Wednesday, October 28, 2015

What I Wore Wednesday

It's finally fall here! The mornings are chilly and the afternoons are crisp so I have been busting out all of fun cool weather clothes. I love my winter wardrobe so much better than my summer clothes!
I was totally in pajamas and yoga pants last week, for fall break, so that doesn't count...but this week and last week definitely counted.



I love how this outfit came together for conferences last week!
Plaid top: Tj maxx
Skirt: Target--you can actually move in this pencil skirt and get in and out of the car!
Heels: Target


I had an epiphany the other day, that I could just take pictures in my class, the light is great during my first period plan time!
Lace top: Forever 21, thrifted
Tanks:??, thrifted
Polka dot pants: Old Navy
Flats: Target
Necklace: Jane
I love this sweater!
Cardigan: Old Navy
Tee: Target
Black pants: Target
Flats: Target (these have been on repeat for weeks!)
Necklace: I made it!

My nesting outfit from the weekend, my best guy had to take a picture with me!
Tee: Gap
Vest: Target
Jeans: Target
Shoes: Target
Dress: Target
Sweater: Loft, thrifted
Tights: Jane
Flats: Target
Necklace:??



Tuesday, October 27, 2015

The big sigh of relief

Well this last week was certainly an adventure. Once a year my darling husband leaves us for a few days to go hunting with his brother and buddies. Leaving me a single parent. While this will never compare to the actual years that I was a single parent, they are nonetheless, lonely and tough days. Days where I feel like I am losing my mind. It's not all bad, though, I can watch whatever rubbish I want on netflix, I don't really make "real dinner" (Hello, mac and cheese and pizza!)and I can spread all out in bed, BUT.....

Weird things happen, gross spiders, strange sounds in the nights, alarms going off...I will get to that.

I never realized that these things probably happen when Brien is here too, but they just don't seem as scary or weird when I have my partner in crime here with me.


For example the day Brien left, our smoke alarm started chirping in the middle of the day. No big deal, I tested it and it stopped. I even went to the store to get another battery just in case it really was going dead and needed replaced (check me out, adulting) With the new battery safely installed, I thought, "I am running this show!". Much to my disappointment the fire alarm was running the show and decided to pick up where it had left off on Thursday. Only it was 4 AM, on Sunday morning. The only thing to do was cover my head with a pillow and pray the children slept through it. Needless to say, they did not. I later, had my tall and smart father disconnect the alarm, to be dealt with at another date and time.

Finally, we could rest easy, right? Nope. The answer is no. On Monday night, after a long day teaching, an even longer "bed time" with trying to put Kellen to sleep 27 times between 7 and 9 PM, I heard THE most horrifying sound at about midnight. I seriously thought it was a dream. Not a dream, a nightmare, just the carbon monoxide detector going off. I pried it off the wall and stuffed it under my covers. No kids were going to wake on account of this alarm. So I did what an panicked single mother would do if her CM detector was going off in the night. I googled it.

(This kid parties all day, AND all night, I am SO thankful that I usually have someone to share the burden with!)


After breathing some deep night air out of the bathroom window (you know just in case we were being poisoned ) I composed myself and found that it too, was the battery. I changed it and kept it wrapped in a blanket under the bed, just in case we had a repeat of the smoke alarm. Oh yeah, I also checked to see if my children were still breathing, They were.

I didn't realize how much husbands have to be on high alert. I was on the other hand became a crazy hermit!...lock the door! Don't leave the windows open, bring my keys in from the car at night, don't let the kids play out front without supervision. I was THAT mom this week! How stressful it must be for fathers and husbands!! I truly had a whole new understanding of the worry they go through!

After the looonnnnggggest 6 days ever, my mister was home. I breathed the biggest sigh of relief. I was off duty. I had the best night's sleep knowing that if something weird happened, at least we could tackle it together. While those days are hard, it gives me a whole 'nother round of appreciation for team work, marriage and parenting together.
So here's to hunting, single parents, devices that prevent disasters and batteries that work!

Monday, October 26, 2015

Nesting weekends

This is getting quite ridiculous when I actually look forward to cleaning, grocery shopping and laundry on the weekends. But, if gets me out of doing school work, these days, I will gladly take the distraction. I actually had some time for myself, to do fun things, that I want to do!

Friday--was the quite the disappointing night. Callie had this "flight school" class, where the girls in her girl scout troop get to learn how to fly a plane.

Don't worry it's a cessna, it flies a 30 minute loop around town and the pilot is in control at all times. Well we found our way to the class and spent threeeeeee hours learning from a super nice but incredibly boring presenter, who taught us all about how airplanes work and what to expect at the flight school.

 I was under the impression that it was a drop off class, since I was not going on the plane, so I had some plans for shopping. Callie had other thoughts. So I was in for the long haul and it was long and boring haul. At 9:30, with class finally over, when we were driving home, a small voice from the backseat informed me that, she did not, in fact, want to learn how to fly an airplane. She did not want to go and she made it very clear that she wanted nothing to do with "flight school".

So that was 3 hours of my life, I will never get back. But at least we didn't wait all day on Saturday for our turn and then have her change her mind.

Saturday--was busy with nesting stuff. I actually enjoyed the change of pace from making powerpoints and stairsteps and calendars! This also happened...
Remember when I re-learned how to crochet?? Well with Brien gone last week, I had plenty of time to get started on my scarf. It is almost done!! It looks a hot mess. I keep dropping stitches and picking them up and none of edges are even, but I think it will look okay once it's actually on and ruffled up a little bit! I can't wait to finish it!

This also happened, after a great spaghetti dinner at my parent's house. A shirtless cowboy riding a firetruck and singing the ABC's... I love it!

Sunday--was more fun! Brien was off helping his dad with insulation, so me and the kiddos had a great morning of walking and crunching through the leaves in our neighborhood, a trip to the craft store, and cooking! All the things I love and have missed for so many week!
I am SO excited to do more crocheting, I've got big plans! I also made some new jewelry (more about that later) and baked delicious things (more about that later too). It was the perfect nesting weekend, in my little nest with my little birds!


Saturday, October 17, 2015

Adventures at 7 Falls

Last Friday, Callie played hooky with me and we had the most wonderful adventure! We dropped Kellen off at day care and had a marvelous girls day at the waterfalls, yes,  waterfalls!

We fought rush hour traffic and made the journey south to Colorado Springs to find 7 falls which is a 7 layer water fall that cascades down 181 feet of sheer granite. I sound like a tour guide book!

It is slightly hard to find, however. In high school you could just drive right up the entrance, park and get out to hike. But I guess in 2013 the floods washed away most of the stuff in the bottom of the canyon and The Broadmoor bought it and fixed it up. So after winding up and down roads, we found the entrance and they told us to go park the car at the hotel and take the shuttle up. So it was a little confusing. Especially when the guy at the gate started giving me navigational advice using the cardinal directions. Yeah. Not happening. All I heard was look for green signs and arrows. Done. That I can  do! We successfully found the parking lot after a short detour through a billion dollar neighborhood and the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo parking lot, we made it!

We hopped on the shuttle and drove back through every where we had just gone and finally we were back at the gates. Once we started walking up the path it was majestic! It was a pretty, chilly, fall-y morning and the sun doesn't quite reach some parts of the canyon, so we were cold!



Once you get through the canyon you are greeted with 145 stairs that take you to an overlook. I am not gonna lie, these stairs were tough!

But once you get to the top this is the view! Totally worth it!

Then, there is a staircase up to the actual falls. Another 200 and something, you would have to ask my tour guide/ map girl.

Yipes! The view from about half way. It was terrifying! The stairs are basically floating next to a huge mountain with huge waterfalls down the other side. They shake if there are people below you and above you and basically I just told myself to breathe and do not look down. When we finally got to the top my brave partner in crime confessed, "Mom, I was really scared!" I am glad I was not alone!



Once you get to the top there are some lovely trails that you can hike, that are super easy and have fun little hide-y holes like this one. We were following some nice family and they offered to take our picture!


The way down was actually less scary than the way up, praise God. We both made it safe and sound. So we survived 7 falls and lived to tell the tale. It was so much fun to spend some time in nature with my girl!

Thursday, October 15, 2015

Gettin' crafty with fall decor!

Do you like my cheesy title?? I saw it on a magazine in line at the grocery store and it made me laugh. But seriously on Tuesday during nap time I got my craft on for the first time since summer break. Partly because I have run out of ideas and partly because I have NO time!

I had no fall decorations in the family room so we had to fix that. First the golden pumpkin...
I found this little white pumpkin at Target for $8 and some gold paint for $2 at hobby lobby. This proved quite the feat. At first I wanted to do polka dots, but that was a hot mess. Then I decided to try horizontal stripes. No big deal right? Wrong. It was too hard to free hand straight stripes on a bumpy pumpkin, so I busted out the painters tape and that was even worse. So vertical stripes it was! This was slightly easier. 
Also gold paint is super thin so I had to do like 5 coats to get even coverage. I shoulda' just used spray paint! After all my labor, it still came out pretty cute!
Next up, bunting. This was so easy...
They have pre-made burlap bunting at hobby lobby, this 12 piece already put together set was $5. I couldn't have made that for this cheap, so I went the easy way! Also some orange paint that I already had was needed. I just free handed the letters so it took like 10 minutes and voila!
Its a titch hard to see in the pictures, but it says "happy fall". Now the family room is ready for fall!






Tuesday, October 13, 2015

The great pumpkin harvest!

My first glorious day of fall break was spent soaking up the sun at the pumpkin patch. Since the mister has his hunting trip coming up, the fall weekends are slipping away from us! So Saturday it was!
We were up with the birds thanks to these cuties, so we headed out super early. Getting there when the pumpkin patch opens = no lines! Yay! We hit up our old favorite spot, Nicks. It is such a place for all things fall. Let's see why...Well lets start with the smells of fall. They were already fire roasting chiles (you better believe that we bought a bunch so Brien could make green chile) and fresh made kettle corn (you better believe Kellen wanted some and I ended up eating it!) Next, the colors, oh my!  Bunches of glittering pumpkins, mums in every color on the planet! Can y'all tell I was excited about this trip?!?

They also have so many fun things for the kiddos...
The train...

The games...

The bounce house...

The things to climb in...

The sand/corn? box...He wouldn't even look at me he was having so much fun...

Things to climb on...

The short bus full of my favorite people...

The kettle corn...

The funnel cake...

Such a great day with my loves. We spent the rest of the day making green chile (recipe to follow) and relaxing and basking in the 70 degree "fall day" on the patio! I heart fall break!


Monday, October 12, 2015

WP is where it's at!

Last weekend we took our annual trip to Winter Park with the Wood's and once again it did not disappoint! We all took the day off and on Friday, had a leisure morning (which are rare these days) and headed out around nine.



 I hate packing for this trip for several reasons...One, being the weather, you just never know. Some years it's 70, some years it's snowing. This year it was 70. Two, I want to be lounge-y but cute. This year was all about the yoga pants. Three, you never know what adventures might spring up so you have to be wardrobe ready.

We started our trip with an immediate visit to our favorite park...Fun was had. Then we hit the store for SO much food. It seems like all we do is eat and hike. I am totally okay with that!

After the park and shopping we headed back to the condo. The back patio faces the woods so the kids play out there the whole time. Also there are some mischievous chipmunks that come and eat all of the fallen snacks. So they provide ample entertainment. We had such a lazy day! It was much needed after the crazy past few weeks.  There is also a pool, hot tub and big play room to keep the kids busy, so the parents get a little reprieve as well.

Nights were a little rough this year...Kellen was not of fan of sleeping and staying put. Needless to say there was not a lot of resting at bedtime.



We went on an awesome hike! The weather was perfect and beautiful. This year was all about enjoying the sunshine!

I love the smell of leaves and crisp air. Finally fall time!

The chipmunks were just not listening to him!

Fun at the park!



This slide is built into the side of a rock climbing wall. It was a popular favorite with the little this year!


Such a great get away! We can't wait to come back next year!