5 on Friday! Random Thoughts Edition

I have a few random things to share so I thought I would link up for 5 on Friday! I am so glad it's Friday, but I wish next week was Thanksgiving! Just leaves us more time to plan our feast!

{ONE} I decided to take the plunge into organic eating by joining the Big Organic Garden. It's basically a buying club (it doesn't cost anything to join) and you order by Tuesday and pick up your food on Thursday at a pickup location. The location is literally minutes from my house on my way home so it was a no brainier. It was like I went grocery shopping but didn't do any of the work! This will make it easier for me to plan upcoming meals since I have ingredients already. I went with the medium box of fruit/veggies (you can get mostly fruit or mostly veggie if you wanted). They list the exact number or pound of things you will get so there are no surprises. You can also swap or add things when they have extras that day.  It doesn't seem like a lot when you look but there is 5 apples, 3 oranges, 4 pears, 5 kiwi, 1.5lbs of snap peas, 2 lbs of red potatoes, 2lbs of zucchini, 1 eggplant, 1 head of savoy cabbage, and 1 swiss chard. Almost all is GA grown and I think just the kiwi is USA grown. I also wanted to try roasting a whole pastured chicken (most expensive thing of all) and then also making my own chicken broth. I splurged and also bought 1 lb of grass-fed beef and 2lb of stew meat. Can't you see the lovely beef stew I have going. I'm excited to see what they'll have for next week as it'll be Thanksgiving related (can you say sweet potatoes!)

{TWO} Why has no one forced me to go to Red Robin before? My sister would mention that I needed to go, but not like get there now type of thing. So I was looking for lunch yesterday and decided to venture in. Well, I thought it was like a 5 guys order at the counter thing, but was surprised to see it was a sit down restaurant. Now the burger prices are double the cost of 5 guys, but oh my heavens is it worth it. I almost went to Mexican instead so to compromise I got a burger with bacon and guacamole on it. No shame in my game. It was AMAZING. They have bottomless steak fries as well. I mean seriously, if you haven't tried this place. I will go with you. They also have a full bar with fun drinks (not that I sampled them on a work day, they just looked fun).

 

{THREE} This cutie pie in his nice sweater (also given to him by the neighbor) was a naughty boy last night. After we read books he's been wanting to come hang out with us and have some crackers and water, but we broke him of this a few weeks ago and for some reason he is wanting to do it again. He knows what he wants and when he wants to go to bed. Well, I went to take a shower and David insisted on leaving Max in his crib angry at us. I know we needed to let him cry it out and just go to sleep, but he was PISSED off crying. When I got out I looked at the monitor as he was throwing all his blankets, animals, and pacci out of the crib. The next thing I see is his legs trying to go over and I mention it to David. Well I honestly thought he was just trying to go over and not actually going. So David sprints out and into his room. By the time he gets there he is walking around his room. No thud occurred so he must have just lowered himself down. I don't think he will try to do that on a regular basis, but definitely need to keep an eye out.

{FOUR} I know it's a bit early for some, but the tree is coming out! We got it for free and it is quite large and I recall there being an issue with the lights so we want to see if we can fix them and get a start going on the decorating. We also have a few BIG wreaths that need doctoring up. It'll be interesting to see if our neighbors start their outside decorations. I've mentioned this last year but there are 2 houses on our street that go CRAZY with the decorations and I imagine it takes quite a while to get going. 

 {FIVE} How precious is little Hadley in her 1 year birthday photos!!

Latest Happenings

If you follow me on instagram (jens871) then you've probably seen most of these, but Max has been a busy boy with birthday parties lately.

 

 Last week was very much fall weather and this week it's definitely winter weather. Max had fun playing in the leaves with his neighbor friends one afternoon.

 

His BFF next door gave him some really nice outer wear and clothes that he has out grown. I just love this warm vest.  Yes, I realize Max needs some new shoes as crocs just don't cut it in the fall/winter although I know a few people who would disagree (you know who you are). 

 

We went for a hayride at our nephew Ian's 8th birthday party. It was a bit cold for the ride, but all the kids really enjoyed it. Gina's neighbors must have either thought we were all crazy or really smart to be drinking and enjoying a nice hay ride through the neighborhood. 

 

I made this yummy sandwich of hummus, avocado and roasted tomatoes for lunch this weekend. It's a bit time consuming waiting on the tomatoes to roast, but it was very yummy and filling. Recipe is on my pinterest under plant based foods. 

 

Max went to Eiden's 2nd birthday party Sunday and had a great time at an indoor bouncy place. I always thought he was too young to go to one of these places, but he had a blast. I would venture to say, the best time out of any kid. They had specific areas for kids under 3, which most of the time people abided by, I did get annoyed when bigger kids would come because it would get dangerous with all them bouncing around Max.  He would run up to those punching bag looking people and wave and say HI, it was funny.

 

He seriously had a blast, just look at his face. 

There was this slide area in between the small kid area and bigger kid area that Max followed some kids into and they had steps that led up to this slide and I was unsure that he should/could go on it. Well, he started slowly up the steps and kept climbing. If I could have taken my shoes off and easily gotten in there with out all the parents thinking I'm kookoo I would have went with him or tried to stop him (yup, way over protective mother here). He made it to the top and I was nervous he would face plant, but he came ZOOMING down. You can see how fast he was going in this picture. He was so excited though and went down so many times. Such a big boy, I'm glad I didn't stop him.

Max and the birthday boy in his shirt that I made him. It came out really cute.

Here is a video of him sliding down the big boy slide. He by accident flipped to his stomach, but it was cute. Love this little boy who is now 21 months old. Only 3 more months till he is 2! I better start thinking of his party theme.

Happy Birthday Hadley Boo!

Happy Veterans day to all the military and their families who give up so much for our freedom! 

Also today is a very important day because my precious little niece HADLEY is turning ONE!!! She is just a doll and I can not wait to see her for Thanksgiving and celebrate! We will sing for you tonight or call Max and he will try his rendition of Happy Birthday for you. That little face hasn't changed a bit!

Halloween Wrap Up & Weekend Fixings

I wanted to officially document Max's 2nd Halloween with photos. I told you that I didn't think he would wear his costume. Well, the neighborhood kids were out early posing for pics so I took Max out there in his regular clothes to see them. He was in awe of all of them dressed up. I then asked him if he wanted to go put his on and he said yes. We quickly finished eating dinner and I put his costume on. I asked if he wanted to wear the head part and he assured me that he did.

 

He was the cutest little penguin I ever saw! 

My neighbor, Megan got this one of me and my mom walking him up the street to meet the rest of the kids.

This is Max's bff Noah from next door. He is 4 and Max just walks around asking about Noah all day long.

 

They are 2 peas in a pod with their all boy behaviors. 

These are all the kids in our little culdesac area plus a few extra from up the road which we've adopted as our culdesac.

I love our neighborhood and all the kids. Even though they are a bit older than him they all play so nicely together. Max also found kids his own age that are boys so he is going to have lots of fun growing up here I think. Can't wait to see them all grow each year.

Our deck is dirty and has green mold on certain areas so David's first project post studying was to pressure wash the decks and the upper soffets on the house. I don't have a picture of his contraption he rigged up to get his bleach/water mixture up that high but it was entertaining to watch.

I love the pretty fall colors our foliage is displaying in the background.  He still has to finish some of the upper deck and the bottom deck.

We will re-stain at a later time (prob. spring), just want to get the mold and dirty all cleaned up.

The underneath of the gutters had all this black all over and David has cleaned that all up from around the whole house. That took a day in itself. The list is now never ending and I'll keep you updated on our latest house happenings. Hope you had a great weekend. I did go to Hobby Lobby and took advantage of 50% off Christmas decor since we have a very large tree and some new wreaths we scored for free/cheap at the end of last season.