January 2017 Family Recap

Here is everything our family was up to in January!

It was Mrs. Charlotte’s 55th birthday and her sister, Cheryl, was SO thoughtful to put on a HUGE surprise party for her. They even opened a local restaurant just for our crew! Everyone who knows Mrs Charlotte loves her and we’re all so blessed to have her in our lives. So thankful she had an event to let her know just how special she is to us all!

Britt was ALL about some G-Mama that night and wanted to sit with her and help her with all her gifts (Britt has this talent for really making people feel special!)

Tess reminded me EXACTLY of myself as a kid. When we’d eat out I’d always just grub on Club Crackers 😉

Carter started school this month! He’s attending the same school as the girls and it’s so precious for them all to be there together. He is a “grade” above Tess for now but next year they will be in the same “grade” and we’re hoping same class 🙂

For Christmas all Zach asked for from his parents was a trip with his dad. How sweet is that? With everything we’ve been going through we both just realized we don’t need physical stuff, we want to focus the most on making memories with those we love. Zach’s dad is his best friend and they had an awesome few days away together! Apparently though not awesome enough to take any pics haha! I have the one his dad sent his mom and then a random one Zach sent and that’s all they took 😉

While Zach was away I planned to go out to eat one night and then have the second night be a movie night. We hit up Walgreens before dinner to pick up candy and a movie for the next night and ran into the Megow crew!

The kids each picked a candy and ended up picking a Christmas ornament for their rooms for this Christmas too haha Can’t pass up 75% off!!!

We met Mrs Charlotte for dinner at, duh, a Mexican place! Tess was CRAZY crunk which was hilarious!

So thankful for her and the bond we share! I def lucked out when marrying Zach…not only is he incredible but he came with a pretty amazing family too 🙂

The next night we had our movie night! I was glad I ran into Seth because I’d planned to get Storks and he suggested getting The Secret Life of Pets instead.

Maybe I’m just a Disney snob but I legit never like ANY kids movies that aren’t Disney haha

The kids CRACKED up through the whole thing!

I tried out a new hair salon this month and had a great experience!

I cannot get my hair to curl like this by myself! Yet when someone else does it? It lasts ALL DAY. This was at like 10:30 am…

and then it stayed perfectly until dinner that night with friends at 6:30!!!

We planned a kick-off-the-New-Year girl’s night at a “fancy” (at least for us haha) restaurant and all dressed up! It was a rare weekend girl’s night which we realized just don’t work as well because hardly anyone could come! It was still a great time just catching up with these two 🙂

The same day as the Snow Day we had a BIG group of friends over…as in 11 kids eating dinner at our house with 5 adults haha! It was BEAUTIFUL outside so all the kids had fun playing together and once it got dark they loved playing in the playroom!

Always a crazy fun time when the Megow are involved 😉

Love these girls!

And, yes, we had a second movie night this month! We just all LOVE movie nights! Our routine is to hit up Walgreens (cheapest movie type candy) and each person picks a box of their fav. Each kid gets a cup of candy and popcorn (they all share each other’s candy but whichever they chose they get the most of in their cup). Zach and I get tired of the same old movies so we try to find ones we haven’t seen (which is tough when we’re such Disney snobs!)

I actually have ZERO memory of seeing Fantasia. I know a lot of Philarmagic is taken from it so I thought it’d be a good watch. OMG yall. The first like 30 min were just this dude talking…

So we switched it up and watched Emperor’s New Groove which neither Zach or I had ever seen! Much better than Fantasia for sure 😉

And the big kids got to have their first sleepover in Britt’s new room!!!

It’ll also be their last for AWHILE. We had some rules in place that they didn’t follow so they lost the privilege (the biggie being Britt hanging over the side of the bed. NOT COOL).

We had Martin Luther King Jr Day off school so we met with friends for lunch at CFA!

Eli’s face cracks me up!

I loved getting some Millie snuggles and Tess loved to touch on the baby…and try to crawl up in my lap next to her!

Katie and I are on a mission to see all the Oscar Nominated Movies again this year (for my reviews of last year’s nominees you can read this post!). The big key in seeing them all is to try to see as many movies as you can BEFORE the nominations even come out. You have to go with what people are predicting will be nominated and at least see the “sure bets.” One on our list was La-La Land and since it’s a musical I figured it’d be a good girl’s night movie!

I will do my full movie review closer to Oscar Night (assuming we do knock out our remaining three movies we have to still see!) but spoiler alert: I LOVED La-La Land!!!

Something I really want to work on even more this year is being more plugged in with my church family. We attend a young adult class on Sunday mornings and one of the couples in the class hosted a get together at their house on a Saturday night – kid free. Y’all know us and we don’t tend to pay for sitters very often! We literally have had a paid sitter under 5 times since having kids. But this was important for us to attend. A chance to get to know people from our church in our age bracket a little better! I was ALL about it and we both came home SO glad we attended!!! I want to host a similar event sometime soon as it was a really great time 🙂

Quite the crew!

And quite the view 😉

I had some people reach out to me when the REALLY bad storms came through here on Jan 22nd. It was so sweet of yall to be concerned about our family. We were VERY blessed throughout the entire situation. A tornado literally came through on the main road directly outside our neighborhood, along the street we drive on daily to take Kye to school, and it came through behind our neighborhood very close to where Casey lives. CRAZY. We woke up to the weather alert alarms at 6:50 which was pretty good timing since we’re always up at 7 anyway. We hung out in the bathroom for the first two storm concerns and were fortunate that the warnings died down as the day went on. It was SCARY and we were extremely fortunate and didn’t have any damage at all or even lose power. The kids did PHENOMENAL with it all and didn’t complain and ended up WANTING to play in the tub all day with their toys haha

A week or so prior to the storms this awesome old barn near our house had a fire in it (not sure the cause, we’re guessing either some teens or a homeless person trying to stay warm).

I was SO SAD to see it didn’t survive the storm and is now completely collapsed. It’s been a landmark for our area and we have many family photos by it from over the years.

This was just SOME of the damage on the street very, very close to our house. So many people in our area are hurting and healing from this bad storm. It’s heartbreaking! It was all so bad that it was the first time in the history of our church that they canceled BOTH Sunday services AND the kids had school canceled the next day.

Our closest gas station to our house is currently closed for complete remodel (it’s hilarious how loyal people are to their gas stations because everyone in our neighborhood is freaking out about it) and Zach drove my car home from church with the kids one night so I could meet Katie to see a movie (Moonlight…not my fav…). It had 12 miles left till empty when it got it in the garage. He felt confident that would get me to the girls school, drop them off AND get me to a gas station to get gas. Um. I didn’t share that confidence. By the time I got to the light just at the end of our neighborhood it was down to 10.

I know TONS of people push their car to empty ALL THE TIME. But (shocker) I’m NOT one of them. I’ve never, ever, ever seen 0 on any car I’ve ever owned. I like to fill up once I get to the under 100 miles till empty marker. I seriously start getting nervous when it gets down to 25! I was SO scared. Like legit scared. We hit 0 and were at a red light and still had another light or two until the closest gas station (which by the way wasn’t even by the girl’s school yet).

Thankfully we made it! And my car was THIRSTY. Seriously up until this point I thought I had an 18 gallon tank but I guess it’s 20! Zach did apologize. He’s one of those “push it to 0” people but he now knows that I’m not that way…especially with my babies in the car with me!

We play games every night after Tess is in bed. It’s such a great way to have quality time together right before bed! I’m not sure what got us started on this as part of our daily routine but we’ve done it ever since Kye was old enough to stay up for it.

The kids favorite game is balloon volleyball. It gets pretty intense! It’s always Zach and Britt vs Kye and I. And Kye is just as competitive as his Daddy. I used to always say I didn’t want to be on Zach’s team when we played games with friends and such because he’s SO dang competitive and I’m just NOT and I didn’t want that pressure. Well. Now I’m getting that stinking pressure from my child ha!

A big project this month was working on Britt’s new room. Her vanity from Christmas got to stay in the living room for quite awhile and ALL three kids had fun with it!

Tell me this isn’t SO precious!!!

We had to get a new mattress for Britt and actually got this one from Amazon It was THE cheapest twin I could find and this one review made me HAVE to get it. It said “it’s comfortable enough for a kid who won’t care or a prisoner who doesn’t deserve comfort” hahahah #sold! And it was awesome because it came vacuumed sealed!!!

I have been STRUGGLING with stuff for Britt’s room. I’m just too picky probably but you would think PRINCESS stuff would be SO EASY. Nope. I was pumped about this super nice mirror from TJMaxx!

And I found a good gift for myself 😉

Our kids all love to help in the kitchen, but especially the girls! We had a lot of time at home this month and did a LOT of cooking and baking!

I give my kids yogurt DAILY. We’ve struggled to find one that Britt actually likes and this has been a WINNER!

I need to add this to my lunchbox ideas post because it’s SO much healthier than lunch meat. The one big thing I’ve read is just how HORRIBLE lunch meat is for you! Shredded chicken for the win!

I am posting a LOT of recipes over on my IG so be sure to follow me there but here are all the ones I made this month:

These were SO easy and SUCH a hit!

I was also shocked at how much my kids LOVED these healthier pancakes!

Baking is always our favorite…always 🙂

Another thing I started this month was the Bowl Full of Lemons Organization Challenge! Have yall ever participated? It’s SO motivating and really pretty fun. I love the idea of purging, especially since we are going to have a fundraiser garage sale! This is the challenge calendar but def visit the official site to learn more (and there are some great FB groups to join on the topic too)

I was pretty pumped to de-clutter my kitchen!

Bonus points for making money while doing it 😉

I was super all about this clean out my house thing until I realized I had to tag stuff for the upcoming kids sale. I earned over $500 last sale towards adoption expenses. I have WAY more spring/summer stuff so it was a BEAST of a job! It totally threw off my hardcore cleaning excitement but I’m hoping to get back at it soon!

Keeli came and pre-shopped my stuff and I got some more Emilia snuggle time!

This month I did something slightly crazy haha My mom always had (and I’m assuming still does) pretty intense melasma (where your skin is darker in spots than others). I inherited it and it’s always a struggle for me. Mine is just HEAT induced. Like I can be completely out of the sun but if I get really hot, it flares up. So. Annoying. Zach understands how hardcore I gotta manage it so he was supportive of me having this laser treatment done. I assumed LASER was like a laser. Like it wouldn’t hurt. Why did I assume that? Omg yall SO PAINFUL. She did say melasma is easy to get rid of but comes back SUPER easily. I bought this daily sunscreen/moisturizer and she said it’s perfect for what I need for protection! I thought I’d share since it’s an over the counter product 🙂

I was having a rough few days and just felt under appreciated. I didn’t even voice any of those feelings to Zach and had actually planned to talk to him about it that very night when he got home. When he walked in the door he was carrying flowers AND a SUPER sweet card that said EXACTLY what I needed to hear from him! How awesome is that? SO. SO. Thoughtful and sweet 🙂

We have a TON on our plates but it’s such a stress relief when ONE thing gets lifted…and this month I got the word that our insurance (we have Medishare which is AMAZING yall) is covering all of Zach’s medical stuff from the last several months. Whew. It’s been stressful b/c at first they said it was a vision related problem and we needed to file vision insurance for it but thankfully we got it all sorted out (finally!) and the proof we needed from ALL the drs to show it’s not a vision issue but a brain one. SUCH a huge relief! And double relief since we already met the “deductible” this year!

On top of that good news I also went to another ENT in Thomasville. I’ve been having ear issues since stinking JULY. It’s been so annoying! The last ENT I went to was a JOKE so I made the trip to Thomasville to see a different dr and get his opinion on the situation. He ended up going into my ear and peeling off a scab around my ear drum. So. Random. He said I didn’t have a busted ear drum like a recent dr had thought but that I had a bad ear infection at some point and the scab was there from when it healed. That b/c I can’t smell my hearing is very heightened so even that slight tiny scab made a BIG difference for me. It was pretty awesome feeling when he did it (seriously I asked if he could do the other ear) and it has made a BIG difference. I do still notice the heartbeat sound when I’m crying or really tired but it’s not a daily thing anymore so I’m thankful!

Zach used to do a fun thing with the kids at church on Sunday Nights but it fizzled out when Zach had his back surgery and our church went through a lot of stuff. They got it back rolling this month and it made me laugh so hard that they put his name on all the bulletins haha. Like they are advertising a celebrity or something!

We had our annual ladies tea and it was so great! I was one of the ones at my table who switched tables and it allowed me to get to speak with so many wonderful women and get to know them better. It also allowed me to read the verses at several tables…which all seemed to speak to me and this current phase of life!

Speaking of feeling encouraged how PRECIOUS is this? Colt sent a super sweet card to Zach in the mail! We are so blessed with our niece and nephews!

On the note of being encouraged I’m reading through the Bible for the first time ever!!! It’s a tad intimidating but this book was on sale for $5 so it inspired me to go for it!

We made a HUGE switch in our house this month! We put up all the box fans that we’ve been using since we became parents and now use these sound machines. I have several friends who own them and rave about them so I’m hoping we also get great results! And it felt so weird to be buying four of them! This is the one I bought (but when I bought it they were on sale for like $13!)

The girls LOVE to take baths in the dark! So silly!

We had some BEAUTIFUL weather this month (aside from the horrible storms of course) which meant we got to have some family walks again!

I’ve also become a pro at grocery shopping in 20 min haha We have 30 min from when we drop off Kye at school till the girls get dropped off and we got a morning workout in running through the aisles at Publix! It only works when I’m getting a few things but still!

My princesses!

Tess loves Kye too, she just spends a lot more time with Britt

Since the big kids lost the privilege to sleep over in Britt’s room we let them have one in Kye’s room. And they ended losing that privilege too. Sad day…no more sibling sleepovers for awhile in our house!