A Day at Home & Weekend Recap

Today, Aedan and I have just been hanging around the house. It has been really nice to not have anywhere to be, since we have had a pretty full schedule the past few weeks.

This morning we did a little cleaning, a little Sesame Street watching (Aedan has gotten really into it over the last week and Netflix seems to have an unlimited supply of episodes) and a lot of playing. I love just watching him play with his toys. I always try to sneak pictures, but most of the time he catches me and then just wants to talk on my phone. :)

While Aedan napped this afternoon, I got a lot of work done and even had some extra time to do a little blogging and watch the latest Bachelor episode (so dramatic).

Now, onto our weekend recap…this weekend we did a lot of entertaining and it was super fun.

Friday night we did our typical out to dinner and errand running. Such an exciting life right? :)

We had a lazy Saturday morning and afternoon around the house and then had some of my good friends and their husbands and boys over for dinner. It was great to visit with everyone and watch our boys all play together.

On Sunday, we took a long walk through some trails that are just across the street. Hiro had a blast splashing through some creeks and we found a new park for Aedan to play at about halfway through the walk so he was happy.

After our walk, Jon and Aedan headed up north to visit with his grandparents and mom. I stayed behind to get caught up on some work that I hadn’t gotten done the week before (read: Aedan woke up early from his nap a few days in a row). I was able to get everything work related done and get the house cleaned up before they got home.

Here are a couple of pictures of Aedan and his great grandpa…I think they both had fun!

After a quick trip to the grocery store and a little play time, we put Aedan to bed around 6:30. He skipped his nap and was super tired. We weren't going to put him down til 7 but he kept asking to go night night, poor guy. Around 7 one of Jon’s good friends and his girlfriend came over to see the new house. I made Vegetable Bibimbap and it was a big hit. This was the second time I had made it and I think it will be something I put into our regular meal rotation. Its pretty easy to make and you could really throw in any veggies you have on hand. We had a great time hanging out and catching up, although we stayed up way too late and as usual Monday morning came way to fast.

My sister and her roommate are coming down this next weekend, so we get to do some more entertaining. I can’t wait!

-Lauren-

Play time

As soon as Jon gets off work in the evenings, this is what play time looks like. Aedan loves it! I like to think Aedan and I have a lot of fun during the day, building towers, reading books, playing with stuffed animals…but really I don’t hold a candle to this kind of play time…

-Lauren-

Weekend Recap

I am having a hard time blogging on a regular basis this year! I keep hoping to get better, but we have been so busy!

We had a great weekend so I thought I would do a recap.

Friday, Jon finished up work early so we went to the park for some play time. After the park, we went out to dinner. We tried a new Indian food restaurant and really liked it. Aedan loves rice so he always enjoys Indian or Chinese food! Jon got a mango lemonade and may or may not have let Aedan drink about half of it.  Aedan was wired by the time dinner was over. He was laughing at everything and being pretty loud, luckily we were eating outside!

After dinner we did a little shopping. Jon and Aedan picked up some things at Petsmart  for Hiro, while I did a little browsing at Ultra and Charming Charlie's. I found a perfume that I love…I am not a huge perfume person, but I am thinking about picking this up soon.

I am on the lookout for a new everyday purse/diaper bag. I still love my cross body bag from Fossil, but it’s a little small when I am caring Aedan’s cup and a snack, plus my stuff. I haven’t found exactly what I want yet. Any good recommendations on diaper bags that don’t look too much like a diaper bag? :)

Saturday, we had a lazy morning. We were actually hanging around the house waiting for an ADT guy to come turn on our alarm system, but he never showed. Lame! Although it was nice to just be around the house with nowhere to go. After Aedan woke up from his nap, we went to run some errands before trying out a Pizzeria place that is close by. We gave it a B, it was good but nothing special.

We came home and I started baking a chocolate cake. Jon’s grandmother, mom and aunt all make the best chocolate cake ever. I don’t even like chocolate cake and I love this one. I decided to try out the recipe since I think I am going to make it for Aedan’s birthday soon. It turned out great!

My parents stopped by for the night on their way home from a conference in San Antonio. They got in around 9 and we all enjoyed some cake before heading to bed early.

Sunday morning we made a big breakfast with my parents before heading to the park for Aedan to play. My parents had to leave around noon, but Aedan had a blast with them!

After Aedan’s nap, we headed to the grocery store. We have been doing our grocery shopping on Sundays and it has been fun to go all together. We have also been trying to shave down our grocery bill and so far we have been doing pretty good. Hopefully we can keep it up!

Jon and I have become a little addicted to Redbox and since there is one at the grocery store, we picked up this move for Sunday night…

It was bizarre. Good acting, but a really strange movie. Not sure if I recommend it, but it was filmed in Texas and it was fun to recognize a few Austin locations.

-Lauren-

Getting Involved

One of my goals, when we moved to our new neighborhood, was to find some fun things for Aedan and I to do on the days I get to work from home. He loves getting out and running errands or going to the park, but I thought it would be great for him to have some play time with other kids and hopefully allow me to meet some other mom’s in the area.

First, I checked out our library. They have a few different story times each week and one just happened to be starting up last Wednesday. Aedan and I went to check it out and it was pretty fun. All the kids are 1-3 years old so its more of a song and dance & a few short stories, story time. It is fun to watch Aedan interact with all the kids. We went back yesterday and had some more fun. Aedan already has a little buddy named Lincoln. They are so cute together and his mom is really nice. :)

Another thing I checked into was a Mom’s Group. I have seen a ton of different ones on Meetup.com but I couldn’t find one in our old area of town. I checked for one in our new area and found one! After emailing the coordinator last week, I decided to try out one of their events. Yesterday after nap time, we met at the park for play time. Aedan and I both had a lot of fun. I am sure we will be attending more events soon!

-Lauren-

Project 365

I love following Project 365 posts. I was always so impressed that people could stay on top of taking a picture a day and then posting about it. How fun to look back on once the year is over! Sarah over at Life {Sweet} Life is on her second year of Project 365. She did a post about a few of the apps she uses to help her out and I totally love them! You can check out her posts here and here.

I downloaded this app a while ago and back filled some pictures going back to January 8th. This app is awesome. You can set a reminder to help you remember to take a picture and you can add a caption right to the picture so you don’t forget what was special about it.

I also download this app which lets you add some fun templates to your pictures right on your phone.

I decided with these apps, I can totally do my own Project 365. So I missed the first week of January and I totally meant to post this on Sunday, but here are my pictures from last week…

Sunday 1/8

Monday 1/9

Tuesday 1/10

Wednesday 1/11

Thursday 1/12

Friday 1/13

Saturday 1/14

This week I am going to try to decide on a format for my post and my goal is to actually post them every weekend instead of the middle of the following week! :)

-Lauren-

Weekend Recap and Play Spots

Okay, I think we are finally back into the grove of our normal routine.

We had a great weekend. Thursday, night we had dinner with some good friends. Their two boys are 4 and 2 and Aedan loved having them over to play! Friday, we had a relaxing night at home. Jon and I watched the last Harry Potter movie and went to bed early.

Saturday, we headed way up north to celebrate Jon’s grandfather’s birthday. We met for lunch at Mighty Fine and then had homemade cake and ice cream at Jon’s aunt’s house. Aedan got lots of attention and loved every minute of it!

We also got to take home this little picnic table. Jon’s mom had it for two of Jon’s nephews when they were little. Once they were done with it, it went to Jon’s aunt to use for her grandkids. Now that they have out grown it, it is Aedan’s turn. He loves it (and he loves sharing his snack with Hiro).

I have been meaning to take some pictures of the house now that we are all settled in, but my mom borrowed my normal lens. The only one I have now is my 50 mm, which is great for close ups, but not so much for room shots. Soon though! I saw that Kelly’s Korner is going to do Show Us Your Life – around the house again soon. Can’t wait to participate again!

I did manage to take some pictures of Aedan’s two favorite play spots…

In our new house, he has a play room, which is great! I am not sure where all his toys were before, but I love having a play for them all to go now! My parents gave him this little tent for Christmas. At first he didn’t really seem to care for it. But when we had our friends over last week, their boys played in it and now Aedan thinks it so cool. He will go get toys and take them in the tent to play.

Opps, caught mommy taking pictures…

Another one of his favorite spots is the stairs. He always seems to have a collection of toys sitting on his two steps. I was thinking the stairs might be a good time-out spot, but now not so much. He will use his tools to “fix” the gate or the wall all the time.

He also loves the backyard. So does Hiro. They will just go back there and run around and then both crash next to each other and just sit. Best friends…

-Lauren-

First Week Back

So glad it’s Friday! Our first week back at work was a little rough.

Isn’t that how it always is though? We basically had about 2 weeks off from most work responsibilities, which was great and allowed us to get all settled in, but man it was hard to get back in the routine of things.

Anyway, we made it and are really looking forward to the weekend.

Jon had a couple of long days at the beginning of the week, where he had to be up in Round Rock all day. About 95% of the time he works from home and when he does have to go in (a couple of times a month), he is usually able to plan the times around traffic. That is one of the reasons we decided to buy in the area we did. Unfortunately there are a few times (two of them this week!), were he had to be up north and drive home during peak rush hour. It took him about an hour to get home one night. :(

On top of that, we had to get some maintenance done on his car this week. The work cost about double what we were expecting. Not so fun, but thankfully doable with savings. We are hoping his car hangs on for a couple more years…

Other than that and forcing ourselves back into a routine, things have been going great. Aedan is loving having two parks that we can walk to on a daily basis. As an added bonus the weather has been gorgeous this week. Whenever I am home, the back door is wide open and we have played outside as much as possible.

Tonight,  we are having date night in and watching the newest Harry Potter movie thanks to Redbox. I’m not the biggest Harry Potter fan, but I did read all the books and since I have seen all the other moves, I feel like I need to complete the series. Can’t believe the first one came out when I was in high school!

Tomorrow, we are celebrating Jon’s grandfather’s birthday with a family lunch and then we are hoping to have a relaxing weekend around the house.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

-Lauren-