Friday Fun

Happy Friday!!!!  Hope yours is off to a great start.  I know ours is :-)  I'm especially enjoying my quiet house with my napping boys right now after a fun-filled morning.  I'm even sipping on this lovely beverage hoping its just the pick-me-up I need to jumpstart a fun weekend...

...it's only been in my fridge for a month haha.  I'm normally a black coffee drinker these days except for the occasional cappuccino splurge but this little concoction isn't too shabby.  

I wasn't sure it was going to happen after pressing snooze I don't know how many times, but we did manage to kick off our morning with the last T25 workout of the week.  Dynamic Core and Speed 2.0 are in the books for week 3. 

Double-down Fridays kick my booty but I'm never sorry I got it done, especially when I get it out of the way first thing in the morning.  Only 2 more weeks til I'm done with the program.  

The boys woke up halfway through my workout and entertained themselves with their current favorite toy -- legos while I finished up.  This morning's design was a bit more free-spirited but here's our handiwork from last night...

...it's fun building with them.  

Once we were fed and cleaned up, we headed off to deliver some birthday cards to our favorite local barista... 

...I love helping the boys learn how good it feels to brighten someone's day.  It was fun!!  We love you Miss Abby!!!

Our next stop was the library where we found a bonus surprise in the parking lot...

....the firefighters were kind enough to let us climb aboard...  

Needless to say, our day was made!!

They headed off and we headed inside for the Family Place where the toy of choice today was the monster truck...  

...it was jumping over EVERYTHING!

Colton also hopped on this little baby toy that brought back memories from the first time they rode it there...

  

...apparently he hasn't outgrown his need to growl like a lion when he rides it.  Silly Colton!!

We headed upstairs to check out some books before we left.  Today's choices were 100% boy...

...Gross Out! and the Fly Guy series, all definitely books I never imagined would be checked out on my account before I became a mother of boys.  Needless to say, we've devoured them today.  Fun stuff! 

 The Gross Out! book even has a recipe in it... 

...and yes, we decided to try it out...

...those are the tastiest owl barf balls I've ever eaten :-)  (They're really just no bake cookies.)

The rest of our day has been spent cleaning up the trampoline so we could jump on it leaf-free...

...helping dad pack up some army stuff...

...and (slowly but surely) refining our cutting and pasting skills...

....thanks This Reading Mama for the printables.  

Time to unplug and gear up for the weekend.  Hope yours is fantastic!!

Tons O Fun

We've struck gold in the fun department around here the last couple of days.  Wednesday night found us discovering some new tricks with our "monster truck" track....

...before enjoying some fabulous weather at a fun story time at Blue Door where the featured stories were...

and...

...I'd say we're officially in the holiday spirit at story time.  Fun times!!

We even had time to hang around for a bit afterwards and sip on some adult beverages while chatting with friends.  Thank goodness for family friendly venues and well-behaved kiddos.

Thursday morning kicked off bright and early with a fantastic run with a friend in the crisp, cool weather...

...I felt like I could have run all morning.  It's been a while since I've felt that way and it was FABULOUS!  

We spent the rest of our morning tackling chores around the house, including this Pinterest bone breadsticks fail...

...terrible, huh??  Back to the drawing board for our halloween treats...

Once our chores were done, we headed off  to join some friends at the Children's museum...

Mickey and I got a little bit of a date night while the boys played with the neighbors while we had an evening out at a Conscious Discipline parenting class with Ginner Luther followed by a yummy dinner without kids at Carsons.  Yay for alone time with my husband.   

This morning, I skipped my usual super-early morning workout in favor of a little more time in bed.  It was glorious!  I ended up tackling a little Shaun T T25 workout while the boys cheered me on before we headed our for some fun at YMCA sportsworld courtesy of the Library's Family Place program...

...the boys had SOOOO much fun.  They are really starting to catch on to all the activities and love the challenges.  Mason even finally braved the block pit after telling me all week he wasn't going anywhere near it.  Conquering fears...I love it!!!  They are so much fun to watch and play with!!

The weather was just begging us to be outside so after gymnastics, we regrouped at home before heading out for a run to the park...

....the boys had fun with the park all to themselves, pretending to be pirates on the pirate ship...

...Colton and Mason love to consult the map to decide how to find the treasure.  Then the shout ahoy to everything they see...

...their imaginations are really taking off and it's incredibly fun to watch them play together.  They really make quite a team.  

Now I'm enjoying a bit of downtime and counting my blessings before the busyness of the weekend settles upon the Planker household.    I'm learning to take advantage of the opportunities for rest when they come cause who knows when the next one will come my way.  

We Survived!

The last few days, most of our free time has revolved around prepping for today's yard sale.  Thankfully, it was a success, it's over, and we lived to tell about.  Thankfully, most of this stuff sold, and what didn't sell was immediately delivered to goodwill...

Yikes, right???!!!  Hopefully we don't accumulate enough stuff that we have to have another sale for a loooooooong time.  We really don't enjoy any of it...but might jump on the yard-sale bandwagon since people got some real steals from us.  Maybe we'll hit up Jupiter one weekend...

Despite the looming sale all week long, we did manage to sneak in a little fun too throughout the last couple of days, which I'm sure had a large impact on that fact that we're all still smiling this afternoon...

It's Family Place time at the library again, and you all know we love it there...

We've been working on our pincher grasp with this fun activity thanks to some tips we got at music class...

...just use tongs to pick up pom poms and sort them into ice cube trays... 

We're thinking they'd like loading up the dump truck with the pebbles from the driveway using their tongs next.  :-)

We got FANTASTIC Halloween cards from Aunt Sheryl that included pirate hats...

...the boys were in HEAVEN!!  

In going through all our stuff, we found Mickey's old matchbox cars...

...soooo cool to be able to play with Daddy's old toys.  Now to keep from losing them....

I managed to get my early morning workouts in every day last week.  I think it's almost a habit.  :-)  Those workouts included some great runs with my running buddy...

...I'm loving the slow, easy, chat-filled runs.  They definitely make life better.

The boys completed their first coloring contest at the Fresh Market...

...I'm pretty sure we've got some winners on our hands, don't you??  Love their style!

The boys also got their first sailing lesson at a little birthday party on a friend's sailboat...

...Gotta start 'em young, right??  They loved every second of being on that boat!  And check out the Hunter's Moon we got to enjoy as well...

...it was BREATHTAKING coming up over the horizon!  This picture doesn't even do it justice.

Now that the yard sale over, the rest of the weekend is dedicated to relaxation and family time.  We're continuing our Saturday nap time tradition this week with a movie on the couch...

...Saturday afternoon movies might become a habit too.  Fine by me...

Gotta think of a fun place to think of for dinner.  We deserve a little post-yard sale treat, don't you think??

Happy Weekend!!

Crammin' In Some Fun Today

At the end of the day yesterday, I realized I hadn't spent much "fun time" with the boys and was feeling kinda bad about it.  This might have been the most excitement they had all day...

These little gems are at the place where they go to their play group.  Some of the moms got together for a deep-cleaning of all the toys in the room before we take the summer off and the boys lucky enough to get to come along with me for the task.  I never let them get on them because it's darn near impossible to get them off but I caved yesterday and they were pretty excited.  It's the little things...I think I should probably give in more often.  They were in heaven for those 3 minutes.  Now I just need to figure out a way to get them off the toys and into the car...

We swung by the grocery store and the gym yesterday too.  The boys made me these adorable flowers while I worked out...

We love our gym!  It's hard to get them to leave the play room there too...I need to work on that it seems...

We spent the rest of the day doing the produce thing.  We are finally restocked with yummy fruit and they boys already devoured a melon and two containers of strawberries.  I have to sneak my share before it's gone.  I never seem to order enough...

We tried out a FABULOUS recipe inspired by Budget Bytes' maple dijon chicken last night.   I just subbed pork chops for the chicken since that's what we had on hand...YUM!  Colton was especially with the bone which he kept telling me looked like an alligator...

I pretended to see what he was talking about...haha

We ended the evening with a wagon walk before a little downtime on the couch before bed...

They hardly ever watch TV so when I let them, they TOTALLY dig it!  I love their amazement at Curious George.

To make up for our somewhat lame day for the boys yesterday, we packed in extra fun today.  We kicked off our morning bright and early with a run that included a LONG stop at the park....

They are in love with this park and call it the wobbly bridge park.  I love that it's within running distance and has great shade and a waterfront breeze.

We've got quite the little climbers...

They're getting interested in learning some tree-climbing skills too... 

This was our turnaround point for our run...

Being the multi-tasker that I am, you know I had to squeeze in a stop to the bank and a trip to the library as well on our outing.  I love being able to get lots of things done on foot.  The boys had a great time with Miss Lisa at the Family Place...

We swung in the Fresh Market on our way home for some 2/$12 chickens...the good ones!  Needless to say, the boys passed out on the way home from all that fun...

We spent the rest of our afternoon poolside once they woke up...

The boys are a little scarred from swimming lessons but we worked our way from the baby pool to some fun in the big pool later.  We ended up having a lot of fun...thank goodness!

Time for some A/C and snacks before heading off to take care of some other errands this evening, including a stop by Red Box to pick up this movie...

If it has Matt Damon in it, it's gotta be good, right???  Looking forward to putting my feet up tonight.    We were beyond due for a day like this.  What a fun day!  Here's to hoping the fun continues all weekend long.