Friday Favorites

Happy Friday and Happy Halloween!  We have some fun plans with our neighbors and friends tonight.  This week was full of sick days, adjusting our schdules and prepping for a fun Halloween weekend.  The best parts of our week were:

Fletcher was chosen by his teachers for the Ephesians 4 award!  I got to surprise him at chapel and watch him get his award - consistently cultivating emotionally healthy relationships.  He was so surprised, but I wasn't.  His teachers are always saying the nicest things about him being a good friend, good leader, hard worker and more.

I made a 6-7 themed lunch for Fletcher!  I counted out 6 or 7 of all of his favorite foods.  He said it was a big hit with his friends at lunch.

Everyone loves Pumpkin!  And it makes me SO SO HAPPY.  I wanted Mr. Mittens to have a best friend and now he does!

Our pumpkin patch was Sams this year.  These two love running Saturday errands with me.  I know it won't always be this way so I'm soaking in their company.

We had Grandparent's Day at school.  My parents and Kevin's mom were able to make it to see the boys and me.  We had almost 1,000 grandparent's visit our school and it was so sweet to meet them!

I had a few Cherry Berry Lemonades this week.

The cats love our laundry baskets.

Olive asked me to buy her a bag of onions so that she could practice chopping them for a class at school.  She did great after a couple days of practicing on her own.

Leo loves to help me make muffins.

The crazy food socks at Dollar Tree are a favorite.  Both boys love wearing them.

Kevin worked from home a couple days this week and sent me this picture.  I guess our house just gives a welcoming cat vibe.  This cutie showed up on our patio and Kevin fed him.  He sent me this picture when I was at work.

Notre Dame has been winning!  Yay!  The kids have gotten to big to do touchdown push ups with them so we do them with the cats now.

A coworker of Kevin's moved into a new house and she hosted a Kenyan themed dinner for us.  It was yummy!

We celebrated my mom's birthday.  I'm the oldest and the shortest.

A pumpkin loaf.  

We celebrated the 50th day of school with 1950s themed day of kindergarten.  It was fun - root beer floats, hula hoops, bubble gum blowing contests, poodle skirts, slicked back hair and a sock hop.

I had dinner with a friend and then ran a late night Target errand.  I found cute pants and bumped into my brother and his girls!  We should hang out at Target more often.

I hope you have a really happy Halloween!  Check back next week for a Halloween recap from my crew.

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Connecting with Your Teens in the Drive Thru

I don't love spending money in drive thrus.  But my kids LOVE it.

They love trying new foods, trying the new flavors of the season, eating their favorites and picking out the food they love when we're out and about.  So I spend money in drive thrus to connect with my teens (or almost teens).

Saturdays are the days we run errands and sneak in some extra fun during the school year.   We take care of important things like groceries, do returns and squeeze in some fun.  I have apps to our favorite spots to earn rewards.  I also save gift cards I get from students or coupons that we get at school to cash in with the kids.

Example 1 // Chick Fil A

Cherry Berry Lemonade.

Free Sandwich Coupon from filling out a survey.

Free fries with my app rewards.

Sandwiches.

Mac & cheese.

Nuggets.

Fletcher heard that adding Chick Fil A mac & cheese to the original Chick Fil A sandwich was amazing so he tried it out.  He gave me a scoop and it was tasty.  We both enjoyed it!

Our drive thru is bananas, but the curbside pick up is fast.  We opted for curbside.

Example 2 // Dunkin Donuts for an afternoon snack.

Iced mocha.

PSL.

Pumpkin loaf.

Pumpkin Donut.

Earned reward points on my app.

Example 3 // Surprise Starbucks

Kevin loves to surprise Olive at the bus stop with her favorite a PSL.

I challenge you to find your kid's favorite spots and treat them to their favorite foods when you are hanging out together. Your kids will love it!  And it might just become one of your favorite teen traditions.

Crunch Wrap Supreme at Home

Olive added at at home Crunch Wrap Supreme to our menu last week.  She loves Taco Bell and was inpsired to create our own Crunch Wraps.  As our kids are getting older, they love to help me plan meals for the week.  Olive added the ingredients to our grocery list.  I like to leave the Walmart website up on my desktop and the kids will add items to it throughout the week.  Then I edit them before I order groceries.

We used the following items:

burrito soft shells

tortilla chips

pico

shredded lettuce

sour cream

queso

shredded cheddar cheese

green onions

We added the ingredients in a big burrito shell.  Folded it.  We found that it worked better to roll it and flatten it like burrito.  Warm up a skillet and then toast each side.

The crunch, the delicious filling and then flavor combos was SO GOOD.  Olive and I loved how they turned out.  We can't wait to make them again.

Our first try - we folded all the edges in.

Our second try.  I left it open on the ends (due to tons of toppings!) and toasted both sides.

Cut in half and serve.  It was delicious.

Put this crunch wrap on your menu ASAP!

Devil's Lake & Mirror Lake Favorites

We decided to buy a Wisconsin State Park Pass last Summer and we're putting it to good use.  We visited our favorite Devil's Lake State Park and tried out a new park Mirror Lake.  They were both stunning in the Fall.  They Fall leaves were much more colorful than our leaves in Indiana right now so it was a treat to see all the lovely Fall colors.  The parks were busy so we got several good family pictures this trip!

Devil's Lake State Park.  We headed to our favorite trail - Tumbled Rocks Trail.  You get beautiful views.  Have a paved path and there aer fun rocks to climb on if you want to do that.  The park shop was open so we stocked up on some new Devil's Lake gear.  It was crowded at times, but we had plenty of room to explore on our own.  I'm always thankful for kind strangers that snap family pictures for us.

 Mirror Lake State Park.  This park proved to be harder to navigate.  It didn't show up on the maps like we wanted (it kept saying we had arrived when we were in the middle of nowhere) so we followed the signs and found our way to the welcome center.  They gave us a highlighted map which also proved to be a little less than helpful.  I think it would have been easier if we entered the park from the interstate exit verses the country roads we attempted.

We drove around enjoying the camp sites and the leaves.  There were tons of campers.  Then the boys found a sign that said beach so we headed to the beach to park and explore.  The lake was gorgeous.  The leaves were even prettier and we had the best afternoon at this lovely park.  There are tons of camp sites and I think still tons of the park to explore.  Next time!  We found painted rocks, chatted with some campers and saw a cute older couple taking their canoe out for a spin.  There were tons of trails to explore.  We did one and will return in the Spring or Summer to check out more.

If you visit a place often, we'd highly recommend buying a park pass.  It's been such a fun way for us to get out and explore when we are in Wisconsin.

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