Happy Birthday to my amazing husband! With the help of my family, I was able to surprise this guy with a little stay-cation in Cedar Rapids. He always works so hard taking care of our family, so it was wonderful to give him a chance to relax! As a fun side note, when I booked…
Happy Birthday to Me: Our Trip to Waco, TX
My amazing husband planned a last minute trip to Waco for my 31st Birthday weekend! We were able to enjoying some exploring, shopping and kid-free relaxation… Just the break we needed from the chaos this year has been! 🖤 We spent the first and the last days making the 12+ hour drive each way….
An Omaha Wedding + Iowa State Fair
This weekend Wes’s cousin got married in Omaha. Since we decided to go & make the drive anyways, we thought we would turn it into a mini vacation! We headed down a day early and spent the morning at the Omaha Children’s Museum. We had been there with the kiddos once before, when Wes graduated…
Exploring Iowa
Wes has been getting good at finding us new places to explore… This weekend we drove to a little state park about 45 minutes away and had a fun time exploring the beautiful trails! It’s possible that we spend just as much time getting ready and loading these kids up as we do on our…
A Day in Pella
Maybe it’s because we live in Iowa, but I’ve found most people are very sweet in response to seeing us out with all our kiddos. 💗 I know many other “big” families often face snide remarks when they go out together, but thankfully for us that rarely happens! This past weekend we spent the day…
Wickiup Hill Learning Center & Wandering Woods
About a month ago we traveled down to Toddville, Iowa to explore Wikiup Hill Learning Center & Wandering Woods! They had super fun educational indoor and outdoor interactive learning areas, and the kids absolutely loved it! I finally got around to editing the video and sorting through pictures, so here we go! {Many of the…
Library Day With Cousins… And Cupcakes!
Thursday we loaded up all of my six kids, my sister and her two kids, and our grandmother and headed downtown for a fun day at the library! We recently discovered a different library that’s slightly farther away, but much easier to contain the kids in, so it was really fun to watch them safely…
Pumpkin Patch ’17
We usually try to get to the pumpkin patch early on in the season so that it’s not too cold when we go… but there ended up being a lot of rainy weekends in October, so we ended up going on a weekday towards the end of the month. It was a bit cold, but…
How To Survive: A Zoo Trip With Littles
Back at the end of May 2015, we thought it would be a fun idea to take a road trip to the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha. Since baby girl was still a “foster placement” at the time, we needed to make it a day trip: that meant we also needed to be super efficient…
How To Survive: The Wisconsin Dells
We recently enjoyed a much needed mini get-away at Great Wolf Lodge with our sweet little bumpkins, and we learned a few things along the way. I’ve included what I think are the most important things to consider… {And if you want to see more awesome pics of our trip, check out Our Stay at The Great…