Hello and Happy Friday, friends! We have a couple fun things on tap for the weekend, but we’re going to try to squeeze in as much rest as we can before we hop a flight to Florida on Monday! Our niece is already two months old and we’re so excited to meet her and kiss her cheeks! My sister and her family are stationed down at Eglin AFB, and their house is only a quick five minute walk to the beach. We are stoked to soak up a beach vacation and plenty of family time all in one trip.
After eight wonderful days of hosting my mom here in Kansas, she’ll be hopping a plane herself tonight to head back home to Alabama. We’ll miss having her around so much but I’m really thankful for the fun we had while she was here.
After I picked her up in Kansas City last week, we shopped around and ate at IKEA for a couple hours before making the trek back to Manhattan. Hadley knows she always gets ice cream when her grandparents are around, so I wasn’t shocked in the slightest when she asked my mom for an ice cream cone within an hour of her arrival. 🙂
Almost Jamie’s entire shop of soldiers is on block leave this month, so he’s been home every day between 4 and 5 (sometimes earlier!) the last couple of weeks. We are loving it but know busier schedules are around the corner once he takes company command in September.
Our PAT teacher came for her monthly visit last Friday, and Hadley loved one of the activities she planned! We grabbed one of my baking sheets and her teacher put shaving cream all over it and let Hadley have a ball for the next 15-20 minutes. We used our fingers to work on shapes, write letters and numbers, and just plain make a mess. 🙂 Super fun idea for toddlers that actually wasn’t messy at all since everything was contained on the baking sheet.
Last weekend was a scorcher with highs around 106, so any outdoor time was spent in the early morning hours. We splashed around the Blue Earth Plaza water area last Saturday morning for a while and enjoyed the fresh air before hunkering down inside the rest of the day. Thank goodness the heat wave broke after just a few days. Whew.
My little four-legged child was insanely happy to see Mom and has pretty much spent the entire week glued to her (when she’s not holding one of the girls.) Also, notice Mom’s crown! Hadley is super into pretend play right now, so anyone who plays along with her and dresses up is a winner in her book!
Last weekend was the Riley County fair, and even though the heat tempted us to skip it, we decided that sweat wouldn’t kill us and enjoyed the fun. 🙂
Mom bought 10 tickets for Hadley to use for rides, but we think Hadley had a little bit of a headache after about five rides, so we decided to call it quits. Jamie and I both went on a couple rides with Hadley while mom helped push around Sadie, so I decided to take her on a ride with our final couple of tickets. I was proud when she picked one of the more “intense” rides to go on, but I could tell she was nervous as we climbed on because of how much she was talking and giggling. The ride lasted about two minutes, and she screamed and “wooed” the entire ride! Her wails were making me laugh so hard that I had tears dripping off my nose! The fair wasn’t very big, so I knew that the people down below could likely all hear her and were probably getting a kick out of it! She definitely got a #coolgrandma award for riding this kind of ride that was full of mostly just teenagers. She told me later that that was her first ride in 15 years. Gah… so much fun. I love you, Mom. 🙂

We brought Mom to our church on Sunday, and I snapped this cute picture as we walked to our car.
We’ve spent a few mornings at the playground this week because right now the playground is this girl’s favorite place to be.
On Wednesday we got both of the girls ready for bed and then dashed out for a date night at 4 Olives, a local wine bar (the largest in Kansas.) We enjoyed a couple drinks, a shared cheese plate, dessert, and most importantly conversation that was completely uninterrupted for almost two straight hours. Yes, please.
And that’s our most recent slice of life. 🙂 I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
Hi! I’m Erica, and I absolutely adore sharing my life on this website with you! I come here almost daily to blab about all of the things related to being a regular wife and mother in today’s ever-evolving society. I share about our new home, what’s on our kitchen table, what we’re hanging in our closets, where we’re traveling to next, my crazy 5 a.m. work outs, how I make time for girlfriends, our faith, and much more. We always have a lot of balls in the air and somewhat thrive on the chaos. I believe in the power of story-telling as a form of inspiration and entertainment, so I’m here to do both! I was born and raised in north Alabama and recently re-planted roots here again after my husband transitioned out of the Army (he is now in the Reserve and it’s going so well!) I’m a super proud mom to three little girls (ages 7, 4, and 1) who seem to be the stars of the show around here (for good reason – they’re pretty great!) I’m so glad you found me and are here reading! I hope we can get to know each other here on the blog as well as Facebook and/or Instagram. xoxo