Monday rambles

Hope you all had a fantastic weekend! Our was filled with bike rides, pools, hikes, mountain creek playing, donuts at the park and as much out door time as possible. I can feel summer slipping away and I feel this panic that I didn't get everything that I wanted to. I feel this way every year at the end of summer.

I guess you can tell it's been a good/busy weekend when I took exactly 4 pictures..and 3 of them at a delicious deep dish pizza place we finally tried. SO good. I am boring and usually just get cheese pizza, preferably with a LOT of cheese. But this time I tried the special, a greek slice and it didn't disappoint at all. I may or may not have been thinking about that slice of pizza ever since…

We finally got Tindra registered for pre school for the fall, and my first thought as soon as I completed registration was "Yaay she gets to go to school!" and my second, immediately after thought was "AGH  she's going to preschool!" and feeling super sad about it.  My big girl is growing up! But it will be So good for her! And if I can manage to get Soren to nap during that time, think of all the things I can accomplish! Maybe clean laundry won't sit for weeks waiting to be folded!

And now we are off to the park! As soon as Soren decides to wake up! He always decides to take nice long naps when we have plans…but I never wake a sleeping baby unless ABSOLUTELY necessary.

Happy Monday!

Quaker Real Medley Breakfast On The Go

 This #QuakerRealMedleys shop has been compensated #CollectiveBias Inc, and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone.

Before we left for our North Carolina road trip last month I had decided I didn't want to be eating out a lot while there and also while road tripping for a few reasons. One reason, I was going to be solo a lot of it with three kids, and lets face it..eating out with them is not exactly relaxing. Reason two, we have started eating a lot healthier, and while I knew we wouldn't completely be able to keep it up I wanted to try to eat as healthy as possible during our 3 weeks of traveling. Road trips usually equal crap food for us, so this time I did a little planning and brought healthier snacks like cheese sticks, granola bars, mini bags of pretzels, fruit etc. Breakfasts on the go are a little harder, but luckily I discovered the new Quaker® Real Medleys® Yogurt Cups at Walmart while I was there picking up the last of our beach necessities. 

Quaker® Real Medleys® Yogurt Cups are a delicious blend of yogurt and multigrain granola with real fruit and crunchy nuts, and all you have to do is add cold milk to the cup, mix and enjoy! Tindra drinks more milk than anyone I know so we always have to travel with milk in a cooler for her so this was such a good alternative to any other breakfast on the go for us. Nothing like this before has been on the shelves, filled with 25 grams of whole grain and 10 grams of protein with 3 amazing flavors to choose from; Apple Cinnamon, Raspberry Pecan and Strawberry Almond they are Crunchy.Cool.Yum. Jasper's favorite was the Apple Cinnamon while Strawberry Almond was definitely mine and Tindra's favorite. They are both so satisfying and delicious! And a great way to get your morning protein in. 

I enjoyed the Quaker® Real Medleys® Yogurt Cups by themselves just with cold milk added but I made it a few different ways for the kiddo's and think I found a favorite. 

First add milk (we use whole milk) stir and let sit for 2 minutes.

Next add some fresh berries.

Add some granola for a bit extra crunch

and lastly sprinkle with coconut flakes.

In the word of Tindra "Deeeeeeelicious" 

Walmart will be having demos in store so make sure you check here to see if there are going to be demos near you! *Hint Denver readers, the Walmart in Englewood is having them August 13-16! 

And for more delicious recipes check out  QuakerLove.com and let me know your favorites! 

Also download the Blippar app from your Apple or Android store to scan your package and receive information tutorials on Quaker® Real Medleys® Yogurt Cups.

..and he's 8

I don't know how it happened but my beautiful 8 pound 9 oz baby boy turned 8 in the blink of an eye. I can't even begin to tell you how fast the last 8 years have gone. Or how amazing, sweet, smart, curious, charismatic he is. I don't have the words to adequately describe him. There's just No one in this world quite like my Jasper and I'm so incredibly grateful I was chosen to be his mom. 
And a picture of my little man on all of his birth days. It's so hard to understand how he went from that little (kind of big) bundle of a baby to the big boy he is today. 

This year we celebrated him by spending the day at Elitch's, Denver's amusement park. He thought it was pretty amazing that he was finally tall enough to do the crazy roller coasters. Tindra was disappointed there were so many rides she couldn't do- she's a dare devil and wanted to do them all! But everyone had so much fun! Even Soren got to ride his first ride. 

And soon he's off to 3rd grade! He's so excited but I'm not quite ready for him to go back yet. We still have so much summer to pack into two short weeks! 

Months 3 and 4

I've said it a few times, but this summer has just been pure craziness. Mostly in a good way! We just got back last night for our last trip for a while, and while we were gone Soren turned 4 months! On his 3rd month birthday he was on a 9 hr road trip back from Jackson Hole, and on his 4 month birthday he was on a 13 hr road trip from Des Moines, IA to Asheville, NC. Clearly a well traveled little man already!  Things I want to remember at 4 months (okay 4 and a half now!)  Sleep: Nope not happening currently. His naps are crap and he basically needs to be held or he doesn't sleep. Need to work on that now that we are back from our 3 week vacation.. he's been waking up to eat every 90 minutes for the last few weeks also so basically I'm living off of coffee.. and naps. Nursing: Ever 2-3 hrs during the day and a l l l l l l l l l night l o o o o o o o o n g. The last week I wrote down every time he nursed. 14-15 times in 24 hrs. Anywhere from 15 minutes at a time to an hour. So basically he was attached to my body at all times. At least I was on vacation and had my mamma there to help with the big kids! We had Soren's 4 month check up today and he's in the 70th percentile for height and has dropped to the 7th percentile for weight. Our pediatrician isn't worried at all but naturally I freaked a bit. We go back in in 2 weeks for a weight check per my insistence so we will see how he is doing then. He gained 2 pounds and 2 inches so it's not like he didn't grow, just thinned out a bit. He's still got some delicious looking leg rolls though!
He rolled from back to front (once) in North Carolina but has yet to roll from stomach to back. He just hates tummy time. He's probably going to walk before he crawls at this rate!
And some pictures taken at Red Rocks from some old HS friends who were here visiting! If you are in the Iowa area, check out sweet little you photography

View right now

This is my current view right now and the reason for the blog silence.. Can you really blame me? 

Summer Deep Cleaning Part 1

This #savewithbubbles shop has been compensated by #CollectiveBias Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone.
So remember a few weeks ago when I said that I was going to take this summer and really get our house organized on top of regular deep cleaning after this pregnancy? Well I finally got started in the past couple of weeks. Finally being the key word. It was long over due!
After this pregnancy of being so horribly sick for the first 4 months and so ridiculously exhausted and sore the last few months of it followed up with the craziness and exhaustion that comes with having a newborn in the house again (plus two other kiddos this time!) and it's safe to say undertaking has been long over due. 
The method that works best for me when deep cleaning/organizing/purging is just take it one room at a time. Or one closet at a time. My major projects this past week were;
1: Organize the 'junk cabinet' that somehow has become over the past two years of living here, the place we store random crap. 2: Organize the front hall closet where we store all of our winter gear. 3: Organize and deep clean the upstairs bathroom, probably my least favorite task.
I'm more than slightly embarrassed to be showing you the before pictures of these projects. That's how bad they were. But hopefully you guys won't judge me too harshly. 
This is basically where everything in our house that doesn't have a proper home goes. And over the past two years its gotten beyond ridiculous. I've been meaning to organize this cabinet for over a year, but as you can see it's a daunting project. But finally I just did it. And I'm so glad I did! Two huge bags went straight into the garbage. Mostly old paper work, a lot of it from Jasper's school. Old mail. Things that got brought to the car for long trips and then brought back into the house ended up in here. 
I made a pile for Drew to take things out to the garage. A pile of school work of Jasper's we want to add to his big 'keep forever' bin, things like special projects, stories he's written etc. I kept the blue bin in there for pictures that haven't made it into an album, a shelf for photography things that I don't want tossed in my huge props container in the basement, a shelf for some quick craft things the kids can do when I'm making dinner, and of course some miscellaneous things. It doesn't look great, but it's a huge improvement and at least now I can find what I need in there! 

Early every summer when we are finally done getting snow by organizing front closet. It gets super disorganized and messy by the kids grabbing their winter gear and not doing a stellar job putting it away where it belongs. But if it ends up in the coat closet vs. on the floor I'm mostly a happy mom. 

I used to sort it by hats/gloves/scarves etc, but this year I decided to do it by person, so each family member has their own bin in the closet with hats/gloves etc. I'm hoping that helps them with putting their items in the correct bin, instead of just thrown in like shown above.  And the finished product. One day I want a huge entry way with a better system for organization, but this will do for now as storage is hard to come by in these brick Denver bungalows.

And my last big project this week, the upstairs bathroom. I can't even blame this mess on anyone but myself because really I'm the only one who keeps things in there. I still hadn't unpacked my toiletries from our Jackson Hole trip so there is it sitting on the counter. And since we have been gone so much the past 6 weeks I haven't been able to get our cleaner to come in and do my normal bathroom deep clean so I had to do it by myself. I know, poor me. 

Since our cleaner usually brings her own supplies I first went to Dollar General to pick up some cleaning supplies. For the bathrooms, I picked up Scrubbing Bubbles® Bathroom Cleaner and Scrubbing Bubbles® Toilet Cleaning Gel.  

My bathroom counters were especially gross because Tindra woke up from her nap the other day and snuck out of her bedroom and into the bathroom and dumped an entire container of leave in conditioner everywhere. I did a quick clean up, but the counters and floors were still pretty sticky. A quick spray of the Disinfectant Scrubbing Bubbles® Bathroom Cleaner and a wipe down and they were good as new! I didn't even have to scrub, just wipe them down.

 If you want to give it a try, from July 12-August 2nd Scrubbing Bubbles® will have some great coupons ( $.50 off any Scrubbing Bubbles® Bath product, $1 off any Scrubbing Bubbles® Toilet Cleaning Gel product and $.50 off anyScrubbing Bubbles® All Purpose Cleaner) on savewithbubbles.com.
Next up on my whole house organization and deep clean..our bedroom closets! Any tips for those? 

Wilmington/Wrightsville Beach recommendations?

The count down is on! Next friday we will be arriving for a week at the beach! I'm so excited! I was there once 3 (almost 4!) years ago for my sister's wedding, but it was just a quick 3 day weekend and I was 8 weeks pregnant with Tindra and sick the whole time. This time I can't wait to go explore! Has anyone been? Have any must sees and must do's with kids? Favorite restaurants? Where should I go for THE best iced coffee? I have my priorities obviously! If you've been, please share!!