Being Thankful

I love Thanksgiving! I enjoy the food, time with the family, and just the overall attitude of gratefulness! I have so much to be thankful for in my life. God has blessed me with a wonderful family-- the one I was born into, the one I married into, and the one Derek and I created together! I am forever thankful for the pretty conventional stuff like my home, our health, working cars, jobs, my education, our church, the freedoms we posses in this country and the list could go on and on and on! But I'm also super thankful for other things that are super relevant in our life right now, even if they may seem a little silly.

• Our community
• Netflix
• Our Babysitters
• Mismatched socks
• Grocery Stores Kid Tactics

I had entire descriptions for each of these things, but then I realized that the post was about as long as some short books. So, I'm keeping it short today, but I will be back to talk about these! I asked Jackson to share what he is thankful for: One: Mom and Dad. Two: his blankets. And then when I absolutely made him chose a third, he added Optimus Prime and Bumble Bee. I asked Belle what she was thankful for and she said cheese and candy. True story. 

We are still over in across the state with family and last night, right around 10pm, we decided to make our way downtown for annual St. Louis Thanksgiving day parade. It was SO much fun!! We drove into a closer suburb and then hopped on a train to take us downtown. 

When you add a train ride + giant balloons + marching bands (mostly that's just for me) + yellow "Bumble Bee" cars + candy = the coolest morning ever for the kiddos. 

(and yes, Jackson is wearing a Kansas Jayhawk sweatshirt and yes, it makes me a little ill to know it will forever be etched into the memory of this Thanksgiving. But we only packed a heavy duty winter coat and it just wasn't that cold. So this was all we had to borrow from. At least it's covered in my favorite picture of the morning -- the last one! Oh, and Jackson was wearing his Missouri Tiger shirt underneath, but unfortunately I didn't take any more photos once we came home!!)

(Jackson is a surprisingly good Kazoo player!)

And this is my favorite photo from the morning! I love the Arch in the background.

We had a great day. It's been so much fun visiting our family. And may we never forget the "It's Not Gravy" moment... a story too epic to ever forget. But I'll save Belle the future embarrassment from actually posting the details. :)

Lastly, I'm SUPER thankful that seven years ago today, that Derek proposed! Little did I know that just seven years later that the majority of things on my thankfulness list would all be based on one little question! 

Our week in photos

We’ve been pretty busy lately and I have a TON of stuff to blog about! We had a garage sale this weekend and I’m just exhausted, so a simple “our week in photos” blog post will have to do for now!

I got a new phone! And it’s awesome…which makes capturing moments so much easier! Here my kiddos are helping me figure out the front facing camera!

Check out my cute Mizzou fans!!

We took our kids out to celebrate our anniversary last week. We all had fun!

Cousin Gabe came and played with us a week or so before his parents came over from St. Louis. My kiddos got to meet their new baby cousin, Eli.

And I got to soak up baby Eli snuggles!

I took Jackson to tour the fire station the other day. He was excited, can’t you tell? {I can’t wait to share about it!}

  

This is garage sale… only half of what my garage looked like when we set it all up the day before we started. So much stuff!

Jackson was my big “helper” all week as I sorted and priced stuff. 

This was what my last three days have looked like… I need a break from math.

Belle climbed up on the tractor about a bazillion times. Not to be surprised, a fascination of all things John Deere runs in the family.

We went out to our community festival last night. I love funnel cakes!

And this morning we walked to main street to watch a parade.

Which was really just a moving political platform, but the kids enjoyed the candy! Jackson was literally covered from head to toe {socks} in stickers!

I’m looking forward to a lazy day tomorrow! I’m excited for the kids to give Daddy their Father’s Day present. {And I’m just as eager to give my dad his present too!}. But for now, I think I want to go to bed—and it’s still daylight!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!! No one in our family is getting pinched today—we’re all sporting green! {my eyes closed in a picture… always happens. Ugh!}

We didn’t make it out to any of the larger celebrations around Kansas City like
last year, but we did go to our town parade! We had a good time. I love that downtown is super close. It’s barely over a five minute walk and we beat all the traffic!

My favorite St. Patty’s day picture EVER! {see how short she is?! These are capri pants, well, are supposed to be, but they almost fit like full length pants!}

Miss Cutie Patootie wasn’t too fond of holding still to take a picture. I love this shot—Jackson’s trying to so hard to get her to cooperate. I love these two together!

We got to kind of a grumpy start having to wait for the parade. And then the firetrucks came first with their sirens and Jackson really isn’t a fan of loud noises. Once the candy started being tossed, he loosened up and ended up having a good time!

Once she saw Jackson waving “hi” and getting candy, Belle started in on the action too. That little arm was waving like crazy!

And just because I can’t stop taking pictures of her cuteness, I snapped a few more on the walk home!

Along with St. Patty’s day, we’re also celebrating the anniversary of Derek coming home after spending nine months of Army training in Georgia!! I feel I summed it up best in my facebook status earlier today:

One year ago today Derek came home!!!!!! It was the longest nine months of my life, but I'm so proud to be the wife of an American Soldier. Jackson and Belle have had to sacrifice a lot too, and one day they will understand why Daddy has to go away sometimes. Great hubby, great kids, great country-- life is good.

She's back!

Our favorite Dane is back!! According to Jackson, Julie is back from Capenhogen. Ha, it's close, right? 

Jackson has been especially hyper ever since we picked her up from the airport Friday night. He just can't get enough of her and he is glad he can finally have his birthday {we've told him all along that he will have his birthday party while she is here visiting}. 

We went up to Trenton for the Missouri Days festival on Saturday. Julie was Jackson's partner in collecting candy {and other goodies} from the parade!  

Jackson is so impressed that people actually throw candy {though not quite like last year-- please rewatch that video. So funny}. And he kept checking inventory of his loot.

And of course, Julie was excited to see Belle, who has grown so much in the past four months!

{In case that wasn't clear, it is Belle that has grown so much. Not Julie. She actually shrank a little.}

 And we happened to run into Chacey too! Chacey has major Julie withdrawal and apparently asks about her a lot. How cute are they?

Julie has used the phrase "our house" or "our home" a few times and that really, really makes me happy! We're going to have a great week- a busy week, but it will be good!

{be sure to check out the giveaway going on for party invitations and decorations!}

Weekend with the Fam

I have a flight that leaves in less than 11 hours and I am totally not even packed. Why am I sitting down for a blog post? Well, because tonight's bedtime experience was a bedtime straight from you-know-where and I need to sit and chill before I can even focus. I had high hopes of deep cleaning the house and stocking up the fridge of Derek's favorite foods that he could come home to-- but that just isn't going to happen. Getting stuff accomplished with two children is HARD, especially when the hubs is several states away! But that will all be changing THIS WEEK. Derek's coming home on Thursday! WOO HOO!!!

I spent the weekend up at my parent's house. It was nice to chill and spend time with the family, and I won't deny that getting a full night's rest while my mom was on baby-duty was very nice too.

We enjoyed a nice walk (it was more of a "run" for Jackson) on Friday night.

And on Saturday, we went to the Snake Saturday Parade in North Kansas City. You all know how much I love living in KC and this was just another fun thing to add to my list of the fun things to do!

saying "hi" and "bye" to every single float that passed by!

Grammy enjoyed the parade while cuddling little Belle.

My sister Laura came home from college for the weekend. She loves hanging out with Jackson-- and loves taking tons of pictures almost as much!