Author: Erica (Page 38 of 269)

• Maddie turned THREE!  Yup.  How can she be 3 already?  She is definitely our most “spirited” child as well as a complete social butterfly.  We didn’t have a big party or anything, because, well, she’s three and doesn’t understand yet.  But we did sing to her and she opened gifts.  Her favorite was her Moana microphone, which she carried around for DAYS.

• Jen & Kristen visited Ireland!  Ok, that’s not really anything that we did, but we got to hear all about it when they came back and Jen even brought back the kids gifts.  Josiah got a “Where’s Larry” book (a spin off of “Where’s Waldo–very cute), Chloe got a beautiful shamrock necklace and keychain, and Maddie and Levi got adorable shirts and stuffed sheep!

• Nana & Bumpa came for a visit!  This was a huge highlight for us.  They even brought Abby (their dog) who the kids adored–especially Maddie and Levi.  We made a big map and they would update us on their location so we could map out their travel.  The kids loved this.

• I also made a table for the double stroller.  This may not be exciting for you, but I’m pretty proud of myself!  I bought the double stroller years ago from a random person on craigslist and I didn’t realize it didn’t have the bar/table across the front.  It works just fine without it, so I didn’t care.  But now that we’re going for longer walks I thought it would be nice for Maddie and Levi to have a space to put their toys and books.  So, I concocted a way to make a table for cheap (under $10!) and voila!  It already had the holes in the side of the stroller so I purchased a rod the exact size so it can slide right in.

Apparently in the change over to summer I don’t have it in my schedule yet to sit and write anymore.  I’ll have to see if I can squeeze that back in… I have seriously tried to sit down and write this post 3 or 4 times and keep getting distracted.  Gah!

We’ve had a great start to our summer.  We’ve had family visit, made trips to the park, eaten ice cream, set up new summer chore charts, gone for run/bike rides, and enjoyed playing in the sprinkler.

Here is a little bit of fun from the beginning of June…

• First and foremost–Maddie learned to use the big toilet!  Whoo hoo!  I think that’s where I left off in my last post.  It went AMAZINGLY smoothly.  Seriously.  She had one accident early in the morning as she was just figuring things out, but then that was it.  I can count on one hand the number of accidents she’s had since then.  INCLUDING nighttime!  Wowza.  I guess she was ready!

During potty training–notice her prize toy she showing you in her hands.

• Kylene and Justin came to visit!  They stayed for a few days during the first week of summer.  They kids got to go to the pool with them, and Justin took Josiah to Valleyfair and Kylene took Chloe to Michael’s (yup, those were their requested destinations).  We enjoyed hanging out with them and the kids loved wearing them out.

all together!

Reading on the hammock with Uncle Justin

We found cute shirts at Sam’s Club that we HAD to have… hehe!

• We celebrated Father’s Day!  There were many hand-made gifts and the kids prepared a song each to sing for Tim.  It was adorable.  I also made him “hamburgers” out of cupcakes and brownies! Aren’t they cool looking?

• We enjoyed ice cream on the patio!  I know that probably doesn’t need its own bullet point, but oh, well!

Come back soon for Summer Happenings (Part 2)!  🙂

Well, we totally lived it up today on our first day of summer vacation.  Wanna know what we did in way too many details?  Why, then, my friend… read on!

• Got up at normal time and made cinnamon rolls for the kids
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• Let Chloe sleep in
• Loaded up the kids and went garage sale-ing!
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• Scored a few nice things: roller blades and pads for Chloe, kids show shovel, coloring book for and a ton of extra pencils, books for the big kids, awesome boots for Chloe and a few other random items.
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• Chloe learned how to roller blade while Josiah learned how to turn on his skateboard all while I weeded around the three trees in our boulevard.
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• Talked on the phone with Kylene!  Our weekly phone call.
• Walked to the park with Chloe and the Littles so she could practice on her roller blades some more.
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• Tim and Josiah went to Valleyfair to meet a friend and spent the afternoon there.
• The rest of us played in the sprinklers and enjoyed lounging out back until nap time.
• After the Littles went down for naps Chloe and I sat out on the back patio enjoying ice cream cones and just talking.  We ended up watching a little bird making a nest in the bird house for a long time.  It was just the perfect weather to sit in the shade with the breeze keeping us cool.
• Introduced Chloe to using the home phone to talk to her friend.  It was adorable.
• Potted our new tomato plant.  Josiah is very excited about having tomatoes!
• Cut some rhubarb from our garden and made rhubarb crisp.  Nommmmm…
• Welcomed the boys home and heard all about how many rides Josiah went on without being scared!  I was seriously impressed.
• Ran to Target with Levi after supper to get prepped for tomorrow…  I am (drum roll)  potty training Maddie.  (Gulp).

I feel like today was abnormally long.  Ha!  We seemed to really cram a lot into one day, and yet there was a lot of relaxing in there too.  I suppose it’s the best kind of day then, right?  😉

Yup.  I took the plunge.  I cut off my hair.

I know, it’s just hair.  But I’ve had the same long hair for quite some time now, so this was a pretty big step for me.  It turned out a tiny bit shorter than I expected, but overall I think it’s fun.  I wasn’t so sure at first….

But now that it’s been a couple of hours, I’m coming around to it.  It’s fun to have so much weight (literally) off of my shoulders.  I also had some highlights put in.  A nice summer look.  🙂

And for your enjoyment I’ve put together an assortment of before and afters.  I’m a sucker for a good before and after… you should know this about me by now.

I love this picture.

There are many moments in the day where they are not getting along.  Being so close in age is hard.  They are constantly “bugging” the other one.  They seem to just get under each other’s skin just for the fun of it.

But then there are times like this.  Times where they are just happily ticking each other and belly laughing.

🙂

We enjoyed a nice Mother’s Day here.  Some of the excitement included:

• Chloe made me/us turquoise pancakes (with my help)
• Josiah made me/us scrambled eggs (with my help)
• Chloe gave me a barrage of homemade crafts (seriously like 9 gifts she made)
• I got my coffee at Caribou for free
• Tim ordered lunch for us from Applebee’s. Yum!
• Tim and Jen took the kids to the park so I could rest (Levi is not sleeping well lately, and it’s taking a toll on me.  ugh.)
• We enjoyed some down time just relaxing on the patio
• Chloe and Josiah both made me scavenger hunts. Those were hilarious.  My favorite clue was from Josiah’s.  It read, “This one is somewhere outside.”  Haha!  I did find it, but I needed him to narrow it down slightly.
• Tim bought me an Instant Pot!  If you’re not familiar with that it’s basically a pressure cooker and crock pot combined.  I spent a lot of time yesterday watching videos and looking up recipes.  Expect a post (or two or three!) on this to come… 😉
• I experimented by making Mac and Cheese in my new Instant Pot for supper.  It was a smashing success.
• And then Tim and I capped off the evening by watching an episode of Sherlock Holmes on Netflix.
• All in all, a great day!

I had been anxious to try this one. I love Caribou coffee and especially caramel coolers. And the idea of square bubbles intrigued me. Although I was a little skeptical of the idea of drinking up chunks in my straw…

How bad could it be?

Well, if you like half drinking, half chewing a cold drink then this is right up your alley.  Or if you like chewing on cold over-chewy jell-o this is for you!  OR if you want a straw larger than life, you’ll want this!

Seriously. The straw was massive.  That should have been my first warning…

Why, oh, why would you need such a large straw?  To suck up a mouthful of cold jell-o type cubes of course!  I could feel them filling my mouth as I was drinking.  And you know you’re not enjoying the drink if you’re dreading having to chew them after swallowing the drink in your mouth.  Call me lazy, but I don’t want to have to work at eating my food!  By the end I was so sick of the cubes that I was spitting them out and just trying to drink around it, which is impossible by the way…

The cubes themselves were pretty tasteless, just very chewy.  And square.  Which makes me wonder why they didn’t advertise it as a caramel cooler with “cubes” rather than bubbles… since bubbles are round.

So, nice try Caribou.  But this one is not for me.

Moral of the story.  Never try new things.  😉  I’ll stick with my traditional, boring, tried and true, caramel cooler.