Happy Friday Everyone!
One – Confirmation AND 8th Grade Graduation for Autumn!!
Happy Friday, friends! I can’t believe it… I officially have TWO high schoolers now! How does this happen?! I started this blog when Autumn was a newborn. Time goes OH so quickly. I am so glad she was able to have a NORMAL 8th grade year, because Nathan’s 8th grade year had all of the disappointment that Covid brought in 2020. She had a fun class trip to Branson and I’m going to share a post about it next month (I went with her!). They took photos of them all by a sign on their official last day of school and OHH the feelings I felt when I saw that sign (8th grade you will be missed!). I feel like Autumn has always been my youngest and going through these moments with Nathan wasn’t the ‘last moments’, because I still hadn’t gone through them with Autumn. But, wow… when your youngest is now a freshman, it sure hits home. Especially when we’ve had SUCH a great school experience, it is a little sad to be done with it. But, the future is bright and we are excited for high school and she made the Lancerettes team, which will be SO fun to see her dance at the football and basketball games. I’m just trying to take a DEEP breath, these years go SO fast!!
Thankful for Amazon, for a quick shopping solution for a confirmation dress! Ha, ha! The Lutheran schools typically have them make a felt confirmation banner as part of the confirmation program. Autumn’s turned out so cute! I’m excited that she can now partake in the Lord’s Supper and go up with us for communion. It is wonderful as a mom to see your children grow in their faith throughout the years and then commit to it.
They took professional photos after confirmation and I love this black and white on of our family. If you’re Facebook friends with my personal account, I am sure you saw all of the photos on there. I try to keep it light on here with all the family stuff.
Two – Brian’s Recovery Gifts
Well, Brian is back to work after recovering at home for 3 weeks from a surgery. His doctors said his prognosis was excellent and will continue to monitor him going forward. March and April was such a scary ride and to be honest it is STILL scary, but I feel so much better about it now that we have the surgery behind us… and everything was even better than the doctors had originally thought. Praise Jesus! While Brian was recovering I ordered him some orchids, because his mom loved them and had some. I thought they would remind him of her. I found a floor stand at Hobby Lobby and we have them in our entryway. I hope they will flourish and stay alive, because I am not an indoor green thumb! All I’ve been doing is giving them sun and I put several ice cubes in the pot once a week.
We received a lot of thoughtful gifts while he was recovering and I will say they really helped us get through the weeks of waiting and waiting for the biopsy results. Waiting is SO hard and it was nice to receive gifts, phone calls and messages from so many people that checked in on us. Brian’s work sent us a really neat St. Louis themed gift basket with Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate Bars, Dad’s Original Scotch Oatmeal Cookies, Fitz Soda, Coffee BBQ Sauce (I can’t wait to try that), beef jerky, popcorn and more. Some others at his work sent us two generous gift cards to Uber Eats and Panera.
My brother and SIL gave us a generous Fit Flavors gift card, which gave us more than 2 weeks of healthy lunches AND a cheerful smiley bouquet. Brian’s childhood friend Kevin and his wife sent us a delicious Edible Delight arrangement with fruit and chocolate covered strawberries.
We also had a lot of other gifts, such as my mom gave us some Cracker Barrel gift cards and money to go out to dinner later on when we feel up to it. Brian’s cousin Alan and his wife came over before the surgery and spent time with us and treated us to pizza. Brian’s family sent me a lot of uplifting texts during Brian’s surgery and the days after. My sweet friend Lauren gave us yet another generous gift card to Door Dash (which we have already used up, THANKS Lauren!). Ashley spent countless hours listening to me during ALL of this and I appreciate her time and prayers! Leslie, thank you for ALWAYS checking in on me! The pastor of our church came up and sat with me during part of Brian’s surgery and prayed with me. That was a long day and I appreciated it so much! Brian went to surgery at 7:30 a.m. and I didn’t even see him again till 12 hours later! I had a school mom watch Autumn till fairly late the night of the surgery, she helped me out in a pinch and I’m SO thankful for it. If I haven’t mentioned you, just know that I appreciate everything, the messages, prayers and good wishes. Thankful for family, friends and PRAYER! And prayer really, really helped us! Sorry this is such a ramble, but there is just so many people to thank. AND, thank you for the ongoing prayers for my dad, he is back at home after rehab.
Three – Fun Happenings
Nathan had his National Honor Society ceremony for Junior year and my mom even got to come!
I met my friend Katie for lunch at Cheesecake Factory. It was so fun to catch up and we are hoping to do it again once the kids are back in school this fall. Katie and I used to work together at my first job I took after college.
Kaldi’s, a local coffee house here in St. Louis always does seasonal drinks and dishes. I tried their new ‘purple’ iced ube coffee and their tomato toast. I am a total tomato lover, so if there is something with fresh tomatoes on it, I’m game. As for the ‘ube coffee’, here is what their site says about it (and it was SUPER delicious): Ube, derived from the Tagalog word for tuber, is a deeply purple root vegetable from the Philippines that is both sweeter and more mellow than a yam. Long cherished around the world for its ability to create gorgeous desserts that aren’t cloyingly sweet, we’re thrilled to serve you this vibrant drink and hope you love it, whether you’re tasting ube for the first or the thousandth time.
Four – Latest Books I’ve Read & Shows I’ve Watched
10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works, Dan Harris – This book had some good advice in it, but WOW… I wasn’t expecting to be told the entire life history of Dan Harris in it for pages and pages AND pages. Dan Harris had a panic attack on national air, so after that he knew he had to make some changes. He had quite an interesting life, including drug use, which made his anxiety worse. But, at times I felt the book was like an autobiography and less of a self help book. The part of the book that I found to be the most intriguing was when he went to a week long meditation camp and what it was like, how his day unfolded there and what advice he got from the mentors while on it. I’ve been working on some meditation exercises with the Calm app and I love them, so that is why I thought I’d give this book a try. I would say it was maybe a 3 out of 5 for me, but others have left some really good reviews on it. I do love this quote from the book: We live so much of our lives pushed forward by these “if only” thoughts, and yet the itch remains. The pursuit of happiness becomes the source of our unhappiness.
We are still watching this and it is SOOO good!
Five – My Latest Finds that I Love!
Shop Sunscreen Here:
I’m loving these new sunscreen products gifted to me from Tula:
Protect + Glow Daily Sunscreen SPF 30 on the daily and I love its fresh scent and the broad spectrum protection it provides against the sun AND pollution/blue light. It’s truly the perfect sunscreen for indoors AND outdoors. Bonus: It won’t clog pores or leave a white cast and is made up of probiotic extracts, pineapple and papaya. Non greasy. AND, over 350 are sold every 12 hours!!!
Ultimate Sun Serum SPF 50 (Tula’s newest skincare product!) This is the highest SPF that Tula has offered yet! The probiotic extracts and pentapeptides prevent the appearance of early signs of aging, like fine lines, wrinkles & dark spots. It has a silky, weightless formula controls the appearance of shine, helping skin look smooth and even with or without makeup.
After a little break of 2 years… I decided to join FASTer Way to Weight Loss again! I love their community, workouts and monthly goals. I do love iFit, but they’ve taken a lot of the little things I loved away from the community and I’ve been craving something similar to it. Plus, FASTer Way has brand new workouts each and every day, recipe ideas (even vegetarian ones!), etc. I’m not looking to lose weight, but I do want to increase strength, flexibility and I want to make my workouts more enjoyable. I did two posts about the program HERE (this pin has gone viral!) and here is another post HERE. I’ll probably do another post once I’ve been back into the program for a few months.
I hope everyone has a nice and relaxing weekend!
