Friday Favorites {8/31/18}

Happy Friday, friends!  We're ready for a long weekend!  School, work, and the heat are getting the best of us.  Here are my favorites for the week!

Last weekend my best friend and I headed down to Atlanta for a girls' weekend.  We went to see NeedtoBreathe Friday night (my 9th show!), slept in, shopped, ate good food, and relaxed!  We had so much fun!  I love being able to sneak away, but I was so happy to get back home to the boys Saturday evening.  

I got an instant pot from Costco last week, and I love it!  There's a pretty steep learning curve with it, and I'm still figuring everything out, but that's all I've cooked with since I got it.  It's such a timesaver, and the food tastes great!

Kindergarten is killing this baby!  😂  He's killing kindergarten too though!  He's having a great start to the school year.  

Cooper wrote this sweet story at school... it almost made me cry!  It made me proud as a mommy and as a writing teacher!

I published my second piece on Chattanooga Moms Blog this week!  It's about fun day trips from Chattanooga.  My next post will be up in October!

We've spent the last two Thursday evenings playing at Miss Libby's Playground.  We love that place dearly, but it was so hot last night the boys begged me to go home after about 30 minutes.  We're ready for fall weather!

Speaking of being ready for fall, we rolled out our Fall 2018 Bucket List this week!  I which our weather would get on board and cool down!

This wild man has settled down so much in the last month or so, and he's a whole lot of fun to be around!  We were happy to have him with us on National Dog Day.

My man is killing it in the US Open!  We've been watching tennis all week, and that's my plans for Labor Day weekend!  From what I hear, some other sport is starting up this weekend too, apparently?  😂

If you have gray hair like me, this stuff right here is a miracle in a spray can!  I love keeping my hair dark brown, but my gray shows extremely quickly.  I was coloring it more frequently than I wanted, and then I discovered this!  You spray this on your part, and your gray is completely covered!  It's awesome!  I can stretch my hair a few more weeks now, and I love that.  

Have a happy Labor Day Weekend, friends!  Andy and I are going on a date tonight, and then we're all going up to Cades Cove on Sunday... I've never been!  I'm sure we'll try and fit in some extra sleeping, too!

An Early Christmas Present Idea

As my children have gotten older, I find myself falling into the category of "quality over quantity" when it comes to gift giving.  I used to be bad about making sure they had lots of presents to open for birthdays and Christmas, but so many of those gifts tore up quickly or were put away in a toy box and never looked at again.  I wanted to make sure I was getting my money's worth in the gifting department, and that boys were truly happy with the presents they opened.  

This year for Clark's birthday, we got him three presents.  Yep... only three presents, but they were ones he really wanted, so we spent more money and got some quality gifts.  He kept telling me he wanted an Apple Watch, but there was no way that was going to happen.  I did some research, and we got him a kids Garmin Vivofit Jr.  It's been fabulous!  

Some of the highlights:

-It's digital, and he's learning to tell time

-It's waterproof

-It's got an internal battery, so it doesn't need to be charged daily

-It counts his steps

-It counts his active minutes

-It tracks his sleep

-He can keep up with his chores on it & earn rewards

-It has timers for homework, screen time, brushing his teeth, and much more

-It's durable... he's very rough on things, and it's held up great

My favorite thing is tracking his sleep.  He's not a great sleeper, so this shows me how he does every night.  I also love seeing his activity every day... it amazes me how much he moves!  It's connected to my phone, so I can control what I need to from there.  Every morning when he wakes up, I sync it with my phone, and then I can see all of his data.  It's really cool!  He feels like a big boy wearing it, and he's learning to tell time... win win.  Cooper wants one, so he'll be getting one for his birthday.  

If your child wants some kind of smart watch for his/her birthday or Christmas, I can't recommend this one enough!  Clark is 6, and he's been able to use it with minimal help... it's been very user friendly for his age.  He never takes it off!

This was one morning before I synced everything up.

Fall Bucket List 2018

I know we've still got a long road of warm weather ahead of us here in Georgia, but I'm ready for fall!  I say it every year, but fall is my absolute favorite season!  I love the weather, the changing of leaves, the fun, the festivities, and the excitement of the holidays being right around the corner.  I make bucket lists for every season, but fall is one of my favorites.  I simplified our list a little this year, but we've still got lots of fun adventures ahead of us.  Now, we're just ready for the weather to cool off so we can get started with the fun!

Saying Goodbye to Summer

This summer felt extremely short, but we made the best of it!  We had a great one, and we made lots of sweet memories along the way.  As much as I love fall and look forward to it all year, I'm always sad to see the carefree days of summer go.  Here's a look back at some of our highlights!

We did updated pictures!

We went to see a movie.

Clark started gymnastics.

I was chosen to write for Chattanooga Moms Blog.

We hit up the Hunter Art Museum.

We got ice cream at the Ice Cream Show.

We walked on the Walnut Street Bridge.

We played outside a lot at our new house... and ate lots of popsicles!

Cooper had an awesome summer in art class.

We enjoyed some beautiful sunsets.

We went to VBS.

We went swimming a lot.

I took this sweet boy on a movie date. 

We went fishing a lot.

I took this cutie on a swimming date.  

We exercised in the garage.

We swam some more.

We played in the big bathtub.  

We hung out with our cousins. 

I took this wild man on a date to the zoo. 

We swam some more.

Clark went up and let the church know that he got saved during VBS.

We watched fireworks.

We had a fun 4th of July at our neighbors'.  

We ate at City Cafe... a lot.

We loved on Bear.

We battled lots of swimmer's ear and ear infections.  

We had our annual summer play date.

We slept a lot... not as much as I wanted, but more than we do during school.

We looked for deer.

We went hiking with our friends. 

We visited our cousins in South Carolina.  

We had an awesome vacation in Hilton Head.  

We enjoyed more pretty sunsets from our backyard.

We kept Miss Dana in business with cute haircuts!

We swam at the YMCA.

Clark turned 6, and we celebrated his birthday at the zoo.

We rode scooters on the Riverwalk.  

Andy baptized Clark.

Cooper lost a tooth.

Cooper started 1st grade, Clark started kindergarten, and I started 4th.

Cooper had an awesome art show.

He lost another tooth.  

We went hiking at Suck Creek. 

We had a picnic at Miss Libby's.  

My best friend and I had a girls' weekend in Atlanta to see NeedtoBreathe.