SNOMG2016

I've left the house once since thursday (5 days, 1 time).  Surprisingly, not really feeling all that much cabin fever, its kind of been a nice relaxing break but I have to think back what the heck have we been doing for the past 5 days.  

Thursday with the rest of Charlotte we went out to dinner, grab a few necessities from the grocery store and hunkered down in the house waiting for the snow and friday morning when we woke up it DID NOT disappoint.

This was our driveway...a sheet of ice.


The rest was totally instagram worthy

It's amazing how much changes in a year.  Last year when Hunter was 3 he had no interest in playing in the snow.  Everytime we went out to see it he said he it was too cold and he wanted to go inside.  This year was complete opposite.  The excitement on his face when he saw all the snow Monday morning was one of those mom moments i'll keep in my head and heart forever. 

And even though I've seen snow a million times (growing up in NY), his excitement was contagious, I was like a kid in a candy store right there with him.  

So Friday was just snow day bliss.  We dressed in our long johns and slippers...

made blueberry pancakes

which led to apple muffins thanks to the recipe on the pancake mix

read books with friends

cleaned up the house

played nice as brothers

and didn't play nice as brothers

But while James was down for his long winter nap Hunter and I went out and played.  Snowballs, sledding he would have stayed out there all day if I let him! 

And guess what...Saturday we woke up and did it again.  Except instead of pancakes we had oatmeal - which led to me seeing the oatmeal cooking recipe on the tub - i see a trend here. hmmm

By Saturday at 10am we were all 4 out playing in the snow again. As expected James lasted about two minutes and whined to go inside.  Snow playing, lunch, naps, and little of this for Mom and Dad was really blissful.  It's not often we get to look out our back porch and stare at snow.  There's just something so beautiful about snow. (2 inches of snow that is).

Saturday night our friends (who are neighbors) came over with their kiddos.  We turned the fireplace on in the basement, the glow off the snow came in through the windows down there. It sort of felt like we were away in the mountains minus the hot tub in the snow that we were really wishing we had.

6 adults, 5 kids, pizza, cocktails, popcorn, movies, and dance parties...It was the most fun evening and I'm really mad at myself for not saving off any of my videos or pics from snapchat.  Maybe you caught it live on my snapchat ID -  lunsfordkm?  

Sunday we paid the price of keeping the kids up past their bedtime with a sick 4  year old.  Hunter V woke up with a 104 fever and here we are today on Tuesday with the same fever.

It seems to be going down a little bit so hoping this is the end. If not, off to the Dr. we go tomorrow.  

Hope ya'll out there are surviving your snow and school outages.  My parents up in Virginia got 40 inches!! Insane! xoxo

The Rotation

I remember before I was a parent always wondering "why do parents only feed their kids chicken nuggets and mac n cheese?"  Well, now I know!  Because its all they will eat.  Hunter V used to be the best eater and he's still fairly good in the vegetable department...BUT if you put something in front of him that does not look familiar I guarantee the first words you will hear are "I dont like that" and then the next thing you will hear is me saying "You haven't even tired it"  Sound familiar?

The worst thing about being a working mom (out of the home) other than the fact that I never see my kids, is dinners!!  M-F I rush out of work, pick up the kids from daycare and rush home to get food in front of them before 6:30pm.  Some evenings that only leaves me with 15minutes to throw something together.  And there is nothing more defeating than working hard on preparing a dinner to have your toddler prefer dinosaur chicken nuggets over it.  So,  I surrender, he wins. It's all a phase and its not worth it.  Maybe once a week we will try to get them to eat what we eat in a once again epic fail but most of the time here's the rotation.  Quick, easy, toddlers are happy, mommy is happy and they are mostly healthy (at least not going to kill them).

The Rotation: (editors note: I serve all of these with either a steam fresh veggie of some variety, a microwave sweet potato, or sweet potato tator tots)

1. Trader Joes Fish Nuggets:  There are certain items I ONLY get from Traders Joes!  Fish sticks is one of the them.  The Gordons brand at the grocery store seem to be all breading and barely any fish. These beauties and Fish nuggets with lots of fish.

2. Trader Joes Individual Bella Napola Pizza:  Confession...my kid eats pizza twice a week.  Nothing goes to waste because we can pop one of these individual pizzas in the oven for 10 mins. I feel ok about this.

3.  Trader Joes Individual Spinach Lasagna:  This ones a bit of a fight these days but they'll still choke it down.  Read the nutrition value on this guy...tons of Vit A, C, Iron. Microwaves at 50% power for 9 minutes and comes out tasting homemade.  This one I feel REALLY good about!

4.  Organic Mac n Cheese:  Because its organic its good for them right?  Let's try not to think about the powdered cheese.  Im starting to have to make two boxes because my 1 year old will eat a whole box by himself.  sigh!   We keep white cheese shells, and the yellow farm one in stock and Hunter LOVES picking out the kind he wants.  "Mom I want the white one"  "ok, buddy you can have the white one"  We mix in peas with their mac and cheese.  Hunter V will eat them, James Penn has mastered working the mac and cheese around in his mouth in order to separate out the peas.  He swallows the mac n cheese and then spits out the pea.  Its quite impressive actually.

5. Dinosaur (Dino) nuggets: Hunter has been eating these since he was born.  (not really) but close to it.  Probably have bought 100 boxes of these in the past 3 years (ok thats an exaggeration too) but you get the drift.  The only brand of nuggets I will buy and of course we serve with a veggie. Hunter V get's "dip" with his (BBQ) is his "dip" of choice.

5a.  I've even gotten really crazy the past couple weeks and bought the Dino chicken patties and made BBQ chicken sandwiches for them.  A good little variation to the typical nugget.

Ok, so I don't ONLY feed my kids frozen food...I promise.  I think I have mentioned it before but I love this cook book for kids.  The Best Homemade Baby Food on the Planet.  It goes up to 18months and one of my favorite recipes in here is a Toddler's Shepherd's Pie made with ground turkey, mixed veggies, mash potatoes and cheddar cheese.  I'll make about 4 in little ramekins and freeze to just pop out and cook in the oven when I get home.

And these veggie pizza pin wheels are a new favorite.  I LOVE that she purees veggies into her pasta sauce.  I never serve plan pasta sauce EVER anymore.  I always make a batch with pureed veggies in it and keep it handy in the fridge or freezer.   But fore warning...dont add too much spinach or it will turn your sauce green.  oops.

Lastly, steam fresh veggies or the like.  How did our parents survive without these??  Target just started making a variety pack of individual servings...made was it a good day when I found this out.

Alright friends...spill it!!  I'm always looking to add a new easy recipe into the dreaded rotation.  xo

Real Life: Hunter V 3 yrs 2 mos / James Penn 10 mos / Jake 6 yrs 5mos

Saturday Morning in the Playroom: Hunter V playing with hot wheels, James Penn nursing a diaper rash

8am Playroom Morning Selfie: Thank gah I use R+F products

James Penn's favorite toy : Using it the way he thinks it should be used

Hunter V's favorite treat: Marshmallows

Hunter V brings the potty from the bathroom into the playroom everytime he uses it: sigh! 

Hunter V and mommy Selfie: Out to dinner at the Krazy Fish last Saturday night

Family picture at The Krazy Fish

What it really looked like trying to get a picture of me and the boys

What we do on Saturday nights

Another of Hunter V's favorite things to do: Play-doh

Jake wondering when he's going to be the only child again 

Scenes from the weekend...

Happy Monday!  

Our goal this past weekend was to finish up christmas decorating and I can proudly say...yeah, that didn't happen. ha!  I feel like everyone else knocks out Christmas decorating in one weekend and for us that just never seems possible.  We say its cause of the kids, but I know other families that have kids and it doesn't take them three weekends to put up christmas decor.  Oh well...such as life, we still had a great weekend first and foremost celebrating sweet Henry's 1st Birthday!!!  His mommy, my bestie Lindsey out did herself a photo booth, kids make their own ornaments, a hot cocoa bar, delish sweets, catered dinner, and even a visit from no one other than SANTA!!  Everything was beautifully decorated and if we weren't in the Christmas state of mind yet we sure are now after leaving Henry's Winter Wonderland 1st Birthday Celebration.  Stay tuned to Lindsey's blog...I'm sure she'll post some pictures at some point :)  Happy Birthday Henry (and Lindsey)  we love you both!!

Here's a picture of Hunter enjoying the toy he gave Henry for his birthday. 

Saturday was party day, Sunday was productive day....we finished up MOST of our holiday decorating with the help of these sweet faces!  Kids really do make the holidays so magical! xoxo

Hunters slippers/sweatpants/shirt  

James Penn and Hunter's jammies

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend and a chance to get into the Christmas spirit!