Friday Favorites

Thank goodness it's Friday! This week was the hottest by far this year for us. I believe they predict today to be 110 degrees. Man, I gotta get to a pool, pronto!

Hope you all have a great weekend, stay cool!

Here are a few things I am loving right now:


1. This weekend kicks off birthday season for our family. From my dad's birthday this Sunday, until the end of the year we celebrate 13 birthdays! That means August, September and October each have 3 birthdays (including mine!), and November and December both have 2 each! It makes for a fun and crazy few months leading up to the Holidays :) Not to mention, in exactly 1 month, Chloe will be 2! Here she is at her first birthday, homemade tutu and all.

And just because I couldn't help myself, here is a picture of Luke's 3rd birthday. He had a "Cars' themed party.

2. IKEA. Who doesn't love Ikea? The closest one to us is about 3.5 hours away so we do not get to go very often. Over this past weekend, Chloe was playing with this Easel at my Sister-in-Laws house and she loved it. They had tons of chalk pieces and she just kept picking up one after the other and drawing on the chalkboard side. I also love that there is a white board on the other side to do more drawing. I think this might make a great Christmas present for the kiddos- Can never do your Christmas shopping too early :).

3. Tomorrow, July 30th, is National Cheesecake Day! It's a day to eat your dessert first! Whether you like it with strawberries, chocolate, mini-style or with cherries, ENJOY. Have you ever had a cheesecake cupcake? You must. Nom, Nom, Nom. Make sure you get yourself a little piece of heaven tomorrow.
Here are a few recipes:

Philadelphia Classic Cheesecake

Chocolate Chip Cheesecake

Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcakes

Oreo Cheesecake

Thin Mint Girl Scout Cheesecake

Avocado Lime Cheesecake

ENJOY!

4. Ebates, have you used it yet? It is such an easy way to save some dough. You just go to Ebates, create an account for free, and start shopping! Ebates provides discounts and cash back at many stores, probably ones you use regularly. What if adding one more click to your purchase could save you lots of $$$? You can also download the button to your browser and anytime you go to a website that partners with Ebates and has a discount, the button will tell you so you can get your cash back. The best part---you get cash back for stores at which you are already shopping, who doesn't love that?! They mail out "Big Fat Checks" every quarter, or you can sign up with a PayPal account. I have used Ebates for about 10 months and have already gotten almost $150 back! Check it out, maybe your favorite store is listed. You can also use it for restaurants, office supplies, travel, etc.




5. The Olympics are starting next week! Who doesn't love watching the Olympics. I always find myself watching a sport that I never would regularly, cheering my heart out for someone I hadn't heard of until that very day. It's the BEST! We usually try to watch the Opening Ceremonies with a few friends and this time, it will be hosted at our new house! Can't wait to get together with some of our favorite people, their kiddos and watch the festivities. I am sure we are in for a very colorful and lively Opening Ceremonies. What is your favorite sport to watch?

Throwback Thursday - Pismo Beach, CA

Happy Thursday!! We made it, only one more day until the weekend! I was going through pictures on the computer and found these gems from a trip we took a long time ago. We love going to the Central Coast and for most residents of the Central Valley, that means Pismo Beach. We took Luke there when he was just 3 months old. He was such a good baby, very go with the flow.

He wasn't all that sure about the beach itself.

Love this picture Aaron took while we were on a walk.

My boys

Ha! He looks like a grumpy old man in this picture!

Oh, Luke's hair. Isn't baby hair the silliest. We affectionately called this the "Skullet". He lost all his baby hair on top and just had the some on the sides, but mostly just hair in the back. And it was long! We could have cut it, sure, but it kinda made us giggle everytime we looked at it. He lost the hair on top riiiight before his newborn pictures when he was 5 weeks old so the hairdo was immortalized forever, lol. Obviously, it all grew in where it was supposed to be, but it was funny while it lasted. And I don't think he cared one bit, lol.

Calgon Take Me Away...

 

It is HOT! Very Hot. Like scramble an egg on the sidewalk Hot. 111 degrees Hot. Please stay cool out there, drink plenty of water, bring your pets inside, and please, please, please check your car to make sure your kids aren't inside before you leave the vehicle. Anyone else bawling every time time they hear about these incidences?  So sad. Please stay safe out there.

 

ANYWAYS, this picture is from a day trip we took to Shaver Lake, CA this past winter. It was the first time the kids saw snow. They loved it so I know we will be going back several times this winter. Shaver Lake was only a little over an hour away. We went on a Friday, which gave us pretty much the run of the town while everyone else was working. After having lunch at Shaver Lake Pizza (which has great pizza and yummy salads), we went straight for the snow.  Chloe was a little scared at first but Luke took to it like a pro. We had a fun snowball fight and did some exploring. Next time, we will need to bring a few sleds!

 

 

I'm just going to leave this right here....feel free to use it to daydream of cooler days :)



 

Tahoe - Zephyr Point

Last weekend the 4 of us packed up and went to visit Aaron's sister and her family at Zephyr Cove, NV. My Mother-in-Law, Brother-in-Law and Grandfather-in-Law all joined us for the weekend. We all spent Thursday-Sunday up there at Zephyr Point Conference Center where my Brother-in-Law, Ryan, works. 

Here we are, on our way... Chloe barely made it into the photo lol.

Love this sweet little face

 Made a pit stop at Costco to fill up the gas tank and grab some lunch!

 As soon as we got to our hotel room, we changed and went straight to the private beach!

The girl cousins, Naomi, Addie and Chloe 

 Luke, Addie and Chloe

Our Nephew, Caelum

 I spy a Chloe

The three big kids watching and singing with Uncle Ryan leading Day Camp Sing

Lake Tahoe 

My incredibly brave 7-year-old niece jumping off the pier- there was a lifeguard right there watching her :)

Building sandcastles is serious business

On a walk- one of my favorite pictures of the trip. 

 All of the big cousins getting some Super Why time.

We took a quick trip over to Carson City, NV to check out the state capital of Nevada. 

 Nelson Family Selfie with the State Capital building

 Of course we visited the Nevada State Railroad Museum. If you didn't know by now, Luke LOVES trains. He was so excited to see all of the trains. It was a little too historical for him to understand, but he loved looking at the huge steam engines and watching the train go through the railroad crossing.

 Luke attempting to look at a picture with 3-D glasses.

 Chloe didn't quite get it, lol.

 They loved looking at the old signal lights and railroad crossing. 

 Of course this kept them entertained for quite a while, I think they missed their trains and tracks while we were gone.

 The museum has a lot of green space and fun outdoor exhibits to check out. It even has a small dog park. 

 Cave Rock Tunnel is a really neat tunnel cut out of a rock. This is the north side, I didn't get a picture of the south side which has a much cooler look to it. 

Luke loves tunnels and I was able to get his surprised look as we drove through it.

 These two. Silliest kids I know. Also, why did it take me sooo long to realize how convenient it is to put snacks in cups rather than their hands. Very helpful in the car too!

The main reason for our trip was to all get together to celebrate Papa's (Aaron's grandpa) 85th Birthday! Here he is with 4 of the 5 grand-kids.

We had a great time on our trip and can't wait to go back to visit the McKenzie's again. If you are heading to the Tahoe area, check out Zephyr Point. They have cabins for rent or you can stay in one of their 2 hotels. Having the private beach with lifeguards is always nice when traveling with little ones, too.

Luke's Closet Makeover

 

I have already shared my LOVE for great closets. I don't know where it comes from, but I have always loved a nicely organized closet more than the next guy. Thankfully, my husband has some amazing skills and was able to customize 4 closets in our old house and now Chloe's closet in our new house (see here) .  Luke's closet was a bit of a challenge. The two guest rooms in our new house are quite obviously different sizes with different size closets. Most advice we got was to put Chloe in the larger room with the larger closet because she will 'have more clothes.' That very well may be true, but we couldn't make the decision on what might happen 10 years from now. Growing up, the oldest always got first pick, luckily for me, my sister's choice was always the one I didn't want...win-win! So we went with that mentality and Luke got to choose. Maybe some day they will switch, or the playroom may be more of Chloe's space since Luke has the larger room, who knows. 



Back to the closet....which is the largest sliding-door, non walk-in closet I have ever seen. The space is tricky because we got VERY used to having 5 hall closets/pantries in our old house (can I get an AMEN!!) and this house has very different storage utilizing much more cabinet space and larger rooms with one hall closet and one pantry. So we decided to take a third of Luke's closet for 'family storage'. In a closet that is over 15 feet long, it hardly makes a dent in the space.

I didn't get a before picture, but here it is with the doors closed. It just one pole with a shelf all the way across. Nothing fancy.

Here is the closet, freshly painted and just holding clothes.

 Here is a view of the left side. The five shelves are 16 inches by 4 feet. Lots and Lots of storage!

Here is a view of the right side. Aaron squeezed a few 16 inch shelves back in the right hand corner for Luke's things.

Here are the most recent views, as you can see we still have quite a bit of space to fill up.

Shelves on the right

 Right door

Middle door

I didn't take a picture of the shelves on the left because they are still empty and look the same as the picture above.