7 Quick Harrison Takes (v. IX)

Posted on by Lauren Lane

It’s that time again for seven quick Harrison takes. Harrison’s half birthday is in October, and I thought that would be a good time to do another quick round up of the things that Harrison is into, saying, and doing that makes me laugh or brings a smile to my face.

-1- While we were on our Florida vacation, one of our rental cars was a Mustang convertible. Harrison LOOOOOVED it. And asked the entire trip to ride in the ‘mustache’ car.

-2- Any red team playing football is identified by Harrison as the “Chiefs” playing. Any blue team playing soccer is “Chelsea.” And any green team is “the Broncos.” Why he’s insistent that the Broncos are green, we’re not sure. But he is insistent that they are Green.

-3- His current favorite foods: waffles and fig newtons. Seriously, fig newtons. Whaaaaat.

-4- He’s extremely enthusiastic to help Mommy rip out plants that he declares are “done for the season.” So enthusiastic.

-5- Equally so, he tells me often that my flowers are “beautiful.” Talk about getting at my mama’s heart.

-6- He’s referred to sunscreen as “skun-screen” for ages. And that’s what we call it now.

-7- His must-have’s for bed: Lovie, Monkey, and 3 cars (which he negotiates every evening from 2 cars, up to 3 cars).

My sweet little boy is headstrong, tough, and absolutely fearless. FEARLESS. I am in for it, folks. Harrison Thomas is going to test just to see how strong my heart is for all of the things he jumps at with absolute abandon.

At night, though, when I tuck him in right now, just before I close the door, he says, “Mom! I have to tell you something!” “What , buddy?” “Mommy. I. I. I love you so much.” I couldn’t have ever imagined loving another human being so much before my little boys.

Our Trip to 30A 2021: Part 1

Posted on by Lauren Lane

We finally took our first big vacation as a family of four. We headed down to Florida’s northwest beaches, “30a” for a week of sand, sun, and so many memories. We had THE BEST time. It was long awaited, and on our very last day, Harrison woke up and said, “I’m going to miss the beach.” Sounds like we’ll be taking our little beach babies back!

Ready for take-off! First time on a plane for me in 22 months!

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Fall Bucket List 2021

Posted on by Lauren Lane

It’s fall bucket list day! I love dreaming about what little (and big!) things I’m looking forward to each season. These bucket lists gives me ideas of things to do on the weekends, if we happen to have a free weekend and nothing planned. I pick something from our list to check off for the season.

  • Go patchin’ (that is pumpkin patchin’). Aside from the blistering cold weather on our patch day last year, this is one of my very favorite things to do with the kids in the fall!
  • Have a fall backyard bbq
  • Host our second annual Halloween carnival! With COVID last year, we opted to have the cousins come over for a Halloween carnival a la elementary school style bash. (Were we the only ones who had Halloween carnivals at school?? My sister and I have fond memories of this in our younger years.) With a cake walk (minus the cake), fishing for treats, Halloween egg hunting (because Easter shouldn’t be the only holiday with a fun egg hunt, right?)
  • Carve pumpkins
  • Trick-or-treating with the boys
  • Lots of fall walks with Sawyer
  • Hot chocolate and spooky movie night
  • Watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade and make our traditional biscuits and gravy
  • Watch a lot of CHIEFS games!
  • Make pumpkin spice donuts
  • Read at least one seasonal book
  • Lots and lots and lots of fall candles

So now I need to know, do you have any good fall seasonal books for me to read???

What are you looking forward to this season?

We are headed to the airport in the morning for a long awaited family vacation, so I’ll be gone from this little space of the internet this next week spending time focusing on my family and relaxing.

How I Became a Reader

Posted on by Lauren Lane

If you went back even just six months ago, I would have told you that I’m not a reader. That as much as I wish I used my free time to read, I never did except for the occasional couple of pages read before bed to help me fall asleep. It would take me months and months to read a whole book. In fact, sometimes it was a whole year of reading the same book. The fact of the matter is, I don’t have much free time. I use my free time to write here on this blog, and when I need a mental break at the end of the day, I veg out watching trashy reality TV.

And then one day back in June, Nathan mentioned that he had downloaded Matthew McConaughey’s new book Greenlights on Audible and that it was really good, and I should listen to it as well. I had been hearing so many interviews that Matthew was on talking about the book, I’d heard him read excerpts from the book, and had mentally added it to my “in a year when I finish my current book, I’ll pick that one up to read.”

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Lauren’s Friday Fall Favorites {09.17.21}

Posted on by Lauren Lane

It’s been what feels like forever since I’ve done a Friday favorites post. Between our Black Hills vacation, and just having other things I wanted to talk about on here, I’ve been accumulating so many good fall favorites that I MUST share with you ASAP.

Trader Joe’s has their AMAZING fall one-wick candles out now! Honeycrisp apple and vanilla pumpkin. This is how I looked as I FILLED MY WHOLE BASKET with them…

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The Black Hills 2021 – Part 2

Posted on by Lauren Lane

I shared our Part 1 of our Black Hills trip yesterday, and today I’m wrapping up the latter half of our trip.

We decided to keep our activity the next day pretty low key. We headed to a playground in Spearfish that ended up being amazing for all of the kids. It was great for running around and playing hide and seek, and there was a place along the stream that the kids could dip their toes in the freezing cold water.

How baby J felt about the cold water…

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The Black Hills 2021 – Part 1

Posted on by Lauren Lane

If you’ve been coming around here for awhile, you know that the Black Hills in South Dakota is a special place for my family. I grew up going to the Black Hills to visit my grandparents as a kid. It’s on the very western side of South Dakota, and in 2014, my parents built a cabin in the Hills with the intention of living in South Dakota during the summer months.

We’ve gone to visit every summer since 2015, except for last year with COVID. It’s always a lot of fun, but it was particularly exciting this year to see Harrison really enjoy the Hills. The freedom to be out in nature, explore, play and thrive was a joy.

Our trip began with a verrrry long car ride. We got up and were in the car by 5:30am for our drive to the Hills. Harrison was so excited to go visit Mimi and Papa that he didn’t go back to sleep like we were hoping for the drive. 😳 But he ended up doing so well. Baby J too!

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Lanes Lately – September 2021

Posted on by Lauren Lane

Well I’m thankful that this was a four day week. Work felt like a five day week crammed into a four day week, though. 🙃 We don’t have much going on this weekend, except a friend’s birthday party for Harrison, and that’s kind of the way we like our weekends!

MAKING: I planned for EASY recipes for this week, getting back into our routine, and Nathan is traveling for work for the first time since December 2019. Tacos and spaghetti with meat sauce have been my go-to’s this week after being gone last week.

We realized on a walk last weekend that this is the first time baby J will go 24 hours without seeing him in his whole life.

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Let’s Look At…Meal Planning!

Posted on by Lauren Lane

I’m back! It was so good to step away for a little bit and get out of KC for a little bit and see my family. I’ll recap South Dakota later on this week, but today is the monthly link-up where we share a little look in to a random part of our lives.

First, let’s look back at everything we’ve shared this year.

Today, we’re sharing how we meal plan!

Every Thursday, I take thirty minutes of my day to plan out our meal plan for the next week. I take a look at our calendars, what activities we have going on during the week and any weekend plans, and figure out the number of meals I need to plan to cook at home.

I use this meal planning pad that has a magnet on the back to plan out our meals. Usually, I end up cooking three nights a week, we do take-out on Fridays generally, and then we have leftovers the rest of the nights.

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