Ten on Ten: Weekend Review

It's the tenth of the month again.  Time to capture the beauty in every day life with ten photos per day on the tenth of the month.

My morning started out just like everyone else's.  An hour off...  Hate losing that hour of sleep.

But the beauty of it was that baby girl slept a little bit later so I got to catch up on my Bible reading.  Yep, I'm working through reading the Bible in One Year and I am ten days behind...  

We've only ever stopped twice at Dunkin Dounuts on the way to church.  It's not a normal thing, but I certainly do enjoy the treat!

Church.  Chris preached about "Promises Made, Promises Kept" from Galatians 

I had been wanting to get my nails done for awhile so I ran out after lunch for a quick mani/pedi.  Ahh, love being pampered :)

Took the dog and the baby outside to get some energy out of everyone!

Ugh, y'all I don't sew.  I've sewed probably two things in my life.  I really want to learn how to sew, but I haven't made enough time to practice.  I've made these burp cloths a couple times that I am very proud of, but that's about it.  Anyhow, I need to sew some new velcro tabs on our size small diapers.  Its the only goal I have left to complete before the new baby.  (There is a good reason I recommend the bumGenius One Size snap diapers, but I won't bore you with all that now.  If you're interested in cloth diapering I'd love to tell you more)  I spent Saturday evening trying to rig up the sewing machine to sew on the new tabs.  Several hours  and (I admit a few choice words) later I finished only two.  I wish you could see how awful it looks too...  It really is supposed to be easy, but it wasn't for me- a novice sewer.  Sunday afternoon I packed up that sewing machine and decided it would be worth my time, money, and sanity to pay someone else to do it.

I really would like to be better about resting on the Sabbath and not doing chores or housework.  But I did wash diapers today.  Partly because I'm thinking I might go into labor at any time so I'm wanting things to be "taken care of" at home.  I know, not a good excuse. 

Aubra typically comes over for dinner Sunday evening and Phoebe LOVES Aubra.  Really, she cries when Aubra leaves....  She doesn't cry when I leave.

Hope you had a good weekend!

And oh yeah, if you missed my letters on Friday, just know that Baby Bowen didn't cooperate with my plans...

This will change your life...

So I really didn't get into a lot of shenanigans this weekend.  I was supposed to work on Saturday so we really didn't have any big plans.  BUT, I got called off for the whole shift!  Sweet!  So instead I got a lot of boring but necessary things done around the house: changing sheets, laundry, vacuuming, got baby stuff down out of the attic, made baby toddler food to freeze so we'll be well stocked when the new baby arrives, made chicken salad for lunches for the week, wrote thank you cards- blah, blah, blah.
But this tidbit of information is not blah- it will change your life.  Interested yet?  This is not a new trick in the Bowen household, but I did utilize it this weekend and thought it worthy to share.
How many recipes do you have that called for shredded chicken?  I have a lot.  This past weekend I used the chicken in a curry chicken recipe.  Whether its a casserole dish, some sort of chicken bake, chicken salad, chicken fajitas, chicken enchiladas, chicken to top a homemade pizza...I feel like I am cooking and dicing or shredding chicken A LOT.  And I hate it.  I really do.  Or at least I used to, until  I came across this tip.

USE YOUR KITCHEN AID MIXER

That's right.  Simply boil** your chicken breasts and toss into your mixer with the paddle attachment.

Turn on and your chicken is shredded in less than a minute and your hands are still clean...

AMAZING.  Told you.  What do you think?  Is your life changed?
**For another time saving trick, toss a bunch of chicken breasts in your crock pot to cook.  Toss into mixer to shred and then freeze in multiple individuals bags.  When you need chicken simply pull out a bag or two the night before depending on your needs. And don't forget to enter my giveaway for the $150 GAP gift card!!

Weekend Review

It is Monday again!  Where do the weekends go?  I hope you had a good mine.  Mine was busy, but fun!
Because it is really no fun to buy clothes when you are pregnant, I haven't been shopping in forever!  But I've had a bit of an itch.  I've had my eye on this Henley Dress at Gap for awhile now, and have watched it go on sale and then more on sale.  On Friday I finally decided to go and see if they still had any.  I remember after I had Phoebe all I wanted to do was wear new/different clothes other than the maternity clothes I had been wearing for the past nine months or so.  Good news!  They had it and it was $30 rather than the original $59 price-tag AND I had a $10 reward coupon.  Sweet.  New dress {not tight} for me that I can wear post baby.

source

Well of course while I was there I found many other cute items that I am now drooling over.  I LOVE these Legging Skimmer Jeans!  I really wanted to buy the coral polka-dot pair, but Chris convinced me that wouldn't be a good idea because: one- pant size is always a little tricky post-baby and two- I probably won't want to wear tight skinny pants for awhile, and three- they were only 20% off so still a bit pricey.  He's a good and smart man.  Maybe they will be on super sale in a two or three months when I could more comfortably buy and wear them??

 source

A few other items from Gap that caught my eye-

On Monday I have to go into work to take a class to renew my CPR/NRP certification and now they've changed the class to where you have to take an online NRP (neonatal resuscitation) test before the class!  You only have 2 chances to pass each lesson (there are 9) and if you fail any of them you have to do it again and pay to take the test yourself!  Miserable.  Anyhow, I finished up my test this weekend (and passed) so I'm off to finish my certification.

On Saturday Chris' mom and sister came in from out of town for my baby shower.  Yep, some sweet friends of mine threw a baby shower for me!   I'll post more about it later in the week, but here are some sneak-peek pictures from the fun...

And yes, this banner has made several appearances at both wedding and baby showers...
And speaking of babies, we have potentially changed our girl name again.  Yep, we were so sure with Phoebe and had no trouble picking it and sticking to it.  We didn't even think about changing it.  This time we were set on Harper Sage.  Then I fell in love with Ava Grace because I love double names and Chris said we could call her "Ava Grace."  (Double names are not something he has always been fond of, so I jumped at the opportunity to have a double name!!)  Well I've heard A LOT of Ava's recently and sure enough its like a top ten name right now...  I like it a lot, but I don't want something THAT common.  So our new name that I am obsessed with is Hadley Grace.  And we've talked about calling her "Haddie Grace"  (I still get my double name!)  We'll see...
So I know I've mentioned before that Chris has been preaching at East Cobb Presbyterian Church as pulpit supply for the past couple months.  We've loved being there.  That church has been such a blessing to us in so many ways and many of our RUF students have been attending.  We had been going out to lunch with them after church, but that gets expensive so this week we planned ahead and had them all over to our house for lunch. 
By Sunday afternoon we were all ready for a nap!
Happy Monday!
Linking up with YOLO Mondays, Miscellany Mondays, Monday Mingling, and Weekend Shenanigans 

Ten on Ten: A busy Saturday

I have been wanting to linkup with Rebekah at a bit of sunshine for ten on ten.  In fact, I should have listed this as one of my monthly goals, but didn't think about it at the time.  She started this linky party as a way for bloggers to "share a snapshot of their lives...once a month on the tenth [by] taking a photo an hour for ten consecutive hours. Finding life and beauty in the ordinary things of our day to day!"  

While I don't know how great of a job I did finding beauty in the ordinary things, here are ten snapshots of our lives from Saturday.  I actually tried to do this on Friday, but didn't end up with 10 photos.  So the pressure was on for Saturday.  I'm going to work on my photo taking skills for next month...

Without further ado- 

It is hard to see, but the clock says 6:29AM- on a Saturday morning!  Yes, and believe it or not at this point I had been up for 45 minutes.  It should be a sin to be up this early on a weekend.  But anyhow, at this point the car is packed and we are ready to head to Chattanooga for the day.  I took this picture right before I woke up the baby to put her in the car.

Early morning car trips = a trip through Chick-fil-A drive-through.  Chicken biscuits.  Yummy.

We had Knox in the car with us, so we had to stop at Chris' parents house to drop him off before going onto my niece's birthday party.  Phoebe got a to have a quick break from the car to "wee...."

Caylee's birthday party was at Chuck E Cheese's.  It started at 9am, hence the early morning start.  (Chris didn't get back home till 8pm Friday night so we couldn't drive down there Friday evening.)

Princess cupcakes!  The birthday girl got hers before I got my picture.  Hey, it was her birthday...

After the party Phoebe and the birthday girl played outside because it was 70 degrees IN DECEMBER.

Trying to juggle work schedules and out-of-town family Christmas' can sometimes be a challenge.  We are spending Christmas at my parents house this year.  So we celebrated Christmas with Chris' family on Saturday.  Phoebe is playing with her new bowling set.  She doesn't quite get the concept of rolling the ball into the pins.  She prefers to knock them all down by hand...

After nap time we got pictures of all the cousins in their Christmas attire.

This is the first family picture we've ever taken with Knox.

I've mentioned before that we get our milk and eggs from a local farm.  Well after we got back into town Saturday evening, I went to pick up our milk and eggs.  And that completes our ten pictures for the day.

I hope you had a fun weekend!

I'm also linking up with Molly and Carly for YOLO Mondays.

Weekend Review

I can't believe it is Tuesday already!  Monday came and went pretty quickly...which I guess is good for a Monday.

We had a great weekend.  We laid low Friday night and watched Superman after Phoebe went to bed.  It was the best we could find in the RedBox at Kroger.  Its been awhile since we just watched a movie at home.  I'm ashamed to say that I cried multiple times during the movie...  Yes, during Superman.  Forget cliche Hallmark commercials- it was Superman that did me in.

Saturday morning we took Phoebe and Knox for a hike up Kennesaw Mountain.  I guess it wasn't a true hike since we walked on the road, but our stroller isn't up for off-roading.  Here's our little one all bundled up.

Saturday afternoon was a true treat because Chris and I ran a couple errands and he offered me Starbucks AGAIN!  For the second time last week!  Woo-who!  He must have been in a great mood!  Thanks baby!  That made my afternoon!  Phoebe even got to enjoy a snack with Mommy and Daddy.

Then we finished up our Christmas shopping for Phoebe at the used children's store.  We had already gotten her a play kitchen set at Kohl's and topped it off with a used tunnel and tent and a V-Tech Touch  and Teach Turtle. 

Saturday evening one of our friends had a Friendgiving Party.  So we were pre-gaming for Thanksgiving.  How cute is this evite?

The leaves are changing and the air is crisp.   Please come over for a fun night of friends and everyone's favorite seasonal dish.  Dinner will be served at 7pm, but drop by anytime that afternoon! I'm so thankful for all of you!

I'll be makin' the traditional fixin's! BYOB!

How fun of an idea is that?!  We loved it!  It was great food and great fun with friends!  What a fun alternative to a holiday party!    And a quick tip for your Thanksgiving table- there was cranberry sauce there with pomegranate seeds in it!  It was phenomenal!  Consider adding some pomegranate seeds to your cranberry sauce this year.

Thanks Ellen! Oh and I found out on Saturday that I'm a winner!  I won Jen's blog giveaway at Filling Up My Cup!  I won one of Lisa's designs from Wine & Glue.   Check out her etsy shop here.  Thanks ladies!

Sunday mornings are always busy with church and Sunday school.  This week it was followed by a Sunday afternoon nap and a doggie play-date.  Knox got to run around with his bestie Amos at the park.  They always wear each other out.

Sunday night after bed Chris and I had our annual "couch-cleaning" party.  Yep, we have leather couches so annually around this time of year when we turn on our heat we clean and condition the couches.  It's also a good time to vacuum and dust behind them- quite a bit of dust and dirt can collect back there...

This year as an added bonus we completely re-arranged the furniture in our living room.  Space, or lack there of, has become a frequent topic of conversation.  Especially with the ever-growing toy collection and Christmas right around the corner.  We tried a couple different lay-outs, but in the end were able to re-arrange everything to create a little more toy space in our living room!  I love our new lay-out!

Hope you had a great weekend and "quick" Monday too! Happy Tuesday!

Weekend Review: Farmer's Market

Whenever we are in town and I'm not working, we try to make it down to the Marietta Square for the weekly Farmer's Market.  It is my favorite place to buy produce and if nothing else I enjoy walking through the vendors.  We go down there with Phoebe and Knox so it is good family time.

The morning always begins with coffee from Cool Beans- one of my favorite coffee shops.

Then with coffee in hand, we make our way through the market.

I have mixed feelings about how to choose who to purchase from.  On the one hand I really like supporting the family farms.  I enjoy talking to the actual farmers who pick the produce and hearing how they farm.  When was it picked?  Is it organic?  Do they use environmentally friendly farming practices?  Most of these family farms produce organic produce.  (They might not be USDA organic certified because that is a government agency and therefore a hassle and costs money, but they use natural farming techniques.)  But as we all know, organic and naturally farmed produce is more expensive.  Hence the internal struggle.  I would much prefer to buy your organic kale for $3/bunch (which is #15 on the EWG dirty dozen list) because you can tell me exactly what variety of kale it is, you picked it this morning, and I really like talking to you and want to support what you are doing.  However, this kale across the street is $1/bunch, and we live on a tight budget.  The vendors that sale kale for $1/bunch have a significantly wider variety of produce to choose from as well.  Why?  Because they collect produce to sell from many different farms across the southeast: Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina.  Their produce is not organic and is less expensive because they are purchasing from larger farms (but still local, which beats Kroger or Walmart). My philosophy changes weekly; I am not consistent with how I do my shopping.  I am more likely to pay more for the organic produce from the family farm towards the beginning of the month and more likely to shop from the larger third party vendors towards the end of the month. My biggest success this week was getting Chris to try kale chips and then to actually admit that they were good!  Ok, he very carefully chose not to use the word good, but he admitted that they were a lot better than he had expected.  I love the kale chips from Square Peg Living Foods.

   This week there was also an artists market.  I think they called it their Fall Festival down another one of the streets in the square.  We also really enjoy looking through all the artist booths.  I normally don't purchase anything, but this week I couldn't resist an adorable posy pin and hair bow for Phoebe.  I have been looking at pins on etsy and other blogs lately and loving them!  

How cute is that?