Modest Mondays: Mid-Week Lunch Date (Sister and Kid Edition)

Are you guys chomping at the bit to wear fall clothes as much as I am?? Boots, scarves, tights and cute hats? Yes, please. However, in my neck of the woods we are feeling lucky if we get below 90 right now so we are still very much in summer clothes. You can be assured, however, that the minute the temperature drops below 70,we will overzealously pull out all things fall and layer it on, despite the fact that it we will be too hot after a few minutes in the Texas sun.

 When my sister Claire was here this past summer, we all went downtown one afternoon to meet our brother for lunch. As a photographer, this alley was just calling my name to snap a few photos before we went to attack our chips and salsa.

 Thus, the mid-week-lunch-date-sister-and-kid-edition was born. Our outfits are actually perfect colors for transitioning into fall while still staying cool, haha. :)

2 sisters laughing together in an alley is perfectly normal, right?!

Claire's Outfit Details:

Necklace: Gift from her hubby (handmade by the Navajo Indians in AZ)

Top: Stolen from Jenna's closet (NY and Co)

Belt: Thrifted

Skirt: Thrifted

Shoes: Sears

Jenna's outfit Details:

Earrings: Gift (Sam Moon)

Necklace: Oragami Owl (bought for a fundraiser for Molly and love love love it)

Pineapple Shirt: Cato (clearance!)

Blue Tank-Top for underneath: Gift (Old Navy)

Cross-Body purse: Sam Moon

Skirt: WalMart (some Wally Worlds still have these for $7 or less!)

Bracelets: Gift (Ny and Co)

Shoes: GAP clearance (years old and still serving me well!)

Brooke's outfit details:

Headband: I think a gift, but possibly stolen, from her Aunts, haha

Shirt: Target clearance

Skirt: Cato (they have awesome clothes for girls starting at size 7!)

Silver Gladiator Sandals: Zulily (they're cute, but I've had 2 bad shoe experiences with them so I won't order from there again)

If you want to gear up for Fall, our Instagram shop has lots of goodies available at a great price! Go check it out here!

The Underlying Peace

It's so crazy that we've surpassed the one month mark of school and are cruising right along into Fall--the holidays will be here before we know it!
 School is going really well and we are all enjoying it immensely. Homeschooling fits our family so well and we couldn't be happier that God has led us down this path. Yes, it's a lot of extra work every day for me as a Mom but the rewards of seeing my children learn, work hard and "get" a new concept far surpasses the moments of feeling overwhelmed.

If you pressed your ear to our front door and listened, it would sound chaotic and crazy--maybe even pure madness--but if you stepped inside you would feel the slow, rhythmic heartbeat of our home; the underlying peace that isn't something you necessarily hear, but something you can always feel. The best part about it is I'm feeling the peace more than ever, despite being busier than I've ever been.

We finally celebrated this one's birthday with family--a fun afternoon of swimming and relaxing on Labor day, soaking up the last day of summer.

These two get along 95% of the time. They are laughing and giggling about something almost constantly and I love watching their brother/sister relationship develop because I only had that with sisters, since my brother and I were farther apart in age. Having an even number of kids (at least for now ;) divides them into "the older two" and "the little ones" which is a fun new stage of life to be in.

I hope that while you're in the thick of Motherhood--the snotty noses, dirty diapers, the pages of homework, cooking, cleaning toilets and crying (maybe from all of you ;)--that you'll stop and feel the peaceful heart of your home that can only come from Jesus. Sometimes it seems nonexistent, but it's there, hidden under the to-do lists and full calendar. You just have to take the time to feel it, acknowledge it and thank the Lord for it!

 Happy Monday, friends! Enjoy your week!

This Week's Freezer Meal Round Up

We just finished up our second week of school and I am soooo pleased with how it's going. A few things are attributing to our (whopping 2 weeks) of success:

 1) Doing dvd school

 2) Scheduling our entire day

It has truly been the biggest unexpected blessing...another blog post on that soon!

 Anyway, I cooked up some freezer meals at the beginning of this week (while the 2 older ones were finishing school and the little ones were taking naps) and I thought I would share them with you! These ones were super easy! I think I shared some of these before, but I'm sharing them again just in case. Trust me--once you start freezer cooking you won't want to stop! It's kind of daunting to actually begin but man. The thought of having all my food pre-done in the freezer is awesome, plus it's way cheaper to feed my family this way!

 I keep lot of frozen veggies on hand--broccoli, green beans and corn are favorites--to add for sides with our meals. And I buy fresh fruits/veggies once every week and a half or so. But I really try to grocery shop just twice a month and cook just twice a month. Nice, huh?

1) Cilantro chicken with lime and black beans  (1)(not sure how I feel about freezing fresh cilantro and cooking it all day in the crock pot, but we'll see how it turns out!) This we will do over rice and top with sour cream and cheese, maybe some tortilla chips if we have enough (they go fast around here ;)

 2) Maple Dijon glazed Chicken  (1) I use honey and forgot the vinegar! But I can add it after it thaws. We love this recipe! Super easy with baked or roasted potatoes and a salad!

 3) Meatballs in BBQ sauce (2) I adapted this recipe. I use turkey/ground beef, an egg and oats. I love the chili powder in these--great flavor! And I use cheap store bought BBQ sauce, ha. These are great over rice or with roasted potatoes and carrots.

4) Shredded pork tacos//pork roast with gravy/bbq pork (3): No recipes for these ones but so easy! I love buying a big pork butt roast (usually around $14-$16) and cutting it into 3.
 One I'll season with taco seasonings or any Mexican spices I have on hand and freeze in one chunk. Thaw overnight, put in the crock pot all day, then shred and put into tortilla shells with whatever taco toppings you like.
 Another I'll did a ranch seasoning packet with and cooked in the crock pot as a roast. After I remove the roast to rest I add a little cornstarch and milk right into the crock pot and whisk it until it makes a gravy. You could also do onion soup packet for seasoning and cream of mushroom soup that makes an amazing gravy with the soup mixes and juice from the meat. We ate over rice but would be awesome with mashed potatoes ;)
 The last one I'll freeze as is (maybe some salt, pepper and a simple rub), cook and add bbq sauce at the end when I shred it. This I'll usually serve over baked potatoes--a favorite for sure!

5) Lastly, I made 2 pans of chicken enchilada casserole. I actually didn't use a recipe for this either. I boiled chicken breast, shredded in the kitchen aide (best thing ever), then made a mixture with the chicken, some sour cream, mayo, cheese and seasonings. Layered that with green chile enchilada sauce and corn tortillas. The kids actually ate this tonight with Grandma and Grandpa while we went on a date ;). This morning I put on a big pot of beans on the stove to simmer and threw them in the blender really quick before dinner for refried beans. This is also great with rice and salad or another veggie.

 So, all in all we have about 9 meals but with leftovers we'll squeeze 2 weeks out of it. Plus on nights we're on the go I might just do some sandwiches quick. I also keep pasta and canned sauce on hand (Italian grandma turning over in her grave as we speak) and that's easy to throw together. I had a bag of shrimp left in my freezer that my brother-in-law left so I made some shrimp scampi the other night. So that's an easy option, too--trust me, it's not as daunting as it sounds!

If you have some freezer meal recipes to share--or just any recipes for that matter--feel free to leave in the comments!
  Have a great weekend! :)

A Music Themed Bridal Shower Brunch

I'm finally getting around to posting the bridal brunch we hosted for my sister who is getting married in a few months! We wanted it to be "her", so we picked colors and a theme that matched her personality perfectly: elegant, feminine and classy. So many people said, "this is so Anna!" so I think we succeed!

 We stuck with gold, rose and mint colors. We also tied in a little bit of a music theme because music is a huge part of her life, and her fiancé has an amazing voice as well. The music theme was subtle because we didn't have the usual "black and white" that would be typical for a music theme but I think it tied in great in the places that we did incorporate it!

 We "DIY'd" just about everything to save cost, plus it makes it more fun to plan everything and work hard and see it all come together beautifully! As is typical in our family (haha), we all came down with the stomach flu and Anna actually had it the day of her shower... thankfully, it was mild enough that she could still function. We saved her a plate of food for when she could stomach it ;).

The "love notes" (get it? notes? hehe) table had small journals for guests to write little notes to Anna. They could choose from date night ideas, words of wisdom or just simply a little note to her. The chalkboard banner was from Target, and the we made pinwheels out of scrapbook paper that had little music notes on it.

My Mom, the beautiful bride-to-be, and my Grandma.

I ordered paper straws super cheap off Amazon for the glasses of orange juice. One of Anna's bridesmaids made the adorable heart garland at the top of the board, and another friend wrote love quotes from songs on cardstock. We clipped those and pictures up with twine and clothespins.

I got the glass bottles for $1 each (Target) and we labeled them (labels from Wal Mart) and filled them with flavored creamers for a coffee bar.

Centerpieces were made with mason jars that we glued scrapbook paper and a strip of ribbon onto. We filled them with flowers and placed them on a mesh circle of either pink or gold.

It's always daunting decorating a big stage, but it really turned out thanks to the creativity of my sisters and the other bridesmaids! Claire made the hanging garland wreath using a hula hoop, garland, lights and lace curtains. The backdrop was more lace curtains (can usually be found at thrift stores!) and pink plastic tablecloths and the heart garland was made by one of Anna's bridesmaids.

Claire, Anna and I have always had a special bond... a three fold cord is not easily broken ;)

We were so thankful that our amazingly talented friend came to set up tiered food tables, as well as the vases of flowers. All we had to do was add our plates of food and it looked gorgeous!

Our menu was mini quiche, breakfast pizza (made by none other than my dad), mini banana muffins, fruit salad, chocolate covered strawberries, mini cinnamon rolls and yogurt parfaits. 

One of Anna's close friends gave a really special devotional, which was a letter she wrote to Anna and read. It was very heartfelt and beautiful!

We decorated a bulletin board as a photo booth for the shower and it was a big hit!

Here is Anna with most of her sisters/bridesmaids (missing 3! Yes it's a huge wedding ;)

The guests (mainly all close friends because we're all just a big family up there!) were so generous and she got so much of what she will need for starting her new life with Jacob. We could not be happier and are so glad she loved this special day in her life! 

Nicolas {ONE}

 Last year at this time I was still enjoying the honeymoon postpartum period. Many people struggle immensely in those first few weeks, but I've always been blessed that despite recoveries that are no walk in the park, most of my post part experiences have been enjoyable and normal. Mom was here keeping the whole house running, my sisters-in-law and Mom-in-law were lovingly caring for the older kids so I could focus on the baby and recovering and meals, treats and gifts were flooding in from friends. Pretty much all I did was hold Nicolas and rest, something I've become an expert in after regretting doing too much after Brooklynne was born.

 Fast forward to now. An entire year of firsts have already come and gone--cooing, reaching for toys, sleeping through the night, scooting, new teeth, crawling, pulling up on furniture, and now babbling constantly and even saying several words. Even though I guess he's technically not a "toddler" because he's not walking, he acts like it. He is extremely responsive to everyone--my little social butterfly. His favorite word is "hiiii" and he says it to just about everyone. 

 He says uh oh, more, all done, love you, and the names of all his family members. Nate and I look at each other in surprise every time he says a new thing because he just seems so little to be saying so much! I guess that's what happens when you have 3 older siblings talking to you constantly!

  

 I've learned more and more how to truly cherish my babies. The Babywise book, while full of great principles, robbed me of truly enjoying Brooklynne and is way to strict in my opinion. Now I don't worry about spoiling them, because really you can't spoil a baby! But holding and hugging and cuddling as much as I can in those first few months doesn't last long as they grow bigger and become more independent like he is now. It goes so fast, and I try my hardest not to miss any of it.

It's amazing how one year of newness and bringing us hoards of joy, culminates into one piece of cake--or in this case, a cupcake. It's the great American (?) tradition. Every baby I've ever known has been surrounded with family--if not a huge crowd--while everyone watches to see what they will do with being allowed to consume a huge amount of sugar. My fourth baby did not disappoint, as he knew exactly what was expected of him. haha!

Happy first birthday to our dear Nicolas Jay. You are the light of our home right now and the center of attention and we love you so hard!

The Game On Healthy Challenge {my experience}

Ive mentioned a few times here (I think) that I've really struggled losing the baby weight this time around. It's always been something I had to work at, but this time it really hung on. I think nursing actually did the opposite that most people say it does for me--it made my body go into "starvation mode" and want to hold on to every ounce to provide milk for baby. Which selfishly made me want to quit nursing, but obviously I knew that the fact that I'm able to breastfed without any problems is a gift and I would not give it up just so I could lose weight!

 Anyway, I happened upon a Facebook page called "no diets allowed" a few years ago, mainly for the recipes. She would always post about "game on health challenges" but I didn't pay much attention to them. However, one night I saw that it was the last chance to join this challenge round that would last 6 weeks. It cost $20 to join and I impulsively made the decision to sign up at the last minute.

The main rules were simple:

1)Choose a healthy eating plan and stick to it every single day. I chose calorie counting, along with avoiding white flour and sugar.

2) Exercise 6 days a week for a minimum of 20 minutes. I found some great YouTube videos, as well as little running, ab workouts and my elliptical machine. All in all I do about an hour a day of 2 different workouts--cardio plus a little core or strength

3) Drink 70 ounces of water per day--no pop or diet pop (or alcohol, but I don't drink so that wasn't a problem ;)

4) Get 7 or more hours of sleep per night

5) Only weigh in once a week (I hated this part of it! ;)

 There were also other healthy habits that I wrote about here, and there were many choices in that category. We also got bonus points for communicating with our team each day and reporting our scores early each Monday morning. A perfect score would add up to 700 points, with up to 30 bonus points available.

 ok.....

 So the results!

 I lost 5 pounds and 3+ inches.

 Honestly, for as hard as I worked it could have easily been 10 pounds, which is frustrating. Since I already eat healthy and work out daily, this just upped it a notch so I'm happy with that. I think someone coming from a junk food/non exercising lifestyle would lose a ton. However, that is 5 pounds that I've been holding on to for close to 6 months, so I am thrilled with that. I am fitting into my normal clothes much better now and my stomach has really firmed up a lot. Yay for progress!

 I'm actually in the middle of the 5th week of a second round of the challenge right now, and still seeing more progress. I am finnnnnnalllllyyy within 2 pounds of pre-baby weight and feeling much more like my normal self.

 Anyway, if you made it through this post, I wanted to say that I did not in any way write this to brag on myself. I just know for certain that there are other Moms out there who struggle in this area and it's always nice to read what other people did and how they did it. At least I know that I enjoy reading other people's stories.

 I highly recommend this program. It's not a fad or magic. It just highly promotes healthy living and gives major accountability because you don't want to let your team down! Plus, I love that you can choose your eating plan, wether calorie counting, THM, low carb, weight watchers, etc. As long as it's healthy you're in. I also love that your score depends on how well you did with all of your healthy habits and not necessarily how much weight you lose (because I would totally lose big time).

 If you're interested, check out the Facebook page here and the website here. The next round starts in a little over 2 weeks and if you need a little extra push to stay motivated, I highly recommend it!

Summer Photo Dump

Clearly, I am way behind in blogging, so I wanted to do a photo dump of our amazing summer trip to see my family. We didn't do anything extraordinary, but we don't have to--our little shopping trips, swimming, dad's pizza, singing together and a sunset on the beach (plus all the little things in-between) made it more than perfect. We also gave my sister her bridal shower while we were there which turned out elegant and gorgeous-just like her-so I'll be posting about that soon!

A family night for dinner and ice cream (Abotts custard is to die for)

After spending the day working on shower preparation. Sister time is precious to me.

My Mom's side of the family had a reunion while I was there. Grandma and a great-Aunt led many rounds of BINGO ;)

Looking far from glamorous while baking the best-ever chocolate chip cookies (as in, 4 dozen were gone in an hour)

Why do all of our pictures involve food?! Anyway, my dad's pizza is an unspeakable gift that must be documented. It's perfection.

Like I said. Perfection.

This guy cut 4 teeth all at once while we were there and wasn't even fussy! He's such an easy going baby. I'm so blessed!

The cousins played outside all.day.long. for hours and hours. Clothing and shoes optional.

These 2 became much closer this year

Greg let Nate use his corvette for a few days and the guys were loving it!

Shopping, lunch, coffee, sisters. Nothing better!

Pretty crazy to see all of the little boys together (even crazier to hear them all together, I can assure you), especially with my parents who were surrounded by 99.9% girls their whole lives. haha!

My Mom is such an amazing Grandma (Nonnie as the kids call her). They love her so much and she cherishes them each individually.

A few days before we left, we had our family pictures taken at the beach. I've seen a few previews and they are stunning... I will definitely be sharing them here once I get them all! My sister took this while our photographers were taking some shots of Nate and I and I just love it!

There are so many more I could share but I didn't want to blast you after so long of not blogging! We have enjoyed our summer immensely; between 2 of my sisters visiting and obviously our nice vacation to visit them, we were surrounded by family and it was so special!

 We start school this next week. We'll be homeschooling this year so I have 2 in school for the first time. We'll be doing the Abeka dvd's which will give me a little bit of time and sanity in-between to work with Nathan on pre-school (very light) and keep up with the house. This will be a big change for Joe who had a few hours of Kindergarten last year and was free the rest of the day. I'm hoping that he will do ok sitting for that long. We shall see! :)

 I'm hoping to be back soon to share my sister's bridal shower, and Nicolas' birthday.

 Have a great week!