The Last Several Weekends

Doing a little night playing at our favorite park in Des Moines. If you're looking for a park to run around, check out my Tour of Parks the minis and I did this fall: http://ashlen-kidspert.blogspot.com/2014/09/tour-of-parks.html

It was brought to my attention (by none other than my oldest mini as he snatched my laptop and scoured through pics) that I have failed to post pictures from the past several weekends. First, I want to apologize. I have regular readers, people who keep up with our lives, and people who read this blog to get ideas for their own families. I love keeping everyone up to date on our happenings, but our happenings have kept us quite busy! So busy that I forgot to post about them! 

Daycare has been keeping me busy with all of our holiday crafting and activities ( a few of my faves from last week: http://ashlen-kidspert.blogspot.com/2014/12/santa-faces.html and http://ashlen-kidspert.blogspot.com/2014/12/shaving-cream-paint-candy-canes.html). I put the finishing touches on my book and got it published finally! (Let's Use Our Words). I co-hosted my cousin's bridal shower and bachelorette party. My minis and I have all been sick, but thankfully we have some awesome doctor's in our lives (if you're looking for a pediatrician in the Des Moines area, I highly recommend checking Des Moines Pediatric: http://www.dsmpeds.com/). And of course, Des Moines has been bustling with tons of holiday activities that we've tried our darnedest to attend.

So here is my (hopefully not poor) attempt to re-capture the past several weekends (yes, we're going back to the middle of November here):

We headed downtown for the first of two Winter Markets for the season. Basically, it's one big, crowded, indoor farmer's market. On our list of fave goodies: apple cider donuts, breakfast pizza, apples from local orchards, and flavored popcorn. We also got a special treat when we went to the Everybody Wins! Iowa (http://www.everybodywinsiowa.org/aboutUs/index.html) book fair. The minis went crazy picking out Christmas books.

The kids also got a chance to play outside. Fall was unseasonably cold (like, too cold to send the kids outside) which means they've been pent up indoors for weeks. A chance to run through the backyard helped diminish some energy!

Shopping at Target is always interesting with these three. Elizabeth tested out the new bathroom trash can as a hat.

Thanksgiving was crazy busy, but so much fun! We got to have a relaxing morning at home, which included a calorie filled Butter Braid (so yummy!), watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, playing dress up (while mom and dad scrambled to get ready), and opening their first Experience from Santa (http://ashlen-kidspert.blogspot.com/2014/11/experiences-for-christmas.html): Disney on Ice!

We ate lunch at my parents house and dinner at my husband's parents house. It was fantastic to be able to spend the day with both families. I feel especially lucky to spend a Thanksgiving with my Grandma and Grandpa Harmeyer for the first time in 10 years!! Nothing made me happier than sitting down to a fine meal with people I love.

After naps at home and another round of fine food with people I love, we headed downtown for Disney On Ice! I was unsure how the minis would during the show, but all three of them did fantastic and LOVED it! The younger two were especially taken by Mickey, Minnie, Donald Duck, and Goofy. We also received requests to go to Disneyland ("or World would be fine too").....I can assure everyone that that is not one of the minis experiences for the year!

My sister and I hosted our cousin Haley's bachelorette party. The only problem? We had to take the kids to the party store with us to get the party goodies....that proved interesting. We had to distract the kids so we could look at "the naughty wall" of party items. Luckily, they were good sports and were rewarded with a "Frozen" photo shoot.

We celebrated my cousin Natalie's 19th birthday!

I spent a Saturday night going through markers to find which ones were too dried out to keep. The kids helped and then claimed we got to buy all new markers because I had to throw some out--no one worry, we still have entire Sterilite containers (such as these: Sterilite 16428012 6-Quart Storage Box, White Lid with See-Through Base, 12-Pack) full of markers!

My cousin's bridal shower was amazing! My mom and aunt did such an amazing job (my sister and I were in charge of the guest book--we had a tough job!). It was so great to see family and spend time with everyone who came. Next month I get to head to Phoenix, Arizona for the wedding....sans kids!

Love these fine ladies in my life!

After the shower, things got interesting. We've got Charlie's Angels on the left and Donut Tree Jenga on the right. It was pretty amazing to spend nearly an entire day enjoying my family! In the past 6 years, it's been all about naps, bedtimes, schedules, school, etc. On this day, I pawned the minis off on the Hubs and took a day to enjoy myself.  I need to remind myself to do things like this more often!

I did make it home for a couple of hours to see the minis and hear about their day's adventures.....

There first adventure of the morning was the pediatrician's office and pharmacy for cough meds (the wicked illnesses have made their rounds on our family), then lunch. The Hubs surprised the minis (and me!) when he took the kids to a tree farm to cut down our Christmas tree! Major points to him for cutting down a tree, alone, with our three minis--I would not be insane enough to do this! After the tree farm, they got to go visit Santa, Mrs. Claus, and reindeer at Iowa Orchard at an event hosted by the Betsy Sarcone Real Estate Team. The kids had a blast at their day full of events!

After snuggles from the minis, it was back to festivities for me. It's been way too long since I've played the role of bartender, but I made some awesome shots/drinks for my cousin's bachelorette party! My two faves: Rumchata, eggnog, cinnamon and Rumchata, whiskey, and eggnog. All in all, it was a great night with a lot of pictures that will never be shown on this blog. Like ever. Nor the videos.

So there you have it. Our shenanigans from the past several weekends. Hopefully I'll be a bit better at remembering to inform my readers about our fun filled weekends. I would love to say I hope things quiet down after the first of the year, but my first few months of 2015 include: a book party, a vacay in Phoenix, AZ, a new couple of new projects (for now they're hush hush!), celebrating my 31 st birthday, and celebrating the daycare's 4th year of being opened (and my 4th year of self employment)! Stay tuned....