First Meal on the Deck (March 15)

We had our first meal out on our deck on March 15 this year!

It was a fairly simple (yet messy) meal, so it was perfect for outside: Taco salad, pickles, oranges and pink lemonade.

It may look like a mess, but YUM! This is one of my favorite meals of all time!

It's also one of those meals that BOTH of my boys gobble right up without any gimmicks.

The boys just LOVE to be out on the deck, and it wasn't long after eating that they were checking everything out :)

These boys :)

These faces :)

Man do I ever love them :)

Visiting the Easter Bunny and Other Weekend Shenanigans (March 28-29)

This weekend was seriously a FUN weekend! I'll be honest and say that I am generally TERRIBLE at making it to activities in the community. Many times I blame it on just not knowing about them, but the past 2 months or so, I can only blame myself, since everything is posted all over Facebook.

Friday evening, I was taking a little break from Grandma Vi's scrapbook and checking Facebook and saw that the Easter Bunny was going to be at HyVee with some activities for the kiddos, so OF COURSE we decided to go the next morning.

I spent the rest of Friday evening after the kids went to bed doing this...again...just with a different outfit (haha)

Saturday morning we were up at our usual 6:30/7am time and got ourselves ready to hit up HyVee shortly after 8am, when the EB was set to start doing his thing.

Kendrick was instantly completely traumatized, and screamed, clinging to my leg for the first few minutes, then clung to Daddy, giving the EB the evil side eye for another 10 minutes or so. Cashel was a seasoned pro and started out giving EB a high five and was more than okay accepting some fruit snacks from his bunny friend. He had a blast decorating an easter egg as well as an egg cookie all by himself.

It didn't take long, however, before Kendrick and EB became best of buds. It was hysterical! He kept saying, "Hi bunny! Hi! Bunny!!" and waving for literally about 45 minutes straight. He wouldn't eat breakfast, and his eyes were constantly on EB. We laughed and laughed and laughed (and so did the other staff and customers in the area). He actually said his first string of words, too, when EB walked away to greet other little kids: "Bunny! Where is he?" He was VERY concerned. That poor guy in the Easter Bunny costume must have been exhausted by the time we left. He kept waving back at Kendrick for the entire time lol Kendrick was literally shaking from excitement whenever he would see the bunny, and his head looked like the middle right picture in this collage pretty much the entire time we were eating breakfast. And his hands were clenched like in the bottom left picture the whole time.

It's those moments that just make me smile as a parent :) The days aren't always so sweet as these, so these sweet little bright moments make me beam :)

It was a COLD weekend overall, though, so we didn't make it outside nearly as much as I had hoped. We watched move Netflix than I had hoped to, the house was messier than I had hoped, but the boys loved it :) We did bouncy house and "marks" and thank GOODNESS Daddy was feeling good and up to playing with the boys as much as he did!

My greatest accomplishment of the day was that I FINISHED GRANDMA'S BOOK! I got it all uploaded to Shutterfly and ready to go on Sunday, and now I'm sitting on it for a few days to make sure I don't have any other "ah-hah" moments. She's going to LOVE it :)

After naps, we made our way down to Worthington for the evening and visited for a while before Mark and I took off for a romantic dinner at Pizza Ranch and a little light shopping at ShopKo. We also visited with our friends, the Grabers for a little bit before the kiddos hit bedtime and we had to get over to pick them up. The boys had a great time at Grandpa and Grandma's ;)

Sunday after church, we ate a bunch of leftovers (I know, how gourmet, right?) and then after Kendrick went down for his nap, Cashel and I set to work making cinnamon rolls for the big Ropte get together this coming week at the farm! I was VERY nervous about this, because he usually ends up mostly ruining whatever I'm making when I let him help (as if Rosemary and steak seasoning weren't ingredients in the rolls...) but unlike some other times, he actually did SO GREAT with the cinnamon rolls. I just love this sweet picture of his little hands :)

He was VERY serious when he was rolling out the dough.

I really enjoyed that time spent with just Cashel :) I also made some chocolate chip cookies for the freezer after he was worn out from the cinnamon rolls :)

I loved this weekend of togetherness :) We had plenty of these types of moments too (gotta keep it real):

But thinking back on this weekend made me smile :)

The Book and an Unexpected Weekend (Mostly) Alone

For the past three years and two months, I've dreamed of a weekend like this past one. I've told myself that if only I could get a whole weekend where I could just be by myself and not be bothered by the menial diaper changes and dishes and laundry and sticky fingers and baths and time spent "outside, mama" and cooking and cleaning and cleaning and cleaning and keeping little ones safe and warm and snuggled and loved - if I could just pause time and have one weekend all to myself - THEN, I would be super productive.

Well, friends, this past weekend was THAT weekend, and it came completely unexpectedly.

I knew I was going to have most of the day on Saturday to work on a scrapbook for Mark's Grandma's 90th birthday, but on a whim, Mark and I took Friday afternoon off as well, and we started with a good workout at the gym, and followed up with a wonderful lunch together at Bergen Bar & Grill (one of our favorites!).

We spent the rest of the afternoon watching NCAA March Madness games, I tried making cinnamon rolls (but hadn't gotten the water warm enough for the yeast and they were a major fail!) and I got a good start on some pages for the scrapbook before we went to pick the boys up from daycare and headed to the park. And I swear they were having more fun than this picture depicts haha

Saturday morning I was up early, about an hour before the family, and I got some photo editing done (and man - some of those old photos took about 15-25 minutes of editing...apiece!), but then enjoyed my boys over a yummy waffles and bacon breakfast. We played outside a little, and then before we knew it, Pam and Jessie came and picked up our boys and whisked them away to their home in Worthington. We sent along overnight stuff "just in case", and are sure glad we did!

At 11am on Saturday, I promptly sat down and spend the entire day working on a digital scrapbook for Mark's Grandma for her 90th birthday. Literally...from 11am until 11pm, I took approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes to myself. My booty was so.flipping.sore by the time I was done that day. My eyes felt like they had sand in them, which I discovered was from staring at the computer screen so long that day. I don't say that to complain, but rather to remind myself that an entire day of scrapbooking might sound like fun, but aside from getting about 75% finished with this book in one day, I might want to break it up a tinge in the future haha I spent approximately 10.5 hours doing this:

By 5:30pm, I was already feeling a bit like this:

But I swear, the book was really starting to come together!

Mark was actually gone most of the day, arriving home around 7:45pm, helping his Mom with one of her rental properties in Adrian, so it was sort of a win-win day for us: We both got to be super productive, and our kids were having a BLAST with Grandpa, Grandma Pam and Aunt Jessie. But oh my goodness did I ever miss them :)

I had texted Pam at around 2:30pm after spending approximately 2 hours completing a measly 4 pages to tell her that we would definitely need to have the boys stay there overnight if I was going to get much done that day, so I was a little sad about that. Mark had taken clothes with him to the Adrian house on the offset chance that I would be "done" by 5pm and wanted to swing through and pick him up for a date night in Sioux Falls (haha - that was FUNNY!). I WAYYYY underestimated how long it takes me to do a book justice.

Sunday, I gave myself a bit of a break and enjoyed breakfast, visiting with my hubby, and a nice, relaxing Sunday school and church service without having to get anyone but myself ready! We toyed with going out to eat again, but decided to stick around home so I could get back to work. I spent about another 4 hours on the book before Mark dragged me to the gym to get off my tuff haha

We made our way down to Worthington by 5, and ran a few errands quickly before picking up some pizza and heading to find our babies! It was so good to give them these huge hugs and snuggles! We missed them so much while they were gone!

After approximately 18 hours and 56 scrapbook pages, I'd say it was an incredibly productive weekend! I have about a week before it needs to go to print, but still a few straggling pages to put together.

It has been so much fun to put together this memory book, and I'm really excited for Grandma to have it. I'm always a little more nervous when I do a book for someone else, as pretty much ALL of my books are for my own little family, and if I screw up on something, I'm probably the only one who is going to notice. But I've really put my heart into this one, and I'm really tickled at how it has turned out. It has inspired me to do one for my siblings and Mom and I to recall all those special memories from our past as well, but I might try to give myself more than a few weeks to put that one together haha :)

Lately in Windom

Back to the gym

Two appointments for the boys on the same day. The genius who scheduled them to be at the same time isn't my favorite person. Oh...wait...

Why it took us so long to discover GoGurt is beyond me. Also...how is it possible that the first time I have ever made french toast for my boys for breakfast was last weekend? I always struggle with breakfast foods, and this they will eat like candy. (Probably because it's pretty much EXACTLY like candy)

I saw this picture and it made me chuckle. No one thinks my kid looks like anyone but Daddy. I beg to differ.

I had to enlist Kendrick to help wake big brother up after a later afternoon nap.

My tiny little baby started a preschool prep class last week once a week for six weeks. I feel like he's over- and under-prepared at the same time.

He was SO EXCITED to go inside the bus, but he won't start riding the bus until the fall when he starts preschool.

The playground, though - he totally dominated the playground. I hope no one gets hurt lol

Kendrick has really started voicing his opinion lately. He hasn't really ever been a huge tv-watcher, but since discovering Baby Einstein videos, he can't get enough. The first thing every morning is that he wakes up and then whines and says "a show" and "Einstein" until I get the laptop out and let him watch an episode. After about 20 minutes, he goes about his day as usual. It's his new favorite thing.

We came in from playing outside and I went to the bathroom. When I came out, I found this scene: Pants off, somehow got his own snack off the top of the fridge and was sitting in the toy room like this. Um....

We've been REALLY enjoying our new gym. I've been diligently lifting every time I go, and I feel a ton stronger, even if I haven't dropped a single pound and my clothes don't really fit any better. ::sigh::

This little dude had a great dentist appointment, and he didn't even squirm!

The boys have been LOVING playing with this fun marbleworks set from Great Grandma Vi lately.

SUCH a daredevil at the park lately. We're hoping Spring comes back soon so we can frequent the parks again.

These two are hard to wrangle, but love to snuggle :)

Friday afternoon date with the love of my life :)

Very long day of scrapping to prep for a photo book for Mark's Grandma's 90th birthday. I can't wait to give it to her!

One month into this new gym, and I'm starting to see the beginnings of a little definition in my arms! The flabby underneath part needs some work, though.

One of my favorite mugs of all time, and no spillage concerns without my monkey children jumping on me.

Tried this new salad over the weekend, and while it wasn't bad, I felt it could have used a tinge more sweetness and a little less balsamic.

Mark challenged me to up the resistance on the elliptical, and holy cow! I've almost doubled my calories burned in 20 minutes, and I'm usually a sweat bucket by the time I'm done.

We are so grateful for Aunt Jessie! AND Great Grandma Vi's cookies :)

They also just LOVE Grandma Pam and Grandpa!