Island life!

Boys. Challenging moms everyday with being comfortable with the uncomfortable.

Two days ago, Jacob set off with a buddy. He had a sleeping bag, pillow, backpack filled with I don't know what, and some shoes.  They hopped onto a jetski that was waiting at our dock and set off.  That's the uncomfortable part! It's new. Who gets picked up by jetski at the dock? Ha! Lake life! ❤️

They met up with his buddy's parents who have a house boat. They docked the house boat at an island and the boys camped out overnight. Building a fire pit, getting wood, starting the fire. 

I can't tell you how uncomfortable but excited I was for him! He is so incredibly happy when he had a job. A plan. Something that gives him purpose. 

Lucky for us, and gin, he has surrounded himself with amazing friends to make memories with.

That boy had my heart wrapped up tight! 

Beyond happy for him! 

Talking to myself

That's what I find myself doing all the time. Taking to myself.  Working through things in my head and letting little snippets come through my lips. So many things I wish that I had blogged about, for me. The kids have grown so much, done so many things. We've moved. 

John and I have learned so much about love, growth and life. We are entering a new chapter soon, one with changes hat I can't seem to wrap my mind around and yet everyone else seems so excited. "Oh wow! You have one almost graduating." 

Me? Oh, no! I have 3 babies.

Blogging, for the memories. And so I don't look like a crazy lady talking to herself.

Fuel them up

Sending the kids off to school with good healthy food is important to me. I am so hungry all the time myself that I would be so sad thinking about them at school and  hearing tummy rumbles.

They hate school lunch and always say it makes them sick. (Last year I would take Friday's off from making lunches and expected it to be a treat. They didn't like it)

Trying to come up with ideas for lunch can be difficult. I certainly don't want to eat the same thing everyday and I know that they don't.

They don't like waiting inline with 500 kids (that's a exaggeration although not much of one) for the microwave so meals need to be okay to eat cold. 

I saw this idea while scrolling Pinterest the other day, didn't really read it or click on it but it was stuck in my head. MINI POT PIES! 

I'm pretty lazy honestly when I'm in the kitchen and if it has more than 3 steps or 5 ingredients I won't follow your recipe anyway! Just being honest! 

So...

Here's what I came up with! 

I bought immaculate brand pie crust from sprouts grocery, two cans of organic no salt added chicken and dumpling soup and came home excited to get started! 

*unrolled the crusts and used my papered chef sandwich making circle thing to cut the circles that would be the bottom of the pies. I made the pies in my muffin tin!

*opened the cans of soup and drained as much "juice" as I could so the pies wouldn't be filled with juice but instead all the yummy chunks of food.

*took a large spoon and put one scoop of soup into each pie. (Filled them up)

*used a tiny little mason jar to cut to smaller circles for the top of the pies and place them on top.

*popped them in the 400 degree oven for maybe 10-13 minutes. (Until tops where brown)

*let them cool completely and they popped right out! 

EASY AS PIE! <-----lame 

School is in session!

I'm not even mad about it. 

Typically I really get sad when school starts back up. I miss my kids. I love spending time with them and my having to compete with school activities and homework for time with them.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still sad. I still miss them.

But, They also miss each other! And That makes me so happy! 

In the morning I hear them yell to each other "have a great day! I love you" ❤️ and "after school do you want to play something together?" ❤️. "Will you help me with my math?"  I hear them helping eachother pick out "cool clothes" and remind eachother to brush teeth. It's a commonality they have, this school thing.

I see more heartfelt hugs and laughter. 

More quality time that isn't forced by ME saying "come on. Everyone is going to the pool weather you like it or not".

We all need space and time to really appreciate the ones we love. We need to be surrounded by other people to understand that our family truly is filled with our best friends.

School isn't all bad. ;)

The not so busy summer and my LOVE for it.

Summers are meant to be easy. Casual, SLOW and fun.  Summers are meant to be spent sleeping in LATE, spending long days with the ones we love and eating dinner at 8:30pm.

Summers go by so fast even when we try to slow them down. We fill up the weekend and week days with fun new adventures and laughter with friends, we put school and alarm clocks in the backs of our minds and yet they still seems to make their way all to quickly back into our lives.

This summer I've enjoyed getting up early with the pets, hearing all the sounds of morning and spending coffee time sometimes with John.  Making breakfast for everyone and knowing that whenever they decide to wake up, they will have healthy food to fuel them for whatever their day looks like.  

It's different  but the same in our house this summer.

Not everyone wants to go to the pool everyday like last summer But everyone does want to sleep in. 

Not everyone wants to go for night walks and look for frogs but they do still enjoy camping out in each others bedrooms and laughing into the early morning hours.

The basketball hoop doesn't see many balls pass through it but the kitchen sees littler hands navigating it and learning some new skills. 

Legos get dusty but precious conversations between siblings can be heard while painting nails or deep cleaning bedrooms and seeing memories that we thought were lost.

School work sneaks it's way into some days and plans for the fall seap into conversation. Advice for new high schools and middle schoolers. Plans to enjoy every bit of Junior year.

Laundry sits a little longer, toilets get moldy, showers may or may not happen, because "I washed in the lake" seems to be an appropriate response to "have your showered this week".

Workouts still happen, though at all different times and with thoughts of patio sitting, wine and friends on my mind.

This is summer and I wish it would go on forever.

Shoulders workout

Waiting until the end of the day to workout makes the day go by soooooo long! I get crabby! ;)

But, yesterday I had a crap ton of stuff to do and John flew back home in the evening from Chicago so I decided to do a night workout. 

We did shoulders which I love because It's one muscle group that I can take John completely to failure! :D  makes a girl feel good!!! 

Here's the workout that we did, not including reps but most thins were 15 reps 3 rounds with the exception of the around the worlds, those were 3 sets of 30 and the Arnold presses were reps til failure and then move up in weight. 

HAVE FUN! 

Camping and eating healthy

One our very favorite things to do as a family is camping.  But man is getting ready for camping a good bit of work.  Work that typically is all done by me because John is traveling and to be completely honest, I like things done my way. Lol

Every year we try to make things a little less complicated food wise and not stress so much about what the heck we are going to eat.  I don't want to spend my whole day cooking and cleaning at camp because #1 it's a bit more difficult that just taking the dishes to the sick and #2 I just want to chill and have fun.  

So we've figured out that the prep before camping allows us to really enjoy the trip more.  It's more work on the front side but makes for a much more enjoyable weekend. 

So, I make lists. Plan out meals and snacks and get to work. 

Things that I prep:

Oat packs

(Measure and add goodies like protein powder, flax, nuts, whatever)

Veggies

(Chop, season and foil pack for grilling)

Burgers

(I pre patty and season)

Salads

(Chop and dress)

Snack packs

(I have a bin just for snacks for the kids and Baggie them up into proper portions)

Eggs

(I mix the eggs and egg whites and put them in a large water bottle type container so I don't have all the eggs in my cooler)

pancakes

(I mix up the pancake batter and put it into this handy pancake bottle)

 ***we tropical take whole fruit instead of chopped or mixed. Easier travel and kinda fun to slice up the whole watermelon or cantaloupe and watch it get devoured! 

Chicken

(John likes to boil the chicken ahead so it's not all gross in the cooler. I always hate this for some reason, maybe the boiling process seems icky to me but it's always nice to just have to toss it on the grill and add bbq sauce, no long cook time and no gross chicken juice in the cooler!!  Sometimes we just freeze it and keep it locked up tight)

Tuna

(Wild planet has the best cans with a pop type lid and you just open and eat! No draining, no can opener!)

ONLY PACK EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO EAT! 

It's easy to get Carried away and overpack. 

You know what your family is going to eat in a weekend and it it super nice to go home with an empty cooler! 

We use two coolers, one for food and one for drinks.  This way the food cooler stays organized because no one is digging through it to find that one mini soda that's left! ;)

This year we mixed up brownies  ahead and then just poured them into a cast iron skillet and cooked them on the dinner coals!!! Worked perfect!!! 

Some pictures of how I organize camp...

We  have containers and bins that stay stocked with camping items all year and we just refill as needed after the camping trip so that next time we camp it's all ready to go. Foil, paper towels, games, lighters, utensils, all stay packed and in the proper bins. That 3 drawer bin is heavy, but so nice to have. It's basically kitchen cabinets on the go!  The drawers come out for easier transport to the camp site and once everything is set up, it's so nice to have!