Five Things

Oh hey, Friday, and oh hey, February!!  It's officially back-to-work month and though I know I'm going to cry on the 21st (and probably the 19th and the 20th and who knows, maybe every day until then!), I'm getting excited that next month is March and March always brings about all sorts of happy feelings for me.  Spring break, warmer weather, the return of baseball - can't beat it!  Anyway, here are five things on this Friday.

| one |

The hubs and I snuck away for our very first date night since Rhett on Tuesday for the Eric Church concert.  Eric is the one singer we both just love and Craig bought me tickets as a birthday gift.  This was the forth time we've seen him live, the first being at a small venue in Topeka in 2012 when I was pregnant and before Eric was as well-known as he is now.  Anyway, I swear each concert is better than the last and this one took the cake for sure!  He performed two sets broken up by an intermission--and then came back on for an encore.  39 songs total according to the Kansas City Star and so many of them that have been huge hits.  Anyway, it was a ton of fun--clearly, when you don't get home until 1am--even though I had to pump on the way there and again on the drive home.

| two |

Speaking of, earlier this week I decided it was time to kick my pump to the curb!  I had been wavering back and forth on whether or not to continue pumping upon my return to work.  My schedule this year would have allowed for it, though it wouldn't have been easy so I was looking for signs to persuade me one way or another.  I'll spare you the details, but let's just say my milk was a nice shade of raspberry from cracked and bleeding nipples - again.  I decided that that was enough of a sign and started to wean myself almost immediately.  Not to mention, he's eating more, I was producing the same; we were having to start supplementing anyway.  I'm currently pumping four times per day and only for 20-30 minutes instead of the 45-60 I was doing before.  It has already been a huge weight off my shoulders to feel like my life is not quite as controlled by a darn pumping schedule and as bittersweet as it may be (#lastbaby), I do look forward to my life returning to normal once again!  (In other news, we moved Rhett into his crib and it has been going fabulously!  More normal life things!! 👏)

| three |

Last night, I did something completely out of character and signed up for Beachbody.  I am so not a person who has ever worked out regularly (or at all--I hate it, I really do) but I'm still carrying 20+ extra pounds of baby weight and I became quite upset last weekend when none of my clothes fit.  So I bought an all-access membership to Beachbody and I'm going to start drinking the Shakeology shakes once per day, as well.  My blog-turned-real-life-friend, Brittany, (also a mom of three) is my "coach" and she actually has an entire blog devoted to her fitness.  To say I'm nervous would be a huge understatement, but I have to do something about these L-Bs because I'm definitely not buying all new clothes come summer!  I may kick start the program with a 21-day fix.....but you know, not until after the Superbowl obviously!!  Anyway, I got the Cafe Latte flavor of shakes and I have high hopes they're going to be comparable to these.  Hahaha kidding.  Haha sort of.

| four |

 Speaking of the Superbowl, we're throwing a party similar to last year: BYFP.  Bring your favorite pizza.  In case you need further explanation, that can be found here.  I highly suggest throwing a BYFP party because it requires little to no prep, which is in part why I offered to host. 😉 

| five |

And not to end on a sad note, but a friend of a friend has a 4-month old in the NICU because of something that happened at daycare earlier this week.  My friend doesn't know many details, except that a miracle is their only hope right now.  This is a third baby and a boy, so it really hits home.  Please pray for this little baby and his family.  I simply cannot imagine.  

And so I don't end with such somber news, here are some of the sweet smiles we've been getting from Rhett lately!  I just love this little kid so very much!

Happy Friday!

Linking Up With:

Momfessionals and A Little Bit of Everything for Friday Favorites 

September F A R M for Oh, Hey Friday

Smidge of This for Five on Friday

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A Vegas Reunion

It's been almost a month now since we dropped off the kids at Grandma's and headed to Vegas to meet up with some of our most favorite friends ever!  We'd been scheming a reunion ever since the first of two sets of couple friends left KC in August of 2013.  Then the other set left last January.  But at the time, two of us were preggers, so we decided that in the fall of 2014, we'd meet up in Sin City.  

Craig and I flew in late on a Thursday night, while the others arrived the day prior.  It was actually cheaper to fly out of Wichita, which worked perfectly since Craig's mom graciously offered to watch our kids.  (Thank you, Sharon!!)  The six of us rented a two-bedroom suite at Mandalay Bay.  Other than being at the end of the strip (which we knew) and having to take cabs everywhere, it was perfect.  After landing at 10:30pm Vegas time (12:30 our time), we caught a cab to our hotel, quickly dropped off our luggage and changed our clothes, and headed back out to finally reunite with our friends!  They were at Tao in the Venetian and it took us forever to find them in the overly-packed, techno music-playing club, but low and behold, we finally reunited and it was as if we had never been apart!  We stayed out until - get this - about 2am (4am our time) and even caught a performance by none other than Nelly.  If you even call it that...he "performed" about 2/3 of each of his four hits.  Still a ton of fun though!  Once we found our way back to Mandalay, we stopped for some crazy-expensive and pretty average late night (early morning) food and Ben may have tried to drink mustard.  And let's not forget Mark putting the reminder in his phone so to not forget the momentous and hilarious attempt.  By the time we went to bed, it was 4am (6am our time), which meant Craig and I were up for nearly 24 hours.  Pair that with being in a time zone two hours behind ours and not being able to sleep past 7am and I definitely paid for it the rest of the trip!

It was the next morning when I realized I had packed plenty of contacts, but they were all for my right eye and none for my left.  I don't even know how that happened...  (I wear the dailies and had already thrown away the pair from the day prior.)  So after freaking out for a few minutes, I tracked down a Lenscrafters on the strip and called my eye doctor in Olathe to ask them to fax my prescription.  Luckily, I wear a pretty common prescription and Lenscrafters had them in stock.  Craig and I spent the next couple of hours walking 2.5 miles to Lenscrafters.  We definitely didn't realize how far it was.  And 2.5 miles on the Vegas strip is really much more than that when you have to weave in and out of hotels and cross the street so often.  The most fun part of our walk?  Random strangers yelling "Go Royals!" every half block when they saw Craig's hat!

That afternoon was spent relaxing and lounging at the pool.  Vegas weather in October happens to be pool-perfect.  Not too hot, not too cold.  It was nice - really nice! - to bask in the sun without having kids to worry about.

On Friday evening, we got dolled up for dinner at China Poblano in the swanky new Cosmopolitan Hotel.  This was my absolute favorite meal of the trip because it combined two of my favorite type of foods.  It sounds odd, but think Mexican meets Chinese!  It was more of a tapas restaurant, so Craig and I shared four different small plates: When Pigs Fly (Chinese barbeque pork), Mongolian Beef Lettuce, Bistee Con Mole Amarillo y Hongos (grilled hanger steak), and Beijing Glass (cellophane noodles & cabbage with a bunch of other yumminess).  Oh man, it's making my mouth water just thinking about this food.  It was seriously amazing and probably less expensive than a lot of nice Vegas restaurants.

After dinner, we parted ways for awhile.  Mark and Hollyn headed to a Cirque du Soleil show, Lauren and I to Planet Hollywood for Britney Spears, and Craig and Ben to a bar to watch the Royals in game 1 of the ALCS.  (Don't worry, I had the game pulled up on my SportsCenter app while at Britney.)  I was super excited to see Britney and I'm really glad we went, but let's just say this... Britney can't dance like she used to.  And you know she's not actually singing.  However, she still "performed" all of her hits through the years and we kept joking that if our high school selves would have known we'd see both Nelly and Britney Spears in Vegas in 2014 as a wife and mother of two, we would have never believed it!

We all met up later that evening, but I was pretty exhausted so after watching the Bellagio fountains for awhile, Craig and I headed back to our hotel.

The next day was much of the same thing.  The guys wanted to watch some college football, so they headed to Mandalay's Sports Book, while we enjoyed some girl time at the pool.  The Royals played that afternoon at 1:00, so we joined the guys to cheer on our team on the big screen.  Dinner Saturday night was at an Italian restaurant - Sirio - in the Aria hotel.  Good food, but the appetizer and Caesar salad were my faves by far.  I'd go back just for that.  After dinner, we walked around a little and eventually made our way back to the lounge at Mandalay.  We were all pretty shot after a long few days, and since Mark and Hollyn had an early morning flight to catch, we laid low.  We headed up to our suite around 11 and I dozed off as a few others played a pretty hilarious game of {adult version} Heads Up.

Since our flight wasn't until 4:30 Sunday afternoon and both other couples had morning flights, Craig and I had most of the day Sunday to ourselves.  We hung out at the pool for as long as we could and checked out of our hotel room around noon.  After dropping off our bags at concierge, we headed to lunch at Burger Bar, which was connected to our hotel.  The burgers there were delish and Bloody Mary's were even better.  2:30 rolled around and it was finally time to head to the airport.  We were ready to head home to our kiddos!

We had so much fun during our 2 1/2 day kid-free getaway to Vegas!  (Though I will say, many of our conversations revolved around them...funny how that happens!)  It was nice worrying about only ourselves for a few days, and even better seeing old friends!  We're already scheming for our next trip (Nashville...Napa...Florida with kids...?)  and I, for one, can't wait!

Thursday night @ Tao: Reunited and it feels so good!

Friday: Lounging at the pool

Friday night: Dinner at China Poblana & Britney!!

Saturday night: Dinner at Sirio 

Sunday: Pool time with the hubs

 

K-Ches & Eric Church

So as mentioned in the Father's Day post, we spent Saturday afternoon/evening/night at Arrowhead for Kenny Chesney's No Shoes Nation concert tour.  Opening acts included Kacey Musgraves (as in Merry Go 'Round), the Eli Young Band, and the amazing Eric Church!  We love us some Eric Church, especially after seeing him last year in Topeka, and were way more excited to see him than Kenny.

We went with our friends Ben & Lauren and Mark & Hollyn.  I had the genius idea of leaving our three babies (11 1/2 months, 11 months, and 7 1/2 months) with two of my high school babysitters.  High school girls are cheap...especially when split amongst three couples...and I figured a little baby socialization would be good!  However, as the weekend approached, I got more and more nervous about my "genius" idea.  "Can they handle three babies?" was the thought playing in my head.  Over and over again.  You should have seen the instruction sheet I left them.  It may or may not have been two 8.5x11 sheets taped together, color-coded, and broken down by baby (columns) and topics (rows).  I also left them a separate sheet that included an overall timeline of the afternoon/evening not separated by baby.  It may have been a bit overkill, but 1) I'm an over-the-top control freak (that's the math teacher in me), 2) I'm super organized when it comes to that kind of stuff, and 3) each baby has their own "rules" and I wanted to make sure the girls could handle all three with no problems.  I'm sure the babysitters thought I was crazy...but they did have me in class all year so they know exactly how organized freakish I am!

Anyway, we got to Arrowhead around 2:30, met some of Ben's co-workers (who were doing the grilling), set up shop (tents, chairs), had some beers, took some pictures, ate some fantastically-good tailgate food (grilled shrimp, the world's best mac&cheese, the world's best potato salad, chicken kabobs, and other super yummy stuff)....and then the storm clouds rolled in.

According to our weather apps, we were under a thunderstorm warning only (haha I say only).  Based on those clouds, I was surprised.  I could have sworn a tornado was going to drop down.

Despite the clouds, it had yet to begin raining.  Ben lowed his tent so the wind didn't blow it away.  Otherwise, things were still going as planned.

And then, slowly at first, it began raining.  A few of us (me included) made a mad dash for the car before it poured.  A few others stayed to hold down the tent.  Then the sprinkles turned into a steady rain which turned into a downright pour.  I was so thankful to be in the car at this point.

Meanwhile, at home in Olathe, it was storming.  Bad.  I got a text from our neighbor (who knew we had high school babysitters) that said "Power just went out."  I thought he was kidding.  Because he does that often.  And he knew I'd be freaked out.  But he wasn't.  We exchanged texts with the sitters, who said our power was still on, thankfully.  I told them it was okay if they went to the basement. :)  I'm not sure if they ever did...

Back at Arrowhead, it was still pouring.  And lighting.  And thundering.  Loudly.  And very close.  After much convincing, Ben abandoned his tent to take shelter in the car.  Here are Mark and Craig dressed in ponchos to go convince him to do so.

The storm finally rolled through and rain slowed.  We made our way back to the tent.  But first, I stood in line (in the rain, with poncho) for 30 minutes for the port-a-potty.  Awesome.

Here we are under the tent.

At this point, it was still raining and we had no idea if the concert was still on.  We couldn't get much radar on our phones because everyone and their dogs were trying to do the same.  We tossed around the idea of jetting and going to Twin Peaks for some yummy bloody marys (with bacon), but there was no way out of the parking lot.

Back to the car we went since it was still raining pretty hard and COLD!  According to the radio, the concert was still on as it was "Rain or shine", but delayed an hour (6 instead of 5).  We debated about what to do.  Over and over and over again.  In the end, we decided to brave the rain and head into Arrowhead.  If it sucked, we could always leave, but better to give it a chance than eat the money we spent on tickets.

We missed Kacey Musgraves, but caught the last few songs by Eli Young Band.  It had finally stopped raining by the time we got to the stadium.

Yay for no rain!

Ben & Lauren had seats separate from us so we went our separate directions...us to the near top. #theywerestillseventybucksapiece :(  Eric Church was awesome (even from 100 rows up!) and we were glad to have stuck it out.

"These boots..."

Within 30 seconds of Eric Church walking off the stage, it started to rain.  Again.  One benefit of our nose bleed seats?  We could run to the top concourse area covered by an overhang.  Here I am saving the dry seats while the other three went to get food.  By the way, those seats are empty because they were essentially behind the stage.  Despite the rain/storms, Arrowhead was pretty full!

The rain stopped.  And Kenny came on stage.  And then Lauren texted and said there were seats open by them. Down we marched to our newly upgraded seats!  And boy were they an upgrade!

We even decided the $130 per ticket might be worth it.  Might, I said.  Until we have to fork over that money next time.

We left a little early to beat the crowd.  The babysitters said they got along perfectly and had all three babes in bed by 9.  What a fun day/night it was--even with the rain.  It may not have been what we expected (or hoped) for a June 15 concert, but it makes for a memorable story nonetheless!

Here are the pictures we took pre-storm-drama!

One last thing - we realized on Sunday just how bad Saturday's storm was when we noticed all the huge tree branches in our neighborhood that came down!!  Worst storm/wind I remember in awhile!

A Night Out

We don't get out much.  Especially with a baby.  But let's be honest here, we didn't have much of a night life even before Brantley was born.  We've always been more of the stay-in-the-suburbs type of people and would just soon have beers in the comfort of our own (or our friend's own) home.  Drinks?  Yes.  Music?  Yes.  Dinner out?  Yes.  Power and Light?  Not so much.  Only on rare occasions.  But...it doesn't mean we can't have a good ole time during those few, but infrequent, nights out on the town.

The Zac Brown Band was in KC on Friday.  We got tickets with a group of friends and decided to make a fun night out of the ordeal.  We met for a few pre-drinks and even had the friends' nanny drive us downtown so we could fully enjoy our rare evening sans babies.  Between the four couples, we have seven kiddos, four of which are under eight months of age.  So, I'm pretty sure we were all ready for a little fun.  And that we had! 

The adult time was fantastic.  The concert was even better.  Zac Brown put on a great show!  PBR afterwards was...well, let's just say those few nights out per year are plenty for me!

Thanks friends for a fun and memorable night out!

A Fun Weekend

We had such a great weekend!  There wasn't one thing that made it so good - just a bunch of little things combined and the fact that we had no real plans, but sort of went with the flow instead.  Here are some highlights:

Eric Church Concert

We headed to Topeka on Friday night for the Eric Church concert, but made a dinner stop first at Free State Brewery in Lawrence.  It was the perfect little date night and we really enjoyed each others company.  The concert was great, too!  Lee Brice was the opening act, which was a nice surprise to both of us.

DUI Checkpoint

Of course I have to mention this!  On our way back from the concert on Friday, we went through a sobriety checkpoint - a mere block from our house!  I've always been curious about those things and was glad to finally experience one - sober, of course! :)  They are a big deal!  The police disguise it as road construction and put it in a location that is hard to see until you are right upon it.  Every car gets stopped, any passengers are escorted to the little "waiting" area, and the driver must perform the sobriety tests.  It seemed like there were 50+ police officers and there was even a mobile/trailer unit set up...though I'm not sure what it was used for.  Crazy stuff, I tell ya!  I waited about 15 or 20 minutes for Craig and though I knew he was fine to drive, a tiny part of me was still a bit nervous!  It was definitely a good place to people watch...I think I could have hung out there and watched the spectacle for hours!  Such an interesting experience!  And in case you're wondering, the hubs passed the breathalyzer with flying colors, but only after failing two of the sobriety tests first because he was so nervous!

Legends Shopping

Since we had no plans for Saturday, we headed to the Legends to hit up the Banana Republic outlet...something we typically do two or three times per year.  The hubs usually spends quite a bit of money there, but it's literally the only time/place he ever shops all year long!  I always enjoy our trips there because it's fun for me to help him pick out new clothes! :)  And the weather was perfect for a day outdoors at the Legends!  We even stopped in Carters and Gymboree with gift cards to spend, but came away from both empty-handed.  (Nothing that was the right size really jumped out at us, unfortunately.)

Grilling Out

Saturday evening we hung out on our deck, listened to music, and tried a new recipe - steak fajitas on the grill!  Definitely a keeper and something we will be making again!  Sitting on the deck and grilling are two of my favorite things!  I even made sponge cake with strawberries for dessert.  Yum!

Firepit

Later in the evening on Saturday, we sat around our fire pit in our driveway and listened to more music.  Just myself, the hubs, and the schnauz!  The schnauz even got his own chair!

Smoked Chicken

And today, we finally tested out the smoker Craig got for Christmas!  We attempted a beer-can chicken and it turned out pretty good!  Can't wait to smoke some more meat throughout the summer!

It's hard to believe next weekend is the official kick-off to summer!  I say, bring it on!  Summer means lots more great weekends to come!