New Years Resolution

Wow it's not even December yet and I already have my new years resolution in mind. 

I'm usually not one to make them, or if I do it's something simple I know I can keep.  

This one is a MUST!  

To slow down!!

to stop and enjoy my life, to not have weekend after weekend booked with plans, to relax!

I know with the Holiday season coming up things always get super busy and we always blame it on the Holidays... but this is how I feel like our entire life is.  One weekend after another of plans.  Don't get me wrong, we are SO blessed to have such amazing friends and family to spend time with.  But I feel like I am always anticipating the next event or the next thing on our agenda that I forget and loose sight of the day to day things.  Like playing on the floor with the boys in our PJ's, reading books, going for walks, doing NOTHING!!  

So my goal for next year and the rest of this year, as busy as it is, is to chill out, slow down and enjoy the here and now!  

Gerald

We have had one of Cade's friends living with us for quite some time now.  

His name is Gerald and he is anywhere from 17-28 years old.  His parents have been on vacation in Hawaii for about 2 years now.  Him and Cade play together all the time.  He usually eats dinner with us, drives with us in the car, goes to church and sleeps in Cade's room... but he doesn't go to school with Cade.

Yes we have been in the world of imaginary friend... 

However I don't know if you can actaully call it imaginary.  Yes he is imaginary but Cade knows that and tells us that all the time.  me- "Cade does Gerald want to take a bath?" Cade- "mom he isn't real"  But he talks to him and about him like he is real.  And Gerald has likes and dislikes, he can drive Cade places and entertain Cade, its the strangest thing. Especially how long it has gone on, we are going on 2 years now with Gerald & just recently we have been introduced to Macky.....  Macky usually just plays football with Cade.  He hasn't become as much of a person as Gerald has but i'm afraid it's heading in that direction. 

This house is getting too small for all of us!! 

So You Think You Can Dance

**Disclaimer**

Please excuse the whiny baby and underwear :)

If I Could Freeze Time

I am so in love with the different stages of my boys right now.  If I could freeze time I would just so I could savor it as long as possible.  

I would freeze the way Cade & Blake are becoming friends and really playing together.  They race cars together, wrestle each other, dance and jump on the beds together.  But as much as I love the way they play together, after the calm always comes the storm and I even want to freeze the fighting.  Though the fighting & annoying each other is well, annoying it is also a joyful noise.  It cracks me up when Blake is annoying Cade because he deserves it 100%.  When Blake was younger and defenseless I would always tell Cade "just wait until Blake is bigger, he is going to get you"  and now he is getting bigger and "getting" Cade.  It reminds me of when my sister, brother & I were young.  We would fight and annoy each other ALL the time!

I would freeze the way Blake points at the rocking chair and says "peese" (please) when putting him to bed.  Our new routine is for me to rock him, sing to him, & rub his back before going in his bed at bed time.  

I would freeze the way Cade HAS to say good night to Blake and give him kisses before I put him down.  

I would freeze Cade and his excitement to learn and go to school.  He thrives at learning and when he isn't learning at school he is learning at home with his kindergarten book.  I love picking him up from school and seeing what pictures he has drawn for me.  Right now he is on a surf board kick.  For the past week or so he has had numerous drawings of surfboards and our family on them.  LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the way he draws people.  A stomach, a head, eyes, legs and a belly button.  No arms & no other facial features.  4 year old perfection!

I would freeze the way Blake hollers "mom! mom! mama!" to get my attention, or to just tease me.  He does it mostly in the car.  

I would freeze how Cade is so passionate about the Beaver football team.  We play Beaver games numerous times a day and if I would let him he would wear his Beaver jersey every day.  I can't wait to take him to his first game on Saturday.  It is going to be priceless!

I would freeze the way they both stand on the porch every morning & wave bye bye to Tyler as he leaves for work. 

I would freeze the way Blake says "oh" whenever I tell him something or the way he nods his head yes or no when you ask him a question.  

I would freeze the way they both just love there special friends "Melvin" & "Uno" 

I would freeze the way my heart just melts for these boys.  

School Lunch Blues?

Or just lunch blues in general?  

Lunch is one of the hardest meals for me to be creative with.  Cade LOVES, now when I say LOVES i mean LOVES peanut butter and honey sandwiches.  Seriously the kid is addicted and would eat them every day if I would let him.  I know there are worse things he could want but come on the kids needs a variety!  I'm not into packaged and pre cooked foods so the thinker gets put into overdrive coming up with fun new options.  

Well put the thinker away and get out this!

"Cooking With Trader Joes, Easy Lunchboxes"

It's a cook book full of colorful pictures and great ideas for school lunches, breakfasts and dinners.  It does have quite a few pre packaged things in it, but every once in a while it's nice to just take the wrapper off and call it good, and with these recipes you can feel better about it being from Trader Joes.  I have so many pages with post-it notes just waiting to be tried.  Fingers crossed Cade is feeling adventurous!

Cades school is selling these books and our favorite neighbor across the street, Katie Brandow has a 2 page spread in the book!  Check out page 64 & 65.  

I know it's only 2-3 weeks into the school year but if your running into the lunch packing blues, pick up a copy of this book and see the sunshine again

Party Like a Rock Star

Someone I know turned 4 on Monday, or was it Sunday?  or Tuesday?  

With all of the parties it was hard to keep track of what day was his actual day of birth.  

September 10, 2009!  How could I ever forget that day & the previous night?  It was hell at the time but looking back it was one of my favorite moments.  A pure miracle!  

Now 4 years later its hard to imagine him at 7lbs 3oz!  We had a great time celebrating him.  We had a family party at my parents over the weekend, then Monday (his actual bday) he picked where we went for dinner and did presents as our family of 4.  Then on Tues was his big friends party at our house.  

Needless to say he had a lot of fun and was feeling super special and grown up.

Having cake at grandpa & grammie's house.  Check out the spit that came with blowing out the candles!!  

Opening presents at home.  Dad got him this special balloon to take to dinner with us.

A BEAVER JERSEY!!  He is in heaven

He picked a bike party for when his friends came over.  We had stuff for all the kids to decorated there bikes &; then we did a parade down the street

Cade's birthday invitations

Now he is already talking about what he wants for the 5 year old party, asking me what he will wear when he is 5 and telling Blake is he SO much bigger than him now!  

It's so cute how important age is when your a kid!! 

Love you Cade!!

Wordless Wednesday

Not so little anymore

Sept 10 my little man turned 4! 

Trip of A Lifetime Part 6

Day 7:  Cannes


On Thursday of our trip we found ourselves in Cannes.  The Beverly Hills of France!  Unbelievable cars, high end shopping, celebrities & home of the Cannes Film Festival.

At this stop there wasn't an actual port for the boat to dock at.  Instead they set anchor out in the ocean and we got to take the life boats in to the little docks.  We had an excursion booked for this day, however we were SO tired and really just wanted to relax on the beach.  So we had a relaxing morning and just took our time getting off the boat.

Once we made it to land we hopped on a bus to a locals beach where we just laid in the sun, swam in the ocean and had a great time relaxing and pretending to be a local :)  After we got got tired of the sun we grabbed some gelato and walked around.

The yachts of the rich

 Life boats

 Our ship from the life boat

 Awesome cars like this everywhere!

Locals beach (don't look to long you may see some topless old ladies)

Fun in the sun

Day 8:

Our final stop was in Marseille.  The stop here was very short as we had to be back on the ship by 3pm to set sail back to Barcelona.  Tyler and I opped to stay on the boat this day.  I don't have any fun pictures :(  we just laid out, went to the spa and took a nap.  It's a vacation right your supposed to do that!

The travel back home was brutal!  With an early morning flight, delays and a 9 hour time difference we  were traveling for a total of 24 hours by the time we made it to my parents house!  So tired but so worth it.

It definitely was a trip of a lifetime and we are so thankful to have gone and seen/experiences the things we did.  It was such a blessing to have my sister as well as my parents to watch our boys.  They did so good while we were gone.  We called every morning & they were usually too busy having fun playing to talk to us!  That made it much easier to be away from them.

I hope you enjoyed the re cap of our trip!!

Spain airport treat (Mc Donals icecream cones come with a kit kat!)

And they have beer!

Trip of A Lifetime Part 5

Day: 6  Cinque Terre

Day 6 our boat ported in Livorno.  We had a lot of great options as far as excursions went in this port city.  Our options were Florence and the Michelangelo's David, Pisa, a Tuscan wine tour, or The Cinque Terre.  When I saw that Cinque Terre was an option I was beyond excited!  I have seen so many fabulous pictures from this amazing place and have always wanted to experience it for myself.  It was a big decision to pick this trip because that meant we would miss out on the Leaning Tower of Pisa & the Michelangelo's David; 2 big spots in Italy.  However we are not one bit regretful of our decision!  It met every expectation I had and more!

Cinque Terre means "5 Villages" and that is just what they are.  5 villages built into the cliffs.  We were able to vist 4 of the 5 villages.  This was another excursion we did through Norwegian Cruise Line.  If we had been more confident and researched it we would have loved to do it on our own but the excursion ended up being a good option.  We took a tour bus from Livorno to one of the villages called Manarola.  

On the bus

 Grapes!

The hills are all terraced and covered with vineyards

 Manarola from the top

From here we walked down into the town until we came to the Via Dell'amore or Pathway of Love.  This pathway connects 2 of the villages and it is super cool.  It goes up and under the cliffs and has graffiti love  messages, bike locks that people have put to "lock in there love", and a lovers bench.  

 

The path connects village of Manarola to the village of Riomaggiore.  Once we reached Riomaggiore we had a few minutes to check out the village and grab a snack.   

Riomaggiore

This village had so many cool old little boats tied up

From this village we hopped on a boat to go to Vernazza.  Here we were again given time to explore and take it all in. Tyler and I were dying to swim in the Mediterranean Sea so we used our time to swim!  It was so much fun, the water was so warm and so clear!  We could see everything in the water around us.

 Loading into the boat.  There was no dock, the ramp was just thrown out onto the rocks for everyone to load in

  

So excited to be swimming!

 

Our last adventure was to the village called Monterosso.  We hopped back on the boat to get there.  

Here Tyler and I had an amazing  Italian lunch and wine, shopped and swam again.  

Hotel built on the cliff

Monterosso

Yummy bruschetta & wine 

 Rocks we climbed to to swim

The beach

When our excursion was over we took a quick 5 min train ride to Levanto (I think thats what it was) where our bus driver was waiting to take up back to Livorno. 

Train tracks built into the cliffs 

We would give anything to go back to Cinque Terre and stay for a week or so.  We loved the small, quaint and slow pace of the villages, not to mention everywhere you look is beautiful.  

If you don't have this destination on your "To do" or "To see" list I highly  recommend adding it!