Tag: Let's look

Let’s Look…At What’s in Our Grocery Carts

Posted on by Lauren Lane

Hi all! For those on spring break, I hope you had a great one! We didn’t go anywhere, but I used the good weather to get a lot of client’s seasonal spring planters done. Wow – it feels so good to be out working in the dirt again!

Today is another edition of Let’s Look!

In January, we shared a peek into how we clean our closets.

Last month, I shared the little things I do each day.

And this month, I’m sharing the things you can *almost* always find in my grocery cart.

I thought it was funny because I never take a picture of my grocery cart, but I just happened to take this picture a few weeks back when I was at Trader Joe’s…

How convenient that this ended up being the prompt for this month!

I go grocery shopping once a week. Generally, I will put in an online order on a Thursday for pantry staples and meat for the week. And then I go to one other grocery store for produce because I don’t trust anyone else picking out our produce, and anything that was out for our online order.

There are the ALWAYS, every single week, I’m buying items…

  • Bread – And I’ve apparently created little bread snobs because they will ONLY eat one type of bread.
  • Yogurt – The kids have a yogurt with breakfast every single morning.
  • Milk – I’m about to add another milk drinker to our house as Aidan transitions over to whole milk, and I already can’t believe the amount of milk we go through in a week. At least a full gallon or more – and everyone warns me it’s only going to get worse!
  • Fruit. When it comes to in between meal snacking, we always allow our kids to eat fruit or vegetables. And they always pick fruit. Strawberries, blueberries, oranges, bananas, pineapple, watermelon….we go through a lot of fruit. And of course they prefer berries because that’s what really hits our pocketbook.

Aside from these things, you can usually find in my cart…

Some type of cheese. Shredded cheese, sliced cheese for sandwiches, block cheese for making cheese and crackers. There’s almost always cheese involved every week.

Crackers. We roll through crackers in this house because they’re any easy to grab snack that isn’t completely unhealthy.

A salad mix. And it gets eaten 50% of the time. And the other 50%, I throw it away and replace it with a new one the following week with the intention of having it for lunch.

And lastly, if I’m at Trader Joe’s, you can guarantee that there’s flowers in my cart. Whether it’s a fresh bouquet or, in this case, a potted plant. I can’t resist their blooms!

What are your grocery staples? Have they changed over the years depending upon your kids’ ages?

Let’s Look At…Little Things We Do Every Day

Posted on by Lauren Lane

Hello! And welcome to another edition of “Let’s Look!” A little peek into some very small part of our lives for your enjoyment. 🙂

Last month, we shared a peek into how we clean our closets.

The little things that I never miss a day of…

-1- Drink coffee. Usually I’m a two to three cups of black coffee a day kind of girl. But I’ll switch it up sometimes for a latte with honey.

-2- Feed the dog. Nathan wanted the dog, but somehow I got the responsibility of feeding her every day. It’s probably why I’m her favorite human of the family.

-3- Feed the baby. Gosh, is this going to be a whole list of how I feed everyone? Every day? For forever? Maybe.

-4- Check my email. Scroll Instagram. Every single day. The amount of time I spend on my device…

-5- Tell my kids how much I love them and how handsome they are, and say something like “How did I get so lucky to be your mama?”

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-6- Ask my children to put on their shoes/coat/get their backpack/pick up their junk laying out all over the house…multiple times. At least. Ad nauseum.

-7- Drink water.

-8- It’s not every single day…but almost every day, I talk to my mom. She asks me how the kids are doing that day and whether they woke up dinking on each other or in good moods. That sort of thing. 🙂

-9- Eat some type of peanut butter protein bar – the breakfast of mothers and fathers of little children who have no time to feed themselves while serving tiny little humans meals and snacks all day. Current favorite is the Perfect Bars.

-10- Wash my face, brush my teeth…basic self care things. Did we mean to get this detailed with the little things we do each day?

-11- Think about flowers, landscapes, or gardening. It’s what occupies my mind a lot of the time.

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. 🙂

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??

Let’s Look…At Our Biggest Fears

Posted on by Lauren Lane

Did you know that Friday is Friday the 13th? I’ve always kind of liked the number 13. Harrison was born on a Friday the 13th. And that kind of cemented it for me as being a good number. So, while there’s no triskaidekaphobia over here, there are plenty of other rational and irrational fears.

And that’s what we’re sharing today in this “Let’s Look” link up! So, let’s jump in!

I spiral if I don’t hear from you. And this mostly pertains to my immediate family. But if I text Nathan and know he’s out with friends, and then I don’t hear anything for an extended period of time…I spiral. Down into a deep dark hole of irrational thoughts about what happened to him. What if he got in a car crash and nobody knew how to get ahold of me? What if he got robbed and someone took all of his stuff and he had no way to reach me? What if he’s lying dead in a gutter….? It’s not a pretty place…and it’s grounded in….absolutely nothing that has ever happened to me.

I have a fear of cockroaches. I can handle a lot of bugs. Cockroaches I just can’t. When I lived in North Carolina during my masters program, I found a cockroach in my kitchen, and nearly died of panic. Stood on my kitchen counters and called my parents in a panic. Expected them ideally to jump on a plane and come kill the bug for me. And only came off the kitchen counter once it ran under my dishwasher where I taped the little gap between the bottom of the dishwasher and the floor shut so that in theory…it couldn’t get out. I removed the tape when I moved out of the apartment.

It’s not a fear, but I don’t like even numbers. I wake up on odd numbers, will choose an odd number any day of the week when asked to pick a random number. It pains me slightly that some of my children will graduate high school in even years. So while it’s not a fear…it’s definitely an irk.

I have a fear of running out of money in life. I squirrel bits and pieces of money away with the best of them for a rainy day.

I have an irrational fear of not knowing something and everybody else being in the know…like it’s obvious and I’m the only idiot left out. I’m not built for surprise parties. It absolutely killlllls me internally if I know something is being kept from me. I am way too afraid of looking dumb.

And lastly, I’m terrified of running out of gas or having any car trouble at all. I refill my tank when there’s a quarter of a tank left, without fail…in case I need to make a surprise 100 mile journey and don’t have time to get gas. And other rational thoughts like that.

So those are my fears! Please tell me I’m not alone!

Let’s Look…At Our Evening Routine

Posted on by Lauren Lane

If there is any time of day that is the biggest $h!t show of the day around the Lane house, it’s the evening. It feels like constant chaos to get kids (and adults) fed, food put away, clean up the kitchen, bathed, and down for bed.

Which has to explain why I kept forgetting in this whirlwind of our “evening routine” to take any pictures document what we usually do. It’s just survival, folks. Pure survival. And hoping that my children aren’t hangry when they come home from school…which also happens to coincide with my only hangriness…WHILE trying to cook dinner. And waffling between just letting them have the dang snack so they stop whining and wanting them to actually eat the meal I’m making. But I digress…

Here we go…our evening routine, lately…

Aidan takes a catnap around 4:00 – so I like to think of our evening starting then.

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Let’s Look At…My Coffee Station

Posted on by Lauren Lane

If you’re new around here, once a month I link up with two of my favorite blogs (Shay @ Mix and Match Mama and Erika @ A Little Bit of Everything), to share a “look” into some little aspect of our life. Here’s a peak back at what we’ve “looked” at last year:

It’s a new year, and that means a whole new set of prompts and things we’ll “look at” this upcoming year.

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