February Recap

The beginning of February felt heavy, if I'm being honest. I felt like I need a break at life for a while to gather my breath. Life felt heavy. I felt tired. We even went on a nice vacation at the beginning of the month, and to be honest, I felt like I just jumped right back into the fire. Responsibilities are such a tough thing to manage.

It did feel amazing, though, getting away for a week and not thinking about work. It was nice to see the sunshine and rest a tinge more than usual. It was nice to drink my coffee in a mug and to drink it hot instead of lukewarm. It was nice to cuddle my babies more than usual and to see their faces light up at everything around them.

It did not feel amazing traveling to and from Miami, however, and that part I probably could have done without. (See my travel blog post on Traveling with Toddlers)

We got a fair amount of snow at the beginning of February, but that petered off by the middle of the month and the temps just got COLD with very little sunshine in sight.

These two adorable boys are Mark and I's bright spot in our days :)

We just love to watch them :)

Upon returning home from vacation, we all just sort of fell apart for a few days. It felt great being home and in our routine again for the most part, but I think we all could have used a few more days at home with no routine to get our bearings back (and get naps every day).

Towards the end of the month, work let up slightly, and I was finally able to take some time off to just focus on me, which I SO desperately needed. I have found a phenomenal masseuse that I am going to try to begin going to every month at least to help manage the physical effects of stress. I also got my hair cut and Mark and I were treated to two unexpected date nights the past two Saturday nights (thanks, Dad and Pam!) which was so nice :)

I've had people ask me if I ever ended up finding a housekeeper, and my answer is no, I did not. We've just decided to do what we need to do to get through the days and just accept living with toys strewn around for a few days at a time if need be. With kids at the ages we have them, it just didn't make sense. Plus, apparently when you want people to clean your house, you have to actually clean before they come over; you know...pick up toys and junk off the floors and what not. It just seemed like too much work to clean for a cleaning person to come over, so we're just making do. We do what we can when we can do it.

Anyways, here are a few of the highlighted events from this month. I hope you enjoy!

Superbowl Sunday (February 1)

We didn't do much for the Superbowl this year, but the boys and I did make Stromboli together. We watched more of the game than we did last year (and more of the commercials too), but the boys were more interested in running around between the kitchen and living room a thousand times than watching the game.

Key Largo Trip (February 7-14)

We enjoyed a week-long vacation to Key Largo, Florida the second week in February. We had a lot of fun, but it was certainly more work with two toddlers in tow than our previous vacations with just one little guy.

I did a big and in-depth vacation recap with links to detailed recaps of each day earlier this month, so I won't go into detail here, but here are a few of my favorite pictures from our trip :)

Valentine's Day (February 14)

Valentine's Day was a big flop this year, and to be honest, we couldn't have cared less. We were up and out of the condo by 7am and traveled all day until 9:30pm. We ate a romantic dinner at Cub Food's while the boys fidgeted, and we were all completely exhausted for the next entire week.

Grandma Ruth's 68th Birthday Party (February 22)

We enjoyed a nice day in Humboldt celebrating my Mom's 68th birthday with some of my siblings and their families. We finally got to see her new apartment that they added on over the past 6 weeks, and it looks SO GREAT! She seems so blissfully happy now to have her own space!

I did a separate post with lots of sweet pictures here.

Looking Ahead...

The next few months are actually going to be busier than I thought!

We are definitely hoping to squeeze in a few date days or nights this month.

Mark and I are finally joining the gym again in March: We SO very desperately need to have a gym routine again. We are currently in the middle of our "test" week, but meet with the gym owner on Monday to get started officially. We're planning on getting a 12 month membership. It'll be SO nice to fall back on during the crummy days (it's not just snow and cold in SW Minnesota...it also gets rainy, VERY windy, hot, humid and dusty) throughout the year.

My brother Dan and his family from Indiana are planning to be at the farm at the end of March/early April, so we'll be down there for some of their visit. It has been over a YEAR since we saw them last, and I can't wait to snuggle my "new" little nephew Andrew (as you recall, he was born 8 weeks early back on November 1st) if I can pry him out of all the other mamas' hands :) I'm excited to hopefully see more of my family too - especially Dave and his family who we haven't seen in ages either!

We have a BIG 90th birthday party for Mark's Grandma in the works towards the end of April that I am working on a couple FUN projects for. We're really hoping that this ends up being the first family event in a while that the boys don't make us go crazy at due to lack of naps, but it's probably a pipe dream haha

One of my best friends from college, Steff, is getting married in the middle of May just south of Sioux City, and I'll be a personal attendant as well as guestbook photographer, so we're excited for the wedding :) It'll be our first wedding without kids since we had kids (so in THREE years), and I'm excited to wear a fancy dress and dance the night away :)

I think that's about it for now! For now, we're enjoying a really great weekend at home just the four of us :)

Celebrating with my Mama (February 22)

After an extremely busy January and February (so far), we were glad to finally get the opportunity to spend the day in Humboldt celebrating my Mama's 68th birthday with her.

Granted, "celebrating" seems to be the code word for "unsuccessfully spending all afternoon trying to get two cranky toddlers down for a nap", but we had a good time anyway :)

I think that in the course of the 6 hours we were in Humboldt, I managed to take something like 250 pictures, but I thought I'd share some of my favorites :)

I'm not entirely sure if I've mentioned before or not, but my sister Amanda makes THE BEST cupcakes.

We learned that while Cashel still only eats the frosting, Kendrick actually will eat the cake too.

All of the kids have a love/hate relationship with Uncle JJ. They adore him when they're babies, and hate him once he can start picking on them haha :) I suppose that's the curse of being the baby in a family of six kids: You never have a younger sibling to pick on, so you take it out on your nieces and nephews haha He definitely loves his little nieces and nephews, though :)


I absolutely am over the moon about my Mom's new apartment that they added on where half of the garage used to be. It's a perfect little haven for her, and I'm SO happy for her :) It's a tinge messy as she's still just getting moved in.


She has a perfect little cozy nook to read now :)

She has the most beautiful hands :)

These boys love to visit Grandma Ruth at the farm. It was nice being able to visit with her in her apartment, although the boys didn't get to stay in there long because no naps==too wild for Grandma's.


I love this woman more than words can express. It has been so difficult to watch her struggle over the past few years, but it was such a breath of fresh air to see her change in demeanor this last visit, and how peaceful she seemed in her new surroundings :)

These two just crack me right up :) We had to physically remove them from Grandma's after a while because they were just too rambunctious. Kendrick has such a telling smile lol When he's laughing and smiling this big, there's usually a tornado in his wake.


These five (and the other TEN Ropte cousins) are a force to be reckoned with. We sure missed the other cousins this trip :(

This picture perfectly captures miss Kaleigh Mae's personality haha :) My sister and her little girls :)

I'm not going to lie: We were weary by the time we got home. Somehow, Kendrick completely recharged after something like a 20 minute nap and was awake the entire 2 hour drive home. Cashel was out cold after not too long, but woke up a total crabby pants about an hour into the trip. They were both just DONE with the carseats and traveling. We made it home and gave them some snacks, and they still wanted to party for an hour. I'm sure it'll be an interesting week getting them back on track.

Even so, we had a nice visit, and the boys had a great time playing with their cousins (and eating cupcakes). We were glad that we were able to make it down, and we are looking forward to seeing everyone at the end of March together again! We missed our far-away family in 2014, and I think we've got some baby-crazy Aunts all lined up to meet Mr. Andrew. Mama Sarah may very well not see that little man very much, so I'm hoping she will be able to get some sweet snuggles in before they come :)

For now, a special Happy Birthday to my Mommy :) I hope you have had a wonderful day!

Florida 2015 (February 7-14)

We were finally able to take a bit of a break from work, daycare and cold, snowy Minnesota for a week at the beginning of February, and it.was.glorious!

Granted, with two toddlers in tow, it was a lot of work, and we were weary and exhausted and ready to come home on Valentine's Day for SURE. But it was such a nice break from scraping windshields and piling on coats and hats and mittens to go outside: It was nice to feel the sand and the water and the sunshine and the warmth surrounding us.

I've done daily recaps of each of our days, but I thought I'd do a little summary of our time there as well. You can click on the names of the days of the week to view each day's full review on my travel blog.

Vacation Summary

We got in SUPER late on Saturday night after an extremely long day of travel and got settled into our condo around 2am.

On Sunday, we were lazy bums and rested a lot, swam, played at the playground and ate out. We were all still pretty worn out from the previous day, so we didn't have any rhyme or reason to the day. We ate out for super at Upper Crust Pizza and it was good pizza.

Monday we went to the Gator Park and took an air boat ride and Mama got to hold a baby alligator. We had lunch at Pit BBQ.

Tuesday we spent some time at Bahia Honda State Park, then took a quick, unnecessary trip the rest of the way down to Key West, which just didn't end up being our type of scene these days. We had lunch at Berdine's in Marathon and supper at IHOP also in Marathon.

Wednesday was another lazy day and we didn't do much earlier in the day, but after lunch we took the boys to Harris Beach in Tavernier and then out to eat. For supper we at Chad's in Tavernier and the food was alright, even if it was a horrible experience with the kids (not the restaurant's fault).

Thursday, we took the boys to Theatre of the Sea in Islamorada in lieu of the Miami Seaquarium, since we were just too weary to drive to Miami again. We had lunch at Theatre of the Sea.

Friday was more time at the condo swimming, feeding the fish and playing at the park. Mama also got some time during naps to shop a little bit. We ordered Papa John's for lunch, had Arby's for supper and got Mr. C's (mint chip) ice cream before bed.

Saturday was an excruciatingly long day full of driving and flying, and we got home around 9:30pm.

The Worst Parts

Eating Out
Never.Ever.Ever.Ever. plan to eat out more than maybe one or two meals while on vacation with toddlers. Eating out with toddlers in tow is just plain stupid. It ruined half of our days and left us feeling beat down and exhausted. We should have stocked the condo better and planned more meals at "home".

Beaches
Also, we should have done a little more research about family-friendly activities. We really might have made a different decision as to where we went if we realized that aside from the warmer temps, the big draw in Key Largo and the keys is the snorkeling and fishing. If we weren't going to do those things (and we weren't), then we should have picked somewhere with more exciting beaches or more activities for kids to do. We definitely had a good time, but we might have had a better time up near Miami or further north in Fort Lauderdale perhaps. The boys loved the beach, and I only wish there had been better beaches to take them to.

Finding Sunsets beyond our Condo
Great sunset views aren't easy to come by in Key Largo unless you are either prepared to deal with tantrumming toddlers at a fancy restaurant and hope you get a good table for the view, OR are prepared to leave town and drive either north or south (preferably south). Good to know if that is any sort of priority for you. Thankfully, we were able to check out a few beautiful sunsets from our condo, even if they weren't over the ocean.

The Best Parts

We thoroughly enjoyed the Gator Park and LOVED the air boat ride. We'd highly recommend this, but there wasn't a ton more to do there beyond the air boat ride.

Theatre of the Sea was a huge hit with our boys! It was just the right size to hit from 10-2 and still get naps in without feeling like we missed anything. The dolphin show and sea lion show were both excellent, and the other animals (parrots, turtles, fish) were really cool to look at too.

Our Condo at Kawama Towers in Key Largo had some pretty great features. We LOVED having the dock with fish, the playground and the pool all within just a few steps. It made it really easy to have fun without having to pack for a day away.

The incredible views along Hwy 1. We only went down to Marathon and beyond one day, but it was so beautiful to see the brilliant ocean. If we hadn't had such squirmy toddlers in tow who were ready for lunch, it would have been nice to spend a little more time just being by the ocean. It was so beautiful! We stopped by a couple beaches, but none had quite the view we saw just driving along the highway.

Harris Beach was so PERFECT for us, and we only wish we had chosen a warmer day to visit! It had this perfect little rock wall protecting from the ocean's full strength, so we didn't worry about the boys playing there, and it was just gorgeous. There was also a little park right there too (which we didn't visit), and seemed like just the perfect place to hang out with a little family our size. We were MUCH more impressed with this beach compared to Bahia Honda State Park, which will NOT appear in our "favorites" section. It had a clean beach with picnic tables, shelters, palm trees and perfect sand for sand castle building.

Sunsets from our condo. Boy were we lucky that they were so beautiful right there, because there wasn't a single night we were fortunate enough to be able to actually see a decent sunset over the ocean. When the sun was setting, it was like all of us just sort of settled down and stared at it in amazement.

Overall...

We really did have a great time, but just as it is in life, every day was full of ups and downs, so that stayed the same even if the weather drastically improved. We have certainly vowed that if we do another big vacation like this WITH kids, it'll be when they're a few years older. As far as traveling with two toddlers goes, I really do feel like it went fairly smooth. But I'll admit that I was drooling over the 20-something girl with wedge heels and Starbucks hand in the Miami airport effortlessly floating up the stairs while I was carrying a 30+lb toddler and lugging my carry on and a bulging bag going down the escalator. Oh how life changes when you have kids. :)

On another note, I think the next big vacation we go on will be without kids. As such, it might be a little shorter than week, but I think it's definitely called for :)

Lately in Key Largo

While on vacation, I started each morning with a yummy cup of coffee with my newly-discovered favorite creamer - YUM!

This particular morning, we had fresh fruit that we had picked up on the way home from Gator Park the day before.

A couple mini doughnuts and fresh fruit - yum!

I have absolutely decided that I want this mirror (or an enormous one like it) for our house. It just brightened up the whole space, and I LOVED it!

The boys' favorite place was the balcony, which we had to quickly come to grips with, since Cashel could easily open the lock and get out.

Mama and Kendrick's room was SO BRIGHT during the day. It was horrible for napping, but thankfully most of the days, Kendrick was so tired that he napped really well anyway.

Our condo tower.

Gorgeous views every time we drove into town.

Out in the middle of the Everglades on an airboat tour. It was so gorgeous out there!


Mama and Cashel were brave and touched a live alligator! Daddy would have, but decided it wasn't worth $3 for a picture.

We got the boys these toy alligators, and Cashel just wanted to eat his.

We tried starfruit for the first time. Verdict: The texture was awesome, but the flavor was kinda just alright. I won't be stocking our fridge with any.

Cashel discovered Candy Land at the condo, and he's really really good at it. Mark swears that he didn't let Cashel win, but Cashel beat Mark about 80% of the time haha

::sigh:: It was so beautiful :)

Bahia Honda State Park was a tinge seaweedy.

I love this picture of Cashel trying to get away from the waves :)

Breakfasts most mornings

Such a big boy climbing up and then sliding down the big boy slide all by himself!

Looking for fish off the dock.

Beach time at Harris Beach.

They really loved the beach SO much, and they asked to go every day.

I swear he's growing up too fast.

My handsome hubby :)

Daddy is so awesome playing with the boys and making sandcastles.

What a little sweetheart :)

"Feed me, Feed me!"

Big brother leading the way.

Cashel would have taken this guy home with us if we would have let him.

VERY cool dolphin show at Theatre of the Sea!

For some reason this picture reminds me of the show "China Beach".

I can't even handle the cute anymore!

Even with his little belly, this guy is getting so tall and thin!

Cashel loved throwing the alligator and then swimming after it in his little floaty.

New shades and swimsuit after a fun day of shopping - had to test them out at the pool!

These two had so much fun wrestling together.

He was pretty excited to have his own ticket with his own name on it!