This is what Katie’s hair looked like after an after-school playdate today. Love it!
Category Archives: Photos
I made her wear new jeans.
It’s often a fight, and it took two days, but I got her in her new jeans today. She loved that I suggested the sequined tank top and jacket, too. She did end up putting boots on, though, shoved I hadn’t noticed the cuffs were cut short for a more summer look.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…
No. No no no. NOOOOOOOO!! It’s too early. I mean I really don’t ever want it (maybe two weeks around Christmas and New Year) but 11/9 is way too early.
That said, the kids were EXCITED. Owen woke me up to tell me and when I woke up Katie and told her, she literally jumped out of bed and ran to the window.
If you need me, I’ll be bundled up under blankets on the couch with the dog.
I love finding Katie’s notes.
These are all the neighborhood kids. There’s one I’m not sure of but she’s a social butterfly so I know it’s someone. 🦋
Let me translate for you:
Katie
Sophia
Enzo
Owen
Nate
Ethan
Adam
Noah
Teddy
Cherry
???
Romeo
Xavier
Linkin
Is it any surprise she loves nails?
I was getting rid of some nail strips that I learned weren’t really great for your nails…so I gave them to Katie for her art/sticker box. But this happened.
Winging it in the kitchen…
Holy crap! I just winged the most delicious tomato soup from some old roasted tomatos/onions, some leftover “chicken water” (from those chicken breasts I cooked in the instant pot last week), and a few seasonings. I want to eat this all RIGHT NOW. Maybe this will be dinner…except I doubt either kid will eat it… 😣 How come they don’t know how good they have it to have a mom who cooks real food?!
And yes, that’s a tomato seed in my hair. 😂 I’ve also been chopping the last of our tomatoes for more roasting.
3pm edit: HA! It’s now being turned into goulash!! I put noodles in it…and they kept growing and sucked all the liquid out! So now I’ve added leftover hamburger and a few more spices! And it’s still delicious!
Two things this morning…
1️⃣ Today I’m donating three formal dresses/gowns to a local charity that provides dresses to high schoolers who can’t afford them. I am thrilled to find someplace like this locally and am even more thrilled to get them out of my house (sizes 16-24). Why have I been keeping them?!
2️⃣ Does anyone else notice something in this pic that is kinda making me crazy? I want to see who all shares my brain.
This happened by accident tonight.
Lego Christmas ornaments for a good cause.
After the Lego build, the kids could create a Lego ornament. For every one made, Lego will donate a Lego box to a child in need in the hospital. These are what Katie and Owen made… Can you guess whose is whose?
Three things on my mind today.
1️⃣ I almost hate to admit it, but if I’m being 100% honest, I usually feel better about myself with straight hair. Yes, I like the wavy SOMETIMES but if I could snap my fingers and have straight hair forever, I totally would. TOTALLY. I just wish it didn’t take me 40 minutes and give me sore arms (I even have a lightweight dryer).
2️⃣ One of my new year’s resolutions was to get better at applying makeup. I suck at following YouTube videos so I really just keep winging it and hope I end up with something good. 😂 (Anyone else completely unsuccessful following YouTube videos? It can’t be just me. Maybe my face is broken. 😂) The weird thing is that in the bathroom and up close? It always seems kinda janky. But in pics? It doesn’t seem half bad. Like today.
3️⃣ I wasn’t going to go anywhere today but now that I have THIS hair and THIS face, I feel like I kinda have to. (Is anyone else like this? I can’t waste all this effort on the animals.)
Life is what you make it.
After a fun
(the kids finally got their phones back to play Pokémon for the morning)
and then challenging day with the kids
(it was basement cleaning day 😣 plus Katie’s reading drama),
this is what I needed
(a fire and a drink with hubby).
💕
Yes, the kids were out with us for awhile, too.
This is the look of someone who does NOT want to read.
Katie’s homework involves 15 minutes of reading a day plus maybe 5 minutes or so of math if they didn’t finish in class. You’d think she was being asked to do something horrible. Some days it goes well, but most days we end up with attitude. It’s exhausting.
Katie and her new pink heels.
I happened to end up at Payless today and the whole store was 40% off….so of course I couldn’t pass up super cute and cheap shoes for Katie. (I might have gotten like 8 pair. How can I resist when they were like $5-8 each?) Owen is in men’s sizes now (!!) so his options weren’t nearly as plentiful, but he did get new winter boots since he’s about 1.5 sizes bigger than last winter!
Anyway, there were some small heels for Katie, so of course she wanted to wear them immediately. They are only for house wear right now as they’re still a little too big…plus they’re summer shoes. But she loves them!
This is what I got today, minus the pair in the above photo plus two pair of dress shoes. And I might go back after I see what shoes she has for this winter. (I do keep a collage of all her shoes on my phone, but I do buy an odd pair here and there that I don’t track.) We’ll see.
I also had Owen gather all his shoes so I could see if he needed any more—he’s basically a tennis shoe kid so not nearly as fun to buy for. So he may get more than just boots!
Time for flu shots!
Of course Owen was sooo worried about getting a shot—he just can’t seem to remember from year to year that it’s no big deal. Granted he doesn’t get himself as worked up as he used to, but I think he still worries too much for what it is. (It’s always over quickly and he has the “Oh, that’s it?” look.)
Anyway, we took a selfie while we were waiting for our 15 minutes.
More trick-or-treating!
The kids got a surprise second night of trick or treating, thanks to a neighbor who took them to Lake Bluff with their boys. They were thrilled with the free hot dogs and chips at the fire station plus the great candy at the big expensive houses. Owen’s first words were “I want to trick and treat there again!” Sitha, your husband rocks!
Happy Halloween!
🎃👻 HAPPY HALLOWEEN!! 👻🎃 If you want crazy lips like this, I can hook you up! Beats wearing a costume all day!! 😂 Ironically I don’t get as many double-takes with the lip color as I used to. I guess black is mainstream now?! 😳 Don’t get me wrong I am not going full Blackberry anytime soon, but I think I kinda pulled it off today. Lie to me if you have to. 😝
This is what I dress up in… Bat leggings. The end.
First grade costume parade!
Look who was walking with the teacher! And her teacher was a ladybug!!
Both kids are in gymnastics!
Katie has been begging to take gymnastics again and Owen was interested in boys rec… They were both offered at the same place at the same time so I figured it was meant to be!
Barn dancing!
Owen’s music class is learning barn dancing and parents were allowed to come watch! So of course I took advantage!
The whole thing was a hot mess from start to finish—you can imagine how much fourth graders really want to be dancing, right? That said, Owen did well and didn’t screw around too much (especially compared to other boys, some of which I wanted to throttle).
All I know is those teachers DO NOT get paid enough.
Oh come on Maggie. Really?!
One of my favorite meal prep things to do!
1️⃣ Get orange tag chicken breasts at Sam’s Club (7.45# for $10).
2️⃣ Throw them directly into the Instant Pot with some seasoning (today I did two batches: Mexican and garlic).
3️⃣ Shred in KitchenAid.
4️⃣ Freeze!
Details:
The taco one I used 3 breasts, a can of Rotel, maybe 1/3 can of water (just enough to rinse the can) and lots of taco seasoning.
The garlic one I used 6 breasts, 1 cup of water, some bouillon (I never measure that), and loads of garlic powder.
Both cooked for 8 minutes with quick release.
Halloween 2018
I may have tried a SeneGence cat face… and pretty much failed. I am definitely NOT an artist (this took WAY longer than it should have)…but at least I know it’s not going anywhere. 😂 Also, I’m lame. I don’t even have cat ears.
Katie has known she wanted to be Harley Quinn forever. Owen had no real direction and this is a costume I picked up at the resale shop earlier this week on a whim (I knew he’d love it but didn’t think he’d wear it for Halloween).
The girls wanted to be twins. 💕 I think Katie pulled it off slightly better since she had blonde hair and the hair colors showed up better.
The weather was actually decent and the trees were gorgeous! I had to take a pic of me with one since we don’t have any nice ones in our yard.
Tom ended up carrying the girls’ weapons pretty much from the start.
Friends had come with us, and this is the boys heading home after a successful trip.
The haul!
And sorted…because I like to see what we got the most of… AND because you have to keep the chocolate separate from the candy otherwise it gets nasty.
I have to say at first I thought it was way weird having trick-or-treating on a Saturday afternoon instead of on Halloween night… But I like that it’s in daylight and when it’s over we still have time left to chill and eat candy without having to go straight to bed.
The good thing about this year? Since the weather was nicer, we went farther into the neighborhood and they got more candy! Last year we only hit a few houses and then came home…and then felt guilty so we took them out another night in another city. This year it is one and done!
Surprise! Daddy started a fire after trick or treating! Unfortunately it started sprinkling so the kids didn’t last long… But I did get a cute pic of Katie.
Rummikub!
Anna and David invited us over for dinner and games tonight. We played Rummikub… which I honestly haven’t played since maybe middle school (and Tom had never played). It quickly came back and we had a good time. The men were drinking so they were really having a fun time!!
Christmas in July in October!
Owen finally picked what he wanted from Amazon from Grauntie Rose and Gruntie Jim—a gem digging kit! (Huh? What? Okay, whatever!) He had a blast digging out all the rocks and reading about them.
The third time was the charm.
Today was take 3 on Tom’s colonoscopy. The previous two times failed because he wasn’t appropriately cleaned out. After the second time we talked to the doctor about a different cleanout method because OBVIOUSLY the disgusting drink they had prescribed wasn’t working. And we suggested what we knew worked and the old cranky doc said no. We did what we wanted anyway and—SURPRISE!!—it was a success!
It took much less time than I anticipated so I only got to sit in the caregiver suite (yes, in the comfy heated massage chair again) for about an hour.
Painting pumpkins!!
The last farmer’s market of the season had fun kids projects… I was surprised they both wanted to try!
Katie is also really good at hula hooping.
I’m down 13 in one week!
Just in case you weren’t sold on Naturally Slim or didn’t think it was magic… Listen up.
Remember from my earlier post that I gained a whopping THIRTEEN pounds while on the cruise (I ate and drank ALL THE THINGS and then ate and drank some more and then had some more for good measure).
Well, in my first week back on NS, I lost all 13 (13.8 to be exact)!! 😳🤩🤗 Now I know a big chunk of that was water weight (my ankles look and feel normal now!) but holy shit, y’all—even I didn’t expect that big of a loss (but I’ll take it)!
The best part is that now I am super geeked about NS again, which is good because I’ve gained *cough grumble* an embarrassing chunk over the past two years…and it’s high time it came off.
I am SO ready to get back down to my goal weight…
Guess what’s happening right now?
The upside? I can now play Christmas music.
It was just very minor flurries—nothing even stuck—but it’s enough to pass my test!!
She doesn’t hate the vet, she just doesn’t really like the waiting.
The vet gave her a clean bill of health. She’s getting old but thankfully she’s still pretty healthy. 🙂
Someone isn’t happy Charlie is on my lap.
