family is everything

catch the moment: wk 15

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest

It’s been a good week! Busy, but good. Seems like all of the sudden lots of appointments, plans, and obligations popped up out of nowhere and they are keeping us running from one place to the next. It’s going to be like that for the next couple of weeks so we’ll just roll with it. Thank goodness for Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday huh? We really recharged this past weekend. We had beautiful weather, accomplished a lot at home, spent good family time together, and went into Monday ready to face the week. Now? Well…I’m looking forward to the weekend again.

Linking up with Mindi at Stavish Stills Photography, Carrie at My Life, Our Journey, and Stephanie at Behind the Camera and Dreaming.

099/365: Thursday, April 9th. Our monthly moms-night-out dates have gotten a little more sporadic, but Angie and I still make a point to get together for dinner when our schedules allow. Thunderstorms were predicted but we ended up with a gorgeous warm night with clear skies. We enjoyed a long talk at dinner and a long walk afterwards. 04-09-2015

100/365: Friday, April 10th. Dexter Jay was not impressed by the dryers at the car wash. He requested that we never, ever go through the car wash again. Anyone else’s kid terrified of loud noises? Diesel trucks…hand dryers…automatically flushing toilets…hope he grows out of this soon.04-10-2015

101/365: Saturday, April 11th. One of the tasks on my to-do list (that I was actually looking forward to) Saturday was to add up all the money in our Disney savings jar. After just a little over 6 months, I was excited to find out that we’d saved almost $300 (okay a good bit of it was generously donated – thank you, friends and family). We’ll use this money for snacks and souvenirs. It may not go too far at Disney World when we’re there in a few weeks, but every little bit helps!04-11-2015

102/365: Sunday, April 12th. Loungin’ around in the evening after bathtime. We spent a lot of time outside playing and working and eating and exploring …as the weekend was winding down I felt a little sense of desperation. It was SUCH a nice weekend at home and I didn’t want it to end. I’d really been missing my kids during the work week and they were super fantastic to be around all weekend (which we all know isn’t always the case with 3 and 5 year olds). It was just what I needed.04-12-2015

103/365: Monday, April 13th. Indiana knows sunrises. And sunsets.04-13-2015

104/365: Tuesday, April 14th. After school Lego play time. 04-14-2015

105/365: Wednesday, April 15th. (Happy Tax Day!) We actually received these last Friday but I didn’t get around to taking a picture of them with my DSLR that day. The boys were so excited. We talked about what the MagicBands were for. We are definitely counting down the days until we return to Walt Disney World. And does anyone else in the world have a 5 year old child who requests gray when given a variety of bright, fun colors to choose from? No? Just Theo. Okay…04-15-2015We are enjoying this time of year and looking forward to vacation. Current drama…our childcare plan for the summer fell through so we are currently in the middle of trying to figure out (AGAIN) what we will do. I’m actually not freaking out too hard, surprisingly enough. I know it will work out. I don’t necessarily believe that things happen for a reason, but I do believe that sometimes things work out the way they do for the best. Hopefully I’ll be able to cross this big question mark off my list soon.

Which photo is your favorite? None of them are amazing but I like them all because they represent a good week. A solid, good week in 2015. I’ll take more of those, please.

xo,

~C~

a family fun weekend with my sis

Gallery posted on by mommyinthemidwest

My sister Cher and her family were not able to make the trip from Tennessee for Theo’s 5th birthday party. Instead, they came up the following weekend. I was initially disappointed that they couldn’t make it, but this turned out to be quite the blessing in disguise. They are so involved in their church and school and sports that when we visit them, they are often running between spending time with us and upholding their other obligations and schedules. Since they came the weekend after the party, we had nothing planned and were able to really soak up the time together. I loved it and have thought about them and missed them that much more since they went back home. We had such a wonderful visit of uninterrupted quality time together.

They arrived late Friday night. The first order of business on Saturday morning was to head an hour east to Richmond, IN to visit our grandma and the kids’ great-grandma. They’re so lucky to have a great grandparent still living. I hope they all cherish the time they have with her.  The big kids, Malachi and Isabella, wanted to ride with us in our car.

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Part of our day was spent at Veach’s Toy Station, a toy store that Cher and I visited as kids before we moved to Tennessee in 1987. It was so much fun and a really cool and unique toy shop.001 002 003

Hanging out at Grandma’s.004

I know this is so, so grainy and not a great picture but I couldn’t resist – big sis cuddles to heal Penelope’s boo boo.005

And a little daddy-daughter down time.20150314_175053

Snuggles with “mamaw.”20150314_18462420150314_175226

Finally, it was time to head back to Indianapolis and we had some beautiful scenery in the sky to help make the drive more interesting. 20150314_193105

Sunday we grilled lunch at home before visiting the Indianapolis Museum of Art to take advantage of free general admission (until April 7, local peeps!). By looking online, you’d think that the IMA is pretty kid-friendly. We only found one area where we really felt that way (Star Studio), but we made the most of it and tried to ignore the staff that followed us around and warned us not to let the children touch this or touch that or get too close to this or breathe on that. It was a little frustrating but we did find plenty to laugh and smile about during our adventure.006 007 008

We breathed a sigh of relief when we saw this outdoor space with GIGANTIC numbers 1-10 in lovely primary colors. Perfect, an opportunity for the kids to run and climb! 20150315_15135520150315_15150920150315_151626

Well, that lasted about 2 minutes before an employee darted right out and started barking at us to get off the art.  Whoopsy. (What did you expect though, seriously?) We did find the Star Studio eventually and loved it. We spent the majority of our museum time in these 2 rooms, creating, touching, and having fun. Who knew, Dexter LOVES watercolors! We’ll have to get him some for home.009 010 011 012 013 014 015 016

One huge, awesome lite brite!017

It was a gorgeous day and one of the reasons we decided to go to the IMA was that we wanted to explore the 100 Acres park adjacent to the museum. Well…that was a bust. It looked amazing, from what we could see, but there was nowhere to park. At all. So we went to a park closer to home. 018 019 020 021Afterwards, it was too late to cook dinner so we went to the pizza place across the street. The boys were in bed early after having their sleep schedules out of whack for a couple days.  I had to work Monday so my sister and her family met me for lunch before heading back to Tennessee. It was sad to see them go, and I’m already looking forward the next time we get to spend together.

xo,

~C~

 

Theo’s 5th birthday celebration

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest

You all- I took over 400 pictures between Friday, March 6th and Monday, March 9th while we were celebrating Theo’s big FIFTH birthday so bear with me. Getting this post down to less than 40 pictures is quite an accomplishment!

We think turning five is a pretty big deal around here. A lot happens with turning 5. Kids go to Kindergarten, start reading, (hopefully) Theo will start riding his bike, can start losing teeth, and all other sorts of big kid things. It’s just like…he’s a kid now. I don’t know how to explain it. He’s just grown up so much in the past few months. He’s little, but he doesn’t seem like a little kid sometimes. He’s got a teenager’s attitude, says things to hurt our feelings when he’s mad, and can turn on the charm to get what he wants. One thing’s for sure, he keeps us on our toes.

Friday, March 6th. Theo had his birthday celebration at school. It was super hard to get pictures without his classmates’ faces in them so I just have a couple to share. Dexter and Theo were both very excited that Dexter was able to come over from his class to join the festivities. All of Theo’s grandparents were there, too.

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Theo held a little globe and walked around a wooden sun on the floor 5 times to represent each of his trips around the sun on Earth. With each year that passed, we stopped and shared a picture of what he looked like and talked about his likes and dislikes each year as he grew. Afterwards, Theo passed out bat signal-shaped rice krispie treats. They were a hit!02 03

Saturday, March 7th. Our immediate family came over for pizza before his big party. We decided to let him open family gifts beforehand to cut down on time spent opening presents during the party. He loves this step-by-step drawing book from Nana and Pop Pop.04

Another of his favorite gifts was a Lego chicken suit guy from Aunt ‘Chelle, Uncle Bob, and Spencer. It was his first Lego, ever (given to him by Spencer a couple years ago), which has been lost for a long time. He’s been saying he wished he still had it for some time now and Aunt Michelle delivered! He was overjoyed. 05

The money wasn’t terrible, either. 06

Theo’s party was from 1-230pm at a local gymnastics facility. Since there was a ninja skills training component included in the party, we went with a TMNT theme. Ryan’s mom made the cupcakes. She set up the table while my mom put together tabletop cardboard decorations. What would I do without family when I am feeling frazzled on these very exciting days??07 08 09 10

Hey, Dexter…who do you think you are? Pretty sure Theo was not the one that blew out those five candles.11

Sunday, March 8th. We still had not given Theo a gift. I’m sure he noticed, but he hadn’t mentioned it. When he came in our room in the morning and after we’d said “happy birthday” to him and given him a million hugs and kisses, I said “did you realize mommy and daddy hadn’t given you a gift yet? Well, I had an idea…” and we told him that we were leaving that day to go to Legoland Discovery Center in Chicago. He was very excited and ready to pack up and go! But not before Grammy (my mother) took us out for a big birthday breakfast – chocolate milk and all! 12 13

About 3 hours later, we rolled into Chicago.14

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My favorite thing at LDC might have been the HUUGE Lego model of the city. The detail! It was seriously impressive! The boys were in Lego heaven every minute we spent there.16 17 18 19 20 21 22

I have to brag on the staff at LDC. They were super nice. Three different staff members went out of their way to give Theo a little something special for his birthday. It was an awesome place to spend part of our day.23 24

Afterwards, of course we asked Theo what his favorite part of LDC was and he said … the store. LOL. Well shoot, we could have gone to a Lego store without driving 3+ hours and staying in a hotel overnight! He was super pumped to give this guy his OWN birthday money for a nice new Lego set. 25 26

We didn’t have a plan for dinner but we wanted to go somewhere that had cake. We’d thought about Maggiano’s because it was close but by the time we left Legoland, there was a 45 minute wait. Theo acted whiny about it and said he didn’t want cake anyway. So Ryan and I set out to find something that we didn’t have in Indianapolis. I’d seen people on Facebook who frequent Chicago talking about Portillo’s so that’s where we landed and it did not disappoint! The food was amazing and Theo was thrilled to end his big, special day with a mint chocolate milkshake (that he split in half with Dexter). Ryan may have been on sugary drink overload.28 29

Legos before bed…30

Legos when we wake up. It’s really no different from being at home, is it?31

After enjoying breakfast and some hotel pool swimming, we made it back downtown and explored Navy Pier before heading back home.32

It had to be the first nice day this year in Chicago. There were still piles of snow all over the place but it was 50 degrees and super sunny. No wind at all…I suppose the water being covered by sheets of floating ice had something to do with the lack of wind. It was perfect. Totally perfect.33 34 36 37

That dimple was one of the very first things I noticed about Theo, within seconds of him being born. It still gets me.39 40 41I can’t think of a better way we could have celebrated little Theo’s BIG fifth birthday!! Happy memories to last forever…

xo,

~C~