Sadie’s Birthday Weekend

This crazy furry lady turned ELEVEN years old on Sunday!

I cannot believe Sadie has been in our lives through our engagement, marriage, multiple moves, children and all of the highs and lows in between. She’s a wiggly source of energetic joy in our lives every day and we tried our best to make her feel extra loved on her special day!

But let’s back up a bit to recap the weekend in chronological order!

Friday

Is it just me or does it seem like everyone in the world is watching “Tidying Up with Marie Kondo” on Netflix and cleaning and organizing their homes? I read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, Marie Kondo’s hugely popular book years ago, and watched one episode of the Netflix show (is she not just the most delightful person!?) and while I wasn’t inspired to go on a tremendous cleaning spree in our house, I did spend a little time on Friday night going through my clothes. I used her “Does this spark joy?” mentality to figure out which clothes to get rid of which I admittedly found very helpful.

Simply asking myself whether a particular piece of clothing sparks joy and makes me happy somehow allows me to get rid of clothing I’ve had in my closet for years without as much struggle as when I just go through my clothes with a passing glance. I ended up with a small pile of  clothing to donate and hope to go through the boys’ clothes soon, too.

Aside from a bit of cleaning, our Friday night was a good one! I made homemade mac and cheese for dinner and we had a dance party with Chase after Ryder went to bed that cracked us up. Chase was all about showing us his “pittie move” which was basically him jumping and dancing around in circles scratching his armpits. Life with a three-year-old is never dull, that’s for sure.

Saturday

Saturday morning Ryan and I were both up a little after 5 a.m. when Ryder’s Owlet sock went off (thankfully not the red notification, but the yellow one notifying a lack of signal reading) and neither of our minds would shut off after that so we headed downstairs. I read way too late into the night again (I finished Educated by Tara Westover and would highly recommend it!), so I kicked off the day with a much-needed cup of coffee and my devotional before I spent some time meal planning.

Once the boy were up, we decided to spend the morning at Latta Plantation for a nature walk despite the dreary weather. We wanted to do something outside so Sadie could join us and even though it was cold and drizzly, the tree coverage at the nature preserve kept us dry.

We brought Chase’s bug net and magnifying glass along on the walk and he was in heaven.

I wore Ryder facing out in the ErgoBaby and we joked that he was pretending to hike along with us because he kept swinging his legs and seemed to be loving every second.

I hope our boys grow up loving the outdoors and nature as much as they seem to right now!

It took us a little more than an hour to cover 1.25 miles (Ryan wore his Fitbit) so we weren’t hiking at warp speed but we took our time and stopped a bunch to look at things like twisty sticks, big rocks, mud puddles and more. Saturday morning served as a wonderful reminder that kids don’t need much other than the outdoors to have a ball!

Before heading home, we swung by Chase’s best friend’s house so he could play with Claire for a bit while we chatted with our friends Lauren and Tony before it was time for lunch.

We let Chase skip his nap on Saturday (we usually at least encourage him to have quiet time in his room) and he was awfully excited for a rainy day afternoon movie with Mom and Dad while Ryder was napping. We watched Madagascar and I totally forgot how funny that movie is even for adults! Ryder took an extra long nap on Saturday and by the time he was up, we came up with a game plan to knock out our grocery shopping for the week and pick up pizza and cupcakes for dinner on the way home.

I stayed in the car with Ryder while Ryan and Chase popped into SweetCakes and grabbed an assortment of cupcakes and let’s just say we were all in a sugar coma by the end of the night.

Yum!

Sunday

Sunday morning began with extra love and hugs for the birthday girl! Ryan thought Sadie would love kicking her birthday off with a morning walk but our former Florida girl was not havin’ the cold temperatures and super-breezy gusts of wind. Instead we all eased into the day in our pajamas and played at home until it was time for church. We made it back home around 11 a.m., just in time for and early lunch where Ryder tried a combination of green beans, peas and apples.

It’s honestly blowing my mind to see how excited Ryder is about food! It’s just such a stark contrast to our experience feeding Chase as a baby (and even now because play is still 1,000 times more important to him than eating) but it’s been so fun to watch Ryder grab at the spoon and get all wiggly and enthusiastic when he knows food is coming his way. Please oh please let this last!

Ryder and Chase’s naps didn’t line up at all on Sunday so we spent the rest of our weekend close to home with the kids and Sadie. In the late afternoon, right after I settled Ryder in his crib for his afternoon nap, Ryan managed to get Sadie out on a walk with Chase and they packed up Chase’s Instax camera and photo album to take pictures on their walk to show me when they arrived home.

I used the quiet time I had at home while Ryder slept to prep some food for the week ahead and also got a jump start on this blog post before everyone was back home and it was time for Sadie’s annual birthday food challenge!

This year we decided to pit last year’s food challenge winner — breakfast sausage — against one of Sadie’s favorites: Chicken thighs! We make a lot of chicken thighs in our house and when Sadie is lucky enough to get a few bites of them from time to time she seems to go crazy for them so we figured it would be an interesting match up.

As always, we let her sniff the two plates of food before Ryan stood back with her and then released her to see which meat she’d go for first.

And the winner of Sadie’s birthday challenge this year is…

Chicken thighs!

Ryan and I were both shocked, to be honest! We thought sausage would win by a landslide but she was all about the chicken thighs. Maybe she could tell they were fresh off the grill!?

After Sadie’s birthday challenge, we all dug into chicken thighs and roasted sweet potatoes for dinner before calling it an early night. I started reading One Day in December on Saturday evening and am enjoying it so far. I was looking for a light and breezy read and it seems to fit the bill!

As far as plans for the week ahead, it will be a busy one with the kids because Chase doesn’t have school today or tomorrow. We have a play date on the agenda today and I’m hoping to make it to Burn Boot Camp and get some work done if the boys’ naps coordinate as well! I hope you all have a great Monday!