Welcome to High Five for Friday – hosted by me, Becky, Tif, and Della! Come, read up on what we’ve been up to this week and get to know some amazing bloggers.

First off, our featured blogger this week is our very own Tif!! Yesterday, she gave birth to her sweet baby girl. I’ll let her do the official announcement and introduction, but we are all just so thrilled for her and her family. New babies are glorious! Congratulations Tif!

So clearly this week has been exciting! Let’s dive in!

1. On Sunday it was time for another monthly brunch with our friends! It was just the BEST time. Nothing brings me greater joy than quality time with people. Our kids ran around and got muddy outside. Adults actually enjoyed hot coffee! Friends, I want to encourage you to look at your calendar for the next month and schedule something NOW for quality time with friends or family. Just plan it now. You will never regret that!

2. I am such a history junkie. If there is some sort of historic event going on, I’m glued to the TV. This week I’ve been glued to the TV watching the coverage of Billy Graham’s passing. What an amazing, humble man that did so much for the kingdom of God! I actually went to hear him when he came to Columbus back in the 90s. I don’t remember what he said, but I do remember being in a baseball stadium and seeing so many people at church. So on Wednesday, I watched the service at Captial Hill. It was so moving! It’s amazing to me that one man impacted millions of lives!!

3. This week I learned something about William. The poor kid hates stickers! He came running to me bawling because he had a sticker stuck on his finger! So I took it off and stuck it on my nose. He flipped out! So as a last step, I stuck it on HIS nose! Poor kid.

4. I have been sorting and purging a lot lately! It’s one of my favorite things. I have made 3 trips so far this week. It’s lovely to go room by room, closet by closet, and sort through things. I love it!

5. One of my favorite memories from the week was a walk that never ended. HA! One of my friends suggested a short hike with the kids to see a natural patch of daffodils! We could snap some spring pictures, enjoy the day, and have fun! So we spent about 20 minutes frolicking in the daffodils! And then we decided to keep walking! Almost 2 miles later, we got back to our cars just before darkness set in. Myself and my kids had sore feet because I thought we should wear rain boots since it had been raining so much. I carried William for at least half of that hike! But you know what?? We laughed so much! The kids climbed over fallen trees, picked so many daffodils, and explored so much! We were SO sore the next day but it was high adventure!

How was your week?? Can’t wait to hear all about it!

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Welcome to High Five for Friday – hosted by me, Becky, Tif, and Della! Come, read up on what we’ve been up to this week and get to know some amazing bloggers.

We’ve had a great week!

1. We always have busy weekends around here. Last weekend was no exception! It was a busy day at church. I teach the middle school class, and it was a full house! It’s always nice to have lots of kids there. And then for our main service, we had a visiting school’s bell choir, which my kids were SO excited to watch! But mercy, it was a longer service than normal, and it was exhausting to keep the kids calm. HA! Any other parents just celebrate inside when church ends and you’ve survived another service? HA! This phase doesn’t last forever, but it keeps me on my toes while it does last.

2. I’ve been thinking about creating a pantry in my kitchen for over a year. We don’t have an actual pantry inside. I’ve dedicated several cabinets to spices, sauces, and snacks, and then have shelves in the garage for canned goods, etc. But I wanted to turn a glass-doored cabinet into a pantry for things like grains, pastas, etc. I finally got started yesterday! I organized it a little. I still need to organize the garage shelves. My goal is to minimize the number of ingredients that I need to buy. For example, if a recipe calls for brown rice, but I only have quinoa on hand, I’ll just use the quinoa instead of buying brown rice. I’m getting tired of storing half-used containers of spices or ingredients that I needed for one random recipe. So by moving some pantry storage into the kitchen where I can easily see what I have, I hope to eliminate those random half-used ingredients.

Image source unknown – image from Pinterest

3. We had BEAUTIFUL weather this week! It was in the 70s and it gave us a taste of spring. I’m a little nervous that with the weather getting so nice already that it will mean a nasty, humid summer. But we did spend a lot of time outside. Picnics, digging in dirt, neighborhood walks. Doesn’t get any better than that!

4. Elizabeth has been loving her weekly gymnastics class! She’s doing well, and it’s fun to watch her focus so hard. William is not enjoying the class… he wishes he could run out on the floor with Elizabeth, and keeping him off on the side is proving to be hard work. There is thankfully a little corner with bars, rings, and large mats for him to climb on, and we spend most of the class there. He’s REALLY good at the rings! He holds on, swings and hangs for quite a while. This explains why he can grab heavy things and pull away.

5. My husband ordered a new toy for us! He bought a rowing machine! It’s actually really fun to use. It’s hard to do the motions correctly, so you’re focused quite a bit while you’re rowing. And it has the time go very fast! Yesterday, Elizabeth came in to jump on her trampoline and watch her action songs while I rowed, and it went by SO FAST! Rowing apparently is the most effective cardio workout because you’re working all your major upper and lower body muscle groups, including core and glutes, at once. I’m looking forward to getting better at it!

This week’s featured blogger is Nina from A World of Dresses! Nina loves exploring the world wearing fantastic dresses! She’s got a dress on almost every day. And right now, she’s living in Spain! Her travel posts and pictures are just delightful and I love seeing where Nina is visiting next. If you have travel plans in the future for Europe, check out Nina’s blog for tips! Swing over and say hello to Nina!

How was your week?? Can’t wait to hear all about it!

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Welcome to High Five for Friday – hosted by me, Becky, Tif, and Della! Come, read up on what we’ve been up to this week and get to know some amazing bloggers.

This was no doubt the fastest week in history. And I can’t say we did much!

1. Our weekend was……… a blur. I seriously can’t even remember what we did, other than go to church. I THINK we were low key…. ugh friends. The struggle is real over here. Here’s the perfect example of where my brain has been this week. I took some things to the dry cleaners on Wednesday. I dumped the clothes on the counter but then couldn’t find my wallet! I went rifling through everything, with William on my hip. I dug through the bag I carried the clothes inside… nothing! About 30 seconds later, I realized it was IN MY HAND! It’s like a “Where are my glasses??” scenario when they’re just on my head.

2. Did you know there is another animal live stream video thingy?? This time around it’s a bald eagle, and Elizabeth and I have been checking every day after quiet time. Did you know their eggs are blue? Speaking of bird watching, we spent a good 30 minutes sitting at a window watching our bird feeders. I bought Elizabeth a backyard birds book so we could identify what we were seeing, and we had so much fun! It was neat to observe which birds sat at the feeder to eat, while others got take out and flew back to the tree branch.

3. Did you have a fun Valentine’s day?? We did! It was filled with SO many donuts and treats. It was pretty low key here. I didn’t plan much other than some fun festive activities. Thankfully, sweet friends had the foresight to gather ingredients for chocolate fondue, so we got together to celebrate together! Let me tell you, fondue and preschoolers are a comical combination. HA!

4. I’ve been trying REALLY hard to focus on serious quality time with each kid this week. That’s probably why this week feels like a blur! All play all week! William has figured out how to say “shoe” and “walk”, and he knows if he puts those words together, it means something. So we did several neighborhood walks this week. He learned how to whack the ground with a stick, throw rocks (not the best idea), pick up a worm, and dig in the dirt. Perfect boy day!

5. Last night my husband and I had our usual Thursday night date. It was SO delightful! We tried a new to us restaurant, had a vegetarian server who knew exactly what to recommend, and we managed to use up our 2 hours of baby sitting time perfectly! We’ve been doing our weekly date night for a YEAR now. I’m so pleased with us! It took us some time to make the financial aspects of regular date nights work, as well as just keeping it consistent, but after one year of weekly date nights we’ve got it down to a wonderful science.

This week’s featured blogger is Meg from Borrowed Heaven! She lives in Charleston, SC, blogging about cooking adventures, living in Charleston, and everyday life. Are you planning a trip to Charleston? Meg is your tour guide! Want some new recipe inspiration? I love the sound of this sweet and spicy Korean beef dish, which I could EASILY make vegetarian! Swing over and say hello to Meg!

How was your week?? Can’t wait to hear all about it!

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Welcome to High Five for Friday – hosted by me, Becky, Tif, and Della! Come, read up on what we’ve been up to this week and get to know some  amazing bloggers.

Well, this will be a short one.

Let me set the scene for you. Earlier this week, I was bragging, literally BRAGGING, that we had not gotten sick in almost 2 months.

And what happens?

BAM! Yesterday, sick.

So now, I’m really annoyed that I was all braggy earlier this week. Clearly, the universe snickered.

Before I crawl off to the sofa, here was my favorite moment of the week!

On Sunday, we had the BEST day ever! We hosted brunch with our friends and we had chaos, delicious food, and laughs! The perfect kind of brunch! This year, I wanted to focus on things that bring joy to myself and others. Spending quality time with friends is one of those joy-giving things. But if it’s not scheduled, it will never happen.

Enter in our now once a month brunch tradition! We had such a fun time!

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This pile of shoes symbolizes all the warm, squishy joy I felt this weekend! Full home = full heart. ❤️ so grateful for friends that are like family. (Also thankful I have friends that remember to snap ?!! Thanks @zeanniejay!) #choosejoy #findyourtribe #takesavillage #joyfulweekend

A post shared by Katie (@ktcupoftea) on Jan 29, 2018 at 8:50am PST

And now, I’m going to take some medicine and hope neither of my kids catch this.

This week’s featured blogger is Brenda from Chatting Over Chocolate! Planning a trip to Disney soon?? Brenda is your gal!! She is the blogging world’s Disney expert. If you haven’t met Brenda, you must! One of the sweetest people on the internet. You can get to know her by reading her “5 Facts About Me” post, including the fact that she traced her family back to 1066! Swing over and meet Brenda!!

How was your week?? Can’t wait to hear all about it!

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