These are a few of my favorite things!

Warning: the photos contained in this blog post are not good! They are blurry and we all look tired and ridiculous. Welcome to our crazy little life!

Fruit Snacks and I getting a little selfie time after I got home from work.

Time spent with my daughters is time that is always time well spent. We spent the evening watching "Making It" with Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman. It’s a craft show on Hulu and it is so cool! Each week they have a faster craft and a master craft, the crafts that they do are so impressive! A good portion of them even look like something a craft failure like me could probably do! Along side the comedy stylings of both Amy and Nick these artists bring in their own quirky personalities. Several of the artists even started it as Bloggers and Vloggers! As a family we watched two episodes tonight and I personally can’t wait to see what else these genuinely talented artists come up with! We saw the artists build children's forts and themed toys to go with them. My absolute favorite was a rainbow fort built with pool noodles! It was so pretty and I am seriously considering trying to figure out how to make one for the girls even though the husband is not much of a fan. He dislikes pool noodles as a general rule despite their proven usefulness.  

Chicken Nugget barely putting up with mommy kisses

While watching "Make It" we served up and ate a wonderful dinner my husband cooked. We had Tri-Tip and miso brown sugar shrimp with cauliflower mash. I am so grateful that my husband is a wonderful cook with dreams of becoming a chef someday. Our kiddos love when daddy cooks and always seem to eat much more happily than when mommy throws together a dinner. The last few weeks have been crazy hectic for our family. My husband started his new job July 28th with a new schedule. I have been on my annual training for the National Guard. So between the both of us we have had no days off together and I personally have not had a day off since the middle of July. We have been working really hard trying to come up with reliable daycare for our kids so on top of work we have been interviewing potential day care facilities and babysitters. For me this is a tough topic because why in the world would I want to pay someone to spend the time with my kids I would much rather be spending with them. As well as struggling to find some one that I feel I can trust enough to allow them to be alone with my children. Since the last few weeks have been so busy we decided that we would put the girls to bed a little early. So after dinner we did our usual night time routine which is bath time, PJ time, brush teeth (even nugget who only has 4 teeth loves her electric tooth brush), do story time and then tuck fruit snacks into her bed and get chicken nugget to fall asleep as well. Then off to bed for Mommy and Daddy because we are tired too.

Back in Time to My Favorite Family Vacation

Today I am going to go back... Way back to when I was a little kid and we took a family vacation. My father is a wild land firefighter so we always took vacations in the off season. This particular year we got tickets to Six Flags Great America. I think I was probably 12 which would make my brothers about 11 and 8 at the time. We drove down a cousins house near Modesto. We were staying in their guest house I think. We spent the first day fishing in their pond. I caught a catfish and was so excited. We were doing catch and release so my dad helped me release the big guy back into the pond after I caught him. We went to bed early that night all very excited to pick up our cousin Sara in the morning and head to the amusement park. So we wake up bright and early Tuesday morning. Go pick up Sara and head to the park. We reach the park and the sun is still coming up so we are not overly surprised to not see hardly any vehicles. We find a parking spot near the front of the park and pile out. My mom, dad, brothers, cousin and I all very excited to be the first ones at the park we walk up to the sign to see what time the park opens so we can get in. On the sign was a very big Closed Sign. Us kids are confused and disappointed. Why would the park be closed? My parents are trying to laugh it off as a National Lampoon level disaster of a vacation. Nobody told them that the park is only open on weekends during the fall season. We spend the next hour or so posing for pictures with the closed sign and trying to figure out where to go next. My cousin suggests Monterey Bay aquarium. My parents had no objections so we pile into the car and drive to the aquarium. We pull up to the front of the aquarium and my mom gets out to check ticket prices and to buy the tickets while we look for a place to park our car. When we meet back up with mom she says tickets for her and dad are too expensive so she got tickets for my cousin and us kids. My cousin got a college student discount and all of the kids were young enough to qualify for children's tickets. My parents mean while were going to go walk the pier and check out Monterey. Its been 17 years since I have been in the aquarium but I remember being in awe of how big it was and how much sea life we saw. I remember thinking that it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen looking into some of those under water enclosures. We checked out the tide pools and looked at all of the exhibits. It was an amazing visit. After spending hours looking at the sea life we left the aquarium to find mom and dad out on the pier. One of the memories from this trip that stands out the most was that while on the pier my mom tried raw squid. It was of course dead but the whole rest of the trip she was convinced that a tentacle stuck to the inside of her throat and was causing her to cough. After we dropped my cousin off at her house we spent hours teasing my mom about the squid stuck in her throat. We had so much fun that trip laughing and singing in the car. Exploring new places and seeing sights that left us speechless. This was probably the vacation that the most things go wrong during it, and yet memories like this are what make me so desperate to take my girls and travel with them. Even if its here around the states showing them things that open up their view points and giving them fond memories to look back on. A perfect vacation doesn't always have to go perfectly right the whole time. Just being there for our children and showing them that we are human and that we love them is often the things that make the best memories and leave the longest most lasting impressions.

Nuggets First Trip to the Beach

Fruit Snack giving her best cheese face while running on the beach.

This is probably my favorite picture my husband got of my and fruit snacks

Chicken nugget all wrapped up and warm in her fleecie suit she looks like a little doll!

Nugget was Born in December of 2017 so after a few weeks of resting and getting acclimated to having a tiny baby and a nearly 2 year old, my husband and I decided that it was time to take the kids on a trip to be beach! Fruit snack had only been to the coast 1 time previously and it had been too cold for her to really get a chance to play and since at the time she was only 5 months old there wasn't much she could really do any ways. This trip we had decided would be different for her. Chicken Nugget of course was only a few weeks old so the trip wasn't as much fun for her but soon we will go again and I'm sure she will love it. We live about 2 hours from the beach so making a day trip with a toddler and a newborn was a bit stressful as they had to be in their car seats for such an extended period of time.
We tried to temper the amount of time the kids sat in the car by stopping at rest stops and pretty much anytime the baby had a hungry sounding cry. This did make our 2hr drive a bit longer but ultimately more bearable for the kids. Once we got to the beach we all piled out of the car and Fruit snacks had a blast running up and down the beach with daddy. I wish I had taken a few more pictures, but  I always feel that way no matter how many photos I  take. We ran up and down the beach and Fruit snacks had a blast running from the waves.

After spending some time at the beach we walked around the harbor area of Brookings Oregon. We got lunch at Sporthaven Marina, they were so friendly and absolutely wonderful with our toddler. thanks to them and their kindness she behaved very well and even got a toy out of their toy chest for being so good! I had a bread bowl full of chowder and my husband had a fried fish plate with fries. Everything we ate was wonderful. After lunch we walked over to Slugs and Stones Ice Cream cones and had some amazingly delicious frozen treats. Fruit snacks had a small berry milkshake and she drank the whole thing! I was very impressed. Since my baby girl struggles with gaining weight anytime I see her finish her food or desert its a party! We continued our little walk and ducked into a seafood market. We picked up some smoked salmon and some tuna fish and it was all very good. During our trip we got to use our Graco duo modes stroller for the first time. It fit both kids wonderfully and they were very comfy riding around the harbor. I cant wait to make another trip to the coast soon!

   

Ode to Coffee and Self Care

As any working mother knows you don’t just have one job, your first trill time job is the kids, followed by your second job that helps pay the bills or pays them altogether, then you start adding other jobs for me I’m also a full time college student, a national guard soldier, an athlete training for a half marathon and a blogger. My schedule can get crazy at my peak college and running time my schedule looked like something like this:
wake up at 4am get dressed and out the door to run.
post run clean up and at work by 7am
7-3:330pm work
3:30pm-10pm play with the kids, clean the house, cook dinner, bathe kids, read stories, sing songs and tuck in kids.
10:00pm-11:30pm study and do homework
11:30 try to fall asleep quickly so I can start over.

This little guy (coffee) is about the only way I survived those weeks and months of craziness with an infant and a 2 year old. So today while I’m waxing a bit poetic about how thankful I am for coffee and how much it has saved my life and my career, I want to point out that I was taking on way too much and while getting some help may not always be an option slowing down and taking a breath is. The house doesn’t always have to spotless, dinner doesn’t always have to be a 4 course affair, you and I are allowed to pop in a frozen lasagna and forget to do dishes once in a while. Kids don’t care about any of that they just want a happy parent that shows them how loved they are. So yes Love your coffee but also love yourself enough to know when it’s time to rest.

Well hello there!

I am so glad you found your way here! First I would love to introduce you to my inspiration chicken nugget and fruit snack!Chicken nugget is my youngest and she will eat just about anything you put in front of her! She is still nursing and we supplement when I’m at work. This girl is the smiliest happy baby I have ever met, but I am probably more than a little bias. She is starting to stand up on her own away from the furniture which is pretty cool for only being 7 months old! We are combo feeding her so she gets both purees and table food depending on who she is with and what we have going on.
 Next is her big sister Fruit Snacks! This girl is crazy! She loves to run around and hates to be still. She also dislikes any food that isn’t candy or potato chips and clothes. She really hates wearing clothes. Her current favorite thing to eat is of course fruit snacks! She is struggling to gain weight mostly because she won’t sit still long enough to eat more than a few bites of anything at a time. She talks all the time and loves singing. Both of my girls love movies and they are absolutely in love with the movie Emojis right now. I know how important it is for children to see the world and get to enjoy all the beauty that lives here. I think its equally important for them to get a chance to see and help with the less beautiful parts of life. I am desperate to travel with my children, for them to see the highs and lows of all the places here on earth. To find compassion for those less fortunate and strive to build their own version of the American dream once they are of an age to start.  Life with my girls and the hubby can be a little crazy which is why I wanted this place to share in all the fun and craziness that we get into on a regular basis! I hope you enjoy this safe and fun space!