the wild west

Way back when over Labor Day weekend (btw... I do intend to at some point in my life post things as they are happening or shortly thereafter! :) ) we went to visit Chad's sister Ellie, her husband Troy and son Cyrus, who live just west of Chicago.  The main event for the weekend was visiting a little wild west town... perhaps a little past it's prime, but still a big hit with the kiddos.

Creighton got to spend a little time getting to know his cousin Gramm.  I think this is the first time they've taken note of each other...

And here's one pic that Natalie took of Troy and Ellie's house.  I guess this room used to be a gross and outdated sun room but it's looking amazing now!  Troy has a gift for building furniture and doing creative projects to their house.  They've redone almost all of it and it looks great.. wish Chad and I were more talented in that area!

happy birthday to me

... only about a month ago. :)  I started writing this post when it was actually just past my birthday, but somehow it didn't get finished until now.

I celebrated the big 2-9... getting dangerously close to 30!  Which is fine - I really don't mind if I'm almost in my 30's, though it does sound kind of strange.  It was a nice birthday... low key and a blessing to spend time with my hubby and sweet little boys.

We (really I mean 'I' since it was my birthday :)) decided to have a nice little family outing Saturday morning and went to the zoo and then for a walk and picnic along the canal downtown.  Walking along the canal is one of those things that while doing it we ask ourselves, "why don't we do this more often?"  It's so pretty and we love being downtown.  It also makes us dream about living in a flat downtown in some city, walking to everything and enjoying the city life.  We're thinking maybe this will be our empty nest living situation since we didn't take advantage of the opportunity before kids :) ... or maybe we'll just do it with kids!

Our morning at the zoo was nearly perfect... the animals were out and about, the temperature was mild, and we got there early to beat the rush.  The only downfall was that my allergies decided to attack me for the first time this season that morning.  Sneezing.  Sneezing.  Sneezing.  Kleenex.  Kleenex.  Kleenex.  Good times.

There is a little pathway that goes right from the zoo and across the canal to the white river park downtown... perfect place to stroll and have a picnic.

in case you were wondering, Beck's stick is a leaf blower and he's blowing the leaves, of course :)

oh-so-easy banana treat

I'm always trying to come up with different ways to use up ripe bananas... not really brown, mushy bananas that can only be redeemed with banana bread, but bananas with lots of brown spots that are past their eating-plain prime.  Lots of them go into smoothies for Beck and I've discovered a new banana pancake recipe (with just bananas, egg, almond butter, almond meal & flax... so good!) that's also a great way to use them up.  Then yesterday I remembered an easy little treat I saw on pinterest - chocolate covered peanut butter banana slices... sounds too good not to try it out!

And it was very easy and quick.. just a little messy!

 Here's the steps:

1.  Lay 1/4"-1/2" banana slices on a parchment or wax paper lined pan and spread a little peanut butter on top of each slice.

2.  Melt semi-sweet chocolate chips in the microwave (I used about a 1/2 c. of chips for 2 bananas and also added a couple tsp of coconut oil to the chocolate for flavor and to thin it out a little).  I had to re-melt my chocolate half way through the dipping process, as it got too thick.

Spoon chocolate over the banana slice and then use the fork to drip off the excess chocolate.  This is the messy part! (or at least it was for me :))

3.  Lay the chocolate covered banana slices back on the lined pan.  Refrigerate to harden chocolate and then store in the freezer.

Hurry and eat some because they won't last long!

Oh, and be sure to make them in the company of a cute little baby.. it makes it much more fun. :)

Any other ideas for using ripe bananas??

5 months

This post is arriving quite a bit more timely... right on time, actually, as Creighton is 5 months today.

These are some of the things that Creighton has been up to the last month:
+ rolling from back to tummy and waking himself up in the process during naps and nighttime (yes, it is very fun to be woken up and have to roll him back over at 1:30am... hopefully he gets the hang of back to tummy rolling very soon :))
+ grabbing for everything, which makes eating dinner with him in my lap much more challenging

+ Loving the bumbo.. and also enjoying the swing and bouncing seat he didn't like the first few months

+ taking note of us eating and enjoying his first bites of cereal
+ growing more and more of this wispy, stick straight hair that is much different than Beck's wavy texture

+ wanting to be rocked to sleep... I think he's digressing and I'm going along with it?!  I am so different with Creighton that Beck.  I can probably count on one hand the number of times I rocked Beck to sleep and it's becoming a daily occurrence with Creighton (although I do always lay him down awake and only rock him if he just won't settle down and sleep... and I quickly stop if he fights it and doesn't fall asleep fast).  I guess I have "could be my last baby" syndrome. :)

summer nights

I love summer nights spent outside together as a family... especially lately when the weather has been so moderate!

A typical night outside consists of things like me feeding Creighton, tending to the garden, Chad and Beck hitting golf balls, playing the sandbox, reading books...

he was about ready to cry in this pick.. you can kind of see his lip starting to pout :)

cleaning the golf clubs

my blue eyed sweetie

might as well immerse yourself in the sand, right?!

4 months

haha.. ok, well Creighton turns 5 months in 6 days, so this post is just a tad bit late... I'm going to blame that one on getting ready for vacation and then going on vacation.  The pictures were taken really late too, so really nothing about this post is Creighton at 4 months!  But I just couldn't miss one month of posting (although these posts are not very exciting and more for my benefit of remembering what he was doing when).

So here's Creighton at a late 4 months.  Getting cuter and cuter by the day!  I can't really remember what he was doing around 4 months since it's now blending into 5, but I know it included starting to roll from tummy to back, more smiles, reaching for toys, lots of hand chewing, and still no consistent sleeping through the night (yea that one post a long time ago that said he slept through the night?  definitely wasn't the start of anything consistent.. nothing like his brother Beck when it comes to sleeping! :)).

family vacation

We're getting back into the swing of normal life around here after being on vacation with both of our families for a total of 10 days.  First we went to Brown County with my fam and then Branson with Chad's.

There are many fun highlights of the trips that I will post about, but of course there are always a few negatives that I must mention too, just to make sure I don't sound like everything was perfect. :)

The downfalls (but none really all that bad):

+ sleeping in the same room as our kids - worrying about Beck waking up Creighton, Beck getting out of bed a million times at night and wanting to get into bed with us, having to be quiet and maneuver in the dark after the kiddos are sleeping... you've probably been there too and understand.

+ having oddly gray/rainy weather.  there were only 2 completely sunny days the whole time... although the cooler weather felt great and it was nice to not have to slather on the sunscreen

+ taking Beck to the ER at 9:30 one night... turned out to not be anything serious

+ getting caught in construction traffic late at night on the way home, delaying our trip by a good hour (which is a big deal when you just want to get the kids to bed and the car unloaded!)
+ Chad had to work during my families trip to Brown County, but still stayed with us and was with us in the evenings.

Some highlights:

Brown County

+ Meals made on the grill at the campsite.  Lots of yummy grilled meats and veggies were consumed.

food prep.  it was fun to have great gma and gpa furrer on vacation with us.

+ Playing at the indoor water park.

cute little Keaton 

giving the cheesiest "cheese" face.

+ Playing at the playground during meal time.

Beck LOVED wagon rides and it was always a fight to get him to eat his food before running off to ride in the wagon.  Although Braden isn't much older than him, he was usually the one pulling Beck!

+ A visit to Oliver winery, complete with a tour and wine tasting, and then a trip into Bloomington for dinner.

There is much more to Oliver Winery than this picture shows.  I guess I thought this captured everything since it's the only one I took. :)  The landscaping is beautiful and it would be a fun place for a date of wine tasting and an outdoor picnic.

 + Pony rides for the kiddos.

 "Uncle Lukie" leading Beck on his pony ride, which he loved.

We decided to break up the trip from Brown County to Branson with a stop in St. Louis.. which turned out to be a great idea and very fun.  We took a little walk along the river to find some food and then ate on the grass close to the Arch.

Branson

+ Boat rides and water sports

driving the boat with uncle Blair and feeling like pretty big stuff! 

+ Driving the quarter operated school bus.

We only let him ride once (I know, so cheap and impatient of us!), but I'm pretty sure he would have done this over and over!

 + Putt-putt!

Beck has asked to putt-putt several times since we got home... it may have to become a vacation tradition of ours!

 + A trip to the ER... ok, maybe not a highlight in the "fun" sense, but we decided it was a bonding experience.
Oh yes, you want to know why we were at the ER at 10pm (with a bunch of questionable looking people who didn't seem to need to be there)?  Beck was playing with Creighton on the bed when he fell over and I heard a pop.  He was crying and crying that his arm hurt and wouldn't let us touch it or move it.  We decided to take him in and found out that it was just nurse maids elbow.  The Dr. just had to pop his arm back into place and he was good as new, but the whole experience took a couple hours.

A rare moment of smiles during our ER visit when Beck realized that the fruit snacks would stick to his chin. :)

 + Dinner along the water at a fantastic gourmet Mexican restaurant.

being super silly with cousin Dela and eating way too many chips!

+ Pool time! (despite the cloudy weather)

And many other fun times with family that I didn't capture since my arms were often full with a baby... and if they weren't, I was just enjoying the moment.  :)