Sunday, September 17, 2017

eureka!



ronnie and i talked my parents into watching
both girls and dogs over the weekend so we
could take the Harley down to eureka springs with
two other couples for a little adult trip.
two weekends out of town, which is normally
not my style but this sounded so fun, we couldn't pass it up.  
i had never been, but ronnie had, and he's literally
been talking about going down there for years.
his friend invited us and at first, ronnie
didn't think we should go, but i'm glad i talked
him into taking some time away.
it was very pretty,
perfect weather and
such a neat little town.
it kind of reminds me a little bit
of estes park and branson.
it's tucked in the trees and the hills
which makes it a fun ride on a motorcycle.
we shopped around, did a little day drinking
and i was in bed by 10:30.
the next day we headed out to branson, where
we stopped for lunch and hit up the outlet mall.
(i forgot i was traveling on a harley and bought
a huge bag which had to travel on our friend's bike - whoops.)
i was definitely tired when i got home, but
it was fun to get away and have a short weekend
without the kids.
i guess i can consider this an early birthday gift.












we've already decided that we need to schedule
another trip to the smokey mountains or nashville.
i love traveling.
i can't wait until the girls are a little older so we
can go on fun family vacations that don't require
SO MUCH WORK.


Monday, September 11, 2017

the end of the season

over labor day weekend we loaded up
the camper and the kids and went down to the lake.
i told brette way too early in the week about
our plans so every morning we had a talk
about how much longer until she got to go camping.
next time, i'm telling her the day before. 
it was amazing weather.
a little chilly at night, 
hot during the day.
perfect for evenings around the campfire
and afternoons on the boat. 
i could tell a big difference in reid since we had 
gone last over memorial day weekend.
it's crazy how much she has changed in 
just three months.
every time we go, i think it gets a little bit easier. 
i'm still running around taking girls to the bathroom,
making drinks and trying to inforce nap time,
but there's a lot of freedom when we go camping too.
not to mention, that the girls still go to bed around 8:30
when we're out there, so ronnie and i have 
the rest of the night to hang out and have some adult time.
(aka - drinking beer around the fire)
we also played the most fun game,
i'm ordering it online because when I went to Wal-Mart
(yes, I actually went inside for this thing)
they were all sold out, but I found it on amazon.
it's called "spike it" - pictured below.
so fun.
go buy it.
the second day, i went out with another family on their boat
because when everyone else left, reid was still sleeping. 
they go tubing a lot and i'm trying to talk
brette into trying it.
i finally negotiated her going, as long as me, ronnie and reid all went too.
by the time i got her convinced we were ready to go home
for the days and we were going to try it out the next day, but i 
never made it back over to their boat. 
its my new mission next summer to get the girls on the tube.
i know reid we absolutely love it - - she's going
to be my little daredevil.

it was such a nice weekend.
i know i complain about campering a lot,
because it IS a lot of work too, but
we end up having a lot of fun and the girls
love it so much, i'm almost sad to see the season end.

until next year... 






and this is not campering but i just love the pic. 



Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Birthday pieces

we had reid and eden's birthday party two weekends ago,
lego themed. (eden's pick)
it's easy while reid is so small because i can just do
whatever eden wants and reid doesn't care at all.
i'm sure next year, we might have to compromise a bit. 
although, eden is literally so sweet with reid i think
it's going to be easy for them to share their birthday parties. 
kelly sent me a bunch of lego party ideas and it
ended up being pretty easy fun.

first, i bought red, yellow and blue party bags.
i cut the fronts off of them and cut out little circles.
a little glue and some rope, and wah la, 
a lego banner, which i hung on the fireplace. 


i did more of these to hang above our kitchen and 
hung streamers and balloons. 
i also busted out our big legos as a centerpiece for
the table and had my mom bring up brian's legos 
from when he was a kid.
we had a little lego building station and 
i took two of the green pads, made an E and a R
to help decorate the cake. 


which the cake, my mom made.
i told her what i wanted and she did the rest since
it needed to be dairy free and i had never tried it before.
i knew my mom's dairy free cake was amazing and i
didn't want to mess it up for the party.
basically, just make a sheet cake and some extra cupcakes.
cut the bottoms off the cupcakes and place them 
on the sheet cake in a lego pattern.
then ice.
LEGO CAKE!




some of our family couldn't make it this year,
so it was a smaller crowd, but
since we ordered pizza, there was nothing left for 
me to do but hang out and talk, which was a nice
change from some of the other parties i've thrown.

i think the girls had fun and i loved spending
the day with family. 

happy birthday reid and eden! 
our big 2 and 5 year old girls. 
love them so much.