Landscape by Lauren: A Little Dream.

Posted on by Lauren Lane

I’ve had a little dream for a long time. If you’ve been here any amount of time, you don’t have to spend much time on my blog to realize that I love gardening. Flowers and creating beautiful landscapes has been my happy place for a long time.

Nathan and I have transformed our little backyard from this…

to this…

And I can’t tell you the joy that walking outside each morning to this outside home has brought me over the years. I’ve decided to take my love and all the things I’ve learned over the past ten years to help other families with their landscaping.

And Landscape by Lauren was born. I am so excited to help friends all over the US plan their gardens and landscape and create their outside home. Right now, garden and landscape planning and consultation can all be done virtually. We’ll work to pick the right plants for your home, location, and amount of maintenance required to create a garden of your dreams.

If you’re local to Kansas City, there will also be an optional add-on service to your landscape planning of in-person plant selection with you at a local garden nursery! And if you’re not ready to do a full-blown garden, I’m also going to offer custom container plantings at your home or business for those in Kansas City.

Now is the perfect time to start dreaming and planning for the spring. It’s just around the corner. I can’t wait to hear what you have in mind for your next garden project!

What’s Up Wednesday {01.31.24}

Posted on by Lauren Lane

First What’s Up Wednesday of the new year! You all know that this is my favorite post of the month. I love to go back and read these as a little scrapbook in time of our lives. A little bit of reading, wearing, family, and work all in one post!

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: I have a confession to make. I was very anti-Cozi family calendar. It got to a point, though, where it was really difficult to track who was responsible for which kid/activity/driving/babysitting/all the things that goes along with keeping track of a family in our work Outlook calendars. So, I gave Cozi another shot. We’ve been using it for four months now, and I love it. Including using it to track our meal plan each week.

This week, we’re doing Sheet Pan sausage and veggies, Chicken Taquitos, and Creamy Broccoli Cheddar Chicken.

2: WHAT I’M REMINISCING ABOUT:

Aidan turned ten months old this past weekend, and man. All of sudden, that first birthday seems REALLY close. And it feels like yesterday that he was this small.

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A Typical Day in January 2024

Posted on by Lauren Lane

A true typical day in January 2024 should show one kid home sick, one kid home because it is yet another snow day or school holiday, and me trying to frantically fit in all of work and home things in between juggling kids at home. Somehow, this random day that I picked to document was our FIRST DAY in a week (and practically all of January) with all children at their respective “schools.”

I woke up early to get my workout at Bar Method in before the kids got up…

As soon as I get home, I get out milk for the big boys and go feed Aidan. Jonathan is always my first kid up.

Then after wrestling a nine month old to get a new diaper on and get changed, it’s time to herd cats getting big J and Harrison dressed and ready.

Happy helper!

Then it’s downstairs for breakfast for the boys!

After breakfast, I do little kid drop off at daycare, and then call my mom on the way home.

At home, I grabbed a cup of coffee, flipped on my work computer, and grabbed the boys’ laundry. It was boys laundry day.

I sorted dirty clothes while doing a work call. Then got some work done on my computer while the first load started.

This morning I had a long overdue haircut…

Finally feeling more put together 🙂

Back at work – fold a load of clothes while on another call and pumping…

Then very non exciting work happened…but I listened to part of this book while I worked on mindless tasks

Grabbed a protein bar as interim sustenance…

More work…then a pump break and bottle prep…

Followed by elementary school snack prep for the next day and dinner prep…This little tool has saved me so much time chopping vegetables. Highly recommend.

Another little snack to tide me over until dinner…

Around 5, I took a quick shower, put the kids’ clean clothes away, and was ready to go do pick-ups. I had a couple of new clothes to try on…

I usually pick up Harrison from school in the evenings.

Once we got home…

It was time to start dinner. Harrison wanted to help make dinner this evening.

Chaos…I mean the little boys arrive home around 5:30 or so, and then we sat down to eat as a family.

A family favorite, the ever popular TACOS.

After dinner, I clean up the leftovers and load the dishwasher while the boys play. Then I’m in charge of baby Aidan’s bedtime.

Bath & snuggled up in his towel!

One last bottle, and he’s ready for bed!

Then it was Jonathan’s turn to go down for bed, and finally Harrison…

He chose the Chiefs book to read this night because his dad had refused to read it the night before…

After the boys are down, I usually make myself a treat or a cup of tea. This night I picked hot chocolate…

And I watch a little TV or read before it’s time for bed!

I read this day back, and it sounds exhausting. Because it is so tiring. It is a constant pace of doing to make it to the next marker in the day. To breakfast, to kids out the door, to bath. I find myself wiped by the end of most days. The thing I long for most these days is more time to do things for me. Things I’m passionate about.

But reading this back also made me remember how much I love this life. This life with these little humans that’s so loud, demanding and chaotic. It is magical. And in the scheme of things, so fast.

Just the other day Harrison showered himself and got himself ready for bed. And we did nooothing. And that was both thrilling and sad. Another end and a clear sign of my babies growing up. It’s hard to remember in the slog of the typical days that they’re growing up. And someday, we’ll bathe our babies for the last time. But that engine of time churns on. Ready or not. And I have a feeling when I’m old and gray and my babies have long since left the nest, I’ll be glad to go back and read this post of what life looked like when they still needed me for everything.

Thanks for sticking with me.

Thirty Nine

Posted on by Lauren Lane

You know what I don’t love?…my birthday. It’s a very weird feeling of wanting the people closest to me to wish me a happy birthday and wanting literally nobody else to acknowledge it because I HATE being the center of attention.

I almost didn’t even post anything about my birthday today. But that also seems disingenuous somehow. A birthday is worthy of acknowledging. I mean, if anything, I think we should celebrate our moms on our birthdays. These are the types of things I think about when this day rolls around.

BUT, I did think it would be fun to look at NINE not very well known things about me.

-1- I grew up as a theater kid. I think my very first theatrical performance was when I was in third grade. I was supposed to perform in Miracle on 34th Street, and I was so excited but I came down with the chicken pox and couldn’t do ANY of the shows. So that made my next gig my technical first performance on stage as a tap dancing kangaroo in Peter Pan.

-2- I went to graduate school at NC State. The one year of my grad program, Russell Wilson was the quarterback of the football team. He eventually went on to move schools to Wisconsin. And you’re probably wondering why I’m telling you this…but after he became a Super Bowl winning quarterback with the Seattle Seahawks, he became the quarterback of the Denver Broncos, which is my husband’s favorite NFL team.

-3- I could happily talk Bravo with you any day of the week. Summer House, Winter House, Vanderpump Rules, nearly any Real Housewives franchise…Bravo is my ESCAPE.

-4- I hate crafting. I hate crafting with my children as much if not more. To me, the amount of joy it brings doesn’t balance out the absolute disaster it is to prep for it or clean up after it. The pros do not outweigh the cons.

-5- I don’t bake much. For one, I don’t think I’m very good at it. But secondly, because if baked goods are around the house, I have zero self-control. I will eat all of them. Quickly.

-6- I was born on Super Bowl Sunday back when the Super Bowl occurred in January.

-7- I love gardening. Love love love gardening. Outside flowers are my jam. You’d think this would translate into being a great indoor plant mom, but it doesn’t. It’s not my thing. I have a few houseplants, and I have no desire to have more. I forget to water them a lot. So maybe it’s a good thing that I have all of my gardens on a drip system that does the watering for me. 🙂

-8- I’ve never learned how to use a lawn mower. Never pushed a lawn mower. Never used one. I don’t want to learn. Nathan has asked me many times what happens to him if he dies, and I’ve told him we’ll be hiring a lawn crew. Or Jonathan I’m pretty sure would be willing to be our mower boy.

-9- I’ve never seen the Star Wars movies.

Last year of my thirties. Let’s do this.

Let’s Look…At How We Clean Our Closets

Posted on by Lauren Lane

Once a month, two of my favorite blogs host a link up where we look into some little aspect of our lives. January’s prompt is to look at how we clean our closets. Which, the prospect of writing this post may force me to go clean my closet. 🙂

Needless to say, there’s a breaking point where I let things get a little messy in my closet. It builds, and builds, and builds. And then out of nowhere one day, I’ll decide it’s time to purge, organize, and re-set. (That honestly seems to be the case with almost every area of my house.)

When the breaking point is reached, though, watch out. The trash bags are coming out, lists are being made, and we are going through it.

It starts by going through all of the hanging clothes and making a giveaway pile of anything I don’t love or hasn’t been worn in a couple of years.

I have a bit of the mindset of Marie Kondo: “does this garment bring me joy?” If it doesn’t or I don’t love it, it goes to the giveaway pile.

Theeennn things get interesting, the drawers get organized and de-cluttered. That includes the medicine drawer….which is usually rife with outdated medicine given how often I clean it out.

And since we’re on the topic, and this prompt is forcing me….I have loads of pregnancy and early post-partum things that need to be cleared out. Some giveaway, mostly trash. A lot of “Buy Nothing” items to post on our local “Buy Nothing” neighborhood Facebook group. If you’re not a part of one of these groups, I highly recommend! Such an easy way to give away things you don’t need anymore to a neighbor who does need it! I recently just picked up a trash can for our basement from a neighbor that wasn’t in perfect shape but will definitely suffice until cabinets are built out down there!

Eventually it looks mostly back to normal, and I can let it go for another year…or two. 🙂

Our Finished Basement

Posted on by Lauren Lane

Our basement project is officially finished! And while we are still tweaking, adding, and will be getting used to living in our basement, I wanted to share some pictures of the final finished project!

We were so happy with how it turned out. Both Nathan and I have said that it’s exceeded our expectations, and it feels like a warm cozy place that we can really live in and enjoy as a family. Mission accomplished!

You may remember my mood board for the basement…

Here’s a look at what it looked like before with our basement renovation ‘lite’

The sports room….which is still the sports room and the only space we didn’t do anything to in this renovation.

And here’s a look at the new basement now…

Looking from the stairs down the hallway to the new “bedroom”/playroom…

Looooove finally having a bathroom down here. Especially for the kids.

The new playroom/bedroom…

Aidan here modeling its playroom features. 🙂

And the entertainment room area…

Literally every last person who worked on this project thought Nathan was crazy to leave this “window” area open to the sports room. But it may be the best feature of all. The boys can play in the sports room, and the adults can hang out in the entertainment room and we can actually see through to what’s happening in there without balls flying out of the sports room.

It’s truly genius for this stage in our lives.

Here’s a look from the sports room into the entertainment room…

We absolutely love, love, love this basement now. It makes such a huge difference to have a place to play that is comfortable for the kids AND the adults.

I’m going to work on a separate post with sources of everything, cost, and all of those fun details! For now, it’s just pictures!

I’m also doing one of my very favorite things today…

Praying over our Christmas cards. One big cup of coffee and a stack of cards to pray over.

Happy New Year!

Posted on by Lauren Lane

We are back to the normal grind this morning. Back to work, back to school, and baby Aidan starts daycare today! It feels like all of the things all at once, and I’m bummed that the holidays are over. We had a really good break. Christmas was lovely. People were healthy (all of the praise hands!!!). And I slept sooo much, and it felt so good.

Sharing some of the pics from our holiday season as we get back into the swing of things around here!

These boys were excited for Christmas morning!

Christmas morning with the boys!

The big boys got big kid bikes. Jonathan literally learned to ride a two wheel back on Christmas day.

Many new sports jerseys were opened…

We saw family on Christmas Day, and got to celebrate Christmas with both my parents and Nathan’s parents on Christmas Day.

We enjoyed a “kid free” date night with the big boys sleeping over at Gigi & Pops.

Just this little guy joining us for drinks and dinner…

There was lots of playing at grandparents’ houses over the break.

And we celebrated the New Year (a bit early because Jonathan was fading fast) with all of the boys’ favorite treats. Little smokies, chips and dip, and popcorn

And we hosted my family for our annual New Year’s day “Good luck bean soup.”

We had such a wonderful break. Hope you all had a good one too!

Merry Christmas! Love, the Lanes

Posted on by Lauren Lane

It’s time for me to sign-off for the year and focus on a magical Christmas and restful New Year’s. My to-do list to get ready for the holidays seems forever long, and I know come December 26th, I’ll miss all of the excitement and build up. But I also just love resting and the promise of time to just be in January.

Aside from all of the holiday fun, I’m planning on working on a potential new venture, kitchen renovation planning, and blog post planning! If you have any ideas of things you want me to write about next year, let me know!

Until 2024, thanks for sticking through this off and on crazy 2023 in blog world. As always, I am so thankful for all of you.

Love, Lauren

Let’s Look At…Stocking Stuffers

Posted on by Lauren Lane

The very last “Let’s Look” of the year is a look at stocking stuffers for the holidays.

I start collecting stocking stuffers in October for the boys as I come across little items that they would like. Take note of small things they ask for over the last few months of the year. Have you seen that meme about a little kid needing more toothpaste, and their mom saying that they’ll have to ask Santa for it.

I definitely feel like that sometimes when it comes to stocking stuffers! But here are a few items that I go to year after year…

First off, there must always be a little bit of candy. I remember to this day getting an M&M filled candy cane and a chocolate Santa in my stocking year after year. I looked forward to those treats every single year.

Second, my boys love bath bombs. They do a bath bomb in their bath every Sunday. So Santa always stocks them up on bath bombs in their stockings. Santa also made the mistake years ago of gifting bath bombs that have a prize inside of them, and now he’s not allowed to bring anything but that. This is the brand I usually buy because it doesn’t irritate my kids skin, who are both extremely susceptible to eczema.

They always get a re-stock on craft supplies that are low. This year, the only thing they need are new markers.

Band-aids, special hot chocolate, and a book that was specifically requested. Harrison specially asked for more gum from Santa. So Santa is going to deliver this year.

And then they are getting counters, and Jonathan is getting a visual timer.

Adult male stocking is always very exciting…

It always, always, always includes new Kansas City dress socks. Santa’s going to need to come up with some new designs next year, because I think Nathan owns nearly every pair the big guy already makes.

And then it includes some specific soap that Nathan likes, and usually a specific special item. This year, it’s a K-State sweatshirt.

What are your go-to’s for stocking stuffers each year??

Our Cozy Christmas Home 2023

Posted on by Lauren Lane

The tree is decorated, my winter containers are done and looking festive, and the house is full of twinkly lights, cozy candles, and holiday cheer. Grab your warm coffee and come cozy up in our holiday home…

Did I stand in the rain to take this picture? I sure did.

Our warm living room…

My favorite piece from Nathan’s Grandma’s village set is this house with a greenhouse attached…

Our Santa picture is getting an update this year still…

And the outdoor containers this year…

And the boys got their own little trees in their rooms this year for their own ornaments…

Our kitchen table doesn’t have much room for extra things, but you have to have a little bit of Christmas on your kitchen table…

And our main family Christmas tree…

Thanks for stopping by! 🙂