7 Years Baby

On Sunday Tyler and I celebrated our 7 year anniversary!

So cool and amazing to have spent 7 years with my best friend.  This last year was one of our best years, hard but amazing.  We have come a long ways together and every step is better than the last. 

We spent the afternoon paddle boarding in Sun River.  After 45 minutes of sitting in our car waiting for the thunder/lightening/hail storm to end we gave it a go.  It wasn't the clear blue skies were were hoping for but it was fun nonetheless.  The storm must have scared everyone one off because we had the entire stretch of river to ourselves!  Perfect!   We didn't get any good pictures of both of us while paddle boarding but I did browse though our archives and found some real winners of the 2 of us over the years.  I realized that after the kids were born the amount of pictures of just Tyler and I became next to none :(  Goal for this year is to capture more with just my hubby! 

Enjoy these beauties!

So blessed,

San Diego Fun

We are back from an amazing family vacation to San Diego.  

The thing I love the most about vacations is I don't have to worry about whats for dinner, laundry or cleaning.  I get to spend all my time playing with, loving on and just watching my little family.  

I could go on and on about everything we did but I will spare you from that and just do a re cap.  

We hit up Sea World, the San Diego Zoo and 2 amazing beaches; Coronado (google it it's amazing) and La Jolla Beach also a great beach.  Sea World was by far our favorite.  The look on Cade's face when he finally go to see the Orca whales in real life was PRICELESS and worth every penny of the trip.  Second favorite was the beaches.  It took Blake a while to warm up to the beach.  He wasn't a fan of the sand at first but once he got the hang of walking in it he was digging and playing right along side of Cade.  

Enjoy some pictures of our trip

 Can't get enough of my boys faces!  Who knew we would create such beautiful faces?

 Check out those castles behind him

 Ready for fire works in his hillarious 4th of July shirt

 Waiting for the Orca show to start at Sea World 

 This is how excited he was to see Orca whales!! 

 Surfer dude

 Watching the other kids do the ride because he was too short :(

 Driving the boat

 Cades favorite part of the zoo was the "Melvins" even a baby Melvin

 B finally was let out of the stroller to run!!

 Wave jumpin

 La Jolla Beach

 Bake trying to decide if he is going to move off the blanket or not 

Fun at the Beach

Time for laundry sand sand removal!!

DIY Ghetto Style

Black Out Shades in 5 easy steps

What you will need:

- Bright sunny mornings

- A 1 yr old that is waking up anywhere between 5 & 5:30am

- Current curtains

- 2 large black garbage bag 

- Scissors 

1. Start by cutting the garbage bag down the seems on both sides

2. Remove curtains from rod and lay curtain right side down

3. Take black garbage bag that you cut, and attach at the top seem of the curtain with the straight pins

4. Repeat on second curtain panel

5. Hang back up 

 Can't even see the ghettoness 

 This picture was taken during the day!

Blake is now sleeping till 7-7:30... mission accomplished and it didn't cost me a dime!! 

Ghetto lovin, 

Wordless Wednesday

Grain Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

These cookies are AMAZING!  They are Paleo and they totally satisfy that sweet craving, they even bake up fluffy like a cookie should.

Yesterday I eat 8 of them and didn't even feel guilty!

3 cups almond flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup honey

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup coconut oil melted

1.5 cups Enjoy Life semi-sweet chocolate chips (or whatever you have on hand.  my favorite are the mini chocolate chips)

Preheat oven to 375℉.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a small mixing bowl, combine dry ingredients. Set aside.

In a medium mixing bowl, beat the eggs, honey, and vanilla extract with a hand mixer, or wire whisk.

Pour wet ingredients slowly into dry ingredients and beat with mixer or fork until combined.

Add the melted coconut oil and continue to blend until combined.  Stir in chocolate chips.

Drop Tablespoon size balls of cookie dough onto prepared baking sheet.

Bake for approximately 8-10 minutes.

Sunny @ the Oregon Coast?! WHAT?!!

Growing up we went to the beach all the time!  It was only an hour drive away from Dallas and my grandparents lived there, so we had no excuses.  Now living in Bend it's a 4.5-5 hour drive and we hardly ever go unless it's for our churches family camp.  

We got lucky this weekend!  Edward Jones held it's summer regional meeting at Salishan in Lincoln City.  The forecast called for rain every day except for 1 so I went with the mind set that we would spend most of our time at the indoor pool.  Someone was looking out for us because the forecast was ALL wrong!  It was sunny with almost no wind all except for 1 day!  It was great.  Unfortunately Tyler was in meetings until lunch each day but the boys and I had a good time exploring, swimming and playing at the beach.  After lunch Tyler was able to join us so our afternoons were spent at the Aquarium (forgot the camera.. boo) and more playing on the beach.  Cade was in heaven digging, running around and burying everything.  Blake not so much.  It was his first time on the actual beach, feet in and walking around.  He wasn't too sure about the sand and when we put him down he pretty much stayed in one spot and didn't move.  He did a little digging and of course tried to eat the sand.  

 Digging 

 More digging followed by burying 

 Blake trying to figure this sand thing out 

 Watching Cade & daddy 

 Tide pool exploring 

 Loving the beach

 Cade getting a little sea life lesson

Amazing pool or purple sea urchins 

All in all it was a great trip!  Now time to unpack, do laundry only to pack up again for another beach adventure.  Off to San Diego next week!!  

Lovin me some summer trips!

Wordless Wednesday

Cleaning... my nemisis

I have had a lot of people ask me my cleaning routine lately.... I guess they think my house is clean or something!!  I guess I got them tricked! 

Actually I am a creature of routine and I do love a clean/picked up house, who doesn't? 

I have found that for me and my life it doesn't work to pick one day and clean the whole house.  When Cade was my only child it worked really well to do upstairs one day and down stairs another day.  After several attempts to do that after Blake was born I finally gave up and realized it wasn't going to work.  So here is usually how I go about cleaning.  I do this "deep clean" every other week.  

MONDAY:  Showers

TUESDAY: Toilets & sinks/counters 

WEDNESDAY: Dust/vacuum upstairs

THURSDAY: Mop kitchen & entry

FRIDAY: Dust/vacuum downstairs

On my off week I obviously still vacuum several times and spot mop the kitchen but I also try (emphasis on the try) to pick a room or an area that needs some extra attention and work on organizing and de-cluttering it.

This just seems to work for me.  Doing the deeper cleaning every other week helps me not feel like I'm a slave to house cleaning and it also gives us a chance to live in and dirty up the house!  This week is my cleaning week and now that the boys are playing together it has made it SO much nicer.  I actually found myself cleaning while they were both awake. This is a whole new thing for me!  I could get used to it!

Happy cleaning,

Breakfast of Champions

Since we have changed out life style to about 90% Paleo, breakfast has always been a challenge.  

It usually needs to be something pretty fast as 2 days a week I need to get Cade out the door for school and we are just plain starving when we wake up!  

This is our go to breakfast.  I make a giant batch and stick the extras in the fridge to pull out during the week. 

Apple Coconut Waffles

4 eggs

2 Tbsp maple syrup

2 Tbsp vanilla

1/2 C. water

3 C. almond flour

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

2 tsp. cinnamon

2 Tbsp Arrowroot Powder

1 apple, peeled and grated

Coconut (optional, I personally don't like the coconut in mine but Tyler loves it)

Mix wet ingredients first then add in dry.

In a preheated and greased waffle iron, scoop batter, top with coconut and cook until golden.

   

I love pairing mine up with a piece of fried ham and of course a cup of coffee!  

Starting the morning off right,

Boys will be boys (oh ya and I girl)

One Tues a month our community group meets at our home. 

This Tues was our week.  It's such a blessing to get together, we always have an amazing dinner, lots of fellowship, worship, and laughs.  

As the adults were inside we sent the kiddoz to the back yard to play.  Good idea right?!  

As the evening was coming to a close I went out to check on the kids and this is what I found:

Apparently mud soup was on the kids menu and as they were diligently cooking it up the hose got left on a little too long.  

This was one of those moments that could go 1 of 2 ways.  I could freak out because my patio was flooded and had a river of mud and bark running through it.  Or I could let go and let it go.  

After all the kids were

1. quiet

2. playing nicely together

3. un-harmed

4. having fun

What do you need to work on letting go of?

Letting go more,