When I dont have weddings on the weekends, we try, for the most part, to keep our Saturdays pretty low key.  The kids lounge around, watch a movie, and play and Jay and I try to get some cleaning done.  If we go anywhere its usually after lunch.  So this is what our typical Saturday(at least the first half of this post) looks like…

9:15…eating heart shaped pancakes with m&ms and watching the first half of a movie. PIN IMAGE10:30.  Playtime.  You can usually find Carter in the playroom with his train set or in his room playing superheros. 🙂 PIN IMAGE11:45 to about 12:45…cleaning and making lunch. PIN IMAGE1:30-making cookies for Valentine’s Day at Duke’s house PIN IMAGE PIN IMAGE PIN IMAGE PIN IMAGE2:30- Cookie decorating time! PIN IMAGE PIN IMAGE PIN IMAGE PIN IMAGE PIN IMAGE PIN IMAGE PIN IMAGE PIN IMAGE3:50-more playtime.  You can usually find Kaleigh in her room making up some extraordinary game.  She has such an imagination! PIN IMAGE4:30-watching the second half of the movie…it was Kung Fu Panda if you’re curious. 😉 PIN IMAGE5:15 playtime outside! PIN IMAGE6:30-hanging some photos on our stair wall.  Almost finished with it! PIN IMAGE7:45-we went to a birthday party for their cousin and I forgot to bring my camera so there is no photo for this hour! 🙁

The photo below accounts for the next two hours of driving-leaving for Kaleigh’s gymnastics meet in VA Beach. PIN IMAGE11:00 pm-The girls getting ready to go to bed!  PIN IMAGE

  

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!  Wow!  This day came a lot quicker than I was expecting!  I had lots of fun crafts planned for the kids, but time just seems to fly by during the week because we are so busy and sadly, we really didnt do anything Valentine related this year.  Well, I cant say that….we did play Valentine BINGO and we made and decorated Valentine cookies, but I always enjoy doing crafty things with them and they just arent into it! 🙁

This day is special to our family for a few reasons.  First, today, Jay and I are celebrating our NINE years of marriage!!  That doesnt even seem real haha!  Where did the past 9 years go?!?!  I cannot believe that in 1 year we will have been married for a decade!  It just seems so unreal.  Jay and I were supposed to have a weekend getaway for our anniversary but unfortunately our plans have changed due to lack of a babysitter. :/  I guess thats just how it goes when you have kids!  Oh well, maybe we can start planning something REALLY exciting for our anniversary next year…although Im thinking of an addition to my wedding band lol!  A girl can dream right?!!

Second, I LOVE Valentine’s Day!  And more importantly, I love celebrating this holiday with Kaleigh and Carter.  Today will be filled with lots of fun things like m&m pancakes with pink milk, balloons, flowers, cookies, special notes and treats, Valentine’s Day games(bingo and tic tac toe) and lots of other love related activities.  I have always made a trail of hearts leading up to their breakfast in the morning and I know they look forward to that each year.  And last, this evening we will go to Nana and Papa’s house to celebrate their anniversary as well.  It is their 60th!!!  Whoah!  So this is a pretty important day for us!  I normally try to make a nice meal for our family for dinner(all red and pink related…salmon, pink mashed potatoes..you get the idea) but we are having oven issues so that plan is out of the picture.  Instead, we are going to do pizza!  This is normally our Pizza Friday meal, but we are switching it up because tomorrow evening we are going out with Nana and Papa for an anniversary dinner. 🙂  I love that we get to share our anniversary together!

Below are some photos that I took a couple of weeks ago!  I made the kids the CUTEST valentines this year.  Kaleigh wanted to give out bookmarks along with her treats and I made Carter some wallet sized cards.  They are at the bottom of the post!  I hope everyone has a LOVEly Valentine’s Day! 🙂  XOXO

 

PIN IMAGE PIN IMAGE PIN IMAGE PIN IMAGE PIN IMAGE PIN IMAGE PIN IMAGE PIN IMAGEI just love these two! PIN IMAGE PIN IMAGEMy little model…. PIN IMAGE PIN IMAGE PIN IMAGE PIN IMAGEAnd my lil’ man… PIN IMAGE PIN IMAGE PIN IMAGE PIN IMAGEAnd below are the valentines the kids handed out to their friends!  Kaleigh’s is a bookmark and Carter’s is a wallet sized photo.  I LOVE them! 🙂

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  • February 15, 2013 - 10:54 AM

    Anna - Awwww so sweet! Happy Anniversary!ReplyCancel

    • February 15, 2013 - 1:30 PM

      Ashley - Thank you Anna! 🙂ReplyCancel

What a whirlwind of a weekend!  The last two weekends have been pretty stress free and this weekend was jam-packed!  But it was all fun stuff so Im not complaining!  🙂  Friday evening we did the usual….pizza night and board games.  We played Candyland, Connect 4, and Valentine BINGO.  Game night can either go really well or not well at all.  Depending on the mood and how tired the kids are…its either a lot of fun or ends with crying and “time to go to bed” lol.  Sometimes it seems easier to pop in a movie, especially at the end of the week when everyone just needs a break!  Most of the time, we do movie night on Fridays but we decided to try and switch it up.  🙂

Saturday I made the kids hear shaped pancakes with m&ms….very yummy!!  We played around the house most of the morning and then headed over to my dad’s to make Valentine’s Day cookies!  This weekend was filled with lots of fun Valentine’s activities because I know that(sadly) the week will be just too busy to celebrate 🙁  The kids had a great time decorating their cookies together.  Later, we went to Kaleigh and Carter’s cousin Madison’s 19th birthday and after, Kaleigh and I picked up her friend and her mom and headed to Virginia Beach!  It was a reaallly long day and driving to VA Beach late at night was tiring, but I am SO glad we left the night before.  The girls had to be at the gym by 8:00 am so being able to wake up and eat the continental breakfast before and driving 2 miles to the gym was such a great feeling lol!  It was a fun little girls getaway and they had a blast!  It was non stop giggling the entire time!  I am so proud of Kaleigh and how well she has done this competition season!  She got second all-around this weekend and although she was disappointed, I was thrilled!  The last meet she got 1st all-around so I think she had the expectation that she would get first again…hopefully it was a good learning experience…you cant win em’ all!  🙂

After we got back home, I had about an hour to relax before heading out again for a birthday party for Carter’s preschool friend at AMF bowling!  They had such a great time!  Friends, bowling, pizza, cake, ice cream, and cupcakes..what more could you ask for!?!?  The day didnt end there!  We met up with Ginny and Rick at Outback to eat dinner and then it was finally time to go home for the night.  What a LONG and FUN day!  As much as I would have loved to have flopped on the couch and do nothing at all, I knew I needed to get started on answering all the emails I didnt get a chance to all weekend and begin uploading photos from my bridal session.  So I spent the rest of the evening(and early part of the morning) working.  Whew!

Below are some photos from our trip to Great Wolf Lodge:

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You can also view our awesome video below:

 

Our Trip to Great Wolf Lodge

I’d like to say that this week will be less hectic but it wont haha!  There are lots of fun happenings this week, but I do have a lot of catching up to do because I didnt get much done this weekend. :/  So we’ll start with the goals from last week….

 

Last week’s goals:

Personal:

-Kaleigh’s talent show on Tuesday

-painting our bedroom….well, we bought the paint…that counts right??

-finish up the personal project 🙂

-two birthday parties this weekend

-Kaleigh’s meet in VA beach 2nd place all-around!!  🙂

 

Business:

-bridal shoot on Friday!

-sign up for CPS and send lens off!

-record miles and expenses

-mini photo shoot for Northminster 🙂

 

This week’s goals and things I am looking forward to:

Personal:

-make teachers and Kaleigh and Carter’s valentines

-my anniversary! (9 years on the 14th!!!)

-Nana and Papa’s anniversary dinner(they share the same anniversary as we do)

-weekend getaway to celebrate our nine years together!

-sell more girl scout cookies(we did NOT sell nearly as many as last year…Ive got to step up my game!)

-blog Valentine’s Day shoot with the kids 🙂

 

Business:

-catch up on emails

-edit bridal session and church photos

-set up a potential client meeting

-meeting with my lovely March bride 🙂

-photographer’s group outing 🙂

-finish filling out all of my tax papers!

 

Happy Monday!  Hope its a great week for you all! 🙂

  

Its Friday!!!!  Who’s ready for the weekend!?!?  I know I am 🙂  So when I wrote my goal list this week I totally forgot to mention that Kaleigh has a meet in Virginia Beach on Sunday.  She has to be in the gym by 8 am so I think the two of us and a friend and her mom are going to get a hotel for the night so we dont have to wake up at the crack of dawn to drive to the meet!  It should be a fun girls weekend. 🙂

The theme for this week for project 52 is light.  I had a vision of what I wanted, but ran out of time(I took these last night!) It wasnt what I was envisioning, but fun nonetheless!  I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! 🙂

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How about the super bowl last night?!?!  What a great game!  Crazy too with the power outage….I really thought the 49ers were going to come back but oh well!  I have a friend who is a cheerleader for the Ravens and it was pretty neat knowing that she was there!  Im sure she is going to have some really great stories!  So here is a little recap of our weekend…..Friday, Kaleigh had a friend spend the night.  They had a great time building forts, singing to songs on the karaoke machine, watching a movie and eating popcorn and other fun girl stuff.  They also were really great about including Carter so he felt special playing with them.  It was so funny to walk in the playroom and see Carter playing on the drum set and the girls dancing and singing into the microphones!!  I just love this age!  Kaleigh and her friend that came over are doing the talent show tomorrow evening at school so I am very excited to see them perform!  THey have been working hard and practicing together for a couple of weeks now.  It should be a fun show!  Saturday, the kids went to their cousin Hylton’s house for a playdate so Jay and I could run some errands(we finally picked out the paint for our bedroom) so we went to Home Depot to get supplies.  I am hoping to get started on the painting project this week.  Our house right now looks like a tornado went through it.  It is total chaos with us bringing in new furniture and trying to get rid of old furniture.  Ugh!  I can’t wait until this process is complete lol!  Anyway, after we picked up the kids we headed over to our friends house to hang out for the evening.  The moms all did a “design and wine” thing while the kids played and guys hung out.  We always enjoy going over there because the kids get along great and we all have a good time!  Yesterday we celebrated the Super Bowl by eating an enormous amount of food at my dad’s house and watching the game.  Definitely am going to be doing some hard core exercising this week….excluding today because Im being lazy and not doing anything but cleaning! 🙂  Goal list below!  Sorry if this sounds so choppy….when we got home last night everyone was so exhausted that we all fell asleep and I didnt hear my alarm go off this morning so everyone is off to a very late start!  Guess its just another Manic Monday!  Ha!

Last week’s goals and things Im looking forward to:

Personal:

-unpack and catch up on laundry

-buy paint for our room and start painting

 

-start on a fun, new personal project!

 

Business:

-meet with Stephanie for images

-grueling tax stuff

-still need to pick out a good book for the biz

-finish up bridal/family guide…almost done!

 

This week’s goals and things I am looking forward to:

Personal:

-Kaleigh’s talent show on Tuesday

-painting our bedroom

-finish up the personal project 🙂

-two birthday parties this weekend

 

Business:

-bridal shoot on Friday!

  
  • February 4, 2013 - 9:55 AM

    Hollie - You guys always have so much fun on the weekends! What color did you choose for your bedroom? It probably sounds strange, but I love painting! So much in fact, that I refuse to let my husband help me. haha! Less arguments that way! lolReplyCancel

    • February 4, 2013 - 10:14 AM

      Ashley - lol! You wanna come over here?!?! I hate painting and Im pretty sure Jay doesnt like it either haha! We got gray for the walls 🙂 So excited!!ReplyCancel