Here's to Summer...

Spring has painted us green with pollen and sprung a busy season upon us. In Sesame Street style, April is brought to us by the letter "B" and "Busy" is the word of month. Baseball, birthdays and baby showers. A Raleigh refinance, adding a part-time job, and Easter oh my! Oh. my. Wait, is it May already?!

If I'm honest with myself, I tend to glorify being "busy." I love myself a full and colorful calendar. Penning playdates, mops meetings and this or that appointment on my beloved dry erase board gives me joy and dare I say...pride? Somewhere along the road in this stay at home mom life I think I confused "busy" with "important." As if a mommy and me gymnastics practice or a junior women's club meeting gave my day to day life more meaning...validation even. Lie. Enter the glorification of busy. I have so many thoughts here, and could go on for a while but I digress...the point being, that when so many peripheral things fill up our schedule, the most important things tend to get pushed to the side. Quality time with my family for one. And I'm pretty sure that's my love language-quality time.

Tickling and chasing and spinning the morning away in our pajamas, rather than rushing out the door in a tizzy dressed down in wrinkled shirts and grumpy faces. Time spent teaching and loving and snuggling my boys who are growing way too fast. Time spent face to face at the kitchen table, talking and teaching table manners- not rushed through the "Old McDonald had a farm's" drive through on the way to this or that. How about freshly laundered clothes that get washed, dried AND put away in the same day(okay, that last one may be a bit ambitious-crazy talk even-laundry will never be my top priority lol!).  All that to say, it's easy to become busy with the wrong things, and loose sight of the most important thing. My continued prayer in this season is that the Lord would give us wisdom to be busy about the things that do matter, to truly treasure the gifts He's given us and cut away those things that waste our time and energy. Lately I've been feeling a little overwhelmed with all we've got going on this month, and as a result I'm sure have not been the very best wife and mom I could be. In this place, I am thankful for grace and new mornings-and the promise of summer on the horizon.

Not that I'm putting all of my eggs in the summer basket, but yes, I'm putting some pressure on this next season. I'm not one to be lazy at all, but can I just tell you how much I'm looking forward to those proverbial lazy days of summer. Practically I think it will be a slower couple of months for us. For one, work is settling into a nice rhythm now that I'm mostly over the learning curve, and our refinance is now behind us-whew! Baseball will soon come to an end, MOPS and church activities will take a break. If ever we needed to rest, I feel the weight of it now-and how perfect, summer to the rescue!

I pray summer leaves us refocused, re-energized, content in all things and-a little less busy. And not to mention, gorgeously tan...

Okay, that last one was Olaf speaking-I'll go ahead and date stamp this post with a nod to "Frozen.";-)

Meal Planning...May

Bump meal planning Monday, I'm ready to blow it out of the water this month with meal planning May! Yes, I'm taking back the kitchen-and my grocery budget. Let's see how far we get in before Taco Bell intervenes. I've never done anything like this before, but I'm tired of busting the budget- and honestly I'm a glutton for punishment. If I'm halfway successful, I hope this post will serve as a good bookmark for future meal planning purposes as I've laid out most of family favorites.

*It should be noted that...

• I took a good look at our calendar before planning to avoid getting too sidetracked. So in case you're wondering why the week starts on a Thursday, I let the calendar be my guide. I'm open to better suggestions!
• I'm giving myself $50 for "sidetracked"...because I'm a realist.
• I set a budget of $350 for the month-that's four weeks for a family of four.
• I don't usually include weekends in my regular planning, hence the sprinkling of frozen dinners.
• As you can see, I reserved (on avg) one day each week for eating out. Listed below are just the dinner plans...who knows what we'll have for lunch. Leftovers, smoothies, salami and crackers, and tons of chicken nuggets is my guess.

and....

I'm planning to fail, so no pressure in this kitchen!

Week 1
(Th May 1) Macaroni-a family favorite
(F May 2) Evan's birthday party with friends-TBD
(S May 3) Grandma's in town, we're eating out!
(S May 4) Tomato soup and grill cheese sandwiches
(M May 5) BBQ chicken pizza (Baseball game)
(T May 6) Oven baked chicken, asparagus and red potatoes
(W May 7) Breakfast for dinner-pancakes, sausage and fruit

Week 2
(Th 8) Grilled chicken and roasted veggies(mixed bag from farmers market)
(F 9) Spaghetti (baseball)
(S 10) Soft tacos and Spanish rice
(S 11) Eat out in Raleigh for Mother's Day
(M 12) Spinach stuffed manicotti with garlic bread
(T 13) Kids eat free night at Moes Southwest!
(W 14) Salad with roasted veggies a la farmers market(church)

Week 3
(Th 15) Wil Med hospice event-dinner provided
(F 16) Eat out-burgers and (baseball)
(S 17) Chicken Parmesan 
(S 18) Minestrone soup (church)
(M 19) Steak, corn and broccoli
(T 20) BBQ chicken quesadillas
(W 21) Frozen pizza (baseball)

Week 4
(Th 22)Mom's night out-Olive Garden
(F 23) Chicken poppy seed casserole
(S 24) Baked ziti
(S 25) Breakfast for dinner- hashbrown casserole
(M 26) Vegetable stir fry
(T 27) Chicken tettrazini
(W 28) Cheese quesadillas

(Th 29) Burgers and (baseball)
(F 30) Lasagna a la Stoffers
(S 31) Arroz con pollo

Keep me accountable folks, how I would love to post a success story come June! 
PS-This took me an hour and a half. #worthit #Ihopeso

Captions

Buzz says it all. And no, I would'nt change a thing! Here's a little glimpse into our life lately as we get ready for Spring. Basically, this is a small sampling of the pictures on my camera from the last week or so. A friendly warning before you forge ahead(or, scroll below)...there will be clutter!

 

 This past weekend we got a gorgeous taste of Spring. Saturday morning greeted us with plenty of sunshine and so we took advantage. First, we loaded up the boys and their scooters and tried out our local skatepark for the first time. My instagram contained the hashtag #accidentwaitingtohappen because truly I'm not ready to enter this new space of boy world. After riding around a few minutes we played at the park before grabbing a few cupcakes from a new bakery in town and heading home. The above picture was taken post nap, pre-bath(thus the lack of clothing) and was fast gone. I'm still working on pulling out the artsy craftsy genes. However, it was fun while it lasted!

And here...well this is the perfect picture of an everyday occurance in this household. Iron man racing cars in his bed(who knows how many are parked underneath those sheets!). Bennett is pictured below, sporting his infamous "whodoneit" face...guilty as charged, I believe he jammed some cheerios in that unfortunate jack in the box.

The sillies last all day with this littlest boy. From using his tactical maneuvers to avoid getting dressed, to playing pretend on the potty(no comment), this boy keeps me on my toes.

This is our couch most mornings. Otherwise captioned "I spy." I may or  may not have picked up a few things before taking this picture lol, but such is life with littles. I try to pick up before we leave the house, but this is a more accurate picture of what we sit on in real life...clotheshangers!

This morning we went to the library. I've said it before and I'll say it again, we love our local library! I've included these pictures here because these books are dearly loved in our house, and I can't imagine a normal week without storytime. Rain or shine, the library is always open!

How adorable is this picture below? My handsome big boy was insistent on wearing his bow-tie this particular morning to look nice for a sweet friend of his. They grow up so fast!

Lastly, I couldn't do a completely sporadic overview of our life lately without this pup. This is an older picture, but it captures this doggie's everyday space very well. That is, when he's not terrorizing the boy's toys or laying in wait near the breakfast table.

That's all folks. I hope to start posting more often...I see home improvement projects on the horizon!

Stop and smell the...lunchable?

Sometimes, motherhood can prove an monotanous task. Coffee, cheerios, wipe, change, bathe, laundry, Yooooo Gabba Gabba, snack, repeat...I love my job as a stay at home mom and would'nt change it for the world. Looking down at the shaggy haired boy attached to my leg while I attempt to load the dishwasher, I'm a lucky girl. A bigger boy's voice from the top of the stairs calling "I need to you wipe my booty!!" Yep, lucky again.

But even I'm not superwoman. Sometimes, this task gets wearisome. It's a heavy load raising these precious gifts(heck, it's tiring just to take them to Aldi by myself!). And yet, I'm happy to say I caught small, bright break in the clouds today over this little one's lunchable. Small wonders.

 Just take it in-look at that face! In the business of the mundane, underneath the whining and mess of the morning, look at what I was missing.

 Cheese?! Literally, I asked him to say cheese and he shows off the real thing. Ha!

 How sweet this boy is, and how blessed I am to be his mommy.

Today I'm thankful for this tiny moment to blur the business around me and stop and smell the...lunchable.

#RealLife