Lately in Windom

We had to hide the piano bench for a while because the boys just wouldn't stop climbing on top of the piano.

We got a little snow at the beginning of the month, and the boys loved watching Daddy shoveling the snow.

Our little dudes :)

We see this a lot at our house :)

Cashel has gotten REALLY good at helping in the kitchen. He did a remarkable job brushing on egg for our Stromboli on Superbowl Sunday.

Kendrick "helped" too, but his style of helping involves lots of eating the ingredients.

So.Much.Cheese.

Cashel is really big into having us chase him. He'll stand there all ready to run off and say, "Mama, come and get me!" and then get SUPER excited if I actually do chase him.

I'm at a loss for words lately about how quickly this little guy is becoming a little man.

I will always remember my Mother's hands and her love for reading. It was so special to celebrate her birthday with her in her NEW APARTMENT that they added off the farm house.

These two little guys sure love their Grandma Ruth. It's amazing we got them to sit still long enough to get a picture with her, though haha :)

They are almost always plotting something. I have a feeling Mark and I are in big trouble down the road.

The last time we were down to the farm, Amanda was more concerned about Caitlin hurting Kendrick: This time around, I think they're on even ground haha

We had two date nights at the end of February, and it was so nice to spend some special time with this guy :)

We did our trial week at the gym and we really love it! We're looking forward to getting into a routine, but it feels really good to sweat again. I'm still trying to adjust to the sore muscles, though.

I had to turn the car around to capture this shot in Heron Lake on my way home from my dentist appointment last Tuesday. Incredible sunset!

My favorite part about Saturday mornings when we have nothing going on is all the sweet snuggles with these babies of mine. They are certainly fewer and further between these days, but I'm so happy that they are such snuggly dudes :)

Cashel is SO PICKY about needing to have the black cup these days. We only have two, and heaven forbid they are both dirty at the same time.

These kids like to climb...and I appear to be collateral damage.

The upside of spending all breakfast time making banana pancakes for breakfast while my boys eat is that I get to eat and sip my coffee in peace and quiet for a whole 7 minutes while Daddy takes care of baths.

We spent a frigid afternoon outside the first day of March, but the boys were eating it up! I have a thousand more pictures on the DSLR from the day, but I'll probably do another post on it, so stay tuned :)

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!