Links to Amazon are affiliate links.
A few years ago I completed my bucket list item of seeing ALL the Oscar Best Picture Nominees prior to Oscar night. Since then it's become a yearly goal and Katie has been ALL about it so we work at knocking out all the films together. If this is a goal you have then the biggest piece of advice I can offer is to keep an eye on predictions. See as many of the predicted nominees as you can as they are released to theaters. Theaters don't always keep Oscar buzz movies long and you have to stay on top of it. Sometimes they are released to dvd prior to awards night...but sometimes they are in this weird limbo where the movie isn't out in theaters but also isn't out to rent. The KEY to our success has been to see as many as we can as they come out! We go a lot off the buzz and the Golden Globe nominees. But if you wait for the actual Oscar Nominations to be released to start? You will not have time or the ability to finish 'em all! This year I was less involved in th...
We are a few months shy of our 10 year anniversary. 10 years y'all! In those 10 years our marriage has seen many times of ups and downs. Some downs are lower than others just like some of the ups are higher than others too. All marriages have those periods of hilltops and valleys and while it's easy to say you're going to always strive for the hilltops, valleys WILL and DO happen. Mine and my husband's goal for the times of valleys is to keep them as shallow and narrow as possible. And each time we hit a wider, deeper valley we want to get back on that upward climb having grown closer together through the lessons they valley time taught us. Rough times are times for growth (both personal and in our relationship) and by working through those tough times together, we're able to have taller and wider hilltop times! Find yourself in a marriage valley? Here are some the ways we personally work to get out of a marriage rut: 1. Apologize First: Whew. It's HAR...
Car seat safety is super important. We all know this. This means no wearing big winter coats while strapped into a car seat. That makes sense from a safety standpoint. But as someone who has lived in chilly climates I also know that, well, babies get cold ! Ideally we could all warm up our cars and then load our babies, never exposing them to the chill. But that isn't always feasible. I for one spent last winter living in a home with an outside parking place around the corner from where we lived. I had to get a two and half year old and newborn twins out to the car by myself in freezing weather. Even if you do have a warm garage to load up in once you are out you can't just leave your kids in the store while you go warm up the car. So you need to be able to keep kids warm in a cold car. Here are some tips on how to keep your babies warm in their car seats, while still keeping them safe. 1) Thin layers. Th...
I am not hardcore about a timeline of when to transition a toddler from a crib to a bed. For us, it's always been about me being pregnant and wanting that toddler to adjust to life in the bed well before the new baby arrives and takes over the toddler's crib ;) With Tess though, I'm not pregnant. However, we are adopting and a baby WILL be joining our family. Even though we have zero clue when that will be! We have been on break with our adoption and will be starting to work with agencies and hopefully being matched with a birth mom soon so we wanted to go ahead and get the nursery rolling and get Tess adjusted to the big kid bed. She's never had a single issue with the crib. None of our kids have ever tried to climb out of it or have seemed like they "needed" the big bed. We have just always made the transition due to timing with our growing family. Our last baby will probably stay in a crib till he's 10 ;) You can see how the transition from crib t...
Britt had her 5 year well visit on Monday Feb 6th. I'm always pretty hardcore about scheduling EARLY morning appointments for my kids, especially with school and everything. But the dr called me and changed her appointment time to 10:45. So that meant I just had to get both her and Tess out of school for the appointment as I knew I wouldn't be able to make it back to the school in time to pick up Tess! I'm so thankful for such easy going, well behaved girls as the long wait was a non-issue (even when the tv in the waiting room was off!). It is a benefit of the kids getting older...life is def easier ;) Getting weighed and measured! Hearing and vision tests! I am never nervous about hearing because both Zach and I have great hearing...but vision always makes me nervous. I got glasses in 2nd grade so I'm just WAITING for my kids to need 'em. But Britt did great on both checks and passed them both with no concerns! I will probably wait until...
