Today is election day, and I am voting! I despise talking politics with internet land, it’s way too much for me. Everyone gets super-heated, and the conversation never seems to end. We live in America, where we all can have an opinion. It’s just gotten so bad where people can’t leave it at that. Some people force their opinion on others and get upset when they don’t comply. I can’t stand it. So, I leave my thoughts to my husband, and myself.
I will say that since I turned eighteen, I have voted in every election. I’ve not missed one. I’m proud to live in a land where we are all free to vote. So please, go vote!
Recapping our week on the blog! Halloween, a scavenger hunt, crib mattress, and out to eat.
Monday October 31 We started off our Halloween by carving the pumpkins. Better late than never, but we carved them. Kevin tried the new trend of using a blender to get all the guts out, but it didn’t work all that well. But he did use a drill to cut out the shapes in the pumpkins and that worked out great! Made Hadley some mummy hotdogs for lunch, she wasn’t a fan, but they looked super cute! Hadley was Mirabel from the movie Encanto, I tried so hard to get her to wear a wig, but she didn’t want to. Huxley was a fire chief in training. We went trick-or-treating around the neighborhood, it was crowded this year, like people drove into our neighborhood to trick-or-treat! Hadley sorted through her candy, she changed clothes, and then we went over to the neighbors to sit on their driveway with them for a little bit. It was a fun Halloween!
Tuesday November 1 Hadley was off school Monday and Tuesday, so after a few hours of Netflix watching I decided to think of something to get her off the couch. We went outside and did a scavenger hunt; you can read more about these activities here.
Wednesday November 2 Little Huxley figured out how to pull himself up on the step that goes into our kitchen, so now he does it every single time. We used to call the family room our giant playpen because he was sort of stuck in there, but now he can climb up on this step, so we have to get a gate ASAP. After school pickup, Hadley went with me to run an errand and we got Starbucks on the way home. I figured I’d surprise her because she always hates to go places after school, she’d rather go home and change first.
Thursday November 3 I got up early before the kids and did a quick workout in my room, I think this was the day it had been like three days since I had done any sort of movement. I had to do something. Sometimes Hadley will take a shower right after school, depends if she felt super sweaty from school or just wants a break before she starts homework. Some days we’ll do homework out in the garage, we have one of those mini kid tables still from when she was little. It helps to do homework in different places some days. When Huxley took his short little catnap, she loved to read this Extreme Animal Rumble book, it was about guessing which animal would win in a fight and they gave different details and facts about each animal. It was cute.
Friday November 4 Friday morning, Huxley and I headed to Childrens Hospital for a blood draw for him, he is in a research study that requires him to give blood every few months. I always always get lost here, the parking lot is huge, and I always end up coming into an entrance that is nowhere near where I need to be. Well, this one time I did not get lost, so I was super excited! Sometimes Hadley loves to hop into Huxleys crib when he wakes up from his naps, this was his short catnap he sometimes takes around dinner time. For bath time, I tried making his hair into a mohawk as it’s slowly growing. And then our Friday night movie night, was a super cute movie, Coco!
Saturday November 5 Huxley is standing up in his crib now, so Kevin lowered the mattress to the lowest level already! I have this weird feeling that he might be the kid that climbs out of bed at night! We went out for dinner and Huxley was so good eating his baby food in the highchair. He was so content with all the commotion around him. After dinner, we stopped by our old house and saw our old neighbor. It was good to see them and catch up for a few minutes. On our way home, Kevin and Huxley got out and Hadley and I went to Graeters. Huxley was a tad cranky, because it was bath/bedtime. Hadley was in heaven; she loves random surprises especially when she thought we were all going home.
Sunday November 6 Huxley tries to climb on everything now, it’s so funny, but so scary with the tile and hardwood flooring! He’s bonked his head a few times already. This last week, Huxley has been pulling at his one ear so I think we might head to the doc this next week and see if it’s an ear infection or just hurting from teething. Hadley will sit and watch the entire Bengals game with me, I just love it. After the football game, we went out to the garage to feed Huxley his baby food and Hadley did some reading. She’s trying to meet her accelerated reader goal this week!
Happy Monday everyone, hope you have a great week!
Hi friends! Happy Friday! Here are my favorites this week.
DISH MAT We have one of these dish mats in the kitchen, and we use it so much it’s getting to look very worn and dirty. I’ve been looking at some on Etsy, and this one I came across that I liked. Dish mat can be found here.
CALENDAR I saw this on the Family and the Lakehouse blog, and thought it was too fun not to share. It pretty much explains how early the holiday seasons start nowadays.
HOT LUNCH Hadley just started ordering hot lunch at school, and she loves it. She won’t venture far off from her usual, she will do a chicken patty when it’s offered. Hot lunch at school makes for an easy lunch day, I just give her a few extra snacks on those days.
HOLIDAY SOAPS I love the holiday soaps from Bath & Body Works! I want to get them all every year.
COCO THE MOVIE The movie for Friday night movie night this week is Coco! We haven’t seen it yet, it looks cute. The movie can be found here.
Happy Friday everyone, have a great weekend! And thanks for reading!
Christmas is right around the corner! I wanted to share how I keep track of everything during Christmas time. Purchases made for the kids, family, co-workers, bucket list, Elf on the Shelf planning, sending out Christmas cards, and more.
I created this Christmas planner going on three years in a row now! It helps me so much during the busy holiday season. I’m sure there are actual Christmas planners that you can buy that are a lot prettier, but this entire notebook costs me $1.00!!! That’s it! Here’s how I do it…
What you need: – Composition notebook from the dollar store – Christmas paper – Tape/glue – Stapler
All I do is buy a composition notebook from the dollar store, and that is all! Everything else I already have at home, and if you don’t have everything else at home you can most likely get at the dollar store as well, or somewhere fairly cheap. You could use any style notebook you’d like!
After you cut out your paper, and glue/tape it to your notebook, you’ll cut out small squares to use as the tabs. Again, you could use pre-made tabs or add stickers to the tabs, do whatever you’d like! I seriously just use whatever I have at home.
The tabs I make are labeled as the following: – Bucket List – Cards – EOS (stands for Elf on Shelf, in case the kids see it) – Menu – The List – To Do
For the tabs, I fold each red and green paper in half, and staple it to the notebook paper. I mean, can it get any easier? It’s not super fancy, it’s not the most glamourous, and it’s not the best quality, but it has worked for me.
Would you like to know what I put in each tab? Well, here you go!
BUCKET LIST – every year we come up with a list of things to do during the holidays, and I write all the ideas and things we might do. Or if I think of anything to add, I’ll write it down in this tab.
CARDS – for our Christmas cards, I write down each person we sent them to, and I’ll make a handwritten check box so I know that I sent one, and another handwritten check box if we receive one, etc. I also write down what company we used for the cards, so if I really liked the company one year, I’ll remember who we used. Because to be honest, I can never remember where I order the cards from each year!
EOS (Elf on the Shelf) – This year I added a tab for the elf on the shelf, ideas I come up with, or things to buy for whatever crazy thing the elf might do. I might sound crazy for keeping a tab on an elf, but I love all this stuff! My kids are only this young once, so I enjoy every second of this!
MENU – On Christmas Eve/Day morning, we always have a big breakfast with just us at home. Before all the craziness starts of going wherever, we like to make all the fixings for a good ‘ole fashion breakfast.
THE LIST – This tab is the most important of all! THE LIST is all the things purchased! Each person has their own page, and I write down what gift was bought, how much it cost, whether it was received, whether it was wrapped, and then a total dollar amount for each person. We really do try to spend the same amount on the kids, but with the different age gaps, it’s getting harder and harder each year. But this tab is what inspired this planner in the first place, the older I get, the harder it is to remember what I bought, if it was wrapped, etc.
TO DO – This tab is just a regular to do list for the holidays. It usually has random thoughts that I want to remember, or random things I need to do, etc. Super random, and not really specific.
Front and back of this year’s planner.
This is not the greatest photo since I took it late in the day, from a previous year, but I’ll put a large envelope in the front of the planner for any receipts I might keep. Returns are a big thing for Christmas presents some years!
Here are the previous planners, I started two years ago! I couldn’t find last years when I was making this year’s planner, but funny how I picked the same paper as the cover. I love it, and it helps me so much!
I love making the Christmas planner every year! They are just so easy to make, but so functional for the holiday season. It’s sort of like the start of the holidays for me since I make them early November. I need to start shopping now!
My daughter has been off school the last two days, one for Halloween and the next day was for meeting her school’s walkathon goal! After the first day of being home, and watching Netflix almost all day, I had to come up with something to get her mind off of the tv.
I went to my favorite creative search engine Pinterest and found two fun and super easy fall activities that we could do outside. I searched for outdoor activities because it’s been so nice out the past two days and a change of scenery always does a body good.
The first activity we did was an outdoor scavenger hunt. I literally printed off the first easy one I found, and that is it! The outdoor scavenger hunt we used was from the Science Kiddo.
The only one we didn’t check off was a pinecone, we don’t have any pinecones anymore in our yard since we chopped down the pine trees! We used a clipboard, loaded Huxley in the stroller, and walked around our own yard.
The second one we did was an outdoor adventure hunt, I printed off the list and had Hadley tape the list on a brown paper bag. When she found each item, we would toss it in the bag, and cross off the list. It doesn’t really matter, since we aren’t turning this in anywhere, just doing it for our own fun. Huxley loved being in the stroller without his car seat, and watching his big sister find all the items. Hadley was soo into this, she’s just like her mom and loves to cross off a list!
The last one we did was a leaf hair craft. We printed off this blank head, went outside and gathered some random leaves, came inside and glued the leaves on the head. It was fun to do with her, and she loved it!
We used a regular glue stick, which worked out great!
The leaf hair craft was fun and so easy to do. We used scissors to cut off the stems of the leaves, so they didn’t break the leaves, and just a glue stick. So, all you really need are those two items! The leaf hair craft is from Glued To My Crafts.
We had so much fun doing these super simple fall outdoor activities. All it takes is a little searching, printing off some paper, and just your individual time for your kiddo. It doesn’t take much to entertain kids, it’s all about the process and how engaged you are with them. Hadley will remember today, and what we did outside much more than watching Netflix inside on the couch!
Hi friends! Happy first of November! Here is what I ordered from Amazon this October. Lots of outfits for Huxley, who is growing like a weed, and some other miscellaneous finds.
FOOTBALL ONESIE Huxley has worn this once so far; it fits him really well and it’s warm. I take it off when he goes in the car seat though, anything with hoodies makes me nervous in the car seat. Football onesie can be found here.
FOOTED COTTON PAJAMAS I always put Huxley in footed pajamas for bed, I think it helps him stay warmer since he can’t have a blanket in his crib. These are a size 12 months, but they are already getting too small for him! Pajamas can be found here.
FOOTED PAJAMAS Same as the pajamas above, these are a size twelve months and his toes already busted out of them, so I had to throw one pair away. Kid is growing so fast. Pajamas can be found here.
MIRABEL COSTUME Hadley dressed up as Mirabel for Halloween this year, she loves the movie! I tried so hard to convince her to wear a wig with the dark curly hair, but she wasn’t a fan. The outfit was super cute. Costume can be found here.
POSABLE HALLOWEEN SKELETONS These are awesome, I decided to place them all over the house in random spots. They are super cute and festive for the Halloween season. Skeletons can be found here.
PAJAMA FOOTIES These are the same footies as above, but the bigger size in 18 months! And they fit him great. Pajamas can be found here.
BABY SOCCER OUTFIT With Hadley playing outdoor and indoor soccer, this little onesie is perfect for her games! Throw on some black pants and he’s set. Onesie can be found here.
FIREFIGHTER LONG SLEEVE ONESIES This kid is going to have lots of fire themed outfits in his young little age. These are size 18 months and fit him perfect! Onesies can be found here.
TEETH WHITENING STRIPS Ordered these again, because I like them so much! I’ve gotten into a routine of wearing them when I get ready for the day while Huxley naps. Strips can be found here.
SYRINGES These are mainly for Halloween, and to make this vampire drink we like to do that consists of sprite and cherry Kool-Aid. I’d imagine I could use them for other things like maybe medicine for Huxley, or toys for Hadley to play with. Syringes can be found here.
POP UP TOY Huxley is needing some newer older for him toys, so I bought this one. He likes it so far; he can’t figure out how to get them all to pop up yet, but he’ll get there. Toy can be found here.
2023 CALENDAR This calendar still has some months of 2022, but I mainly got it for 2023. I like how it’s got the larger blocks so I can write down all the “stuff” we have on each day. For 2022, Hadley gave us a handmade calendar which was awesome, but the blocks were super tiny. Calendar can be found here.
HEY DUDES Bought these for Kevin’s birthday last month, he just loves these shoes. He has two different colored gray ones, so I figured a new color would be good. Shoes can be found here.
LONG SLEEVE ONESIES Every once in a while I find some cute non-fire themed clothes. These are cute and fall like. Onesies can be found here.
If you’d like to check out what I’ve ordered in previous months, check the posts below! March 2022 September 2022
