Family Fun: April 2017

Here is our month of April!

We kicked off the month at Disney and Spring Break…the Saturday at the end of Spring Break was the FSU Spring Game so Z and Kye went down to Tally for the day and the girls and I had a girl day. Usually I’m ALL about fun days together with the kids butttt it was a particularly rough time around our house with some attitude issues and lack of appreciation so I wasn’t really feeling like going and doing fun things only to hear my child complain about them the whole time. 

My original plan was to be at Wild Adventures when they opened and have the whole morning there. But due to the attitude issues we were experiencing…we took our time leaving the house and went to the mall first. Britt has jumped up BIG TIME in height and totally skipped 5t sizes and went straight into big kid sizes. She legit didn’t have hardly any shirts long enough (we’re actually now having the same issues with dresses) so we did a run to Crazy 8 to take advantage of their great clearance section.

Everyone was in MUCH better moods after the shopping trip! 

When you miss the exit for Wild Adventures you end up on your own dirt road adventure 😉

We love some animals!

This was CRAZY. This swan was chasing the turtle and trying to eat him I guess? The turtle was pretty fast and swam off in the water and the swan kept trying to go after it. Once he tired of the turtle he then went to a group of ducks and tried to attack them! 

Britt’s favorite ride!

The lions were up and moving around and even grooming each other!

Here’s a video

Posing skilllllls

Tess’s favorite ride!

I thought it’d be a cute day to wear my new “Mommyin’ ain’t Easy” shirt but it proved to ring true as it was a very exhausting day! This shirt often goes on SUPER sale so be sure to keep an eye on this link (I am super happy with the quality and the thickness of the t-shirt material too!)

We rode it twice and Britt got to drive once, then Tess got to drive. TOTALLY FAIR. 

Except it’s totally meltdown worthy when you’re 5. I try not to let moments like these steal my joy and instead try to focus on whichever child is happy at the time. Joy is contagious so if I focus on the JOY then the grumpy kid will follow 😉

#boom worked like a charm 😉

This kid sleeps in the car better than my other two ever did!

For dinner we went to Red Lobster! 

Clearly they were super entertaining table guests 😉

During dinner we took THREE breaks for the potty. 

Shirt strikes again haha!

The reason for Red Lobster for dinner? Because we love touching animals, duh!

We went into Old Navy to grab a couple more shirts for Britt!

My deal was if they behaved in Old Navy then we’d get an ice cream treat to end the day. Britt was SO great. She loves to shop and was so excited for her new clothes!

Tess pitched a fit. So I reminded her that if she pitched a fit she wouldn’t get ice cream. 

We got to Brusters and Britt and I ate ours and I had a little cup with a TINY bit of ice cream in it for her IF she waited patiently. She didn’t get a big ice cream or the ice cream when we got it b/c of the fit. 

I totally explained grace and how I appreciated her saying sorry and waiting patiently so she could have ice cream.

Decent parenting right? I mean I guess super hardcore parenting wouldn’t have let her have the ice cream at all bc she did pitch a fit. But still there was still a consequence. 

So then Zach gets home and Tess runs up to him and says “I pitch a fit and then get ice cream!” 

Mom. FAIL.

The day before Easter we officially opened the Parker Family Pool. And y’all it was SO COLD!!! 

 

We had just ate a TON of food at Katie’s Easter gathering but Kye still wanted to pick up pizza and still GRUBBED OUT. 

This kid and his love of food 😉

This was a rough month for our family. We have a lot of tough stuff going on but on top of that Zach was traveling for work three weeks in a row. It’s hard when he’s gone. I don’t sleep as well, I worry about him traveling, I am on “mom duty” all day every day, I’m more stressed, little things become bigger and it’s harder to work through them when we aren’t together. Plus he’s tired and stressed too! It was just a LOT. Added in that when he was home we were dealing with rough family stuff so it was just a tough month in general.

This meant I didn’t do a whole lot of family cooking and kept things pretty easy. I think I’ve found like 20 ways to make some sort of mini pizza haha

Still got a meal in the freezer though!

Have y’all tried these? I used to eat a bowl of ice cream every single night (ahhh to be young again haha) and miss my nightly snack. These are only 100 calories for an entire bar and are SO YUMMY!

My sweet man showing me he appreciates me!

 When Zach has been home he’s been working a TON on our yard (we have a lot of drainage issues and our land is literally washing away…yikes!) so the kids have loved being outside with him and it gives Mommy a break (yay for left over pizza!)

I sent this to Mrs Charlotte. Corduroy was Zach’s fav book as a kid so she got him the stuffed animal for Christmas 😉 

Love this of my biggest and littlest!

April was SUCH a pretty month for lots of walking!

And running through sprinklers 😉

I’ve gotten a TON of compliments on these shoes and they are such a steal! They are from Kmart and I got them for $6 because I had some random Kmart credit in my account?!?! You can also get free shipping when shipping to the store (and my local Sears worked for pickup location as we don’t have a Kmart). They are a blush pink color and I’m wearing them all the time and they are super comfortable for all day wear (even with my foot issues). Here’s a direct link!

These girls make shopping sweeter!

They had Good Friday off from school. USUALLY they play SUPER well together which is such a blessing (I’m a tad nervous how summer will go with the dynamic that three kids together brings!).

They both love reading!

Anytime we can use a Friday where Kye is in school to hit up the YMCA we do it! It’s only for ages 5 and under so Britt is almost too old and Kye is already too old. 

Sweet friends from school met us there! SO fun!

We will miss Vivi when they move in a few weeks!

And cutie Addy is always our car pool chat friend 😉

We’ve kinda started a new weekend tradition of watching the Rapunzel series on Disney Channel! It’s really a cute show and at 20ish minutes long it’s the perfect family activity for a Friday Night!

Keeli came over while Z was gone and we had a great time walking all the kids to the playground in our neighborhood and having a picnic dinner! 

Tess is ALWAYS somehow SO dirty!

While at Disney I realized that Britt’s headrest on her car seat had broken styrofoam. It turns out that BOTH the seats she had in my car and Zach’s car had the same broken spot (so weird!). I lucked out and was able to trade them in at Target during their first ever trade in event and got some great coupons! We moved Britt to Kye’s old seat as he has just hit the height requirement to move to a high back booster!

Pool attempt #2. Still too cold to be super enjoyable for me!

We love picnic dinners by the pool (especially when Daddy does the cooking!)

Y’all know my recent love for Ali Express. This was my first major fail haha

Taking care of my skin is VERY important to me. I’m thankful that Zach agrees and is super supportive about my skin care/makeup/hair etc I want to invest in GOOD skincare stuff. I’d rather spend more on a daily routine than have to spend a bunch to get treatments done. I have melasma and it’s going to be a daily battle for me forever and I just feel like having to make appointments for peels and treatments is so annoying, plus the side effects they have and the cost! 

I have an AMAZING girl I totally and completely trust when it comes to my skin and I took in what I currently use and she helped cater my regimen. 

Any face wash is fine! Then I’m using toner pads and brightener from Zein Obagi and following it with the best over the counter sunscreen…Cerave! 

I also got a DEAL this month on a TYME. Like it was under $40. 

Keeli got one too and we need to have a hair night and try to figure this junk out bc it was a HUGE fail for me. I watched all the videos on their site and everything. 

This was as curly as my hair got hahaha

On top of it being a tough month due to Z traveling and other reasons…we also got our second “no” from a birth mama. I talked about that in this post!

Mrs. Charlotte wanted to have a night out with the kids so we met up at Fun Factory (which if you’re a long time blog follower you will note this is the FIRST POST EVER at Fun Factory. It’s not a place I go, ever. Ha!

They all three played some shooting game and it was hilarious because TESS won!

The struggle of picking a prize 😉

Yay for G-Mama Time!

And…shocker…more pizza 😉

I’ve been LOVING reading more lately but it’s a struggle because all the books I read I either get from Robyn or Katie so they’ve already read them and usually Zach hasn’t read them yet so I have no one to discuss them with. Lightbulb moment! Robyn, Katie and I decided to start up our very first book club! Yay! 

Our goal is to read a book a month as a group and meet up to discuss the book. We are aiming for lighter reads and especially books that are being made into movies. 

Our first book was The Circle. It’s def a GREAT read. I wouldn’t call it light but it’s very interesting and will make you THINK. (Especially for someone like me who is pretty much as transparent as they come haha)

Over time many friendships go through seasons and sometimes people aren’t able to hang out as much or are in a busy time of life etc. Over the past year we’ve really seen our regular crew dwindle in numbers so we all three agreed the book club would be a GREAT way to meet some new people! We had a smaller turnout for the first meeting (we only had two weeks to read the book so I’m thinking book 2 will be bigger) but it was still SUCH a great time!!! (Although y’all the movie is TERRIBLE haha)

For book 2 we are doing Everything Everything and I’ve already finished it and LOVED IT.

We had some new friends visit our home too this month…snakes!

We let the snakes live because Zach has found a RAT NEST in our storage shed. We’re hoping the snakes will kill the rat 😉 

I am not overly worried about animals of any kind but the snakes do make me a bit nervous…only because Tess LOVES animals so much and is so into touching them at Wild Adventures. She held a snake there! So isn’t that kinda confusing when we see one in our yard and she’s not supposed to touch it?

Something I really realized about myself with all of Zach’s traveling was that I tend to get a bit bitter when I feel like I’m having to do all the “tough stuff” with parenting and he gets to come home and be the super fun parent. I understand WHY that happens but I also realized I needed to do something to make sure I didn’t feel bitterness or resentment towards him when he got home…so I did something a little crazy 😉 

HIs last night gone was a Wednesday which is a crazy day for us with sports and church so rather than eat at Zaxby’s, again, I instead took the kids to Brusters and we had ice cream for dinner! It was random and fun and the perfect ending to a tough few weeks. It made ME feel lighter and was a good reminder that I’m a fun parent too! It def made a huge difference on him coming home and my ability to not feel jealous when the kids were all about some daddy 😉 

When Daddy got home he gave me a break which was heavenly 😉 I went to JCP to use a coupon I had and I got this necklace for $2!

 

I also went to Hallmark and I just love that store. I’ve heard a lot of them are closing and I hope ours doesn’t b/c it is a place with so many adorable finds!

So fun to be back together for game nights!

Our sweet friends, Lora and Jerry, invited us over for dinner. Our church has been on the hunt for a new preacher for almost a year now and they also had over one of the men interviewing for the job. All of our kids get along SO WELL and we had SUCH a great night. Lora is a true inspiration to me. We had been planning to come over but day of the potential preacher and his family got invited to come too and she was zero percent stressed. She was so relaxed and such an easy going hostess. I know myself and I would have been going crazy and freaking out and cleaning  like a mad woman for company. I love that Lora didn’t let any of that get to her! I want to be more like her!!! 

They had fresh blueberries delivered while we were there and I felt bad Tess killed them ha!

Sweet, sweet friends!

I hate ending things on any sort of sad note. But I want to thank everyone for praying for my family. I mentioned in a prior post that my cousin passed away. I haven’t seen Amber for several years. She’s actually my cousins daughter but she was very close to her grandmother (my aunt) growing up and would visit a lot and we were all close. It’s so, so sad to hear that she’s gone. Especially at such a young age (25). She was driving late at night and hit a tree. I hate that I wasn’t able to be there for the funeral and to give hugs to her sweet sister and mama and the rest of the family. We have walked a similar journey when Austin died a few years ago and seeing people hurt in that way is so heartbreaking. Please continue to pray for Amber’s family and especially over this weekend as I’m sure Mother’s Day (and all holidays) will be especially tough for them. I tried super hard to find the perfect thing to send and ended up getting this plant. I love love love the pot it’s in and that the lilies are pink. Amber was very creative and loved life and had the most beautiful full eyes and huge smile. I wanted to send something that would be joyful and I think she would have liked it 🙂 

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