Summer Recap 2017: Week 10

As summer started winding down I really tried to go over our “must do” list and make sure we would have time to fit it all in! Here’s our Week 10 Recap 🙂

Saturday the 15th we hung at home and got things done around the house. I like to set aside the weekend prior to a kid’s birthday party to get things done and Zach would be out of town on a business trip the 22nd so we tried to knock some stuff out the 15th!

Tess has discovered the storage shed and loves building things 🙂 

I got to lay out a bit during naps and really LOVED One True Loves! Great one to pick up, super light and fun read 🙂 

On Sunday Zach and I took the kids to his parents after church and headed to Atlanta. He had his 1st round of the new infusion on Monday and we had originally planned to go to Ikea on our way up in a hunt for office furniture. BUT I found him a SUPER huge and nice desk, storage cabinet, and chairs for mega cheap online. Sometimes Ikea is randomly more expensive and I felt like this would be one of those times so I jumped on the deals when I saw them and it meant we could take our time going to Atlanta. 

We had talked about going to somewhere fun to eat and being soclose to where I lived most of my life I really wanted to hit up one of my favorite places to eat from back in the day : Johnny Carino’s. I was SO SAD to see they closed for good. Wahhhh!

Instead we decided to go to Maggiano’s which has always been a favorite date place for us. If you’re local to the Atlanta area we ate at the one by Lenox Mall. It was among THE worst service we’ve EVER experienced anywhere. We won’t be hitting that up again anytime soon!

After dinner we headed up to Laura and Gino’s. They recently built a beautiful home and Zach’s infusion was the perfect excuse to visit and get to see it! 

This has happened to me a few times and it’s SO annoying when it does but we put in the address into our Maps App and it took us to the totally and completely wrong place. It was pretty hilarious! The driving around didn’t bother me too much because I loved getting to see my old stomping grounds 😉 

We had a great night visiting with Laura, Gino, and Ben and getting to know them better! I wish Kye had been with us as Ben and Kye seem so much alike and would probably really hit it off well in a one-on-one setting. The only times we really get to spend time with their family are in BIG groups which makes it harder for any of us to really get to know each other better! So thankful to them for opening up their home (and Laura y’all is like THE nicest person on the planet. She even made us lunch for the next day!). 

Making Robyn jealous 😉

The next morning we had Zach’s infusion which you can read about here!

Sidenote but THANK YALL. Seriously AMAZING suggestions on helping prevent/treat sicknesses and I appreciate them all so much 🙂 

While we were gone all the kids had a BLAST! They spent the day with their cousins and G-Mama 🙂 

Ugh I always hear Zach complaining about Atlanta traffic…it was even worse being a passenger in it! On our way up we were literally ran off the road by a U-Haul. So thankful Zach is such a great driver! It was a little funny though because we were talking when it happened and the last word one of us spoke before the U-Haul came towards us was “unicorn.” I mean if you’re gotta go out, it’s a good word to go out on at least ha!

Treats for the way home! Loved our quality time together 🙂 

On Tuesday we had our annual visit to the firestation. I love organizing this every year and all of our local friends are invited. It’s a great outing…fun for the kids and educational too. Plus, hello, FREE. This was the first year that Kye wasn’t super pumped about going, but once we got there he was allll about it still. Whew! I’m clinging to the “little boy” as much as I can right now!

They were SO pumped to see each other! 

This years crew! A much bigger crowd than last year and I hope everyone had fun!

Tess kept trying to cut in line and I had to keep putting her to the back!

Carter is so serious about fighting those fires 😉 

I knew Kye was having a great time when he got in the line to go twice for the water hose! 

Every year we all always meet at CFA for lunch following the fire station. We did a quick stop at UPS to mail off some of the stuff for the birth mom situations (which you can read about here!

The kids found a rock at the fire station (pretty sure Cooper hid it!) and did a re-hide at CFA!

It was so cute when all the kids chose tables to eat. Our first suggestion was a boy table and a girl table but they all ended up mixing things up. Kye had quite the little fan club of ladies and I overheard someone asking him if he has a girlfriend (to which his answer was “I did have two but now I just have one” ha!)

Table 1

Table 2

This is the CFA struggle. I never have my kids put their shoes in the cubbies b/c we’ve had ours taken before by mistake! 

That night we had our 4th book club meeting! Is anyone else obsessed with Atlanta Bread’s greek salad? YUM!

We read One True Loves and it was SO SO GOOD! Def pick up a copy! 

Working some stripes on stripes! I am pretty much obsessed with this bag 🙂 

(also I got the white pants from Target and so far am LOVING them!)

Britt had her last day of speech on Wednesday! I will discuss this more in her solo post!

One of the items on our summer bucket list was to visit our church members who are living in a retirement community. This is something I try to get outside my comfort zone with doing. Growing up my brother and I had nightmares from an experience at a nursing home facility and since then those types of places have always bothered me. It’s an important ministry and I want to do better and do more! Children are such a JOY and I knew people would enjoy seeing them! I got the list from our church of members residing at one of the retirement communities near us and we stopped by Publix to pick out a little plant for each of them. I hate waking in empty handed! 

Kye was precious as he wanted “manly” plants so he picked some that didn’t have any flowers! We visited 4 people and each of them were surprised by and enjoyed our visit! One man had just recently moved in and is really struggling with the transition. Y’all. My heart just broke. He’s always so lively at church and is dear to my heart and seeing him so down was just so, so sad. He told me how hard that phase of life is and I just can’t think of another word to describe my emotions other than heartbroken. Whew. I totally stepped out of my comfort zone and just took his hands and prayed right there with him. This is something I need to get better at and I felt the need to pray so I did it! SO thankful we took the time to visit with everyone there, I know the kids really brightened their day!

Good job Target on that packaging…

Quality. 

This week marked 2 years since Ashleigh passed on to Heaven. I think of her often, I look at Tess and wish so badly my sweet friend could see her son of the same age now. I know she’s rejoicing in Heaven but she’s missed here on Earth too! 

I had several people tag me in this post on FB…check out Kye 🙂 I appreciate that the site DID give me credit on the post however, it’s pretty rude to just use photos like that without asking first, right? 

Found another rock at gymnastics!

Britt had a big week of “lasts” as it was also her last day in the beginner level class at gymnastics! She’s loved her coach and will miss her!

We hit up Wild Adventures on Thursday and stopped by to get pics to present to another birth mom on our way (you can read about that situation here!

We have a Wild Adventures routine pretty well set in place…first we meet up with our buddies and animal friends 😉 

Then we ride the carousel and dizzy dragons

and stop on the way for some Hopper fun too 

and we always say hey to the meerkats

and finally hit up the bathrooms to get changed for the water park (which we usually do the lazy river first then go to the slide area). It’s great having a routine down and even better to have friends to experience all the fun with 😉 

Tess has finally realized that the slides are FUN!

Hiding the rock we found the day prior!

My crew!

I love catching moments like these!

This is one of our family favorites! I cook up some sausage and eggs then add some cheese and wrap it in a burrito. I freeze them and they make PERFECT meals for school lunches (and peanut butter free if you’re school doesn’t allow peanut butter!). I simply warm them in the microwave before school! 

Playing Spoons (with BBClean ha!)

First time playing and she WON!

Casey’s due date was Thursday and we were all pretty shocked that there still wasn’t a baby by Friday! At that point things were c-razy for her and we kept wavering as to if Zach should go to his out of town meeting or not and what the kids and I should do too. Originally I’d planned for us to have a YES DAY while Zach was gone. I’d let the kids plan the entire day and we’d do whatever they wanted (within reason). We got word that the baby wouldn’t be arriving until Sunday/Monday so Zach went ahead and left and I went ahead and told the big kids about the YES DAY idea 🙂 

They were SO PUMPED! It was also so, so adorable and sweet. I told them they could plan whatever they wanted for the whole day and that I’d say YES to it ALL. Guys. I expected tons of junk food, some crazy plans, lots of spoiling. I was SO impressed that they really thought through the whole day and worked together to choose what they would do. AND that they made such good choices for each thing! 

Here was their original agenda. So precious that they still wanted to make sure to have fruit at each meal to stay healthy and that they had such specific requests. They wanted to swim both at 8 am and 8 pm because they wanted morning swimming and night swimming. Britt was especially excited to have ALL THE FANS on her in the playroom b/c she gets hot up there ha! It was EASY to say YES to these items for sure!

Swim time! 

Sweet girls playing puzzles

I can now officially say how EXCITED we are to have Keeli and her sweet family as our NEW NEIGHBORS!!! We are beyond pumped about it and since Zach was out of town the kids and I went and hung out at her empty house for some pizza dinner 😉 Keeli and I have been friends for a few years now and I’ve loved that we’ve grown closer over time and know that bond will only strengthen now that we’re only a few houses away! Our kids all adore each other and it’s so great to just let them run and play 😉 

Millie and Tessie are precious!

What’s more fun than running around an empty house and getting to eat pizza on the floor? 

It was such a fun week with one exciting weekend up ahead! 

SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave

Emily Parker

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *