Category: Lifestyle

Friday Favorites {06.25.21}

This summer seems to be flying by. Can you believe that next week is already Fourth of July weekend? Where has the time gone?

We had so much fun last weekend celebrating Father’s Day with our favorite dad around! While I barely survived making breakfast with both of the boys for Nathan (i.e. there were absolutely no pictures taken! Only repeated “don’t touch that’s!” and answering endless requests to “taste test.”) We went on a family walk to the park, where Harrison showed off his ever improving climbing skills, and went out as a family for a barbecue dinner! We love our Dada!

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Friday Favorites {06.04.21}

First official week of summer is in the books! First week of my new job. We’re looking forward to this weekend of more soccer starting up for Harrison, and a trip to the zoo with friends!

I got to pick out my Mother’s Day gift a couple weekends ago. New sunglasses! Nathan came home a few weeks back with new sunglasses from Warby Parker. And they looked so good and high quality for a fraction of the price of designer sunglasses. So that’s what they got me for Mother’s Day! A fresh pair of sunglasses for the summer.

These are the Rhea style. We have a Warby Parker store in Kansas City, but I used their app to try them on beforehand. Love them! And for $95, such a good deal! I think both of my designer pairs were significantly more than that.

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Friday Favorites {05.28.21}

It finally stopped raining, ya’ll. Finally. KC can now commence with the summer weather, I suppose! We are excited to head into the long holiday weekend. We have some fun plans with Nathan’s grandma planned who is visiting KC for the weekend, and I’m sure lots of soccer, outdoor time, and popsicles in our future! Harrison suggested to me on our ride to school this morning, “Hey – I have an idea.” “What’s up, bud?” “Maybe we can have a party on home day. And eat on the ground!” “That’s a great idea, bud!” “Outside on the ground!” So maybe we’ll have a picnic, too.

Finally nice enough outside and not pouring rain for lunch on the patio! The perks of working from home. A little outside time in the middle of the day always bolsters the mood.

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Friday Favorites {05.21.21}

I’m sitting on our screened in porch on Sunday afternoon. I always start my Friday Favorite posts over the weekend. A big thunderstorm rolled through this morning, and rain is dripping off of the trees hitting the patio. The little chickadee family that is raising a brood of babies in our bird house is popping in and out constantly trying to coax the little ones out of the nest. It’s the last few minutes before the boys are up again from naps. Peaceful and calm.

Speaking of the baby chickadees, I took a very quick peek into the box this weekend and snapped this picture. Look at all of that fluff and sweetness.

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Friday Favorites {05.14.21}

I’ve spent this week doing half days of work, and half days of working on our yard. Getting all of our hedges trimmed and re-mulched. It’s a task that I dread doing, but feel so accomplished at the end of it looking how nice everything looks re-mulched and trimmed back. Maybe a full May garden tour soon?

Somehow, I missed sharing any pictures of Harrison’s birthday. This little guy turned THREE over a month ago now! Because of a cancelled birthday party, and a wait until our COVID vaccines were fully effective, somehow we’ve been celebrating him for over a month. No one else I’d rather celebrate for so long!

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Friday Favorites {04.23.21}

Happy Friday, friends! I am two weeks post second vaccination this week, which has me so very thankful! And ready to do all the things. Is it strange, though, I still feel super cautious about doing some of the things we used to do regularly before this pandemic? I can’t wait to go out to a restaurant with Nathan, but a little part of me is still saying, “Yeah, but is that smart? Are you sure you want to do that?” Amazing how we can re-train our brain. May be time to start re-training it to be more normal. 😊.

I’ve got a whole lot of family favorites this week. Enjoy and happy weekend!

I know Easter was forever ago, but I haven’t had an opportunity to share any pictures yet from our Easter celebrations. We got the chance to see my family for Easter this year, and I had so much fun watching Harrison and cousin Evie Easter egg hunt at my parents!

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Living a Healthy Lifestyle

Everyone knows that living a healthy lifestyle is important. Improves your physical health, as well as your mental health. How a healthy lifestyle looks is different for everybody. I’m going to share a little bit about what that means for me.

I’ve shared before that way way way back in the early days of Lauren, I was a dancer.

Dancing kept me really active all through high school. Everyday, I’d get done with school and head to my dance studio for at least a couple of hours every single night. Weekends, I was there even more time participating in their entertaining groups and youth ballet company. Needless to say, “working out” and being “healthy” were never difficult because I was so active with my dance classes.

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Friday Favorites {04.02.21}

This week turned into a dumpster fire. Jonathan’s class at daycare closed after one of his teachers tested positive for COVID. Harrison came home on Wednesday evening with hives all over his body, so we kept him home the rest of the week. There was also a full time job in there that after being gone all last week needed all of the work things from me. I kept thinking to myself, “Seriously? Could there be anything else?” Don’t tempt fate, though. 😊. We made it to the weekend. I’m so excited for Easter egg hunting with the babies. What are your favorite Easter traditions?

We have an eight month old in the house! Jonathan is so close to crawling, and for the time being, army crawls EVERYWHERE. Nathan and I both looked at each other last weekend when he made his way all the way over to Sawyer’s water dish, and agreed we needed to refresh our baby proofing procedures. Time for the gates to come back out, food dishes off of the ground, and re-locking those cabinet drawers. You can read my letter to my eight month old HERE.

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Friday Favorites {03.26.21}

I took this week off from work. After a rough busy season, I took the first opportunity to get some time away to just do the things that I enjoy around home. Trips to the garden center, an unexpected day with Harrison, and running errands. My mind feels relaxed for the first time in months, so for that, I’m so very thankful.

If you followed along in my stories this week, you know that Harrison was home sick on Monday. He had run a fever on Sunday, so needed to be fever free for 24 hours to go back to daycare. Harrison was thankfully feeling better for most of the day, and it turned out to be unexpected, but so much fun Harrison & Mommy day. We took walks, ran a few errands, played in the backyard, baked, and ended our day with a walk to get ice cream at our favorite neighborhood ice cream shop.

I’ve realized as of late how truly incredible this tiny human is growing up to be. He’s one of the coolest people I know, and spending the day just concentrating and playing with him was absolute joy.

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Friday Favorites {03.19.21}

It sure seems like lately I keep thinking back to what life was like a year ago. How much anxiety and fear I had of the virus, making hard decisions to take Harrison out of daycare, not knowing how long it all would last. I remember wondering when the “new” normal would feel normal. It’s always amazing to me how eventually you look back at it, and realize you no longer obsess over it every day, and it has become a part of the normal. I’ve got a few random things that have made me smile this week for you all…

I love the way that Harrison is challenged when he moved up into a new class. The other day, they sent me a picture that the kids were learning the importance of cleaning up messes they helped make. Sign me up. Harrison has always loved helping clean up, but I love the lessons they are teaching him at school.

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