(The above pic was from Ryder’s first trip to the beach! He loved it!)
We had such a great Thanksgiving and before we left, my dad and I talked about how neat it is that our original immediate family of four has officially more than doubled in size. Husbands, kids, dogs… It’s certainly a full house whenever we’re all together now and I love the chaos.
We traveled back home on Saturday morning and somehow our crazy travel plans worked. Since the boys and I flew to Florida last weekend and Ryan met us in Jacksonville with Sadie later in the week, Ryder, Chase and I had round-trip tickets and landed in Charlotte on Saturday around noon. Ryan and Sadie left my parents’ place in his car a little after 5 a.m. on Saturday morning to make the drive home but stopped briefly to scoop us up at the airport on the way. Leaving on Saturday seemed to be a good decision because we avoided a lot of the craziness of holiday travel and Ryan said his drive was virtually traffic-free (a definite perk of such an early departure).
This also meant we had almost an entire weekend back at home which was also really nice. It gave us a chance to unpack, hit up the grocery store and, most importantly, begin decorating for Christmas!!!
We actually have painters coming to the house today to paint our ceiling (we had a leak that left some stains) and our dining room and living room, so most of our decorations will remain in their boxes until painting is complete, but we managed to pick up a Christmas tree and put up our outside Christmas lights.
Thank you to Chase for snapping the above picture of me and Ryder! I was so impressed! Chase practices a lot with both my big camera and my phone camera and is getting pretty good at his photos. (I have about a million pics of random household objects I could share with you guys but I will spare you.) I’m considering buying Chase his own kid-friendly camera for Christmas and if any of you out there have a recommendation for an affordable camera that’s suitable for a three-year-old, I’d love to hear it!
Chase and I also took a picture together in front of our tree and Sadie decided her booty should be in the photo as well.
She’s never far from the action!
Our weekend also included an early Sunday morning church service where we selected tags off the giving tree. Chase seems incredibly excited to pick out dinosaur toys for the boy on his tag (fittingly they’re the requested item on his tag) and wanted to hold onto his tag for a solid hour after we left church.
We spent the rest of our Sunday at home, getting organized for the week ahead. Our friend Ben also came over for lunch and went on a walk with Ryan and Sadie during the boys’ nap time while I attempted to catch up on neglected blog stuff from last week.
Our Sunday night rounded out with Thai takeout and ice cream which totally hit the spot.
For a while there it felt like we were ordering Thai a couple times a month but I cannot remember the last time we did and we were way overdue. Bring on the Pad Kee Mao and chicken satay!
And now it’s time to get this Monday rollin’. Chase has a full week of preschool this week (I think this is only the second full week he’s had since school started thanks to various cancellations, etc.) and I’m hoping that helps with my personal productivity. I’d love to be able to check in with you guys a few times this week and still need to get started on my annual gift guides!
I hope you all have a great week and enjoy the rest of your Monday!
Cyber Monday Sales
I took full advantage of holiday shopping over the weekend for my friends and family (and, okay, admittedly picked up a couple of things for myself and our house, too), and have a few more items I’m hoping to nab today on Cyber Monday. A Nest thermostat is at the top of our list!
Here are a few more last-minute deals in case you hope to do some shopping, too!
H&M: 30% off + free shipping (I bought Chase some much-needed joggers and pull-on pants on Black Friday and admittedly couldn’t resist ordering a few things for myself. The prices were too good!! I ordered this oversize cowl-neck sweater in a festive red color, fleece pajamas, these boots which I am WAY too excited about and this fringe bag.)
Wayfair: Up to 80% off + Free shipping on everything (I ordered this tall imitation plant — I think it looks fiddle fig-ish — after seeing it at my friends’ house and loving it! I also ordered these seagrass baskets to put two faux plants in.)
Anthropologie: 30% off everything
Target: 15% off select categories
American Eagle: 40% off everything + 50% off sweaters (My fav Cloudspun sweater is only $22!)
Faded Days Sunglasses: 50% off everything with code MadMonday (These are the fun sunglasses we used for all of our Friendsgiving and bachelorette parties!)
Pottery Barn: 25% off everything + Free shipping with code CYBER
Pottery Barn Kids: 25% off everything + Free shipping with code GIFT25 (We love their stroller blankets — Great gift idea!)
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Looks like you had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family! Also, I love your beanie – so cute. I wish I could pull those off but I feel like I look weird in hats! haha. Have a great week!
Looks like a great Thanksgiving! I had to comment about wearing a baby forward facing in a stretchy wrap – it’s not recommended by manufactureres because it can be dangerous to the baby and not supportive.
https://boba.com/blogs/news/nine-reasons-not-to-carry-your-baby-facing-out
And I know babies love it! A SSC or ring sling can be used instead for forward facing :).
Oh interesting! Thank you for letting me know! I actually followed the instructions on the baby k’tan website which has them forward facing in their wrap and hadn’t heard that before. Thank you for sharing in a kind way!
Hi there
I had the very same impression when I saw your baby wearing picture. I have a boba wrap and it’s not meant for forward facing. However I did look up the Ktan and the company states that you may wear baby forward facing safely. So you’re right! I’m just not sure how safe ist is for support and hips. Maybe you can double check with babywearing guidelines. But good for you for babywearing, wear all the babies!
I never know what to order for Thai take out…recommendations please (: I don’t like too hot or heavy oily if that helps.
Your pics all turn out so beautiful even Sadie’s butt (:
Love that tree from Wayfair – I’ve been looking for a faux fiddle-leaf fig tree and this might be a good alternative! What size did you end up ordering?
I ordered the 72” one!
I know a couple of people who got this for their kids
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01FMK17TK?ascsubtag=.NDg5MTktMA.d9d9606e-f193-11e8-92ff-957e92a4f1ae&tag=rewardstyle-20
I just had someone send me a DM on Instagram about the exact same one! It looks great — thank you!!
That’s the one we got my daughter a few years ago. The picture quality is about what you’d expect on that kind of camera, but she LOVES being able to take her own pictures and it is indestructible. That thing gets thrown around so much! I would definitely recommend it.
I’ll second this. We bought this camera for my then 3 year old and two years later she still uses it all the time. My 18 month old even loves using it.
Please share your teeth whitening secrets!
I’ve most recently been using Crest Whitestrips again — I just use one here and there when I feel like I need it. A pack will usually last me months (if not a full year!) and I feel like one strip does a great job of removing light surface stains. 🙂
Sounds like such a great family time!! My immediate family of 5 often talks about how much we’ve all grown too. Now when we all get together, there’s 11 of us!
Hope you all get back in the swing of things this week. Also, now I’m reminded it’s been far too long since I’ve had thai food. I’d say Thai is among my favorites too!
Love the holiday season! This year I brined the turkey again and made soup with it afterwards…came out amazing. My boys love helping me prep the turkey- for them it’s like a science experiment or something :-). It was bittersweet since we missed the holiday with my sister and her girls but we had a blast anyway. We live in Orlando so we went to Disney Springs and soaked up all the Christmas magic they have going on there. Our tree is still a work in progress…the kids are making stuff to put on it so it’ll be ready during the break…
Hi Julie, happy Thanksgiving! Here is a camera idea 🙂
https://www.amazon.com/VTech-Kidizoom-Camera-Frustration-Packaging/dp/B01FMK17TK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1543264978&sr=8-1&keywords=vtech+kidizoom+camera+pix+blue
I just love that first pic, it could make the bilboard for gorgeous family
That ice cream flavor! ?? I’ve never seen it here.
My son loves the Fujifilm instax mini camera.iy works really well and it’s fun because you get the pictures right away. He also has a Vtech kid’s camera but it’s honestly not great. The pictures are pretty horrible quality. The nice thing about it is it is super durable.
The Fujifilm camera sounds so fun! I think Chase would love it. Does your son go through the film really quickly? That’s my only concern with that one!
Umm not too bad. At first he kind of blew through them but then the newness wore off 🙂 that is the downside is that the film is kind of pricy. He got it for Christmas when he was 5, so a little older than Chase.
Would you do a make up routine sometime? It always looks great!