Slice of Life – July 13th, 2016

This Wednesday morning is a great Wednesday morning! We have nowhere to be today, it’s pouring cats and dogs outside, Sadie is knocked out in her swing, Hadley is snuggled on the floor with a pillow and her favorite blanket watching Disney Jr., and I feel totally guilt-free about still being in my pajamas parked on the couch. We welcome days like this with open arms when they come along!

Here’s a brief slice of our lives from the last few days. 🙂

I mentioned in my recent post about transitioning Sadie to her crib that sometimes she comes into our bed in the morning to nurse and snooze a bit more, and this picture proves just how comfy she gets sometimes. We adore watching her tiny little body get lost in our big bed. 🙂 I know many people have strong opinions about putting babies on their bellies, but this is the way our girl finds the most secure to sleep. I’m a belly sleeper and so was Hadley when she was an infant/young toddler.

Last week some of our best friends from Fort Campbell stopped in for a quick visit! They were moving from Colorado to Ohio, and our little Kansas town was right along their route. Hadley was THRILLED to have friends at her house overnight. When she woke up and saw that Grace and Landon were still here, she said “Aw my friends are here!” with the biggest smile. Noel (their mom) and I constantly talk about how much we wish these kids could spend more time together. Grace and Hadley are only seven weeks apart!

We took this picture last July during their visit. Obviously they’ve all done a bit of growing. 🙂

And we’ve added another little person to the group pic. Landon did so good holding Sadie. 🙂 PS – If you look closely, you’ll notice that Hadley’s shoes are on the wrong feet. She loves putting on her own shoes and does a great job at it, but getting the right shoe on the right foot is a total guessing game!

Jamie and Jeremy loved having their guy time like always. It was so nice to see you, Jeremy!

Last Sunday afternoon I spent a couple of hours at our local Hyvee grocery store participating in their freezer meal class. Our MOPS advisor recently spoke highly of these monthly classes, so a few of us from MOPS signed up to go together. For $140 and two hours of my time, I came home with 10 freezer meals (each with four servings) and was pretty tickled pink! Each participant was in charge of putting together one whole meal for the group to take home, so I had to make 13 bags of my designated meal. So easy. We’ve made three of the 10 meals so far (one breakfast and two dinners) and enjoyed all of them. Nearly all of them are crock pot meals, which is my favorite part of this class. Sometimes there is just no time or energy left at the end of the day to cook a meal, so crock pot meals are a slam dunk in my book!

I love watching the imagination of my 2.5 year old. A couple days ago Sadie and I sat in Hadley’s room watching her play with her dollhouse, and my heart was so happy. I never imagined how thrilling and rewarding it would feel to watch your child’s imagination blossom in front of your eyes. If you don’t think I’m totally cheesy and weird then surely you know what I’m talking about. 🙂

Look who’s filled out enough to comfortably sit in her Bumbo seat?! She’s only 2.5 months old but she’s already half of Hadley’s weight! It’s fun to watch her grow.

Every once in a blue moon Hadley skips her naps simply because she can’t sleep, but 100% of the time this does not go over well. By 6 p.m. she was in full “diva mode” as we tenderly call it, so Jamie gave her an early bath at 6:30 and put her to bed to read and relax for a bit. At 7:30 we went in to her room to turn off her lamp, and both us FELL APART when we saw that she was asleep under that book – legs crossed and everything! We literally had to bolt out of the room to keep from waking her up from our laughter!

So there’s no beating around the bush with this one. Last night I had a slight freak out moment when some friends started tagging me in a post of mine that Kathie Lee & Hoda’s Facebook page had shared.

 

A few hours later I noticed that the TODAY Show page with 5.4 million followers shared it as well! I poured so much of my heart and raw emotion in this post that I wrote a month ago, and to see the sentiments that people were relating to and touched by my words made my heart nearly burst! I know that this is just a brief high as a writer that will fade as fast as it sprung about, but it’s given me a little bit more fire and validation to keep on doing what I love, which is writing, documenting, connecting, and so much more that this blog allows me to do.

It was probably no big deal to the social media managers from the TODAY Show to share my post, but it meant the world to me.

 

Let’s chat!

1.) Were any of your babies natural belly sleepers?

2.) Do you have any favorite freezer meals? If so, I’d love if you left them in the comments (feel free to link to your own posts!)