Five things

It's Friday and we are looking forward to a fun weekend.  KU Football kick off tonight, first soccer practice/game of the fall for both Charlie AND Maddie (she's pumped!), a friend's birthday party and my birthday on Sunday!!  

These are all super random - so beware.

{ONE}

What have I been watching on TV/Netflix seems to be the common question I get in regards to my maternity leave. Haha.  I have found some shows on Netflix, but also some On Demand shows on our cable.  Night now I'm loving The Night Shift!!  Have you seen it?

{TWO}

Per an instagram recommendation by my friend (also a new contributor for KCMB!), Stephanie, I downloaded the book Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty and soared through this book.  So suspenseful and when you have anything that involves a kid, put things in perspective.  Check it out for sure - I love this author! 

{THREE}

In exciting news - I am going to be writing for as one of the new contributors of the Kansas City Mom's Blog!  I've read all the articles for the awesome mom's in the KC area since it came about.  The group of women is already so awesome, I'm excited to get to know them all more!!

My first post was published last week (check it out here).  It was all about our next door neighbors, the Wilson's, and their sweet son Noah, who passed away in June 2015 of cancer.  While Noah was being treated at Children's Mercy Hospital, he started an amazing organization called Noah's Bandage Project, that is continuing to encourage kids and raise money for pediatric cancer even after he's gone.  I was so nervous to start writing for this, but this was just the most wonderful thing to write about and I'm excited to continue writing for them!

{FOUR}

So what ELSE am I doing on maternity leave?  Is there some kind of nesting AFTER the baby is here?  Haha.  For some reason I'm on this organization spree in my house and this week I made it into my closet.  Holy cow - I have 3 full trash bags of stuff that I will be donating to Big Brother's and Big Sister's.  Luckily Mikey has been a champ in hanging out with me in the closet (and taking some decent naps in his crib so I can have my hands free!).  It's looking better and better by the day and guess what?  I'm feeling better because I don't have a closet full of clothes that I don't wear and organized drawers and jewelry!

{FIVE}

In somewhat of an attempt to get Charlie and Maddie to not consume a crazy amount of sugar daily (I mean let's be real - mom's a candy lover so sometimes that can be an issue)...I found these energy bites and have been giving them to them after they get home after school.  They LOVE them.  And they are so so easy (only 4 ingredients - yes please) to make.  The kiddos really like helping me roll them into balls too.  And bonus when mom and dad like them too!!

Check out the recipe here!  I actually whipped some more up today because Charlie kept asking me for them and they were all out - I like them because I know the ingredients exactly that are in it...however, I'm for sure one that passes over a breakfast bar as well.

And sorry - I can't end a Five on Friday post without something about my kids (duh!).

These kids make me crazy but make me love life more every day.  Seriously the emotions of parenting literally blow my mind daily!

Ok I'm almost done I promise- these cracked me up this week:

This one ^ omg- I died because it's sooo true!  Mikey seems to the easy one to put down!

Happy Friday friends!

Linking up with:

Sept Farm | Oh hey Friday!

A. Liz Adventures | Five on Friday

Momfessionals | Friday Favorites 

Instant streaming with free time

From the first week in may until the first week in June - my life completely changed. Pretty much did a 180. Why?

Let's see. I went from having 2 volunteer roles through Pi Phi - one a pretty intense one that I had for the last year in which I oversaw the financials for 15 chapters and another acting as the "treasurer" for the Artisans and Angels event - and going to class once a week on Monday nights for grad school. So on top of everything else, there was a lot going on outside of my regular work. But I took my final right before we went to Mexico, finally got all my financial reporting together for the event and passed over the baton as the financial specialist...and it happened. I had free time.

It was actually pretty crazy. Jimmy was actually making all these comments about wanting to hang out with me. Nuts. I know :) But most of all he just couldn't believe I was willing to sit still and not to 3 things at once. Well one of the things that we decided to do together was pick a TV show to watch together. Because we are pretty much polar opposites when it comes to picking our TV shows, which is why we don't "hang out" at our house at night. Haha. We started to hunt for the perfect season of shows to get hooked on.

And that's when THIS post happened. Yep, that's my friend Vanessa and a post about her trip to Austin and lots of pictures of the Friday Night Lights stuff from the filming there. I had no clue what her title of the post meant "Clear Eyes. Full Hearts. Can't Lose". No clue at all - I just enjoyed the pictures on it. And then I saw that Heather posted something about FNL on facebook. And then I was talking to Vanessa's mom and she was raving about the show. So I came home and proposed to Jimmy that we watch Friday Night Lights. And holy.cow. We are obsessed.

We started with Season 1 and I feel like every night for the last month we have tried to watch at least 1 episode, if not 2 a night. It's addicting!! And it's such a good show!! So glad my friends and everyone else recommended it.

And yes, now I completely understand what everyone's obsession with this show is. I know exactly what "Clear Eyes. Full Hearts. Can't Lose" means and I love that title. And going through Vanessa's FNL tour post again - I love it even more.

So anyways, in all my spare time that is what the Mr. and I have been doing. Fun, huh? Well the funniest part of it is that we watch it through Netflix on demand through our Wii and since that's through the internet and our internet is so horrible (we are cheap) I cannot get on my computer, browse the web, type blog posts...anything on the internet, while watching this show. So that has done 2 things. (1) make me actually watch the show and not do 4 things at once and (2) make me blog less. Bummer.

But this Monday, it was back to school (sing that in the Billy Madison voice, it's way more fun) for me as my summer grad school class started. Which is TWO times a week for TWO and a half hours each night. Blah. But I guess it's worth it because it's only 2 months. I got spoiled in the spring with just one night a week :)

Are there any TV shows on demand/instant streaming that you just LOVE?! I feel like there are so many I hear about every time I talk to someone about this...

ABC: He's Hooked

Last night was the series premiere of ABC's the Bachelor Pad, which is the new series that ABC is trying to make money off of from the "rejects" of previous Bachelor and Bachlorette seasons. All I have to say is, if you like the drama of the Bachlor and Bachleorette, you will like this show because that's pretty much all it is.

Well anyways, Jimmy and I have both started working out in the morning. 5:30AM we wake up, take the dogs out and he goes down to the basement to do P90X and I do the elliptical and watch Primetime on demand (love that). This is all in effort to "hang out" with each other more because ever since we moved in together after our wedding, while we see each other all the time, we both kind of felt like we didn't get to really spend quality time together. Especially when we'd get home from work at 5:30 and work out. SOO- new solution is work out before work. Two days in, we are liking it I think and spent ALL night hanging out last night.

Well- let me correct that previous statement. I working on painting the trim in the family room and was going to watch the Bachlor Pad. Jimmy sat down and started watching it, saying how stupid it was...but was hooked. He watched the WHOLE thing and probably had more commentary than I did. So hilarious! He and Willy sat together and were very intrigued. Since he's never watched the previous shows, he had no clue how dramatic and crazy some of the people can be. Of course, I knew all of them (pathetic) so could add my previous "history with them". Haha.

Here are some candid shots of Jimmy very into the show at the end during the rose ceremony. He was really upset that Elizabeth stayed because he does not like her at all apparently.

Look at his hands on his face- so upset.

And that's the end. So until next week Jimmy....

In the mean time, if you want a funny recap that will soon be up from Lincee, check out her blog here. Always a good laugh on these crazy shows!!


PS What do you think of the new and improved light paneling?? I LOVE IT! Almost done...