Thankful in November

And just like that…November is over and we are now in our last month of 2021. It’s so crazy to me how quickly this year is flying by. November was filled with lots of quality family time, which is always my favorite. Here is a recap of our month…

Kindergarten Field Trip

Braxton’s class went on a field trip to a nearby farm this month, and parents got to come along! It was a cold morning, but I LOVED spending quality time with my boy. He loved petting many of the animals, and most of all…holding a baby lamb! 

Fall Walk on Campus

IU’s campus is always gorgeous in the prime of fall. It’s my favorite. So we always try to find a day to take a walk on campus during the peak of the leaves changing. Like usual, it didn’t disappoint! 

First Dose for the Bigs!

I’ve been excited for this day for a LONG time…Kinsie and Braxton got their first dose of the Covid vaccine! Even though they are not a big fan of shots, they were ready for this one. They are excited to get closer to normalcy and to help protect their little brother who won’t be able to get his vaccine for a few more months. 

Birthday Celebration

My birthday was this month, and I never ask for much except to hang out with family. During the weekend before my actual birthday, we were at my parents’ house to hang out for the day while Ryan went to visit some friends. When he got back, my family surprised me with a cake and small birthday celebration! 

Cousin Fun

We’ve had lots of great cousin time this month! My niece Kerigan had a small birthday party at an art studio, and the kids were ALL about it. They absolutely loved it!

My kids had the week off for Thanksgiving, so we spent a lot of time at my parents’ house. The big kids went to a movie with their cousins, played in the little snowfall we got, and just enjoyed playing together at Papa and Yaya’s house!

Fun at Home

We still spend a lot of time at home during the weekends or after school. This month the kids enjoyed doing Christmas crafts, watching deer out the kitchen window, coloring, dressing up Bob the boxing guy, and just playing together and coming up with creative games. 

And of course we get outside as often as we can too! The kids have loved walking down to the woods behind our house and climbing rocks!

Brown County

My birthday gift from my parents was a night getaway to Brown County while they watched the kids. It was EXACTLY what I needed. Ryan and I got to spend the day in Brown County, just the two of us. We took a hike in the state park, had some amazing meals and snacks, went shopping, did a wine tasting, and just relaxed. We loved the quality time together and definitely need it more often!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is always a busy, but wonderful day for us. We started the day at Ryan’s parents’ lake house for a delicious Thanksgiving lunch with Ryan’s side of the family. The kids loved playing with their cousin Griffin, and Nate’s dog, Alfie! 

Later in the afternoon, we made our way to my parents’ house for Thanksgiving dinner with my side of the family. The kids always have a blast at the cousin table, and Brody even joined them! It was a busy, chaotic day, but we wouldn’t have it any other way. Days like this make us realize how blessed we really are to not have just one, but TWO wonderful families that we can spend the holidays with.

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas…

I love Christmas time. When we lived in Arkansas, I always decorated early because we usually spent the week of Christmas in Indiana with our families, so I wanted to be able to enjoy our Christmas decorations longer. Now I don’t really have that excuse, I just decorate early because I love it! I was especially excited to decorate my new house for Christmas for the first time! Last year, we didn’t have much space, and most of our Christmas stuff was in storage, so we were all excited to get it ALL out this year and have an abundance of space to put it all. Brody loves all the Christmas lights, and every time he passes the tree, he points and says “Ooooh!”

Brody is 18 Months!

Our crazy little Covid baby is 18 months old! It’s hard to believe that his entire life has been in a pandemic, and he has no idea! He is still the happiest, craziest, most active little dude. He still has a severe case of stranger danger, but he knows who is in his circle and he welcomes them with open arms!

Some fun facts about our Bro at 1.5 years…

• He LOVES to talk. He knows everyone’s name in his family, and he knows a lot of words. He also babbles on and on for minutes at a time as if he’s having a full conversation with us! My favorite words that he says (that we can understand), are banana (nana), shoes, (oosh), and cookie.
• He loves to color and explore art. But he’s still learning that we only color on paper!

• He has his first official “lovey,” a stuffed animal Pluto that he found in Brax’s old stuffed animals. He loves it so much! He carries it everywhere, sleeps with it, and calls it “Woof Woof.”

• He LOVES snacks. Just like his brother. He often does not want anything to do with his meals, but he wants snacks all day long. And he can open the pantry by himself, so he is constantly getting in the pantry and gathering up the snacks he wants.
• His favorite foods are cottage cheese, cheese sticks, bananas, and veggie straws.

• He still loves being outside, or leaving the house in any way. He gets SO excited at the chance to play outside, or put on his shoes to go somewhere…even if it’s just taking his brother and sister to school.
• He loves to dance…especially to the songs from any Mickey Mouse show!
• He loves books…and lucky for him, there are now 4 people in his family that are able to read to him.
• He loves Mickey Mouse and Baby Shark.
• He hates having his picture taken…but I love taking his picture, so I’ve had to get creative to get any decent pictures of him! This often involves me chasing him around while singing songs and making a fool of myself just to make him laugh!
• He doesn’t always like to wear clothes. He will often remove his own shirt or pants and run around almost naked!

• He is absolutely wild and exhausting, but he is also hilarious and so stinking cute! We are all still so obsessed with him in every way!

As I was writing this blog post, I looked back at my old blog posts from when Kinsie and Braxton turned 18 months. Braxton and Brody are SO much alike! Brax went through some really difficult toddler phases, but now he is an absolute gem so I’d be ok if I raise another one just like him!

And that was our November. Overall, we didn’t do much other than the everyday hustle and bustle. But we love our time at home or at my or Ryan’s parents’ houses just spending time as a family. That is what fills our buckets. We are looking forward to the Christmas season and all the joy and magic it brings!

Enjoy our November 1SE…its a whole lot of Brody squeals and dancing!

Thankful for November

November was a good month. We had a few fun trips, and lots of quality time with family! Here is how our November went down…

Trip to Bloomington

Ryan will graduate from residency in June 2020, and believe it or not, he is on the job search for when that happens! We recently had the opportunity to travel back to the town of our Alma Mater for a job interview trip. Bloomington is one of our favorite towns. There is so much natural beauty, culture, and memories from when we went to school there. We made it a family trip and met up with family at our favorite restaurant, Mother Bears (where Kinsie proudly added her name to their famous graffiti walls). Then Grandma Bev took the kids for a few days so Ryan and I could explore on our own and attend interview events. We loved walking around campus and hitting up some of our favorite spots. We went at the perfect time of year…cooler fall temps and amazing leaves. Ryan’s interview went great and we will hear more next spring about job availability.

While we had a few days to ourselves, the kids were having a blast with family. They played outside, went to Kid’s Planet, and played with cousins.

Trip to Fayetteville

This is the first year that Indiana University played University of Arkansas in basketball. The game was in Fayetteville, which is where Arkansas’s campus is. We’ve always heard that this town is beautiful, so it has been on our list of places to go since we moved here. We took this opportunity, plus the fact that Thanksgiving was the following week, to have my family travel to visit us, spend the weekend in Fayetteville, and go to the game. We loved walking around campus, and going on an awesome hike at Devil’s Den State Park. IU barely lost a tough game, but it was still such a fun experience. Kinsie and Kerigan dressed up in my sister and I’s old IU cheerleading uniforms, and they loved their first IU game!

Family Week

Cousin Play Dates

After our trip to Fayetteville, my family spent the week of Thanksgiving with us. We showed them around some of our favorite play date places, like the Wonder Place and the trampoline park. The kids loved every moment together!

Thanksgiving

Before the kids had a week off of school for Thanksgiving break, Kinsie’s class had a Thanksgiving feast. She and her classmates got to wear turkey hats and do a square dance! Brax was also in school this day, and the feast was only for the older classes, so I got to have some quality time with my girl!

On Thanksgiving Day, we all chipped in on making an amazing dinner. Since it was a beautiful fall day, we took the big kids to the park while the babies napped.

Dinner was a huge success, my dad worked hard all day on the turkey, and it did not disappoint! The kids loved their cousin table complete with a coloring tablecloth, crayons, and lots of chocolate pie.

Pinnacle Mountain

The day after Thanksgiving, we took the family on one of our favorite hikes, Pinnacle Mountain. It was a little cold that day, so we bundled them all up and headed up the mountain. The kids were absolute champs. As you hike up the mountain, there are markers from 1-10 to show you how close you are to the top. The kids loved finding the markers and taking a picture with each one. They were so proud when they got to 10!

We all loved the view from the top. This is the 3rd time Ryan and I have done this hike, and it is just as amazing each time!

Decorating for Christmas

This is always one of our favorite things to do. Since we spend Christmas in Indiana, we always decorate early so we can enjoy it longer. No joke, Kinsie put most of the ornaments on the tree. The kids have already loved having their Christmas decorations up, playing with their Christmas toys, and watching Christmas movies!

Like I said, it was a good month. We were really hoping our nephew would make his grand entrance into the world this month, but he’s holding out to share a birthday month with his mommy and Uncle Ryan. It will be any day now, and we all can’t wait to meet this precious boy!

Enjoy our November 1 Second Everyday video (can you believe I’ve almost done this for an entire year!?!)

November Adventures

The fall months always keep us busy! There is always a lot going on with birthdays, holidays and fall activities. Here were the highlights of our month:

Trip to Florida

Ryan is in the midst of residency interview season, so he is raveling around the country interviewing for different Emergency Medicine residency programs. When he got an interview with the University of Florida program in Gainesville, I volunteered to go with him without hesitation! At first we were planning on bringing the kids, but we decided to leave them with our parents and take a trip just the two of us. We hadn’t done this since our Honeymoon, so it was much needed! Since we were going to be in Florida for a few days, we also took the opportunity to visit a place that was on our Bucket List…Harry Potter World in Universal Studios. Ryan and I are both Harry Potter nerds and we have been dying to visit there. It was AMAZING. We spent 2 days there and loved every minute of it. We walked through Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade, ate at the Three Broomsticks and the Leaky Cauldron, bought the Elder Wand, rode the Hogwarts Express, drank butterbeer and much more Harry Potter fun! Our other favorite area of Universal Studios was Jurassic Park. We spent a lot of time in the gift shop buying dinosaur souvenirs for the kids! After two days in Orlando, we drove to Gainesville for the interview. We walked the campus, and hiked through some of the local parks. At a park called La Chua Trail, we saw at least 50 alligators! One of them was blocking the trail so we couldn’t go any further. We loved exploring the beautiful town of Gainesville and we had an amazing trip!

Jurassic Quest

A month or so ago, Ryan’s cousin saw an ad for a show that was coming to the Indiana State Fairgrounds in November, called Jurassic Quest. She told us we should take Kinsie. We looked into it and decided to buy tickets. It was an awesome experience! We were in a huge warehouse and there were tons of life-size animatronic dinosaurs that moved and roared. Kinsie got to ride on a moving dinosaur, and then Brax joined her on a smaller non-moving dinosaur. There were also bounce houses, crafts, face-painting (which we didn’t do because there was a 2 hour wait!), and arcade games. Kinsie was in heaven! She told us that she never wanted to leave. Of course we eventually did, but both the kids got to bring home a stuffed dinosaur souvenir. They loved it!

Thanksgiving

This year, my school system changed our calendar, and we had one week off for Fall Break in October, and the whole week of Thanksgiving off. I didn’t like it at first since I only had one week off after the first quarter of school, but I actually loved having Thanksgiving week off. Ryan had the week off too, so we were able to spend a lot of great family time together. Earlier in the week, we got to go to Kinsie’s preschool’s Thanksgiving feast. She made placemats for us in class that included what she was thankful for. It was a lot of fun! Thanksgiving Day itself is always a highlight of our fall because we get to spend the day with both of our families. During the day, we went to Ryan’s sister Megan’s house for Thanksgiving lunch. We got to spend a few hours there with Ryan’s family, and Kinsie always loves going there to run around with their dog, Ali. Later, we went to my parents’ house for Thanksgiving dinner with my family. The kids had a blast with their cousins and we had some great family time! Later that evening, Kinsie was having a slumber party with her cousins at my parents house, and my poor sweet girl got sick and we had to come and get her. We spent the next few days snuggling at home watching movies and she was feeling better within a few days. Our family tends to have bad luck with holidays…one of us is always sick on either Thanksgiving or Christmas. Fingers crossed that we all stay healthy this Christmas!

Thanksgiving feast at Kinsie’s preschool

Thanksgiving lunch at Megan and Tim’s

All the cousins gathered around the cousin table for Thanksgiving dinner

Polar Express

This year, we thought that the kids would really enjoy doing the Polar Express train ride. Ryan’s cousin’s kids are about Kinsie’s age and they love hanging out together, so we decided to get tickets for the same train as them. This was such an awesome experience! We all wore Christmas pajamas, rode on the train, drank hot cocoa, and ate cookies. We rode to the “North Pole” and picked up Santa Claus, who rode on the train ride back to the train station and visited with each kid. Kinsie had been talking about Santa SO much and couldn’t wait to see him, then once she did, she was so overwhelmed! She tried to hide behind me but I wouldn’t let her because I knew she wanted to see him. When he sat in the seat with us, she was super shy. (this was exactly how she was at Disney World last year when meeting the characters!) She told Santa what she wanted for Christmas, but very quietly! Of course afterwards, she couldn’t stop talking about how she met Santa! It was a lot of fun and a very neat experience.

As you can see, it was a great month! Like most parents, we love nothing more than to see our kids happy, so we take them to dinosaur shows and wear ridiculous Rudolph pajamas. Since Ryan is traveling so much, we really do our best to savor our time together as a family and go out and do fun things. We have a lot planned for the month of December as well with a trip to Florida (this time with the kids), and lots of Christmas fun!

A Full Plate on Thanksgiving

We had a very busy Thanksgiving week! Ryan had almost the entire week off, which I was very excited about. Unfortunately, my sweet Aunt Virgie passed away over the weekend, so we had to start our holiday with a trip up to the region for her funeral. My parents went on Tuesday night, and Ryan, Krista, Briggs, Kinsie, Kerigan and I drove up the next day. Ryan Robinson was still in Muncie (yes, my sister’s husband is in Muncie too…I mentioned earlier that we always do things the same!) so he met us up there later when he got off work. The trip with all the kiddos went wonderfully, as all 3 of them slept most of the way. This was the first time Kinsie was meeting my dad’s side of the family…which is a lot of people. They all completely adored her and Kerigan  (how can you not!) Sadly, Aunt Virgie never got to meet the new babies, but she knew about them. The last conversation my dad had with her was to tell her about Kerigan being born. I know she is smiling down on them from heaven!

My beautiful Aunt Virgie

Early the next morning, we had to get on the road to get back in time for all of our Thanksgiving festivities. I have to admit, I started the day a bit overwhelmed and stressed. We had a lot of places to be that day, which normally is no big deal, but with a 2 month old baby, it makes things a little more hectic. We were supposed to be at Ryan’s aunt’s house at 11am, but after packing all our gear, eating breakfast, feeding and taking care of the baby, we didn’t even leave Portage until 9:30 and still had a 2.5 hour drive. I was stressing out about having such a late start with all the places we needed to be, but after a little reminder from Ryan and my parents, I remembered how blessed we are to even have so many places to be. We are very lucky to be a part of these families with so many wonderful and loving people…so I carried that reminder with me the rest of the day.

Kinsie slept the entire way home, allowing me to nap as well, which I was very grateful for since she kept me up so late after all of the stimulation of meeting my huge Mexican family! As soon as we got home, we ventured to Thanksgiving #1 with Ryan’s dad’s side of the family. We had a great meal and Kinsie got to spend some quality time with her Grandma and Grandpa Matthews and the rest of Ryan’s family. Next was Thanksgiving #2 at Ryan’s other aunt’s house with his mom’s side of the family. Most of this family hadn’t met Kinsie either, so she was quite a hot commodity! Everyone took turns holding and loving on our sweet girl. Finally, we ventured back to my parents house for our final meal of the day, where we spent the rest of the evening with my family and my sister’s in-laws. Overall, Kinsie was a champ the entire day. I was one proud mama! It took several difficult days and nights to get her back on a normal napping and sleeping schedule because of all the stimulation she had in those 2 days, but I was glad that we got to spend Thanksgiving with both of our extended families.

Laying around with Addie before our Thanksgiving adventures

Our sweet little turkey

Lots of grandparent, aunt and cousin time!

I wasn’t one of the people who listed what they were thankful for throughout the month of November on Facebook, but I definitely have SO much to be thankful for. Rather than sharing it on social media, I just shared it with my loved ones and my Lord. Here are a few that stand out…

• I am thankful for my amazing husband, Ryan, who supports me and makes me feel loved every single day.
• I am thankful for my beautiful daughter, Kinsie, who lights up my world and gives my life new meaning.
• I am thankful for my parents who would do absolutely anything for me.
• I am thankful for my sister, Krista who has always been and always will be my best friend.
• I am thankful for my nephew, Briggs, and my niece, Kerigan, who add sunshine to my life.
• I am thankful for my brother-in-law, Ryan Robinson, who has always embraced every aspect of our family.
• I am thankful for my husband’s family who have always loved me and welcomed me into their family.
• I am thankful for my dogs, Koda and Addie, who protect me and keep me company when Ryan is away.
• I am thankful for my teaching job and the opportunity to make a difference in children’s lives.
• I am thankful for the wonderful and supportive staff that I work with at Mill Creek.
• I am thankful for my church, Trader’s Point, and our life group that helps me grow spiritually in my walk with the Lord.
• Last and most important, I am thankful for my relationship with Jesus Christ and His grace that He has blessed all of us with!