Weekend in Review

Well, it has been a long weekend but good! The word for the weekend is WINTER.

We started with an extra day tacked on the weekend because of icy roads. By the time we were up and around the roads were clear so out of the house we went! Just a bunch of errands and girl time!

 

Saturday rolled around and we had to go to the grocery, along with everyone else in town. It was crazy!!!!! There was a huge forecast for snow so everyone was buying out the store. We just looked like we were part of the problem. It was pretty crazy!!!!

Saturday night came with family movie time, Desspicable Me. It was relaxing!

We woke up to snow, as predicted. Sunday was spent going out in the snow, working on projects, and playing. I worked on a project for my sister for their Disney Cruise and lesson planning. It was great!

 

We get an extra day of weekend again. It was a great weekend and I am thankful for the extra day! Hope you had a great weekend and a happy Monday!

Friday Favorites - Wine

Happy Friday!!! It is one of the happiest days of the week for me! I am joining up with Andrea and Erika again for Friday Favorites!

I decided I would talk about one of my favorite beverages, wine!! My husband and I spent one of our anniversary weekends travel the northern part of the state visiting wineries! It was a great weekend! So here are some of my favorite Indiana Wineries and the wine I like from each.

Oliver Winery
Reason: One of the first wines I ever had. Ok maybe not the first wine but definitely the first real wine. Boones doesn't count! It is a winery that is close to Indiana University where I went to school and it is beautiful!! The wine is great and inexpensive!

Favorite wine - Soft Red  I am not a red wine drinker but this one is sweet and I love it.
Want to try - Beanblossom Hard Cider   I love hard cider so I am excited to try this one.

Country Heritage Winery
Reason: There are so many, but one of the main reasons is because it is only miles from my house. They are fairly new winery but love their wine. At Christmas time they have a special Jolly Juice that is great! Again it is beautiful!

Favorite - Blueberry Semi-Sweet  I just happened to have a glass tonight! It is not so sweet that you can only have a little bit, but still sweet enough for me to love it!!!!!
Want to try - Cherry

Butler Winery
Reason: Good wine. We went to the tasting room that they have in Chesterton. They were so nice and we were able to try many wines. The guy behind the counter really seemed to care if we liked the wine or not. He even had two different tastings going on because my hubby and I do not like the same wine! I would like to actually visit the vineyard one day. Doesn't it look relaxing?

Favorite - Blackberry, we both liked it which never happens. It was so good we bought two bottles.
Want to try - Apple  Can you tell I like fruity and sweet?

Anderson Winery
Reason: Very pretty grounds and interior. They also allowed us to taste as many as we wanted!!! It was great and the people were so nice!

Favorite - Ravat 51
Want to try - Raspberry Kiss This might be a good bottle for Valentine's Day!

Our goal is to try all the Indiana wineries on this map. We have just a few to go!!!

I hope you all enjoyed this! We love to try new wines! Share your favorite wine/winery no matter what state you are in! We try to make this part of our anniversary each year!

Weekend in Review

So all of a sudden it is Monday night and I am watching girls deconstruct right here on my TV. Yep you guessed it I am watching the Bachelor. I am pretty sure they look for the craziest girls they can and put them together except for a few normal ones! I am a Bachelor addict I will admit it.

I then realized that I hadn't posted anything today so I will do my weekend in review for Tuesday! It was a pretty calm weekend.

Skylar had a friend over to work on their science fair project.

I went shopping at Gymboree with my gymbucks.

Church and just hanging out with my girls!

That was about it.

Here are the pictures from this weekend.
1.I bought Jenna some leopard ears and she won't take them off.

 2. Working on their gum chewing science experiment

 3. My girl so proud of her A/B Honor Roll

 4. The photo challenge that I am doing this month had the topic of remember. This is the picture I posted, my grandma and Skylar. I miss her and chance for her to meet my girls and my girls to meet and learn from her.

 That is the weekend and I am looking forward to a quiet week ahead!

Friday Favorites - Disney Dining

Today I am joining up with some of my favorite bloggers, Andrea and Erika, for Friday favorites!

I am really hoping for warmer weather and vacation so my Friday Favorites is about a great vacation I had and it was warm, Disney!

I was thinking what could I share about Disney that maybe not everyone knows and something I love. Then it hit me: food!! Everyone loves food! So here goes!

Favorite Character Meal - Akershus Royal Banquet Hall at Epcot

It is a buffet style meal. I don't really remember much about the food besides that it was good. The part that was so great was the fact that the girls got to meet so many of the princesses at one time. When we walked in we got to meet Belle in her beautiful yellow dress.

Then the girls got to meet Ariel, Auroa, and Cinderella also. They came around to each table and we could take as many photos as we wanted. It was great!!! Great one on one interaction with the princesses.

Then came the best part, they went on parade around the restaurant! The girls followed behind the princesses and walked like they were princesses too! Loved seeing them feel so special!

We loved this character dining!

Favorite Sit down dining: 'OHANA

This was a great family dining experience. Your table starts with bread and salad. Then they bring you pork dumplings and honey-coriander chicken wings. Then comes the great part, the skewers. They came around to your table with these skewers of meat that were fabulous!!!

It was just a great dinner with great food!

Favorite Dining experience: Be Our Guest - Dinner

I loved the atmosphere of this dinning experience. You felt like you were in the movie! 

It even snowed behind those pretty windows! We tried the grey stuff, and it was delicious!! We even got to meet the Beast!

There are so many places to eat and these are just some of our favorites!! We are hoping to head back soon and would love to hear which ones you like!!! Have a magical day!

Disney - Day 1

I wanted to think about something sunny and warm so I decided to talk about our Disney trip! 

It was one of the best trips we have taken as a family! We were able to enjoy it with my parents and my sister and her family! I love watching my girls experience new things with their cousins and grandparents. Be prepared for some picture overload!

Our family of five arrived and met up with my sister and her family and headed over to Magic Kingdom! I was so excited to see the girls when they first saw the castle! It was everything I thought it would be! They were so excited and wanted to see everything all at once. 

One of the best parts of the trip was coming up! My parents were coming and the girls knew nothing about it. It was so hard not to tell them. We did some of the rides and then got the call that there was a package at the front desk for all the girls. They were so excited because they had no idea what it could be. There were all sort of guesses but just a lot of talking!! It was great!

We got back to the hotel and the CM's had the girls line up on the couch in the lobby.

 Once they were lined up a CM came out to talk with the girls and had out some Minnie Mouse stuffed animals and some signed pictures. This was all a distraction as my parents came out behind the girls!

Then the CM told the girls he had one more surprise and to look behind them. This is what they saw!

Grandma and Papa!!!  At first the girls weren't too sure what was going on. When I asked Jenna who that was so had no answer. I said isn't that Grandma and Papa? Her answer was, "That's not my Grandma and Papa!" It was so funny because they were out of place and therefore that couldn't be them!

Surprising all the girls was so great! It set the trip off on the right foot!!! 

 We then headed over to Downtown Disney for dinner! We took the boat from Port Orleans Riverside! It was a great way to get there until the boat ran into a bridge! No one was hurt but it took just a little longer than it should have.  It was a great way to get a first glimpse of DTD. We ate at Wolfgang Puck Express! It was so good!!! I wish I had taken pics of the food but I didn't!

We are hoping to head back soon! If you have any suggestions for us please share!

Show and Tell - Organizational Tips & Tricks

Today I am linking up with Andrea for this great series, Show and Tell Tuesdays!

Today's topic is organizational Tips & Tricks!!  I have to confess that I am more excited about reading up on all the tips and tricks than I am about sharing my tip. Organization is not my middle name so if I am going to use it it has to be easy and at my fingertips. Really it just has to be dummy proof!!!

Here is my one tip for all of those that have a ton of pictures and are scared of loosing them or have a ton of pictures on your phone, but still want to be able to access the full resolution picture.

SmugMug!

I love SmugMug! It is an online storage of pictures and videos. It also has an app that I can upload and download right from my phone!!! Greatest find ever!!!!!! I have used just about every storage system out there for my photos but this one takes the cake!

There is a cost associated with it but in my humble opinion well worth it. You can even share the link to certain albums with anyone and they can download the image. There are so many controls for the user! There are so many that I can't even list them all here!

I am not sure how else to tell you how much I love this!!!!! If you look at it and love it as much as I do, click here and we can both benefit. You will get a % off your subscription and I get points towards free merchandise! I hope this helps someone out there who is trying to find some way to store and organize all those photos!!!

Happy Tuesday!

Unplugged

I counted up the amount of technology pieces we have in our house and the number shocked me. There were pieces that we haven't used in over a year. It made me start to think about why we have it all and how much time do we spend on it.

The conclusion I came to was we have way too much and spend way too much time on it. 

So now I have to decide what to do about it. I am going to start with my phone. I am going to take Pinterest and Facebook off the phone. I am going to limit myself to checking my email twice a day. I am also going to slim down my Instagram and Facebook followings. 

I want to make a more intentional effort to be with my kiddos and be present! I think 10 years down the road I will be glad I did!

I know there are things that I can't get rid of because I will go into withdrawl and you may find me in a corner crying and rocking! I love my Instagram!!!!

Be the best you and not an imperfect version of someone else! That is what I want to live by!