Cooler air. Sweaters. Pumpkin spice.. Okay okay, I'll stop.  I love fall! Fall to me means more time with my family creating special memories.  This year we decided to kick off our fall at the local pumpkin patch, and let me say it did not disappoint!  Last year we went to a place called Lindvilla, and it was PACKED!  I mean the line for cider was  30 minutes long.  It was hard to enjoy ourselves as we had 2 young toddlers with us so I knew this year I wanted to go somewhere smaller and quieter.  We opted for Colonial Gardens, and seriously it was perfect! With our crazy schedules we have to do these kinds of activities midweek rather than the weekend so finding a place with a hayride that runs on a Wednesday at noon was pretty hard.  Colonial Gardens fit the bill.  And guess what?? We were the only ones on the hayride! This made it so much more enjoyable as the girls were able to look at all of the creepy creatures without distraction.

After the hayride we picked out some pumpkins and let the girls play in fall/disney themed play area. There was even a slide into a pit of hay.  Aubree was in heaven!  I also liked the fact that they had all of the pumpkins next to the adorable shop so there was no lugging 100lbs of pumpkins from a field.  This is definitely a place to check out if you are in the philadelphia area and don't want the hassle (and expense!) of going to one of the giant farms nearby!

We spent the afternoon cleaning up the front yard and decorating the porch.  I am so happy to finally have patio furniture so we can enjoy the cooler days and nights outside.  I added our new pumpkins and a hay bale by the door and love the way it turned out!  Hope everyone is having a great start to fall!

Hey all!

I thought I would just jump on here quickly and give you all a little update on what is going on in our lives right now!  As some of you may know I recently graduated from nursing school! My days basically consist of endless NCLEX questions and review as I prepare to take my boards.  Thankfully I have a nursing position waiting for me at my current hospital so I am excited to make the transition. Ideally I'll be taking my boards mid-October.  Fingers crossed!

As for the girls, they are as busy as ever.  Aubree started pre-K and is going 2 full days a week.  She is obsessed with school and comes home with hilarious stories every time.  Brooke has mixed feelings about the situation because I think that she likes having me to herself, but at least once an hour she asks me where Aubree is!  It's adorable.  They are still happily sharing a room, but I think that they both prefer to sleep in my bed.  I am certainly not as excited about this sleeping arrangement as I usually end up with 6 inches of space on the edge of the bed.

J started a new job and we are still adjusting to his schedule.  I will say that we couldn't be happier with his new position and look forward to seeing how it goes in the future.  I am still working at the hospital as a nurse's aide and waitressing from time to time. Things are really great over here and I have a ton of post's in the works!! Our house is a constant work in progress so I plan to document that  a little better. Anyway! I'm off to pick up Aubree from school, I hope all is well with everyone!!

As I'm sure many have seen from IG, the girls are now sharing a room.  This was a very organic thing for them to do.  They kept mentioning that they wanted to be in the same room so thats what happened!  I have to say that a bonus is that now I have a main floor office/craft room :) No arguments from me!

Anyway here is the big reveal! I'll try to tag sources for the furniture also! Enjoy!

Selfie :)

Lets just say that we are happy to finally finish this project! Now we just have to do the master bedroom and kitchen and then the whole main floor is done! Hope all is well with everyone :)

A week off from school means a bunch of extra mommy-daughter time.  And in this case it also meant our first trip to the movie theater!  The girls (mostly Aubree) have been begging me to see Zootopia so I thought Saturday morning would be the perfect time!  I tried to prepare as much as possible because I really didn't know what to expect from my two rambunctious girls.  The movie itself was an hour and 45 minutes long so I packed extra candy ;)  We opted to make a morning out of it by going to Target and doing a little shopping before the movie started.  I found 2 adorable Zootopia dresses on the clearance rack and decided that the girls had to have them!  We made our way to the candy aisle and loaded up our basket. After we made our purchases we were ready to head across the parking lot to the theater.
Thankfully children 2 and under are free otherwise it would have been a pretty pricey day.  Even at 11am tickets were still $10.  After we bought our tickets we went up to the concession stand and got literally the worlds biggest soda and a medium popcorn.  The whole time the girls were talking to other patrons about their new dresses and how excited they were to see the movies. I definitely (not so secretly) hoped that we would be the only ones in the theater but that didn't quite happen.  There were 4 or 5 other groups, but thankfully they all had kids.  I was a bit nervous that the girls would be able to sit still that long, but they did a pretty good job.  Brooke almost lasted the entire movie but near the end I had to give her my phone and let her watch some youtube videos on mute.
They both loved the movie so much! Neither of them has stopped talking about it and that was 2 days ago.  I think Zootopia was really funny and very well done.  It did a great job teaching kids that they can do anything that they want if they just put their mind to it.  A wonderful lesson to teach children.  We will absolutely go to the movies again in the future, but it'll have to be a once in a while type of thing.  Money-wise I prefer to just purchase the movie, but experience wise you can't beat that giant screen and those overpriced snacks :) Hope everyone had a great mothers day weekend!!

Sometimes you wake up with all of the hopes for a productive day, and sometimes it works out!  You knock out your to-do list with time to spare.  Those are great days.  Unfortunately more often than not, it just doesn't happen like that for me.  On Monday I had set aside a few hours in the morning to study (I have a big exam friday) without the girls at home and then I planned to continue studying after I picked them up.  The morning went okay, almost exactly as I'd wanted.  I studied and studied and then went to pick up the girls.  Once we got home things started to go awry.  Within 10 second of getting home Aubree face-planted on the drive way.  She scraped her face and arms and was a mess!  I knew that my afternoon of productive studying was out the window, my big girl needed me!

In that moment I decided that we would play hooky!  We laced up our sneakers, filled our water bottles and loaded up the stroller.  Off to the park we went.  We opted to go to a playground in town which meant a longer walk, but it was so worth it!  Aubree slept the whole way and refused to wake up when we got there, so she took a nap in the stroller and Brookie and I played the day away.  We went from the swings to the slides and then back to the swings.  She was in heaven!  Aubree eventually woke up and showed off her sliding skills.  It was a great time for all of us.  Once we were all played out we packed everyone back into the stroller and walked home.



Once we got home we decided to keep up the fun and go get some ice cream.  But of course you can't have ice cream without Elevation Burger and a trip to Five Below so we did that too.  Having a girls day was a blast.  Seeing their eyes light up when the food arrived or when they opened up their new Mashem's was worth every second of not studying.  Nursing school is a huge priority for me but sometimes I just need to take a day for myself.  My girls are growing up at a rapid pace and I don't want to miss a moment.  Okay, time to get back to studying ;)

Strep throat, ear infections and runny noses.  Should we just roll over and accept our fate that the spring sickness has arrived at our house? Nope! We are celebrating!  Monday the 18th was little Brookie's 2nd birthday and mine was on the 21st.  We all put our big girl pants on and tried to make the days as special as possible.  One thing that I've learned since being a mom is that kids don't care if you're sick, heck they don't care if they're sick!  They live in a fantasy world full of play and runny noses are just part of the deal.  It's especially funny when you are at a 2 yr well visit that turns into a double sick visit and your girls are singing and laughing like nothing is wrong.  The resilience of children never ceases to amaze me.  Here's a few pictures from the past week!

Sometimes all a girl needs are her dollies ;)

Playing blocks at the doctors!

The Joovy TooFold is seriously the best stroller!!

My big girl!

We may not have made it to Coachella, but Snapchat sure made it feel like it!

Snap chat is seriously hours of fun for a toddler!

Hope everyone is getting through April with minimal sniffles.  Just remember, no matter how crappy you feel, always grin and bare it!!

So week one of Whole30 is in the books, and I have to say that it has been pretty life changing.  I wish that I could say that I did it perfectly, but that just isn't true.  For those of you that haven't heard of Whole30, it's basically Paleo on steroids.  You can only really eat meat, fruit and vegetables, so no processed foods, dairy, sugar, soy, or preservatives.  I did really well for the first 7 days, but have been slowly slipping since.

Week One Grocery Haul!

Some things that I've learned so far are:

• Cold turkey is hard. Giving up everything all at once is one of the hardest things you can do!  But for me personally, I am an all or nothing type of person.  I like to go all in right away or just not do it at all!  I did 7 days strictly following the Whole30 plan, but gradually I am adding things back into my diet that I don't want to live without.  Things such as a piece of chocolate here and there and an alcoholic beverage on occasion.
• Hormones are a bitch!  Okay so of course I already knew this, but it was majorly amplified this month.  Apparently Laurie + No sugar + raging hormones = a not so fun person to be around!  I actually forced myself to go to bed one night because I was so angry for no reason at all!  Needless to say, having a piece of chocolate goes a long way to calm me down :)
• Coffee is better black.  I have to admit, the thing that I thought I would struggle with the most (second to wine!) was the fact that I could no longer have cream in my coffee!  I was freaking out until the moment I took my first drink and realized black coffee is freakin DELICIOUS!!  All these years loading up my coffee with hazelnut creamer when I could have been enjoying in its natural (kinda) state.  It's amazing the things you learn when you deprive yourself of life's luxuries.