Happy Friday! This week kicked my butt. I’m pretty sure this has been me since Wednesday.

On the plus side, I was the crazy lady waiting outside Target on Saturday for them to open so I could finish school shopping in peace. At least that part is done! I’m ready for a chill weekend so we can relax and get ready for a week filled with back to school activities.

Today, I’m linking up with Erika, Narci and Andrea today for Friday Favorites!

one

Obviously this has to be my first FAVORITE of the week. For Mother’s Day this year, my boys got me the Cubs W flag that I’ve been (not so) secretly wanting. Finally, this week we hung our flag pole and our beautiful flag has gotten to fly several times already! This last month of baseball has been really exciting and the Cubs division is in quite a race. As of today, we are in first place but just by a hair and everybody is fighting to get to play October baseball! It makes me so happy to see this beauty flying! Go Cubbies! (Does anyone else see the clear rays from heaven shining down on it in this picture? ;))

two

Josh and I both love to read (whenever we can squeeze in some time!) and we are determined to pass on that love of reading to our boys. My family always gifts books with toys for holidays so we have quite a collection of some amazing children’s books in our house. Check out our Top 10 favorites in yesterday’s post. We chose some bestsellers that are probably familiar to you and some that are lesser known but all of the picks will not disappoint. Some teach lessons, some are just for fun and ALL of them you will love as much as your kids!

Also, in this week’s Tuesday Talk I shared some random fun facts about me! If you are curious about my similarities to Chandler Bing, how I met my husband in a way I never imagined, how many sets of twins are in our immediate family and my current dream job – this post is for you! 😉

three

When I was at Target on Saturday for some early-morning school shopping, I obviously had to run through the clothes. I found my FAVORITE cute shirts on clearance because Target is getting rid of the whole Mossimo brand! A version of this shirt has been a part of my weekday momiform almost daily for a couple years so you better believe I bought every color shirt in my size that was left. I’m so sad that they won’t be available anymore but I think my newest stash will hold me over for awhile. If you are a fan of these shirts too, run to your nearest Target and buy up all you can! I found them at Target.com earlier in the week and now they aren’t available online anymore to link to.

I hear that the new brands that will replace these are just as awesome – fingers crossed!

four

As we are nearing the end, I can say this summer has been a hands-down favorite. This has been my second summer home with my kids. Last year, our twins were only 9 months old, needed two naps a day and weren’t walking yet so we were really limited in how we could spend our days. This year, everybody was old enough to have fun and hang outside without eating grass and chewing on sticks and we had a blast together.

Watching them enjoy their days and play all together has been such an amazing privilege. We’ve gone on countless bike rides, visited Daddy at work, enjoyed different camps, swim lessons and more back yard playing than one can describe!

Summer you have been so good to us this year! We are sad to see you go. What a difference a year makes!

five

Finally, if you missed my Home Sweet Home free printable click here! It’s perfect to print and put in a cute frame from Hobby Lobby or Michael’s for your entryway or living room in your home. It can be printed 8 x 10 or 16 x 20!

Hope you all have the best weekend! I’m excited to read all the end of summer favorites today. See you next week!

Find me on Instagram here!

Happy, happy Friday!!! What. A. Week. As of today, we have less than two weeks until school starts and I’m trying to get pumped up. I’m seriously considering quietly whispering “pumpkins… football… pumpkin spice lattes… scarves” on repeat to myself as I’m navigating the school supply aisle this weekend to get our last list of stuff. Totally normal.

Linking up with Erika, Narci and Andrea today for Friday Favorites!

one

On this week’s Workin’ It Wednesday post I shared some back to school tips that work for our family. My FAVORITE of course is our dry erase family calendar we have hanging in our kitchen. It’s the only thing that helps me keep it together especially during the school year. I sell them as digital files in my brand new Etsy shop and if you use code OPENING20 you get 20% off your order until this Sunday. PLUS, Walgreens is having a printing sale until tomorrow giving 40% off poster sized prints.

This shop has been a goal of mine for awhile but as any mommas of littles know, it takes awhile to find time to do something for yourself! So if you feel so inclined, visit my shop and favorite it to show me a little love.

two

This is a huge FAVORITE. So, so proud of this one. On advice from Caleb’s eye doctor, he wore an eye patch over one of his eyes every minute he was awake for the first month of summer and part-time every day after that (and this was after wearing it for 4 hours a day since December). Apparently poor vision can be improved until 8 years of age and one of his eyes doesn’t see as good as the other. They said that by patching his ‘good eye’, we can strengthen his ‘bad eye’ and improve his vision enough that he may not need glasses anymore.

It SUCKED but he was such a trooper. He wore his patch in the pool, on bike rides and while it has been sweaty hot with hardly any complaining. (I was probably complaining more than he did.) At his appointment this week, they said his vision is completely restored and NO MORE PATCH. We have been celebrating!!

three

This may be a controversial one. 😉 When I was working, I used to buy the popular ‘life planner’ every year and I loved it. However, *spoiler alert* when I quit my job to stay home with my four our budget was obviously tighter. It pained me to admit but I just couldn’t justify the price anymore. Four kids are expensive! Last year I bought a planner I was unimpressed with and relied on a pile of post-it notes stuck to it. I heard about the new Recollections planners at Michaels a while ago, got fed up with my post-it pile this week with back to school on the horizon and went to check them out. I bought one and I LOVE it. They are the closest I have seen to the popular brand and the price is awesome. They sell for $29.99 – I used a 40% off and walked out of there with a great planner for $19.25. Score.

They are similar in that they are spiral bound, have plenty of notes and daily space, have stickers, a folder and a zippered pocket. I miss the personalization and some of the other cutesy features BUT these are an amazing price-conscious choice. Love it! I took a few pictures of mine in case you also have a desire for an adorable budget friendly planner!

FOUR

We spent our weekend visiting my in-laws and had the best time! We mini-golfed, enjoyed dinner outside in the beautiful weather, and spent our Sunday at a family picnic for Josh’s dad’s work.

Our boys got to sit in construction vehicles, race cars, climb on a mass amount of inflatables and slept the entire way home and until 8:30 the next morning. We had a great weekend but that last part may have been my favorite. 😉

FIVE

We started our first garden this spring and planted cucumbers, zucchini, tomatoes, cauliflower and peppers. We’ve definitely learned A LOT for next year but most importantly we have learned to scale back our cucumber plants. We planted four this year and they took off like crazy so we’ve been trying every recipe we can find to use them!

Our hands down FAVORITE has been this amazing cucumber tzatziki sauce that we put on a chicken wrap. It makes it taste like a gyro (minus the lamb obviously) and we’ve been having it every week since we tried it.

I cut up the chicken into fajita style pieces (long and thin), seasoned with salt and pepper and cooked it in a couple tablespoons of EVOO. Make sure not to overcrowd your skillet because we found it was the best when I cooked the chicken in two batches and the chicken got a nice crust on it. We put it on flour tortilla wraps with sliced red onion, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, feta cheese and the cucumber tzatziki. SO yummy. (P.S. We found that this recipe made a ton so you may want to half the recipe or use the leftovers as a veggie dip. It was great for that too!)

There are my favorites on this beautiful Friday. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend soaking in the end of summer.

I’d love to connect with you! Follow me on Instagram here

Follow me on Bloglovin here.

This post contains affiliate links. Click here to read my full disclosure statement.

Happy Friday (or as our boys have taken to exclusively calling it – FriYAY)! Hope everyone has had a good week. It’s hard to believe it is August already. This has been the fastest summer I can remember!

I’m linking up with Erika, Narci and Andrea today for Friday Favorites!

one

I have a confession. I realize this is unpopular but until this week, I was not a fan at ALL of dry shampoo. I just couldn’t get on board with the heavy feeling of it in my hair with all the ones I have tried. At my hair appointment this week, my stylist used a new line of products on my hair she thought I would like and clearly she knows me very well. I am in love. The whole Amika line smells amazing (seriously amazing) and I have now found the first dry shampoo I have ever liked. It’s not heavy and doesn’t feel like powder on my hair. I jokingly said that she has changed my life… but I’m not entirely sure I was exaggerating. 😉

two

I’ve talked before about our boys obsession with animals lately thanks in large part to Wild Kratts on PBS. They love to check out animal books at the library and one of their very favorite places to go is the zoo. A few months ago Caleb’s animal book of choice for the week was about tigers and he started talking about how his ‘biggest dream in life was to see a tiger in real life’. We took a day trip at the beginning of the summer to a zoo with a tiger but of course on the day we were there, the tiger wasn’t out in his habitat. We went to a different zoo last weekend and they saw TWO tigers. Sweet boy’s summer was made.

They entertained us the rest of the day with random animal facts they have learned from Wild Kratts (like ‘Did you know that rhinos have poor eyesight Mom?’). We had the best day… until Reid threw up all over me and we had to drive two hours home smelling like it. The rest of it was good though. Haha! #someoneisalwayspukingwhenyouhavefourkids

three

This week’s Twin Tuesday post was all about how to include your older kids when you bring home a newborn (or two!). I wrote this from the perspective of twins joining our family but all these tips also apply to families preparing to bring one baby home too. Bringing home a new baby is an adjustment for everyone, especially younger kiddos who really had no idea of what to expect or knew what a new baby (or two!) joining the family really means. We dealt with some growing pains for sure when we brought our babies home and hopefully anyone with children who are preparing for a new baby can learn from some of our mistakes and work out your kinks faster than we did!

four

We are to the point of the summer where everyone is tired of our toys, tired of the same bike ride path and I’m all out of new ideas of things to do all day. Randomly, last week Luke was playing with our Magformers over near the front door and figured out that the magnets would stick to the steel door. He started building with them on the door and everyone’s minds were blown. I don’t know why it never occurred to us before that they can stick to more than just each other!  They have made giant towers sticking out from the door and crazy designs that they tear down and remake a million times. Magformers have always been a favorite toy but now they are completely resurrected and they have played with them for over an hour every day this week. An end of summer win.

five

Finally, we plan to finish up our summer bucket list this weekend (you can tell we took turns writing on it). We have done everything except go on a train and make popsicles. We were informed when the list was made that a zoo train doesn’t count so I guess we are off to find a real one this weekend. I can’t even believe that we only have a couple more weeks left of summer and Eli just joined his brothers and figured out the joy of sleeping in…

Those are my favorites this week! Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

To keep up with us on Instagram, click here.

This post contains affiliate links. Click here to see my full disclosure statement.

Happy Friday! This week has seemed to fly for us. Josh took a vacation day in the middle of the week and we spent the day at a really cool park with some friends and the evening at swim lessons and grilling burgers. Just the refresher I needed mid-week to make it through!

I’m linking up with Erika, Andrea and Narci for Friday Favorites! Per the usual, I have a wide array of things on my favorites list this week!

one

On Saturday night when the heat index was up over 100 degrees, we made homemade ice cream with our crew old school style by rolling a coffee can up and down our driveway. Our boys LOVED it and shockingly the ice cream was actually really good. We used to do this all the time growing up with my mom but this time I switched out some of the ingredients with what we had in the house. (The recipe we used as kids called for half and half – we used 2% milk this time- and rock salt but I used just regular table salt and it worked perfectly.)

We mixed 1 cup of milk, 1/2 tsp of vanilla and 2 tbs of sugar in a quart size baggie that we sealed after removing as much air as we could. We put 3 cups of ice and 1/3 cup of salt in a gallon size baggie and mixed it up a bit. Then we put the quart size baggie inside the freezer size bag, sealed it and put it in a coffee can so we could roll it. You could absolutely just shake up the baggie but it was more fun for our kids to roll the can instead of shaking a bag.

We rolled the can for about 10 minutes for the first batch and the ice cream had gotten so cold/frozen that it was more like dip n’ dots consistency. When Josh and I made another batch for us to try, we rolled it for about 5 minutes which was a ‘just barely frozen’ consistency which is how I prefer my ice cream anyway. Both ways were delicious.Our kiddos topped it with chocolate syrup. They were so into it and have been asking to do it again since! Easy family fun is always a FAVORITE around here.

two

The time we prefer to go to Church on Sunday does not have a nursery for the littles so we all sit together every week. It has been getting harder and harder to keep our twins quiet (and contained!) as they get older and more adventurous! I’m pretty sure we keep everyone behind us very entertained with all the activity. I saw these Melissa and Doug Pop Blocs and got a set for Luke and Reid because they were so cute. All the animals are made of two pieces that come apart and can be switched with other animal pieces to make a cow-pig or a horse-sheep,etc.They are hands down their new favorite toy PLUS they are quiet toys and perfect for Church! I keep a few of the animals in our Church bag so they are excited by them every week and our pew is quiet…. for a little while at least. 😉

three

As much as I’m trying to live in denial, it is Back to School shopping time. If you are looking for a bento style lunch box for your kiddo, we love Yumbox Panino. I bought one for Caleb last year to take to kindergarten and I plan on ordering another one this year so we have two. I love this brand because their largest part is big enough to fit a sandwich. Some of the other ones I found only had room for small items and while I don’t pack it often, sometimes a sandwich is his lunch choice. I put it in his lunch box with a thin ice pack and his leftovers were always still cold when we got home in the afternoon. They are top rack dishwasher safe which I love too. (Heads up- if your child is not super good at remembering to empty their lunch when they get home every day and perhaps everyone forgets about it over the weekend, the silicone will smell like the food that is in it. That happened to us one time and I had to soak it in vinegar for awhile to get the smell out. After that, we made sure to be more on top of emptying his lunch box and didn’t have a problem with smell again.)

four

I mentioned last week that Eli was having trouble all of a sudden at swim lessons. Earlier in the summer he had passed level 1 easily and with no issues at all- all smiles! When level 2 started, he suddenly developed this intense fear of drowning and it got to the point where he was too afraid to even do the things he was doing fine the week before. I could tell he was trying but he just couldn’t get past the fear and was getting so upset about even being in the water. The instructors at lessons were so sweet to him and took turns talking to him and reassuring him (and so did we of course) but he was just really struggling with the fear that no one would save him if he went under.

We talked about it, I prayed about it, we even pretended we were floating in the water on our living room floor! After a week of struggling we decided it would be best to pull him out and try again another time. Wouldn’t you know though… Eli woke up on Monday morning with a brand new determination and wanted to go to lessons. Sweet boy got to swim lessons on Monday, jumped in the water, floated on his back with a huge smile and never looked back. Last night was the last day of summer session, he passed his level and I am SO PROUD of him. Such a FAVORITE this week.

five

I stumbled across this post by The Humbled Homemaker written by her husband about having all girls and the comments strangers (and even acquaintances) make when you are a parent of children of all the same gender. You know how sometimes things just speak to you as if they had read all the thoughts in your mind? This one did for me.

People ask us all the time if we are going to have another to ‘try for a girl’ – seriously all. the. time. Or they say “Don’t worry. My sister/aunt/friend had four boys and then a girl!”  That’s great…. but why am I worried? I love my boys! I know God knew what he was doing when he blessed me with four boys.

I just loved it. If you have all girls or all boys or get unsolicited comments from strangers about your beautiful family…read this one. FAVORITE!

Hope you all have the very best weekend. Bring it on August!

I’d love to connect on social media – Follow me on Instagram here. Comment on this post with your insta and I’ll follow you back!

If you missed my other posts from this week, find Twin Tuesday: The Best Children’s Books About Twins here and my What’s Up Wednesday link-up here!