Here is everything our family was up to in February!
Everyone knows the past five years have been tough for me regarding my side of the family. It’s been such a growing period for me in my faith and the past several months have been truly amazing. It’s been such a lesson to be patient and trust in God’s timing. It’s all been so difficult for me but I’ve tried to always respond in love to any conflict and have tried to let my light shine in a dark situation. Slowly many relationships have been mending. Family has been reaching out to me. Connections being made through social media. My little family got to spend some quality time with someone who has always been very close to me last year and it was SUCH a true blessing and meant the WORLD to me. This month my Uncle Jeff and I talked some online and he and his wife, Aunt Laurie, stopped through Valdosta on their way to visit other family. Words cannot do justice to just how much it meant to me for them to go out of their way to stop through and see us. We enjoyed a wonderful meal together and lots of hugs and tears were shared. I hope it was just the first of many times that we’ll get to spend together in the future! I’m so thankful for doors being opened again and don’t take a single bit of it for granted.
Another super awesome thing happened this month too that also made me feel so loved and special! A sweet blog friend sent me THE most thoughtful gift I have EVER received! A life changing blanket. Which, DUH, yall know I’m obsessed with. But it isn’t just a life changing blanket…it’s a PINEAPPLE ONE. OMG. I seriously got tears and basically freaked out. SO sweet!!!
This month was Valentine’s Day!
I’m typically a fan of doing homemade Valentine’s stuff to save money and just enjoy having something other than the boxed valentines. I’m in SEVERAL deals groups and actually spent very, very little on valentines day cards this year for the kids’ classes.
I got a bag full of little ducks for $1! I hunted pinterest and found a free printable to go with it. Hot glued the ducks to the cardstock print outs and BAM! Tess’s valentines were finished (and I got SO MANY compliments on them!).
I got a deal for Kye’s valentines as well. An entire box of paper airplane valentines (32 total) for $2! Can’t beat it!
Britt’s were the only ones I had to buy. She didn’t care at all what kind I got her so I just grabbed a random box of Frozen ones at Target 😉
So cute, right? You can get the free printable here!
I was struggle CITY this month with head colds and sinus crud. I live off OJ and cinnamon sugar toast when I’m not feeling well.
BUT I asked my dr about the sinus junk and she recommend FLONASE. I now tell EVERYONE to get some! It’s been a GAME CHANGER for me. A couple squirts morning and night and BAM! No sinus or allergy issues. No head colds or brain fog! I love it!
I also found these at Target and wanted to recommend them to all the mamas. Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to auto immune disorders. Even if they don’t run in your family it’s important to make sure your kids get enough Vitamin D! Zach’s dr also said calcium is crucial so I love that this vitamin contains both!
Sisters! It’s tough to get them BOTH smiling at the same time haha
We are still working on Britt’s room. It’s not a quick thing to finish but we’re getting there!
I scored this shirt for under $5!!! (It runs TINY. I order an XL)
If you’ve never heard “Eye of the Storm” before then you def need to click here and listen 🙂 I first heard it last September when a friend of mines home got destroyed in a storm that passed through here. I thought about how appropriate it was for them and how so many people probably hear the song and feel comforted by it. Little did I know that my own storms were coming and that the very same song would come to mean so much to me.
We are trying to do more fun family nights! Pizza for the win!
You know how sometimes things are SUPER obvious to others but not to yourself? This month there was a LOT going on and some of it was super tough. Zach actually ended up missing a week of work and had a really difficult time emotionally. He KNEW what he needed to feel better. He needed to golf. It’s his outlet and it helps him de-stress and feel better (stress is SUCH a big deal now with the MS so it’s a big blessing he knows what he needs to lower his stress levels). I needed to de-stress too. But I literally had NO CLUE what I needed. Zach told me to take a day and do whatever I needed to do. So I thought I’d go shopping. Alone.
Turns out that wasn’t what I needed at all. I never realized it but turns out I’m extroverted (bahaha I know, I should have realized that already huh?). I basically had a breakdown in the middle of Old Navy. Like crying and feeling like I couldn’t breathe. Alone time means thinking time and sometimes that’s not best. I’m SO thankful for my awesome tribe of friends. Going and doing with friends def lowers my stress! I met up with friends and was SO much better 🙂 I lucked out that it was kids sale night so I didn’t have to have too much alone time 🙂
I am in LOVE with this outfit!
Here’s the vest another day too…I wore it a TON this month!
Cheese fries and friends make everything better 🙂
We’ve become masters of the quick grocery run 🙂
We are also Zaxby’s pros for the Wednesday night rush!
Aunt Casey went to chapel and sent me this sweet pic of my happy girls!
Y’all. How do you handle sweeping? I swear every. single. time. my kids eat there is a MASSIVE mess. To be fair, probably a solid 95% of it is from Britt alone (messiest eater on EARTH). I feel like I sweep. And sweep. And sweep. And I loathe sweeping. What do you do? I know there has to be some trick or tip or something!!!
I made fried rice for the first time! It was a win!
I mean isn’t this what we all aim for?!?! It was worth the torture of Walmart to see this!
It felt SO good to say GOODBYE to 2016! We got our taxes filed and it was the last thing needed to truly put the rough year in our past 🙂
I love that my two closest people “get me” so well. BOTH Casey and Zach surprised me with Chicken Salad Chick haha. Casey gave it to me one day at pick up and the very next day Zach came home with it for me. I ate half a sandwich a day and made it last for 4 solid days. YUM.
Have you noticed you will get free magazines in your mailbox? Sometimes it happens and I usually don’t have an issue with it (I get random fashion ones pretty often). This month though? We got a Sports Illustrated SWIMSUIT edition in our mailbox. Addressed to my husband.
I was livid.
I called the company directly and they said it was through a third party service so they couldn’t even cancel it. I called the third party service and they said he got a FREE subscription to the magazine when he ordered some golf shoes with his Christmas money. As in they just sent it to him. He didn’t request it. Didn’t check a box saying he’d like it. Nothing on his end was done to receive it.
It makes me SO angry that companies assume that because a man orders golf shoes that he would want PORN delivered to his mailbox. Not every man wants to look at filth. Some men are actually men of CHARACTER. Oh I def expressed all of this to the guy on the phone haha
I instructed him to cancel it immediately and then I cut up the magazine and got rid of it. I just GLANCED through it and yall I’m not exaggerating…it’s porn. One page I happened to open to just had a girls butt. With a tiny tiny string in her crack. Guess that’s a “bathing suit”???
I’m thankful I’m the one who got the mail that day. I’m thankful my husband AND my SON were protected from seeing it. Nope Satan. Not in our house!
My hair has always been something I have confidence in. In December I had some damage issues done to it and it’s been ROUGH not LOVING my hair. I’m slowly getting it back to a good place and am working with my stylist at figuring out what that good place will be. This is the happiest I’ve been with my hair in over 2 months! We went with a darker root as I really wanted to try something to blend with my brows. My brows are BLACK. They have ALWAYS been super super dark and my hair has NEVER been super super dark. My natural color is exactly like Britt’s. Which I’d define as “mousy brown.” My hair also naturally pulls blonde. Like I lose all depth when I color it within a week or so. It just blends and becomes all one color of blond. We’re hoping going with the darker roots helps keep some of that depth better (I also got some purple shampoo) and I like the change! We will see how it goes with roots though since the darker color is darker than my natural 😉 I was a tad nervous to show Zach but he LOVES it and it was the first time he fully admitted to me just how horrible he’s felt my hair has been these past couple of months haha Hoping to put bad hair days behind us!
For Christmas Zach gave me a massage and a coupon for a house cleaning service (as a one time thing). I finally cashed both of them in! The massage was AMAZING and it was AWESOME to have a deep cleaned house that I didn’t have to clean myself!
The ice cream truck comes through our neighborhood all the time. Every time the kids ask. I always tell them it never hurts to ask but 95% of the time the answer is no. And when its a yes, it’s always with their own money. They were pretty pumped for a yes day 😉
Something I love about Zach that I don’t brag on enough is how great he is in the kitchen. He loves to make up recipes and loves to cook for the family. I really don’t like cooking. I do it as part of my duties as a wife/mother but it’s just not my fav. I LOVE the times that Zach takes over the kitchen!!! His food is always the most tasty!
He created his own queso bean dip…and it was good!
Taco night with ranch cream cheese YUM.
Zach and I both are wanting to do better at having couples friends. I have a LOT of friends but WE don’t have a lot of other spouses that we do things with. I love hosting and having people over. Some of our favorite memories are when it was Zach, Ryan, Katie and myself in college. Even though Katie and Ryan weren’t a couple…a foursome is so fun to do things with! Game nights especially! This month we had Wade and Stephanie over who live in our neighborhood and attend our church. We’ve known Wade since college and it was GREAT to get to hang out with them and the kids loved doting over their son 🙂 Stephanie brought a super yummy oreo dessert and I sent her this pic a few days later and thanked her for my lunch haha! Zach was NOT HAPPY that I ate the whole thing!!!
This month we finished up watching all the Oscar nominated movies just in time for OSCAR NIGHT! We got dinner and all caught up then watched the show. Katie and I stayed up together for the entire thing and I’m so glad we didn’t miss the crazy best picture mix-up!!! It was pretty EPIC!
You can see my reviews of all the movies nominated for best picture here 🙂
We ran our t-shirt campaign this month and I cannot WAIT to share all the results with you! Don’t forget if you purchase a shirt to post on social media with the hashtag #teamparkeadopts! If you don’t want to share on social media, please email me photos to journeyofphood@gmail.com
Let me know if you’d like have the photos featured on the blog or not! Even if you don’t want the photos shared publicly I’d really like to put them all together somehow in the nursery (if nothing else, I plan to at least do a Shutterfly book). I want Tab to know how many people have been praying for him and have helped us get him in our arms!
Can’t go a whole month without a little ice coffee from McD right? 😉
Ever wonder WHY moms need coffee? THIS. This is why! Three kids are WILD haha
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