Tales of a busy, messy, at-times-chaotic, but happy family
Good morning friends! I hope you had a nice weekend. Ours was a perfect mix of busy and relaxing. It was exactly what we needed.
Hello Friends and happy Friday! Today I want to share a little bit of what we've been up to lately. We have been busy! Back in April we were able to get away for a quick beach trip...
Hello and happy Friday! I hope you've all had a nice week. Today our big girl is 6 years old and I wanted to share 6 of our favorite things about our little sweetheart, along with some of my favorite pics of her over this past year. 😍
Good morning friends and happy Friday! Are you on break yet? Liam and I had our last day Wednesday and while technically today was supposed to be LG's last day, we are currently on an airplane to snowy Colorado! Woohoo!
I was initially very hesitant to write today's post, but I've had a few of you reach out to me via email about ADHD or with ADHD related questions... and since this is something I get asked about by people in person frequently too, I figured it couldn't hurt to write a post about it. There is a lot of misinformation out there about what ADHD actually is, so I figured I'd clear a bit up before we begin.
I don't want to share too much personal info about LG on the internet for the whole world to see, so I will intentionally keep some of this vague. If you have any further questions though, please feel free to email me (laurendarrell13@gmail.com). And in order to break up this super long post, I will be adding in some cute pictures of our little bundle of energy over the years. 😍
Good morning and happy Friday! We are in our final days of our beach trip and it is bittersweet. We are having so much fun here together, but at the same time, I know we have things we need to get back home to as well. Two weeks is a long time to be away! Today I am sharing "A Day in the Life of Us at the Beach", so settle in, grab your coffee, and come spend the day with us in Hilton Head, SC. 😉 We are here with my parents and my younger sister, but they claimed they were "sweaty and gross in those pictures, don't post us". So just so you know, the gang was all here.. but it was hot as heck and they didn't want sweaty pictures on the internet. I can't say I blame them. 😊
Hello friends! I am back today to share a little bit of our trip to Disney. We had SO much fun on this trip and I think the kids were at such great ages for it. LG is 4 and everything was still so magical and real to her. Liam was 2, and while technically this was his second trip, this is the first time he really knew what was going on. 😆 He was only 3 months old the last time we took him! It's funny to remember a time he was that little.
Orlando is only an 8 hour drive from Charlotte, which we felt was reasonable for our family. We thought about flying, but honestly with the amount of stuff we wanted to bring it was just easier to drive (not to mention cheaper). We left Friday afternoon and began our drive to Jacksonville, FL (roughly 6 hours).
Good morning and happy Monday! Today I am recapping our busy but fun-filled weekend as I link up with Heather for Hello Monday. I hope you all have a great Monday and get your week off to a strong start!
On Friday I subbed for a 4th grade class at my old school while Devin worked from home and watched the kids. When I came home from work they were playing with their construction worker dress up clothes. Both of these kids love to play dress up, and the construction outfits are a big hit these days!
Hello there! I hope you're all having a good week so far. As we get nearer to Halloween my kids are getting more and more into all things spooky. I love doing arts & crafts with the kids and have been browsing on Pinterest for some cute and simple ideas. I figured I'd share just in case you're looking for a fun activity to do with your kids too!
Good morning friends and happy Friday! Today I am sharing something I've made several times over the past few weeks for the kids as an afternoon snack/lunch board-- we call it the char-boo-terie board. 😊 The idea for this initially came from the Fresh Market magazine, but theirs was mostly desserts/sweet treats:
Good morning everyone! A couple weeks ago we booked a local photographer to take our fall family pictures. I know this is something many families do at this time of year, and figured many of us have "Fall Family Pics" on the brain. A few of the Charlotte family photographers have been posting some tips and tricks to help make family pictures go more smoothly and I thought I would share. These tips are NOT my own, so I take no credit for them. Also, for the kids tips, you know your own kids... some of these may apply to your family, some of them may not. Pick and choose what makes sense for you!
Family Pictures 2020
Hello and happy Monday! I hope you had a nice weekend. We had another great weekend at home and were able to do something really fun together as a family.
Early last week I took the kids to Discovery Place, a kids science museum in our city's downtown. They had fun at Discovery Place, but had a surprising amount of fun on the walk from the parking deck into the museum building. There was so much for them to see and watch in the downtown area. After visiting the museum for a few hours, Lily Grace asked if we could drive around and "see more of the city". This honestly blew my mind. In my mind, I thought "umm.. there's not a lot to see? It's just buildings and cars.. but okay whatever, why not." But after driving around for a bit with them and seeing it through their eyes, the busy city is pretty cool for an almost 2 year old and a 4 year old.
We saw:
- the train (our city's version of a subway is called the Lightrail, it's an above ground train)
- people on Segways (my kids loved this, I hadn't even thought of how odd/unique/fun this would seem to them 😂)
- people on electric scooters
- MANY cranes and construction vehicles
- a tunnel
- stadiums where the Hornets, Panthers, and Knights play
- some unique statues/art
That night I got home and Devin asked how the museum was. I said "you know, they liked the museum but honestly I think they liked just walking & driving around to see the city more." And then an idea was born... we decided on Saturday morning to take the train into the city and have a "city day" together as a family.
Good morning friends and happy Friday!!! We had a GREAT first week of summer. We splashed in our pool, had a couple play dates with friends, and spent a LOT of time outside. Devin even got to have a few "work from home" afternoons this week. Life was pretty darn good around here. I hope it was a good week on your end too 😊
A couple weeks ago we were all outside drawing with chalk on my in-laws driveway and we decided it was a good time to make our summer bucket list. Lily Grace was already drawing pictures of herself at gymnastics camp, so it just kind of flowed into "what else should we do this summer?". As we were making our list, Devin and I looked at each other and said "we need a mom & dad summer bucket list!" So today I am sharing the kids version, and then in a few weeks I'll share the parent version.
I have a few pictures of Lily Grace's various drawings, and then made a written list so we could check the things off as we do them. Don't worry, I'm here to interpret the preschool chalk art. While I may think her art is wonderful, I'm sure the average person would be like "what is that?!" 😊
Hello again! Over the weekend I realized that I had not done a Life Lately post on here in over 2 months... and I had a LOT of pictures to share! On Monday I shared the first half, and now here I am today to share the rest. Snuggle up under a cozy blanket and come see how the Darrell's celebrated the holidays 😁
So where we last left off we were between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We were buckling down and staying home as much as possible due to rising COVID numbers, so we spent a lot of time baking and doing crafts at home. I have to say, while the reason for staying home so much this holiday season was obviously terrible, it was actually kind of nice to be forced to stay home. This was the first Christmas season in years where I didn't feel stressed from trying to do too many things. We didn't have any holiday parties to attend this year. No Christmas plays at school (sad, but it's always another thing to squeeze into the calendar). No "extra" activities because they weren't happening this year. It was the most relaxing and peaceful holiday season we've had in a very long time, and I'm hoping next year we don't go back to all the busy-ness again.
Here we are baking some Christmas cookies:
Hi there! I hope you had a nice weekend and your Monday is off to a great start. I realized over the weekend that I haven't done a "Life Lately" post in over 2 months. That is a long time considering we've had the holidays and so much else going on! I decided to split this post into a part 1 and a part 2 because otherwise this post would have 50+ photos... and nobody has time for that! Today is going to be a random dump of photos from my phone from mid November- mid December. Then on Wednesday I will share the rest! Grab yourself a cup of coffee and come see what we've been up to lately:
Hi there! I hope you all had a nice weekend and were able to soak up a little more of the fun this season has to offer. On Saturday our kids met Santa, and it was without a doubt my favorite Santa meeting we've had!
Hey there! Over the weekend we made our annual homemade ornaments and I wanted to share them with you today. These were super easy to make-- it took longer to gather the supplies than it did to make the ornaments!
Good morning friends! Last week I was making play-dough for Lily Grace's preschool class and it hit me that we make this same play-dough recipe all the time and I have yet to share it.
Good morning friends! Today we officially move out of our house for the next 4 months. It is bittersweet. We love our little home and will miss it, but are excited for this next adventure. When we move back in, our home may be unrecognizable... but in a good way! I will be very happy to not recognize my tiny old kitchen 😂
So since life has been crazy busy lately, I figured I'd do a roundup of what all we've been up to! Here are some pictures of our sweet kiddos to fill you in on what life has looked like for us lately:
