Sometimes, you just have a weekend so packed with fun and goodness that you have to write a post about it. This past weekend (12.15-16.18) was one of those weekends.
I’ll admit it was different than usual, but I got a lot of time with the girls which always makes me happy.
Let’s begin shall we!?
Saturday
Our church had their annual outreach called “Giving Hope” where families who are struggling can come and go shopping for their kid(s) absolutely free. We also wrap the gifts and provide opportunity for prayer. Church wide, there were 869 salvations on Saturday. The stories are still flooding in and it is incredible to hear about them through social media. Marriages restored, inmates being released on parole that day to shop for their children, families affected by cancer being prayed for, etc.
After dropping Aaron off to serve, we headed over to our sweet friend, Sarah’s house for a long overdue play date. It was early, so PJs were definitely a thing 😉
From there, the girls and I went to a baby friend’s 2nd birthday party and it was so great to reconnect with some of my mama tribe friends.
The party included Cinderella (and unlike the other children, Rylie had no idea who she was. But she can tell you all the Toy Story characters 😛 ), a crown making station + yummy snacky food!
Rylie was way more interested in putting the stickers on herself than on her crown 😛
Rylie was also a frequent visitor at the food table haha
Happy Birthday LK!
When we stopped by at the end of Giving Hope to pick Aaron up, we ran into Michelle and helped her get the parking signs from the car to the storage room.
From there we went straight home and got some much needed rest together before I decided to start a project I volunteered to do for our work Christmas party this week.
Part of my job is to plan/coordinate events, which of course includes my company’s Christmas party. Table centerpieces was something my boss said I could decide on, so after some search on Pinterest, I found this awesome DIY tutorial and it looked really simple. I got the okay to purchase the supplies and said I would make them over the weekend and bring them in.
I decided to dive into it on Saturday evening before dinner and asked Rylie to help me. She was a great assistant and only spilled the Hodge Podge once and mainly played with the salt (transferring it from the catching bowl to her mason jar).
Here is the final product. I love them!
After a leftover dinner with Princess Rylie, we hung out in our living room for a while before heading to bed early since it was a no nap kind of day.
Sunday
Our 2nd car is currently in the shop, and because Aaron leaves at 6am to serve (a time I don’t dare the wake the girls up), we elected that I would stay home and watch church online. I decided to catch the 8am service in hopes that the girls might sleep in enough for me to take notes on the message. Mid-worship, Emmaline woke up and enjoyed a bottle during the first half of the message and climbed around the couch for the 2nd half.
Rylie woke up shortly after and we enjoyed some breakfast and some play time before I decided I wanted to conquer the disaster that was Rylie’s bedroom. I threw the dirty laundry into the hall so I could take it to the washer, picked up the toys (with Rylie’s help), threw away the trash and vacuumed. I also decided I wanted to make Rylie a little “book nook” for her to enjoy during those quiet times that she’s not napping. So I put her pillow-like stuffed animals that were spread randomly throughout her room into the corner and found this box and emptied its contents into a diaper box (I have yet to go through that 😝) and told Rylie we were going to go pick out some books to put in it. I followed her to the bookshelf in the living room that holds all of her books and she picked the ones she wanted in her room.
I absolutely loved how simple but cute it turned out.
I literally just threw pillows in the corner and found a box to put books in.
I also decided that I wanted to put some pictures up on her walls. I had plenty in an envelope that had been printed just sitting in a box, so I took them out and laid them on the floor to pick my absolute favorites.
Rylie kept pointing to pictures of herself that were basically from 18 months old and before and said “Emmaline!” hahaha
I also came across some pictures to put in other places in our house. I had let not having frames keep me from putting the pictures up, which I decided was silly. So I just stuck some tape on the back and stuck them to the wall.
After some leftovers for lunch, Rylie went to have some quiet time in her refreshed room. Of course, as soon as I closed her door, Emmaline started making her exclamations from behind her door that she was ready to get up from her nap, so I went in and grabbed her. She “helped” me wrap a couple gifts I had gotten for Rylie over the week. And by “helped,” I mean aggressively played with the leftover wrapping. 😛
After a couple hours, I decided to lay her back down for her 2nd nap (it was one of those “you either get one now or I’ll force you to stay awake until bedtime and that will be unpleasant for everyone!” situations), so I got a little over a half an hour to myself before Rylie got up and Aaron came home from church.
He came bearing leftover food, stories of a couple kids in his class that had blessed him, leftover craft materials + DVDs that were going to be thrown away so he brought them home in addition to a gift for the girls. Highlands Kids does an incredible job of loving on their families, and the Christmas season is no exception. This Sunday, all the families went home with at least 1 ornament. We got 2 (1 for each kiddo) and Rylie was so excited to hang hers on the tree <3
In the stack of DVDs that were going to be tossed was Toy Story 2, so you better believe we deemed that as our “family treat” for the week and popped it into the player. Rylie FREAKED out – quite literally! She jumped with excitement, laughed and said “Buzz!!!!” and “Woody!!!!” so many times. Her eyes were glued to the movie the whole time and I’m pretty confident that she loved all of it.
Oh, and I found this hat in her room that we had found at the thrift store back when I was pregnant with her and we had since been using for decoration. With her new obsession and the new movie being played in our home, I took it down and offered she could wear it. She wore it for about 15 seconds – long enough for me to find my phone, open my camera and her start to move to take it off. There was no putting it back on after that hahaha 😀
The rest of the night consisted of dinner, bath and opening a book for our Book Advent.
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It was such an nontraditional weekend, but I think that is why it felt so special. I got lots of just me time with the girls, both out and at home. We had play dates with friends and I got to take on some house projects which always brings out the Joanna Gaines in me.
Thanks for indulging me by seeing what we did this weekend 😉 Have a great day!