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June Recap


Hi! Remember me? I took an unexpected break from blogging. I don’t really have much of an excuse besides just the lack of motivation. But I’m back and hopefully won’t be taking that long of a break again anytime soon. Anyway, I never updated my final thoughts on Whole 30, but I’m going to make you wait a little longer before I do. For now, I wanted to share some of my favorite photos from the month of June.

At the beginning of June we celebrated National Donut Day–or I guess I should say my family celebrated. I suffered in Whole 30 agony as they ate donuts. But leave it to me to still help them celebrate.//We also went to a surprise party that night where Clem’s BFF, Mabel, showed up wearing the same outfit–cutest thing ever.

That face Clem is making in the photo below (with the flower garland)–my favorite! She never fails to bring a smile to my face. That garland is made out of paper. I’m seriously so in love with it. It was made by Paper Kat Designs on etsy.// Also, those little matching outfits that Desmond and Evangeline are wearing are from Thirty Five and Lime. She makes such beautiful clothes for kids.

As I’m looking back on these photos from the past month, I’m reminded how blessed I am. Some people think we’re crazy for having a big family (and they may be right haha) but it is so special to watch their relationships grow. They do drive each other crazy quite a bit, but they’re also each other’s best friends. I wouldn’t change it for anything.

My BFF, Stef, celebrated her 30th birthday in June and her husband was so thoughtful to set up a time for us to surprise her with a girls’ day (along with Maggi, our other BFF.) We started the day at the most sought after location for a girls’ day, a nuclear waste site, of course. We spent the rest of the day hitting up yummy food places and a pretty flower shop in the city before ending the day at our favorite ice cream shop. I was so thankful to have the chance to spend a day with these two, without our kids.

A little bit of summer vibes–complete with a picture from the splash pad that my kids didn’t like. Look how cute that rainbow sprayer is! My kids love splash pads but they were ready to leave within 20 minutes of getting there. Guess which splash pad we WON’T be going back to?//But the picture of Evangeline in the pool is pretty much my favorite. She’s living the life that I want to live.

On the days/weeks leading up to the Fourth of July, we love to include all kinds of red, white, and blue to our wardrobes. The girls are both wearing headbands from Purple Rose Bows (a subscription bow shop.) We have loved all the bows we’ve gotten each month!

All the clementine themed stuff that I’ve gotten for Clem has definitely made me regret not naming our other children after fruit. All the missed photo opportunities with children named things like Kiwi and Melon.

By the time June was over, I had determined that I wasn’t really very interested in doing Month in a Minute anymore. I love having the videos but it was just becoming way too much to remember, which therefore resulted in quality I wasn’t happy with. So I decided to take a break from it again. Don will be continuing (his videos were always better than mine anyway) so I will continue to share those here each month.

Like I said at the beginning of this post, I hope to be back to blogging more consistently now. As always, thank you for reading along!

July 13, 2017
Blog, iphone, Kids Say, Month In A Minute

May Recap


Excuse my grandmotherly ways as I exclaim “Oh my, I can’t believe it’s June!” I mean, I feel the same shock every time another month passes so you’d think I’d be used to it. Is this shock going to continue for the rest of my life?

Also, today is National Donut Day–which I normally go crazy over. I can tell you that it’s not quite as thrilling when you’re 22 days into Whole 30. I still let my children celebrate like the festive mother I am. But I’ll rehash that in next month’s post (sorry for SUCH a cliff hanger.)

Back to the real reason for this post–my May recap…featuring a new crib sheet from this adorable shop, lots of new swimwear for Evangeline from Stella Cove, and the most adorable Jedi baby.

These group shots from the abandoned church that we saw a few weeks back are just some of my favorites! (and I just realized that I say that about almost every group shot.)

I’m not sure if I already shared on my blog, but on May 11th, I celebrated 13 years being cancer free. It also happened to fall on the same day that Don had a work meeting out in the city. We ended up dropping him off and finding Turtle Park, which I’ve driven by hundreds of times but have never actually visited. And just as it sounds, it was a park…with turtles. That’s all it was. Big turtle statues. But the kids absolutely loved it and were very sad that we didn’t get to stay long. Their sadness quickly faded because we went to our absolute favorite ice cream shop, Ice’s, to celebrate my health! It was also my last hurrah before I started Whole 30 the next morning.//Also, Clem channeling her inner Mr. T vibes. If you haven’t seen his music video, it is a must.

The best thing about having a big family is all of the relationships. They genuinely love spending time with each other. It is so special to watch their friendships. We are so blessed.// And Clem in her milk bath–totally giving me all kinds of sass in the most adorable way.

Sister pictures are my favorite thing ever (for some reason, the boys don’t get into the brother pictures quite as much 😉 ) They have their own sister hashtag on my Instagram–#sweetestsisterfriends. Also, in case you aren’t on Instagram but still are interested in what I share there, you can always view the web version that I linked or if you are looking from a desktop/laptop, you can see the most recent IG pictures across the bottom of my blog.

She’s only 2 days away from turning 8 months old. Cue the tears. Yesterday I was watching a video of her from when she was just hours old and it made me want to rewind time like crazy. But I am so enjoying the sweet stage she’s in right now.

This picture of Evangeline and Desmond may be my favorite thing ever–partly because I just wasn’t expecting her to come alongside him and put her arm around him.//Also, the picture of Mabel and Clem is another favorite. BFFs, just like their mommas.

I was really bad about getting my Month in a Minute clips this month. I guess just the busyness of life had me forgetting most day so I ended up using my phone instead of the DSLR on a lot of days. Don’s video, however, turned out much better than mine (like always.) If you haven’t already subscribed to our family vlog (Don’s channel,) please do! We need enough subscribers to create a custom URL and we still need quite a few more. Don works very hard on each video (usually taking weeks to complete each one in his free time) so I can guarantee they are very well made.

(my video on top, his on the bottom. As always, if you only have time/patience to watch one of these 1 minute videos, I recommend Don’s .)

And the best way to end the recap–with some Kids Say.
Have a happy weekend and go eat a donut (or two) for me!

As we pulled up to the strawberry fields and saw a donkey..
Evangeline–“Hey look! It’s an elephant.”

The kids were talking about time and AM/PM.
Me–“12pm is when we eat lunch.”
Kingston–**excitedly “is it 12pm right now?!”
Me–“No. It’s past that. We just ate lunch.”
Kingston–**disappointed “Oh. I forget things sometimes.”

Evangeline and Desmond had blankets tied around their necks, like capes, and she was trying to state that they matched.
Evangeline–“Look Desmond, it’s like we’re married together.”

Kai and Kingston kept saying that person mowing the lawn next door was a girl because they had long hair. Liam, fed up with them debating it, finally yelled “He has a beard!”

June 2, 2017