Parenting

Saturday and Sunday Snapshots

We had such a lovely weekend! It was a great mix of family time, productivity, and fun. On Saturday, my sister, brother-in-law, niece, and their dog came over for the day so the boys could work on our patio renovation. 

Steel beams for canopy in backyard

It’s coming along!

While the boys worked, us girls spent time grocery shopping, playing with Sadie and Caroline, walking the dogs, cooking, and laughing. We did a lot of laughing 🙂

Sisters smiling together in carHomeschooling toddlers for preschool

At one point, I pulled out Sadie’s hedgehog learning toy for Caroline to try out and it was absolutely adorable watching her get so excited when she put a spike in the hedgehog’s back! I filmed a little clip of her joy and it makes me smile every time I watch it. 

Sunday was spent watching church online, mowing, gardening, and brushing out Niva’s fur. 

Siberian Husky shedding fur while blowing coat

This pile of fur was solely from brushing Niva’s tail!!

Vegetables from vegetable garden squash, yellow tomato, cherry tomatoes, and arugula

We harvested our first yellow tomato from the garden.

Guy drinking from Siberian Husky mom coffee mug

Jimmy stole my new coffee mug.

Tell me about your weekend!

More Gardening and Five Things I’m Loving

Happy Friday! Do you have any fun plans for the weekend? We’re going to my mother-in-law’s to celebrate my sister-in-law’s birthday. I’m baking strawberry cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting for the occasion and I’m pretty pumped 🙂

Sadie and I did more gardening yesterday. The squash are really coming in–a few each day–and we also picked a cucumber. The cucumbers don’t seem to like the heat this year, but they’re still growing! 

Yellow squash, zucchini, and cucumber from vegetable garden

I also cooked a batch of baby potatoes with Niva keeping a very watchful eye on the whole process.

The potatoes are really simple to make: coat baby potatoes in olive oil, sprinkle with salt, pepper, and your choice of spices and bake on a cookie sheet at 400 degrees until fork-tender. 

Baked baby potatoes with a husky watching

In the evening, Jimmy had to run an errand for work, and Sadie and I needed to get cupcake liners, so we parted ways and each got our stuff done. 

Sadie and I got drenched in a thunderstorm on our way out of Walmart and it was kind of fun 🙂

Toddler soaked from rain in a thunderstorm

She was well behaved in Walmart and I was tempted to buy her a little toy or a balloon (her fave!), but I’ve been trying to give her my attention more than anything. 

Instead of giving her a toy, a snack, or turning on the TV when she’s whining or pulling on my leg, I try to give her me instead. Because what’s more important–what I think I “need” to get done now, or being present with the child God has blessed me with? I think I know the answer to that. It’s much easier said than done, though. 

Alright, onto five things I’m loving at the moment:

  1. Butterscotch candies. For some reason, I had been dreaming of having butterscotch candies all week and I finally picked some up last night while Sadie and I were out and they totally hit the spot. 
  2. Sermon Notes Journal. Now that we’re back to church, I’m back to taking notes in my sermon notes journal and loving it. It’s a great tool for reviewing sermons, lessons, notes, scriptures, etc.
  3. Scrapbooking. I finished up the scrapbook pages I made from our camping trip, and now I’m moving on to photos from the Fourth of July.
  4. Honey cinnamon peanut butter. Enough said, right? I’ve seriously considered making a blog solely dedicated to peanut butter reviews. I feel like I would be the only reader, haha.
  5. Passing down clothes. Whenever Sadie grows out of clothing, I pass it down to my sister’s daughter, Caroline, and I love seeing her wear the outfits I have so many memories of Sadie wearing. So special ❤

Do you like butterscotch-flavored things?

What are you up to this weekend?