My 34th Birthday and SNOW (October 28)

I'm gonna put this out there: I woke up yesterday morning feeling every minute of 34 years old. I'm not sure if it's the pregnancy, that I'm not sleeping as well as I think I am (although, no middle-of-the-night potty breaks FTW!), no naps for the weary, chasing after two little crazy ones, or age itself, but I felt very, very tired and old.

However, it wasn't like that the entire day, and it was a pretty great one. I had a few of those ego-boosting complements at work that you never hear (one lady told me I was positively glowing, and another rough and tumble trucker dude told me I was very obviously pregnant because of "all that weight I lost beforehand", and that I "carried well" which I'm assuming is really just because of how nauseous I was the whole first trimester, because prior to getting pregnant, I lost all of about 3lbs, which in my mind isn't even recognizable to me, much less a random trucker - haha), so that helped.

I also found THE BEST pumpkin bar recipe out there for work treats, so how could a morning be bad when you've got some coffee and pumpkin bars? Answer: It cannot. ;)

It was one of those busy mornings at work, where I was out on the floor a lot troubleshooting, which is sometimes a nice break from the monotony of writing (or staring at) thousands of lines of code and/or debugging. Mark and I took off a half day, and made our way to Mankato for the afternoon around 11:30.

We decided to have lunch at Grizzly's (one of our favorite places there), where they SERIOUSLY hooked a birthday girl up! Not only did I get a free entree (Bear Creek Pasta - YUM!) for being part of their club thing, they also gave me a free piece of cheesecake. Not that they had to do that to bring me back in the doors again, but we'll definitely be back again :)

We mostly went to Mankato, however, to pick up the rest of the flooring pieces we needed to finish off our flooring (which is still sitting in boxes in our living room) and to return a football (since we ended up finding our other two, which we needed for pictures back on the 18th).

We also were hoping to find new phones, but the selection at Best Buy and also at Walmart for Verizon Prepaid phones was sadly very slim, so it looks like we'll be ordering online soon.

We made it back to town right around our normal time to pick up the boys, so we swung by to pick them up, then made our way home for a normal evening together (aside from the birthday festivities): Dishes, picking up, opening presents, leftover lasagna for supper, baking a birthday cake, Cashel to AWANA, birthday cake time, baths, off to bed.

Always the prankster, Mark decided that although my second gift is on its way (my 1st half of 2015 photo book I ordered the other day), I still needed to have two packages to open, so he wrapped up some diapers, and we were all laughing pretty hard about it :) But my "real" gift was a new pair of TeePee Creepers slippers. These are my FAVORITE things, and I had worn my old pair out way back in January, so I was desperately missing them. A HUGE thank you :)

Kendrick still doesn't quite understand the concept of birthday presents and/or cake being for the birthday person, so he had my one present mostly unwrapped before I even got to the table, and was pretty adamant about lighting the cake himself. ("I do it, Mama! I DO IT!")

34 years old!

We only had to light the candles something like 8 times after my initial blowing out the candles, since, you know, it looked like SO MUCH FUN that the boys could have their chance at blowing out the candles over...and over...and over again ;)

And, as is tradition, if it hasn't snowed BEFORE my birthday, it will snow ON my birthday ;) It didn't last through the evening, even, and it's supposed to be back into the 60s this weekend, but a first snow is a first snow!

I had a pretty great birthday :) And I can tell you this: Cashel is VERY aware of the fact that the next family birthday in our little family is HIS. And he has been inviting people to his party since July. (Just in case I was thinking we might escape the birthday party trend and maybe just do every other year). So, if not before then, it looks like we'll probably be seeing you all at the end of January (if I don't end up in pre-term labor from planning the party haha).

Fall Festival, Halloween Trail, Leaves and Pumpkin Carving (October 24-25)

This past weekend was one of those "no plans" weekends that turned a little big crazy (in a good way) for us. Aside from a VERY wet Friday, the weather the rest of the weekend was outstanding, so it was a great weekend to get outside.

Saturday morning we putzed around the house a bit before getting the boys all dressed up in their costumes and heading over to the local hardware store for their Fall Festival. The boys had a BLAST playing the carnival games (pumpkin bowling, potty toss, plinko, ring toss, mini golf, balloon pop) and thoroughly enjoyed painting a pumpkin. Mommy was a little upset that they also managed to paint a good chunk of their costumes with acrylic paint (which, BTW, you can get most of it out by using a mixture of dawn and hydrogen peroxide), but they had so much fun it was hard to be upset about it for long.

Kendrick went as the Cookie Monster and Cashel as Captain Jake from Jake and the Neverland Pirates.

After the boys finally went down for naps (at 2 for Kendrick and 3:15 for Cashel - oy!), Mama got to work getting their costumes washed up and ready for the Halloween Trail at Pioneer Village later that evening. We took off around 5:15 and headed down to Worthington to meet Mark at Pizza Ranch for supper, then made our way over to Pioneer Village to check out Halloween Trail, which was seriously cute. We'll definitely go back in the future. The kids LOVED it, and it was a beautiful night for it as well.

Sunday started out a little crazy, as usual, trying to get breakfast and everyone dressed and ready and out the door for church in an hour. The boys don't eat breakfast at home during the week days, so it's hard to adjust to spending a half hour eating breakfast when it usually takes Mark and I between 5-10 minutes. Regardless, we made it out the door only a few minutes late. This current phase of life is one where we hope that at least the boys are being edified in their classes, because beyond our wonderful Sunday School class (which is so enriching!), it's really hard to make it through church much of the time unless there is children's church. I swear no one elses' preschoolers are as active as Cashel is. He isn't naughty, usually, he's just very busy, and inquisitive, and not easily entertained. We spend most of the church service either in the library or nursery with one kid or the other. I know the days will pass much too quickly :)

After church and lunch, the boys and I headed outside to play in some leaf piles (and for Kendrick, transporting the leaves down the sidewalk, which is now apparently a favorite pastime).

Nap time came late again, and we didn't end up getting the boys up until 5:30, mostly just to guarantee a little sanity. I napped with Kendrick for the first hour and a half of his nap, and it was SO necessary.

Cashel's first request upon waking up was to carve pumpkins, so, of course, we obliged :)

I think they turned out pretty darn cute, if you ask me :)

We really did have a pretty fun weekend, but man was I ready for bed on Sunday night. I'm hoping for a more laid-back weekend this coming weekend for sure! Beyond trick-or-treating, we have no other big plans, and we're more than ready for that!

Lately in Windom (October Edition)

Fun times at Grandpa's Fun Farm in Worthington


Skipping rocks boulders in Lake Okabena.

What Mark has been up to lately.

Sometimes these two can actually just sit there and snuggle. Especially when The Lorax is on.

Every once in a while it just hits me how fast this little guy has grown up!

What a goofball! K has been putting his own clothes on now on occasion (albeit not properly). This particular night, he not only picked ones that weren't matching, but he also put his shorts on like a mini skirt. He thought he was hilarious!

The boys were pretending to be ghosts this night.

One of my all-time favorite soups: Country Chicken Chowder. Wonderful recipe introduced to me by my friend Mandy a couple years ago.

Probably a good 80% of the time they're awake, they're either laughing or crying.

Poor buddy wasn't feeling well and ended up with infections both of the ear and respiratory system. A few days of steroid and antibiotic and he was back to himself again :)

Cookie time!

These guys just make my heart happy :)

Cashel was selling butterbraids for preschool. It's a tough sell around here!

Tough guy!

Parenting: So many books telling you what to do.

I've been LOVING reading the Christmas love stories lately. They just make me feel all warm and cozy as the weather starts cooling off.

Gettin' a little sassy while trying on hats at Old Navy. In my previous (non-parenting) life, I recall being slightly more sassy like this all the time.

Freaking delicious salad!

I LOVE filling out these books for my little ones :)

Bergen. Eat there. It may have taken Mark and I 2 meals together to eat this, but it was awesome (as always).

Celebrating Grandpa's birthday with supper at Bergen. This was the story of the night with Cashel. We had family pictures earlier in the evening, and he was a little stinker the whole time too.

We put them to work early around here ;)

Peek-a-boo!

How we watch "shows" around here these days.

20 Weeks!

Snack time in the little house under the slide.

I adore the coloring on the tree in our front yard! I only wish we could add more colorful trees to our yard, but alas, it's kinda small for that :(

This little monkey is kinda obsessed with trying to climb the tree in the front yard.

Break time!

Peeky Boozers!

The boys wanted to go for a "leaf ride", and mama was happy to oblige.

Every day as we're pulling in the driveway to get home from our day, I always tell the boys, "I've got a very important job for someone to do once we get home." And every day Cashel yells, "I know! I know! Get the mail!" He and Kendrick usually fight over it, and it's a race to get out of their carseats and get there first. Cashel is the only one tall enough to reach the mailbox to get it out, and then he'll give some of hte mail to Kendrick.

Cashel has been going to AWANA on Wednesday nights, and with Daddy in the field, it has been just Mama and Kendrick for about an hour on those nights. This particular night, we had a date to DQ to get some ice cream :)

That's about it for now! Check back soon for a special Halloween update! We have some fun activities planned :)