Monthly Archives: June 2016

Things I Don’t Want To Forget

by June 20, 2016

Sometimes things just work out where our weekend ends up being just the amount of everything: activities, friends, sleep, etc. We had a good one guys! And it wasn’t like we did anything grand or elaborate, which in some ways made it that much better. Because the memories you make during the regular schedule really can make the biggest lasting impression, to me anyways.

Lots is going on lately, but I just want to take a second a write down things I want to put in the internet vault:

– We got Nola a bike, it’s an early birthday present. We thought why wait till mid July when she’s been dying for a new one and then she can use it for most of the summer. Guys, she is doing sooooo good with the thing! She rode to the ‘far park’ from our house and rocked it! So proud and can’t believe I have a kid who can ride a bike with training wheels. It mine was well be a car as far as I’m concerned.

– I was manning Jonas while CJ was teaching Nola the ropes of riding a bike and in the midst of it all Nola asked CJ how his day ways. It was so cute!! It was right in the middle of her being nervous breaking and out of the blue she asked this, we were both laughing in an enduring way. We are trying to teach her to inquire other’s about their day and just being interested in other people in general and guys it melts my heart because in the midst of being a typical 3 year old she has a compassionate heart. Once she asked CJ, ‘dad why you not smiling? what’s wrong?’ She’s intuitive to people’s feelings and I can only imagine and so thankful on how she will encourage and love others when she is older.

– Nola bikes pretty slow, but she wants CJ to run along next to her, which pretty much means he needs to run in place. I died laughing, he’s a good dad guys!

– Jonas is at such a fun age and continues to make my ovaries explode because he’s so freakin adorable!! He walks and laughs with such a stagger, swinging his arm with such intention and doing this run where he probably walks faster because he does these little small steps. I die.

– We are at the point, I knew this day was coming, where Jonas loves wrestling Nola and can take her down. If they aren’t upset at each other about a toy, they really are the sweetest to each other. The daily kisses and hugs I really can’t get enough of.

– Yesterday our kids took a late nap due to running around for the first half of the day. Whenever this happens we know our kids will go to bed late. And when I say late, this means later than their normal late summer bedtime. Like 9:30…we have a 1 year old, that’s probably parent fail right there, I know. But the great thing was we took them to the park like we normally do and CJ and I were having fun too. Let me explain myself, sometimes doing the same thing over and over again can get old for us parents, but we do them because the kids like it and it’s good for them. But last night the weather was perfect, we were swinging, I don’t know, we didn’t feel like we had to dig deep to stay at the park for awhile. I guess what I’m trying to say was sometimes our kids make us feel like kids and those moments are pretty awesome.

IMG_0772_2 We met friends at the Terrace on Saturday and it ended up being a really good night. Love our friends! And love Madison from spring to fall, haha!

Happy Father’s Day!

by June 19, 2016

Here’s a shout out to my babies daddy. CJ thank you for being such a great dad to our kiddos!! All three of us love you so much! Both of our kiddos can’t wait to play with you when you are done with work. And Nola will regularly tell me how much she loves and misses you throughout the day and she only wants to go swimming with you (which is beyond ridiculous but at the same time adorable). And trust me when I say this everything you do for our family doesn’t go unnoticed.

IMG_0253 copy Thank you for being such a hands on daddy! We LOVE YOU SO!!

France_2 Pharmacie and Laduree LOVE

by June 10, 2016

I really could do a post for each day we were in France, but that’s like when your family makes you sit down and look at 100’s of photos of their trip and your heart just sinks a little bit. And I promise we really do like seeing photo’s from people’s trips, we aren’t complete jerks!! Just not 100’s of photos?? Is that bad? Maybe…we’ll work on that. Anyways, so instead of 15 different posts maybe I’ll narrow it down to 7?!? But then again maybe I will do 15 and it will probably take the entire year to complete because I’m that sloooow these days. It’s a blog, you can choose not to read them if you want to :). Nola was just saying she missed vacation and I do too!! Plus I am up to my eyeballs on house stuff that I need a moment where I can reminisce and think about something else.

Where should I start, I guess it’s best to back up and first tell you what comes to my mind when I think about French women. They have a natural timeless beauty, they are confident, they wear ballet flats, they wear trench coats, they would never be out and about wearing yoga pants and a baseball hat…what they are is put together. This may or not be accurate but this is what I have ingrained in my head and honestly something I look up to and admire. There’s a reason I’m not French, because baseball hats save me truly, but I would love to be more put together and that it would be a daily norm. One reason I believe the French woman are so exquisite is because of the quality beauty products available to them at their Pharmacie’s. They have them all over Paris and I saw them even in the small town we were staying at in the country. These are not like your typical Walgreens, mind you. Along with wanting to see the Eiffel Tower it was my mission to find the fountain of youth at these Pharmacies.

After searching the pharmacies and claiming to cj once all of it was gone we were going to need to come back to Paris to get more, kidding – I later found out some of the stuff is sold on Amazon, naturally we headed out to find something to eat. On our list was Laduree and it did not disappoint. We let Nola get whatever she wanted and we of course choose some treats for ourselves as well.

Here’s some photos of the day if you care to see:

IMG_9226 Processed with VSCO with c1 preset IMG_9241 IMG_9242 IMG_9248 IMG_9251

France!

by June 1, 2016

It’s been almost a month since we have been to France and I can honestly say I want to go back!! I LOVED Paris and in a different life could see myself living there. We joke that my Asian-Adopted-Dutch-Self was a European in another lifetime. I just love the European culture and history! The US is practically a baby compared to Europe! I also realized I just miss being in a city. I lived in Chicago for 5 years and miss it a lot.

I figured I’d break up these posts up so I don’t overload you with photos.

IMG_9218 I feel that if you lived in a city sometime in your life where you used public transportation regularly it’s fairly easy to pick things up at any city. The metro was pretty easy to use, BUT there’s a huge caveat… it was not easy to use with a stroller, NOT EASY. But we were out and about all day so there was no getting around it. This stroller is where our kids could rest, take naps, etc. Though we ate our way in carbs delight we shed those pounds by lifting that stroller up stairs all day, everyday. By the end of the trip we easily wanted to throw that stroller out of the window of some moving vehicle, but we didn’t because I’m too practical and didn’t want to toss a couple hundred dollars away.

Processed with VSCO with c1 preset Notre Dame!

IMG_9125 IMG_9133 This was inside Notre Dame. I prayed for my kiddos at this exact spot and want to remember that. I should add our kids were maniacs for the entire time we were inside. IMG_9205 Isn’t this tree amazing!

IMG_9150 I’m sorry but this kid is the cutest thing in all the land! Plus add a crepe into those adorable chubby hands and forget about it! I love that kid silly!

IMG_9160 Best quote of the day, “look dad that monkey is tickling that guy”  IMG_9197 Here we are at Museum of Natural History of Paris.  I fell in love with the historic building of this museum! I want those exact wood floors in our new house.

When we travel we usually assume the first day is a wash since we are trying to figure things out and get the lay of the land. But surprisingly we jam packed a ton of stuff and had a really great day!