Thursday, August 31, 2017

Monthly Favorites | August 2017

I seriously cannot believe how fast August went by! I'm really going to need life to slow down a little for me, because these months flying by at the speed of light, is getting slightly ridiculous.

August was a busy month and not busy with all fun stuff, unfortunately. It started fun, but has ended a little stressful. In August, we celebrated birthdays for one of my nieces, one of my great-nieces, my father-in-law and mother-in-law (on the same day) and my birthday, H-E-L-L-O 33! It's safe to say I've had my fair share of birthday cake. In-between all the birthday cake, somehow every male in my house found a way to get injured.

If you follow me on Instagram you already know my oldest son took a nasty hit to the head the weekend before last, which landed him in the hospital for a day and earned him his first set of stitches. Two days after that, my husband had extensive hip surgery. This surgery has put him out of commission from work and home duties for the next four weeks, then light duty for another eight weeks. A day after surgery, my youngest fell face first on concrete at daycare, which left him a little beat up. Even our dog, also male, broke out in horrible allergies.

Saturday, August 26, 2017

Product Review: COOLA Sunscreen Products

Disclaimer: I received this product for free from Moms Meet, May Media Group LLC, who received it directly from the manufacturer. As a Moms Meet blogger, I agree to use this product and post my honest opinion on my blog. The opinions posted are my own. Compensation for this post was provided and this page may contain affiliate links. 

Hello, end of August and the last few weeks of summer! I know many people are sad summer is over - kids are back in school here in Indiana - that always seems to cue end of summer feelings. But, my favorite season is approaching fast: FALL!! Bring on cooler weather, sweatpants, hoodies, hot chocolate, leaves changing and all the holidays I love. 

However, I am sad to see this summer go by so quickly; we had so much fun. Now, if you follow me on Instagram you know this week hasn't been our best week, we've seen more hospitals and doctors than I would ever care to admit, but outside of this, we have had a blast. Weston took swimming lessons, we checked out awesome local parks, had picnics, cookouts, day trips and just enjoyed the outdoors as much as possible. 

Anyone who knows me, knows me and my fair skin don't love the sun as much as we love the outdoors. I burn just walking to my car some days. Ok, that's a little drastic, but you get the picture. When I was younger, I would just lather myself up with the highest SPF I could find. Back in the 90's, my parents weren't concerned with the ingredients that were in our sunscreen. They were looking more into what fit into their budget and my Mom wanted to get lobster red, she lived by the pool laying out in the sun!

Monday, August 21, 2017

Family Vacation 2017: Gatlinburg, TN - Part 1

I have been taking my sweet time going through all of my pictures from our trip to Gatlinburg, TN in July 2017. I have so many pictures and so much to share that this will most likely be broken down into three parts, to cover each day.

We loaded up and headed out of Indiana around 9:00 AM on July 5. This marked our first trip as a family of four! The best thing about this trip for me, outside of the desperate need for a change of scenery, was that we were meeting my brother and his family for a joint family vacation. Now, mind you - when I say vacation this was a very short trip unfortunately, but we enjoy our much needed family time.

For those who don't know, I'm from Virginia. All of my family lives there still, including my brother, his wife and my two nieces. From where we currently live and my hometown, it's roughly 11 hours so we don't get to visit as much as we would like. We look forward to any time we get to see them. This trip also marked the first time they were going to met my youngest, Lennox!

Leading up to the trip I was so anxious about the drive. It was a little over six hours for us, which would be Lennox's longest trip ever. He barely last the 45 minutes to Costco so I didn't think for one second he would last the entire trip without a ton of breaks.