Five on Friday

 

It's Friday! Hooray! I'm joining Darci, Natasha, & the girls today and sharing my five favorite fall recipes. I completely suck at cooking in the summer when it is 103 degrees. But the fall? I am all about some soups & using my crockpot! Here are my 5 favorite recipes for this time of year:

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ONE. Baked Potato Soup. This recipe is from SkinnyTaste & is one of my favorite lunches to prepare ahead of time. It's a skinny version of one of my favorite soups because it is half potato & half cauliflower. It's so good!

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TWO. Spinach Salad with Butternut Squash, Pumpkin Seeds, Gorgonzola, & Dried Cherries. This is another lunch staple around my house. The butternut squash is roasted with a little bit of honey & it so good. I actually just use this squash as a side dish, too. Try this!

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THREE. Chicken, Corn, & Potato Chowder. This soup is perfect for a cold day. Also, any recipe that starts off with bacon is good in my book!

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FOUR. Slow Cooker White Chicken Chili. Does this one need an explanation? It's good. Especially with a side of cornbread.

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FIVE. Caramel Apple Trifle. I discovered this recipe a few years ago & made it for Thanksgiving. It basically tastes like an apple pie trifle. It is actually pretty easy to make too! This is a great dessert to feed a crowd of people & it's a different than your average pumpkin pie.

Brotherly Love

When I was a little girl I wanted so badly to have a house full of siblings. I would dream of having brothers and sisters that were close in age with me. I thought it was so cool that my friends all had built-in friends, especially once summer rolled around. Even now, I love seeing how close most of my childhood best friends are with their brothers & sisters as adults. It's such a neat relationship that I never had. 

Even though I am an only child & won't get to experience having a brother & sister, I am so glad that my boys will. When I would dream of having a brother or sister, their relationship is what I saw in my head. Lots of laughter, some silly fights, lots of playing, & having that special bond that only they can share.

I love the moments while I am getting ready & I sneak into the play room just to watch them interact. The way they sit next next to each other & play with trucks. The way they chase each other through the tunnel. The way they both make the same exact sound while they "mow." The way Grayson helps Griffin reach things that are up too high. They way that they can make each other laugh uncontrollably.

 
Watching Grayson & Griffin together makes my heart so full. I can't believe they are ours. I think the best gift we've given our boys is each other. Their personalities are so different but the bond they have is unbreakable. I pray that they are always best friends.

The Year of the Glitter Pumpkin

I've discussed my obsession with pumpkins before. It seems to grow a little every fall. Right now I have 17 pumpkins in our house & on our porch. That would be embarrassing except I love them so much that I don't care. Ben says I go overboard, I say you can never have enough pumpkins.

Without even trying, I seem to have taken on a theme this year with our fall decorations. I fell in love with orange & gold glitter, thus, creating The Year of the Glitter Pumpkin(s). 

I need you to know that as a 1st grade teacher, I despised glitter. THE MESS. Oh my, it would get everywhere. Kind of like chalk, it made me stabby. 

However, I had a change of heart in Kentucky when I saw how cute Carsyn's pink glitter pumpkins were at her birthday party. I wanted them all.

 

SO, I may be finding specks of orange & gold glitter all over my house for the next 17 years, but it is so worth it. Every time I see one of my glitter pumpkins it makes me smile. 

In a house FULL of boys & trucks, I needed some glitter. Happy fall!

Touch a Truck

If there is one thing that I have learned in my 3 years as a boy mom, it is this: boys LOVE anything with wheels. Every fall & summer our area has a free Touch-a-Truck  at either a park or a big church. We missed the one in June because we were at the beach, but I made sure we went to the one a couple weekends ago! Grayson has loved trucks since he was 1 & they were still doing a ton of building on our street. He would sit outside for hours & watch all of the construction trucks. By the time he was 20 months old he was telling me what types of trucks were driving down our street. ha! He has passed his love down to Griffin & so we have approximately 7409834 toy trucks in our house, garage, & sand box. 

We drove to Thompson's Station while Ben was working a couple weekends ago & spent two hours "driving" & exploring all the trucks. We had a great time!

I love that the boys can now have fun together doing things. They are best buds!

weekend happenings + Menu Monday

The weekends seem to go by SO fast when Ben is home with us! I can't believe it is already Monday. We had a great weekend together enjoying this beautiful fall weather! On Friday we decided to take the boys to the zoo to see our new Kangaroo exhibit. We forgot that Fridays are the busy field trip days & our little zoo was packed. 

This was Griffin's first time to really notice the animals. He loved it & we had a hard time pulling him away from the the exhibits! He was fascinated by the giraffes. 

We didn't stay as long as we usually do because the crowd was making us crazy. We did see the kangaroos & I can't wait to take the boys back soon and see them a little better. After the zoo we went to eat lunch at the Slider House in Nashville and it was awesome! Grayson made friends with our server, per usual, & Griffin slept through most of our meal! 

On Saturday I ventured downtown again but this time I was solo! I had a blind friend date with a twitter friend, Sarah.We went to the Chuy's downtown & I loved actually talking in person! Our waiter thought it was so strange that we had never actually met. I swear their needs to be a Catfish: Online Twitter/Blog Friends special. 

The crazy thing is that Sarah and I grew up probably 15 minutes away from one another in Georgia & actually worked at restaurants owned by the same family in high school. Crazy small world, right?!

Saturday night we hung out with our neighbors at their fire pit & then watched THE BEST football game of the year. We watched Ole Miss beat LSU and it made me really wish we were in Oxford. Such a great game! 

Now on to our menu! I really need to get better at sticking to this each week. We've been slacking big time! I'm trying some new recipes this week so hopefully that will motivate me!

Monday: homemade pizza with fresh dough from Publix

Tuesday: Orange Chicken & fried rice (thank Trader Joe's for this easy meal!)

Wednesday: Slow Cooked Chicken Gyros

Thursday: Crockpot Lasagna Soup with Garlic Bread

Friday: Loaded Quinoa Bowl (this one is a favorite!)

Saturday: Leftovers

Sunday: Easiest Pasta with Broccoli

Five on Friday

 

You know the drill. This could alternately be titled: a Friday Brain Dump. Go link up with Natasha, Darci, & the girls for Five on Friday! 

ONE. I am almost finished getting all of my fall decorations out. I've been busy & it is tough to get anything done with 2 equally busy boys! I'll try to get a post up next week of everything, but I will show off one area that I love. Our dining room is one of my favorite rooms in the house because it rarely has kid junk scattered on the floor AND it has my favorite piece of furniture we own. My beloved buffet. 

 

Ignore the empty picture frame and focus on the glitter pumpkins & cute banner!  My sweet friend, Jenna, just started an Etsy shop recently and makes some seriously cute things! Go check out ElleJayPartyDecor if you need banners, cupcake toppers, gift tags, etc. She's great! Also? THE GLITTER PUMPKINS. I am officially obsessed. Now I want to glitter ALL THE THINGS.

TWO. This weekend is actually a real weekend for us! Ben works every other weekend so I really soak up our family time when he is actually off. He works so hard for our family & I love getting to spend time together...just the four of us. I'm not sure what all we will do, but I'm sure the toddler boys (did I really just call Griff a toddler? WAH) will keep us busy!

THREE. Once upon a time our pediatrician was semi-concerned over G's lack of words. WELL, fast forward 18 months and this child never shuts up. Not only is he always talking, bu he says some pretty funny things. Apparently he told his preschool teacher this week that he always wants to wear basketball shorts to school but mommy doesn't always let him. He always wants to play basketball in a REAL gym. He told me a few weeks ago I was pretty because I was wearing "real" clothes and not my workout clothes. Haha! He also woke up in the middle of the night earlier this week because he said an armadillo and a piggie were in his bed. Hate when that happens!

FOUR. I think it is time to get Grayson started on a chore chart. He's 3. So maybe not so much a chore chart, but more of a responsibility chart. He hates picking up his toys and throws a huge fit over it any time we ask him to clean up. I just started setting a timer before bed for 10 minutes so he can clean up. Do you have any good ideas for a 3 year old responsibility chart? What kind of incentives? I'm kind of clueless but I know we need to start something & be consistent with it!

FIVE. One of my favorite things (and most stressful things) is picking out coordinating outfits for family pictures. We are having ours made in a couple weeks. It is SO EASY to pick out what the boys are wearing and it always takes me forever to find something I like that goes with them. 

It's easy to find the boys matching outfits since I'm a Kelly's Kids Rep. No brainer. Now I have the fun task of finding something for me. Oh, and let's not forget that I will also have the fun task of bribing ALL the boys (hubby included) to smile & cooperate for 30 minutes.

A Trip to Gentry Farms

Last week when Griffin was the only sick family member, Grayson and I had a date to Gentry Farm in Franklin with some friends. Poor Griff had to stay at home with Ben. I felt bad for him but it was nice to have some one on one time with my biggest boy! It doesn't happen too often.  Gentry Farm is a cute pumpkin patch with hayrides, a corn maze, & lots of activities for little kids.

It was a beautiful morning & we actually got to wear actual fall clothes! G insisted on wearing his work boots like daddy. If only he could have driven his Gator around the farm...that would have been perfect!

I mean, really. Look how beautiful! I will never get over how beautiful God has made our world. It's amazing!

We went on the hayride with some friends first before it got crowded. We had not done this hayride since G was Griffin's age! It went all through the farm & right up next to the cows. Grayson loved looking at all the babies! 

Reed & Grayson on the hayride...buddies for over 2 years!

Catherine and I tried to recreate a picture we have of the boys in front of the barn from 2 years ago. We learned one thing: 3 years are not the best at being cooperative. 

We played in the little trough area with corn kernels for a long time. This was probably the first time ever that Grayson played independently with his friends and I could actually visit with my friends! We're growing up, folks. 

It was such a fun morning & I'm so glad G waited 12 hours to get sick so we could have our day date. I sure do love that 3 year old!