September Favorites

Here are my favorite pictures for Project Life and Instagram for the month of September.

Kyle helping me in the kitchen making blueberry muffins. Cheese!

Playing on the new equipment at Randall Park. Ever since they put it in during the summer, it's been absolutely packed with kids. That's a good thing, I guess, but a little frustrating for the boys who aren't used to such crowds at their favorite park.

Monday morning grocery shopping. Kyle was too busy catching some Z's to see that I finally got the strawberry and blueberry frosted shredded wheat that he and his brother had been begging me to buy. Also, I do buy fresh fruits, vegetables and meat....just apparently not on that day.

That day my Ipsy bag came in the mail and I realized I was a matching vision of fushia/berry pink.

Post bumper boat picture. We really don't look wet at all, but Kyle got fairly soaked, especially his shorts and Tyler kept spraying my face, so my hair and face were pretty wet.

Kyle building his own Lincoln log house.

My hair is getting. so. long. In November it will be a year since I cut it last.

We all know Tyler is small for his age. Well short anyway, but come on! He can fit into his brother's 4T shirts. They're just a little short on him. I'm all but certain that Kyle will eventually outgrow his brother. I feel like he'll be towering over me before I know it, just like his Uncle Justin.

Rick spent a whole week in Los Angeles earlier this month taking a management workshop at UCLA. I told him to take pictures for me and literally, this is the only one he took the entire week. Fail. But I'll still take it. It's the food he got when Anni took him out for dinner one night.

September reads. Sharp Objects was so predictable. I knew who the killer was before I was 1/3 of the way through the book. Ugh. What would I give for some old fashioned Perry Mason novels. I was never able to figure out who did it in those books.

And lastly some of my favorite outfits of the month.

Pictures from the Fair

This year the fair was moved one week later than usual, but we actually ended up going the same weekend as always. Though instead of going on the closing weekend, we went on opening day. Rick took the Friday off of work and we decided to go and see how it was on a weekday (albeit opening day) compared to the weekends. And a bonus perk of going opening day was that they had free parking and admission for the first two hours of operation. Judging by the parking lot and endless stream of cars, we figured we'd made a mistake coming on opening day, but really once you got inside, the crowds were not bad at all. The lines for the rides never got exceedingly long so the boys spent a huge portion of the day on that instead of seeing the exhibits.

It took Kyle some time to warm up to the rides, but his true love was playing the games. At first he thought we were at an arcade or fun center type of place and he kept asking to go to the skee-ball. Once we explained to him that they didn't have skee-ball at the fair, he was good with playing ring toss and the like. It's too bad the games are so expensive though. At $5 per play, they really add up fast. They should have some discount for kids.

Tyler won a prize at the ducky ring toss. A giant donut.

We had tamales for lunch, although my favorite fair food of all is the lamb chili. I didn't get any this year and I'm still sad about it.

Later in the day the boys worked together playing darts to earn a smaller donut for Kyle.

 

Speaking of donuts. Snack time!

Late in the afternoon we pulled the boys away from the rides and visited the animals. We missed all the other exhibits this year: the art, everything in the ag building, the modern living stuff (sewing/cooking projects) and the the S.T.E.M exhibits. We should almost go back and get chili and look at things we missed.

The exhibit in Pioneer Hall changes every year and this year it was Discover Dinosaurs, which seemed really cool until we learned that it cost an extra $5 per person to enter. Lame. Pioneer Hall is usually free.

All in all we had a great day. Rick had planned to eat dinner there, but Tyler wanted to leave and get pizza on the way home, which is what we usually do every year. So that's what we did and also stopped at a Mexican bakery to get treats for the morning.

August Favorites

Here are some of my favorite Project Life and Instagram photos for the month of August:

I've been keeping a look out for our family names on the personalized Coke bottles that are in stores now and I found mine and Rick's but never found one for Tyler or Kyle.

I finished STS earlier this month, but I wasn't super impressed with my results this time around. I did increase my strength, but I didn't lose any weight. I can't complain too much though because I did travel out of town two times during the 3rd (and arguably the most important mesocycle) and ate all of the food.

So even if I didn't lose weight or see a ton of added muscle this time around, at least I maintained what I already had and looking back I can definitely see my progress over time. I just wish I had taken some back shots because I know there is improvement there as well.

It's so hard to get pictures of Kyle smiling (in a natural manner) so I was so pleased when I got this one.

Banana bread is usually on an endless rotation in our house, but I was getting tired of making it so I decided to make some Cinnamon Swirl Bread from one of my America's Test Kitchen cookbooks and it came out SO good! It looked good on the outside, it tasted great and the swirl inside was perfection.

 

I posted the picture to my Instagram page and then the next day America's Test Kitchen featured it on their page. How cool is that? I loved seeing all the comments and knowing that I'd actually inspired people to go make it for themselves.
 

I'd been stalking the J Crew Factory website waiting for this cockatiel shirt to go on a major sale and I finally snagged it at 40% off the clearance price and I love it! 

Picking blueberries a few weeks ago. 

I got 3 different eyeshadow palettes for my birthday (Too Faced Chocolate Bar, Too Faced Love palette and Lorac Pro palette) and I love playing around with them and trying different looks, but then when I try and take pictures of myself....they all kind of look the same. I guess I need to figure out how to zoom in. Oh well.

Tyler has a skateboard, but refuses to use it in any sort of traditional manner.

I made a blueberry crumb cake with the blueberries we picked and when I took it outside to take pictures, Carmelita came over to see what smelled so good.
 

Kyle has subscriptions to Sesame Street, Thomas the Train and Disney magazines and he loves doing the activity pages.

 

Not the best picture of me, but Kyle has the cutest smile ever and it's because I bought him a cake pop at Starbucks.

Earlier this month we were pleased to discover that the new playground structure had been put in at Randall Park and it's so much bigger than the old one, but not terribly friendly for the younger (under 3) kids.

3x4 filler for Project  Life. It's so much easier to add more pictures than fill up 7 journaling cards per week.

Our last trip to the pool for the summer and it was so empty.

And finally Tyler's first day of middle school. I realized later that he chose to wear the same exact shirt as he did for his first day of school last year, but a new color and a bigger size for this year.

Birthday Haul (Free Stuff)

On my birthday I usually go to Starbucks and get my free drink and sometimes I'll go to Baskin Robbins for ice cream and occasionally I'll go to Red Robin to get my free birthday burger, but this year I decided to go all out and take advantage of all the offers that came in my email. I mean, who am I to refuse a free gift.

New to me this year was the realization that not only can you get free food on your birthday, but you can also get free makeup. I lament all the lost years when I didn't know this existed. I signed up for the Sephora rewards program when I was in Los Angeles and bingo, now I'm a "beauty insider". Sephora's 2015 birthday gift to all beauty insiders is a deluxe sample duo of Nars lip pencils. Thankfully we have a Sephora inside of JCPenny so I was able to redeem my coupon in town, but otherwise you can still redeem them online at Sephora.com.

And at Ulta, a similar story. I'm signed up for their reward point system, so they sent me a coupon for a free birthday gift. Ulta changes their gift about every three months, so the gift for July, August, and September birthdays is a deluxe sample (worth $8) of Urban Decay mascara.

My gift from Birchbox was a $10 credit to use in their store and when I combined that with the $30 credit I already had in my account, I was able to get some Laura Geller makeup for a smashing deal. I got the Wearable Color Story eye shadow palette for $12 (retail $42) and a lip crayon for $6 (retail $16). Score!

Dairy Queen gives a BOGO blizzard coupon as a birthday gift, so I got a Strawberry Cheesequake blizzard for myself and the Rolo blizzard of the month for the boys to share.

Westside Pizza is a new pizza chain that opened up earlier this year and they sent me a coupon for a free medium pizza. The only stipulations of the coupon is that it has to be used within 2 days of your birthday, so I went in and got my free pizza the day before my birthday.

On my birthday I went to Red Robin and get my free burger. Rick had to work, but he joined me and the boys there for dinner. And before you start thinking that I'm always going to Red Robin on my birthday, this is actually the first time in 5 years that I've redeemed my birthday burger.

Starbucks lets you get any one drink or food item for free with your registered card, so this year I got a coconut milk iced latte. I almost never get iced drinks, but it's over 100 degrees here, so...

Dickey's BBQ is another chain that opened up earlier this year and they sent me a coupon for a free Big Barbecue sandwich ($6.50 value). I took the boys for lunch today and let me tell you what, that thing was huge! I ended up pulling some of the meat out and ditching part of the bun and still, I wasn't able to eat anything else the rest of the day. So. Much. Meat.

And finally, you know me. For my free scoop at Baskin Robbins I always get coffee or cheesecake ice cream.