forward to the next year (I think Packers might have it...fingers crossed). Onto Valentine's Day now!

January Activities

This month was a pretty busy one. Here's what we got to do

-We attempted to do the Home Depot Workshop this month. Unfortunately, we got there about 20 minutes after the "start time" and they had already run out of kits. I was bummed because we registered for it and kept talking it up to the kids so they were excited. However, I figured we may just need to go early next time AND I did register for the Lowe's one next month (which I've heard if you register for that on you are guaranteed a kit) so hopefully that works out and we can really try that out.

-We started going to the library again. Our city one isn't big, but they do have a huge selection of kids books and we decided to start Cara on chapter books so I'm pretty excited to do that more regularly. I had originally planned to do it weekly so I only let the kids pick out 2 books. Then I saw that you get to keep them for 3 weeks and so I figured we'll just plan for that.

-Lucy got her 1:1 dates so I took her out to this Yonutz place that recently opened. She picked a unicorn donut. They were only okay. I'm not sure I'd go back, but we still had fun.

-I went crazy and got a winter pedicure haha. I normally don't think they are worth it during the winter, but Rachel (Andy's wife) wanted to do them for her birthday so I decided to join in (we go to my new favorite salon place to do them). I have to say, I might be a convert. While winter ones don't seem necessary, my feet sure appreciated the hell out of it haha. The lady I got did the most incredible foot massage and I love the color I picked so I'm definitely pro winter pedi now. 

- We haven't had much of a winter this year, but Larry's taken the kids out for sledding when the opportunity arose. I'm REALLY hoping we'll get a bit more snow so I can go next time. Fingers crossed!

-One night I decided to bring the snow inside to let the kids play with it after dinner time. This was a HUGE hit and I definitely plan to keep it on the list for future activity ideas to keep the kids easily entertained.

-I've been working on figuring out a new cleaning routine for the home. I used to do one full weekend each month, but hated that. I tried to do a Saturday morning cleaning and then fun stuff the rest of the Saturday. I tried figuring out how often certain cleaning needed to be done to create a realistic schedule. Nothing seemed to work out well. I decided it needed to be done every Sunday. The 1st and 3rd Sundays will be the main level, the 2nd and 4th will be the upper level and then if there's a 5th Sunday I'll do the one-off items. No idea what I'll do when the basement is finished, but I'll worry about that when we get to that point haha.

-I have a new found Lego obsession. I decided to start taking some time to do my Friend's sets I have been holding onto for a while and absolutely loved doing them. I also started this set I got in Boston. This one isn't AS much fun since the pieces aren't the same as regular Legos, they are much smaller, and the directions are complicated, but I still like what it represents and I'm excited to see how it ends up. I decided when I'm done with it I am going to start doing my puzzles again. Larry is back to working from home so I have time after dropping Gwen off at school to do something, so why not something like puzzles and Legos? haha

-The kiddos, as always, are so silly: