What’s Up Wednesday {09.28.22}

The end of another month means another What’s Up Wednesday!

How often do I say that this may be my favorite post of the whole month?! I love the little peak into people’s lives.

As always, I’m linking up with Shay and Sheaffer to share with you what’s going on in our life!

1: WHAT WE’RE EATING THIS WEEK: We got back from the Lake of the Ozarks Sunday afternoon. I was thankful that I had done my meal planning the week before we left, so I knew what we needed for groceries for the week! I really try to have meals planned out before we go out of town, so I’m not scrambling when we return. It doesn’t always happen, but I’m always thankful if I do have it already done!

We grilled chicken on Sunday and made a tossed salad and corn on the cob.

Then we’re also planning on chicken taquitos this week, which is a household favorite, and very easy pasta with sausage and my favorite seasonal sauce from Trader Joe’s.

2: WHAT I’M REMINISCING ABOUT:

At the end of September, I feel like with October next week it is truly fall here in the Midwest. And it has me thinking about how fast this summer seemed to fly by. The one summer that the boys were 4 and 2. They were busy. They loved digging in the dirt, playing soccer. Mowing every Saturday was the most exciting thing of the weekend.

I watched their little brotherly relationship really grow this summer. Listened to them tickle fight and eagerly wake each other up in the morning. It was a summer with a lot of good memories for our family. I’m so thankful for that!

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Friday Favorites {09.23.22}

This week has been crazy! I’m writing this on Wednesday because we are about to head down to the lake for the weekend with some friends (kids included!). I feel like anytime I take a shortened week off of work, an entire week of work gets crammed into the shortened few days of working. Anybody else feel like that?!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

We are working ever so diligently to check off our Fall Bucket list! The other weekend we met our next door neighbors at the zoo! A far cry from our usual driveway play sessions. The kids had so much fun seeing the animals, especially the tiger, who for the first time in my adult life, was not sleeping when we visited!

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September Final Garden Update

I’ve so enjoyed sharing how the garden has grown over this past season. September, though, is generally the end of our summer gardening season. Invariably, October brings at least a few cold snaps, so I pull all of my annuals out in September and tidy up the garden for the winter. I’ll keep a few late season annuals until the first freeze, just because they still look so beautiful. And, of course, will add some mums and replace a few container plants to “autum-ize” a few of my containers. But this is the last true garden update for the summer!

I’m going to include pictures of how things looked just planted in June as a reference point of June to September. September is certainly not most plants best months, but it is truly magnificent how much growth happens in just a few months!

June:

September:

The coleus has just grown beyond my wildest imagination in this front container.

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30A Beach Vacation 2022: Part 2

This is the second part of our one week beach vacation this year to 30a in Florida. We had such a wonderful trip, and the boys really enjoy the water and sand as much as we do! The first half of our trip post is HERE!

Here’s a look at our itinerary the second half of the trip:

  • Tuesday: Still beachin’. Dinner reservations at The Bay in the evening
  • Wednesday: Another beach day! Pack sandwiches for lunch, nap under umbrellas. Make spaghetti at home for dinner.
  • Thursday: Boys finally needed a beach break. Head into Destin for running around a playground and outlet mall shopping. Hit up Shunk Gulley for lunch on the way home. Sunset pictures on the beach and more crab hunting after dark
  • Friday: Back to the beach! Sandwiches packed. Head into Seaside for the evening for shopping at Duckies toystore, Sundog books, and dinner from Wild Bill’s Beach Dogs. Enjoy the movie in the Seaside ampitheater showing that night: The Incredibles.
  • Saturday: Pack up the house and head home!

One of my favorite things about this trip was how excited Jonathan was about swimming. He’s constantly yell at us, “I GO SWIM!” And then would proceed to leisurely float on his back for forever in the ocean. It was ADORABLE. Such a happy little guy.

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30A Beach Vacation 2022: Part 1

That title is a mouthful. 30A is an area between Destin and Panama City in Florida that Nathan’s family has visited for years. And I eagerly adopted as a favorite vacation spot after joining their family. 🙂 This is my third trip to 30A. We always have so much fun! But we definitely missed having friends and family there with us this year.

We stayed in the same beach house rental that we did last year. In 2021, we went to the beach with my sister and her family, and absolutely loved the proximity to the beach and Seaside, one of our favorite beach towns, so we opted for the same house again!

Our Itinerary for the first part of the trip was:

  • Saturday: Arrive in Panama City. Lauren grocery shop while the boys nap. 5:45 reservation at Great Southern in Seaside
  • Sunday: Beach day! Pack sandwiches and spend the day at the beach, and the pool in the afternoon. Tacos and Mexican Rice for dinner at home!
  • Monday: Beach day again! Same plan as previous day. Order pizza to the house for dinner, and crab hunting after dark!

I’m going to share a whole bunch of pictures!

I think we’ve perfected getting all of our stuff to the airport and parking the car….

Ready to get on the airplane!

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Let’s Look At…Closet Organization

It’s Let’s Look day with Shay @ Mix and Match Mama and Erika @ A Little Bit of Everything! If you’re new here, it’s one day a month that we share a little peak into some aspect of our lives. So far this year, I’ve shared:

Many years ago now, Nathan gifted me a new closet. We used a very reasonably priced Elfa closet system to re-do my closet in our primary bedroom, and I’ve loved it everyday since then.

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Our Summer & Fall Bucket Lists 2022

This summer on an afternoon that we didn’t have much planned, and Jonathan still snoozing for his naptime, I decided that Harrison and I should come up with a summer bucket list. All sorts of things that we wanted to do that summer to make it the best and most memorable one yet! He gave me ideas, and I wrote them down. I hung it up on our door to the garage as a reminder of things we could do on a spare weekend, and we were lucky enough to check each and every item off of our summer list!

I thought it would be fun to share some pictures from checking off those items…

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Friday Favorites {09.09.22}

It always feels so strange to be gone for a week from this space! But so good, because I miss it and you all! I’m still working on my blog posts about the beach, so I’m sharing a bunch of random favorites from this week with you all!

In previous years, I’ve always pulled my annuals around Labor Day because we were headed up to South Dakota, and I was just ready to be done watering. That was all when I did the watering by hand every single day. This year, though, I’m still loving the garden and part of it still look really beautiful. It’s definitely starting to fade as we get to the end of the season, and I’m contemplating ways to swap some plants for more cool loving plants for fall.

This zinnia fade still has me in awe…

I love a coral flower, and this one continues to deliver so much beauty.

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First Day of School 2022

I’m so happy to be back on this little space of internet! We had a great beach trip. Definitely feeling like I need a vacation from the vacation, you know. But we are back to normal life this week, and I wanted to share our first day of school with you!

Yeah, the boys go to daycare, but our daycare has a private Kindergarten, so they celebrate the first day of school with lots of fanfare! The boys move up a classroom, there’s a special snack and new backpacks. And so, we make a big deal out of it, too! Life is too short to not celebrate things! Didn’t COVID teach us all that?!

We started the morning with good luck green waffles!

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