Our Days of This Week

HAPPY FRIDAY! Well, happy end of your Friday, anyway!

Hope you are home relaxing with wonderful visions of Saturday sweetness dancing in your head.

I wanted to wrap up our week real quick before I went in full-throttle to my Birthday weekend. I'm already looking forward to the memories I'll be making the next two days. :)

To help me remember how I'm spending these ordinary week days of life, I want to do a recap of them at the end of each week. I'm a big believer in how the every day's are really what make the biggest impact in your life. You know... how the Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday's of each week are the least favorite and hardly ever mentioned as being important. But, that's when the magic of the mundane happens! Those are the days that lead to all the childhood memories that my kids will most likely have when they grow up. So, I want to start writin' em down!

This week was another off-schedule one, as we had our Seattle family in town visiting so we got to go have a few fun days with them. :)

So we spent Tuesday with them, as you can read about here in my Tuesday Weekend Wrap-Up .

On Wednesday they met us at my parent's house and we took them out on the golf cart for some adventures!

exploring a creek off the cart path

We went to one of the "lakes" in town (some call it a lake, some call it a pond... either way there are fishin' docks :) ).

 The girls loved having their older cousins run all over the place with them, pointing at fish and looking at the crazy "chicken" walking around with the geese.

It wasn't raining, but it was cloudy, so the pictures aren't as lovely as I'd hoped but I'm still thankful for some smiling kiddos!

On our way toward some shopping and dinner, one of the golf carts ran out of juice so Joe and Jared volunteered to push it up each hill as the battery started dying. 

Thankfully we made it to my parents' business which was nearby, so we could charge it back up. While we were there, Jared and Logan also enjoyed getting to drive around the golf cart in the parking lot. It was quite entertaining. :)

Camryn spent the afternoon with her sweet friend who was in town from Connecticut, and they went to see the movie Home and out to dinner before meeting back up with us. These girls are both so sweet and I love that they get to have a little visit each Summer or when she comes to visit her grandparents in Georgia!

After all the golf cart and Cam's return, we all went to eat dinner at Ted's Montana Grill. We love it there and hardly ever go since we have so many kids and can't fit in a booth anymore (ha! true story). 

wearing his daddy's hat. So sweet!

After dinner, we went our separate ways after grabbing a free cookie at the cookie store. Thanks, #taxday.

Thursday was very much a normal day for us. 

She is so his boss. 

We stayed home and in pajama's all day. It was rainy, cold, and we needed a day to catch up on school work, normal sleep and nap times. 

We ended the day by grilling out and going to bed early. Ideal.

Friday was my birthday! I ended up meeting Kristyn and her kids for lunch and chat time at Chick-fil-A while the kids played. It was so fun we forgot to take a picture. Thankfully, being the great friend that she is, Kristyn ended up swinging by on her way somewhere to stop for a quick picture. Only because it was my birthday and I needed to prove I wasn't alone all day. And because she's just so nice like that. 

Good friends don't let friends go without a birthday picture!! Love her!

Ya'll, I have good friends. Like, SUCH good friends. I am so richly blessed!! Had a great time and loved getting to catch up!! So looking forward to our long days of summer at the pool together that are in our near future!!!!!

Friday night, after naps, the girls were treated to a special trip to Monkey Joes by Aunt Tammy :) They loved getting to run around like crazy and have special attention from Tammy and the boys.

We had to reschedule Charleigh's birthday party that was originally scheduled for Saturday morning, due to all of the crazy rain. So, after MJ's we all went to Red Robin for a birthday dinner for myself and Charleigh. Char and I were spoiled with gifts! I will recap her gifts on her birthday post in a week, but I am pumped about mine!!

A Garmin (that I've been wanting forever!), perfume, and a gift card to Ulta!!  Love!!!! 

Good food, great company, and a whole lot of laughter :) Said our goodbyes outside in the rain but managed to take a few more pics before heading out.

Notice Cam's addition of bunny ears behind us :)

Look closely for more bunny ears :)

We will miss our cousins! We are hoping to squeeze in a trip out there sometime next year, maybe in the Fall.

After dinner, we ran to Target for the fastest Target run I've ever had. Walked in and they were closing in 15 minutes, but I was desperate to get the girls some rain coats and boots! Thankfully we knocked it out fast, and even had some fun in the parking lot along the way. 

These are our "It's 9:45 and almost 2 hours past bedtime but WE'RE GOIN TO TARGET!" faces. :)

Perfect ending to my birthday. Love my family so much!!

Hope you all have a wonderful, relaxing, dry weekend ahead!!!

In Case You Were Wondering: First Edition

Since I'm a girly girl, I love all things girly. I also love when my girlfriends share things that work for them in the girl department. Things like favorite hair products, cosmetics, books, recipes and more. I'm going to start a little series of this blog called the In Case You Were Wondering Series. If you have any questions you'd like to ask me, feel free to email me any time at coveredingraceandkisses at gmail dot com.

To start things off, I want to share about one of my favorite topics ever: hair products.

Now, just to be transparent here, I must admit, I'm a low-maintenance gal in this department. God gave me naturally straight, fine/thin hair. So really I only have so many options on what to do with my hair each day (aka straight, straight, or straight). Please know, I am SO not *that* girl who always comes around with fab-looking hair. I wish! Maybe when I'm not in the having-babies season of life I will be her, but for now, my great-hair days aren't as often as I'd like. But when I DO get to do my hair, I can tell you, I've definitely shopped around when it comes to certain products for my hair, and others I've just recently discovered but am LOVING them, so I'm going to tell you all about it!

First things first: shampoo & conditioner. Right now I'm using Redken Color Extend for both my shampoo and conditioner.

 In years past, I've gone around six months between getting my hair done. But last fall I decided to go toward the Auburn/brunette family hair color, so I've been going more often. In order to save some money and also save myself some time, I switched to this product in hopes of extending the length of time between hair therapy sessions. ;) So far, I'm pleased. I recently had my hair done, but it wasn't because my color had faded, it was because I wanted to change up the color. So, I feel confident that these products are working!





For after the shower, I recently discovered this gem of a product, the Wet Hair Brush.

 I promise, I found it like a week before my last hair appointment, and even the salon had it. I'm pretty sure they had it before and I never noticed. But with a house of four girls, this brush is a miracle worker!! It never hurts to comb out any tangles, and my girls love how easy it is to brush their wet hair. Seriously a game changer, especially if you have fine hair as well and are used to getting tangles easily. Do yourself a favor and run to Target and get yourself one. You will never use another brush again!!


Again, as a girl with fine hair, I have to be careful about letting it get super flat at the roots. Needless to say, if I have time and on a good hair day, lots of teasing is done to help lift 'em on up to Jesus! To help me with that, I use this Big Sexy Hair Root Pump.

A little goes a long way with this bad boy, so I lightly spray my roots and crown area, and IMMEDIATELY blow it dry and lift it with the round brush. It works immediately. Love. it. Don't know how I went so long with flat hair.


My most recent addition to my hair products is this Living Proof 5-in-1 styling treatment.

LOVE it! My fine-hair girls out there know what I mean when I say usually I can never put any products on my roots, let alone all throughout my hair. This product is great about letting me use it all over and working as I'd hoped. I use about a nickel size in my hands and place it all throughout the length of my hair, as well as some on the roots area. I've used this product both at night with wet hair before bed, and at other times just before drying it. It works great either way.



I only wash my hair every 2 sometimes 3 days. I wish I could say I do this because it is so much better for your hair, and that is part of it, but honestly, I do it because I just don't have time to completely *do* my hair every day from start to finish. Not to mention I have naturally oily skin and product an insane amount of oil in my hair. After going most of my life of having to wash my hair every single day in order to not look homeless, I finally started using baby powder as my go-to product. I used it to absorb the oil and I can honestly say this stuff got me through most of my years in high school, bangs and all. But thankfully, the good Lord above let there be dry shampoo. And all God's fine-haired girls said Amen.

I've used TONS of dry shampoo products, from the expensive stuff to the $2.50/bottle stuff. Right now my absolute favorite is this Bastite in the Tropical scent.

First of all, it works great. Second, it smells like you just stepped foot into a pina colada. Amazing. It mentally takes me to Hawaii every time. Perfect for these Spring/Summer days!!

I try to wash, dry, and curl my hair on day 1, then sleep on it with an elastic hair band that won't leave a dent like these:

Then on day two, I wake up and spray it with the dry shampoo, brush it out, and am free to style it anyway I need to. It looks, feels and cooperates even better than it did on day one every time. 

End of Day 2 hair. Not bad considering underneath it is nothing but oily, flat hair!

The key to having great hair on day 2 and 3 for me is using those products throughout the length of my hair on day one! It makes a world of a difference. 

Day 3, I only need to apply about half the amount of dry shampoo. This day I can usually wear my hair up and it has lots of volume and is very easy to tease because it has great texture. Sometimes if I didn't sleep too rough on it the night before I can even get away with re-styling it with the curling or flat iron and wearing it down again. To me, as a busy mama of four, this is like winning the lottery! Love it when I get an extra day of wearing my hair down and it took no longer than 10 minutes total. 

For a wet hair/wavy look, I just started using sea-salt spray in my hair at night before I throw it into a bun. I'm going to keep playing with this style and see if I can perfect it before I share all the products that go into it. So far, I'm having a hard time getting my hair to fully air dry at night when it is pulled up tight in a bun. So when I take it down the next day, it is partially wavy and the rest is wavy but wet, so when it air dries, it dries straight. Not the look I was going for ;)

Well, so far, that's all I've got in this First Edition of In Case You Were Wondering.

Wondering about anything else? Ask me in the comments section or email me. I realize I'm not that interesting at all, but if you're anything like me, it is always fun getting some tips on good products without having to risk wasting your money up front! 

Hope you all have a fab hair day!!

Tuesday Weekend Wrap-Up

Hallelujah, Praise Jesus... it is Spring time in Georgia.

I always love this time of year. I'm a spring baby, so naturally I perk up a little bit every year around April. I can't help but thank God for all of the visual beauty he gives us each Spring. Not to mention all the lovely pollen. I could easily go without that, but I remind myself that the final outcome of pretty flowers and green leaves is worth it compared to the bare limbs and dreary days of Winter.

Our family had a fairly low-key weekend. Last week the local schools were on Spring Break all week, including Callie's pre-K, so we spent several days meeting up with our non-homeschooling friends at parks for some fun day-time playing.

I was able to work on a couple of projects at home since we didn't have a strict schedule, Kyle worked an earlier shift for a few days so he was home earlier than usual, and with the weather being so nice it was just a great week overall.

Friday I took the kids up to Phipps Plaza to have lunch with Kyle's mom, sister, and nephew. After lunch they took all three girls with them to Lego Land and Preston and I went to Lenox and shopped around for a few hours. It was fabulous. Do I need to even go on from there? ;)

Preston loved Anthropologie so much he asked me to feed him on one of the super comfy couches they have in there so we could continue to smell all the pretty candles  and relax. 

Lego Land fun lasted a bit longer than I was anticipating, so we didn't end up getting home til after 7. Thankfully Kyle was already home from work and ready and waiting to help me with the kids because I had a super fun night planned ahead!

Several of the girls met up for dinner and fun at a nearby restaurant both for a GNO and to celebrate Missy's birthday! There were lots of laughter to the point of tears, fun conversations, and oh yeah, good food. Always love being around my people and taking a breather from life and homeschooling.

Missy & Lauren. love these girls. for real. don't know what I'd do without 'em!

I think the funniest part of the night was when I got back home. It was late but not THAT late. Maybe 11? I didn't want to wake up the kids so I was super quiet when coming in the house. I used the flashlight on my iPhone so I wouldn't turn on the lights and wake them or the dog up. I was doing some things in the kitchen (AKA cleaning up their dinner and starting the dishwasher) before I came up for bed, all by way of said flashlight, when it dawned on me, about 5 minutes later, that I am indeed a grown up and there is no need to be sneaking around my own house. I can turn on the lights if I need to. Cue another laugh-til-you-cry moment (and in the kitchen by myself at that).

Saturday morning we all slept in. I say that loosely because what it really means is Camryn and I slept in (after multiple feedings throughout the night and early morning), and the rest of the family was up by 7 and hung out down stairs. The rest of the day, Kyle and my dad worked on the tree house that Kyle is building for the kids. He is about half way done, and this project is no. joke.  When its all said and done, we'll practically have a guest house in the trees.

While Kyle and Dad worked, and the girls played in the yard, Preston and I snuck off after lunch time for a little afternoon shopping. We are having Charleigh's birthday party at our house this coming weekend (a week before her actual birthday) so a trip to Hob Lob was a must. What was supposed to be a "quick" trip to HL and Target of course took 4 hours. The joy of strolling slowly along with just one child is priceless.



Saturday night we had dinner with my parents and came home to relax and get ready for Sunday worship.

Sunday morning our Seattle family flew in town to stay for a week of fun Georgia-only activities, and we met them for lunch after church before heading home for naps. Sunday night we went back to church and then had little family Target trip so I could buy a rain jacket and a few groceries, before heading home in the rain to have cereal for dinner and crash early. That worked out perfectly and Kyle and I both agreed we are pretty sure we want to spend every Sunday night doing an evening grocery run together as a family. It was just easy and didn't take long.

Monday was of course Co-Op, our second-to-last community day of the year! The girls are excited to share their knowledge at their presentation night coming up next week. I've been letting Callie come to Co-Op mostly every week, but sometimes I did let her to go Pre-K instead, depending on what they had going on at school. I brought her with us this week and plan on taking her with us for the last day next week. Can't believe another CC year is coming to an end! Love our curriculum and have so enjoyed this school year.


Today (Tuesday) was spent hanging out at home with our Seattle family (The Gray's) and then Kyle took Joe and the boys to the Braves Game while all the girls and Preston went to the Chick-fil-A Luau for dinner. Of course we loved sharing our treat of a CFA restaurant with Stacy. It was a gorgeous evening, despite it being cloudy, and we thoroughly enjoyed just relaxing outside by the waterfall after dinner.  We totally felt like we weren't even in town the whole evening!

in the words of our favorite comedian, Andy Andrews, "He's a fine ball PRAYer and a fine young man!"

Jared, Logan, and Preston 

Hope you enjoy the new look of the blog! It has been a long-time coming and basically the entire reason I took time off from writing.

Looking forward to the rest of the week's activities... golf carting around PTC, Stone Mountain, my birthday, and Charleigh's party on Saturday. Should be a week filled with lots of sweet memories!! So happy our cousins are here to visit!

Hope you all are having a great week and are enjoying the beautiful season God has given us! Don't forget your Zyrtec ;)

A Week in the Life with Four {so far}

I'm using this post as an opportunity to record what our every-day life has been like in general lately. I personally love reading day-in-the-life type things from other people, so that's how I'll make it for ya'll. :)


A typical week in our home
Sunday-

 A typical week for us always begins with worship on Sunday. It can be a bit of a fiasco trying to get all four kids dressed-up and out the door, so naturally, Sunday mornings begin on Saturday night. I get everything laid out head-to-toe for each person before I go to bed on Saturday. Ironing and shoes included! If I don't do this, we are guaranteed to be thirty minutes late to church. We usually come home and rest all afternoon, unless I have a meeting for Becoming on something else church-related. Occasionally I will hit up the grocery store during that time, but that's usually only if I have put if off that long. Sunday nights, depending on the kids, we will either stay home or go back to church for an evening bible study. Then home to prepare for Monday!
Monday- 
Co-Op day! We all attend our weekly homeschool academic-based Co-Op from 9-12 every Monday morning. Every other week I take Callie with us, the other weeks she goes to Pre-K. We will stay for lunch so I have to make sure lunches are made and bags are packed and go over the kids presentation topics with them all the night before. Sometimes we go to Chick-fil-A with friends afterward if we don't stay to eat on campus. After co-Op I make a mad dash to get home and get those kids in the bed! We're all pretty tired when we get home, so nap time is a must, and I try to never schedule anything for the rest of the day on Monday (except for Becoming days). While the little's are napping, I will work on math, grammar, and reading with Cam. We eat dinner at home, although if I don't make dinner ahead of time or in the crock pot, this is usually the night I fight off the urge decide not to take everyone to the pizza buffet at Partner's Pizza instead of trying to come up with something. I can't remember the last time I gave in to that urge, yet I still fight it weekly! Just not worth it though. The kids all have an early bedtime for sure. After bedtime I make Callie's lunch (or PLAN to, at least), and have her clothes- head-to-toe- ready to go for in the mornings.
Tuesday- Wednesday- Thursday: I start every morning by getting Preston up at 7 to feed and change him, drink my coffee, chat with Kyle or do a devotional while nursing.  I try to go to the gym at least on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, at 6. If I don't go before everyone is up, then I just don't get to go! When I get home, usually Kyle has already woken the crew up and they are eating breakfast around the table. I help Callie get ready, then take her to Pre-K from 8:30-12:30. During that time I teach Camryn and I get all school work, laundry, bills, phone calls, and lunch done before it's time to get Callie. 

hot chocolate makes math and busy bags a lot more exciting!

The house in general is just more quiet then, so I try to keep the focus on all things-that-require-less-noise tasks so we can get them done and knock 'em out fast. I LOVE taking time to sit with Charleigh and read to her alone while Cam does her independent work. It has become more and more important to me over the last year or two to get to have alone time with each child. Reading is by far the best way to utilize that time!  In the afternoons, after quiet time from 1-3 for the younger girls, if the weather is nice enough they play outside, if not they play inside. We aren't in sports this season just yet (starting son though) so we rarely have somewhere to be during the week. We also have play dates several times per week a lot at this time of day, and I just try to let them burn out as much energy as possible before dinner. I try to read aloud to them around 4 or 5ish. That's not set in stone each day but we all love reading a chapter book together, if we don't get to in the afternoon I try to make time for it before bed. I have recently fallen IN LOVE with reading aloud to my kids, now that Callie is more interested in it. I enjoy having conversations about our book and hearing the girls' perspective of it and their favorite parts. If we get to read in the afternoon, the story is definitely a topic of conversation around our dinner table. Afternoons are also free-play for all 3 of them, so they are filled with lots of exciting dress-up shows and tea party's. :)

 In the evenings, we usually end up eating dinner around 7:00. I would prefer it to be more like 6:30, but it is such a gamble depending on how things are with Preston's schedule. Kyle gets to join us a few nights per week, if he can get home before 8. If things are looking like we are going to eat dinner after 7, then I have everyone bathed/showered before dinner. If we get to eat before 7, then we do baths/showers after dinner and I try to have the younger girls in bed before 8. Cam gets to stay up later until 9-9:30. I like to give her special privileges, since she is the oldest, in order to compensate for some of the extra work she pulls compared to her sisters. This includes "Duggar Tuesdays" when the show is airing a new season, we will watch the newest episode of 19 Kids and Counting together. It's off-season right now, so we've been watching Fixer Upper together. I really enjoy having a show or something to watch with just her, and she looks forward to that time to have snuggles with mama :)
Fridays: Fridays are FREE days, most of the time! I let the kids sleep in (which the younger girls usually never do), and if we don't have a play date set up then we all go in our pj's to chick-fil-a for breakfast in the drive thru. We come home and I let them watch endless amounts of tv (just kidding- usually) and we work on fun stuff like art projects, home projects (or deep cleaning like last friday!), and I make lists and plans for our weekend ahead. This is usually when I meal plan so I have my list ready to go for whenever I get around to buying groceries on the weekend. We usually eat at home or at least never make plans for Friday nights since Kyle's work schedule is so up in the air for when he'll get home. If he gets home early enough and I'm up for an adventure, and we don't have plans with friends or to go on a date on Saturday night, then we'll go out for dinner. We've found that going out with our kids is not fun unless we meet friends for dinner. Then it's more worth it ;)
Weeknights: I aim for us to eat dinner at home every week night, but occasionally we will go out for dinner on Wednesday night before bible study (if we are able to make it), or on a night that I just don't have the desire to cook, and Kyle can get home early enough. But most of the time, especially since having Preston, it is just so much easier to stay home, save money, and be done with it! We do have a few week night traditions, that we rarely miss, such as "Taco Tuesday" -we eat mexican themed food that night, and "Brinner Thursday"- breakfast for dinner!
Weekends: Weekends are filled with fun! If we have a few social events on the calendar ahead of time, I try to schedule us one weekend per month where we just stay home and work at the house. Sometimes its fun projects like painting or a special project, and sometimes its not-so-fun things like taking down your Christmas decor on February the 1st. Yep. I said it. Real life here. Every weekend on Friday or Saturday night or both of them, I spend hanging out in our bedroom doing laundry while I watch the Middle or HGTV. Definitely relaxing, although I don't know why that is since I have to make myself do laundry during the week. ha!
The biggest change: So far, since Preston entered our family, the biggest change is  definitely the house work.  With stopping to nurse every 2-3 hours, homeschooling in the mornings (and sometimes during afternoon nap time), meal prep and feeding our family in general, running errands and social activities,  there really are just so many hours in a day and only so much time I actually have to GIVE to my poor ole' house and the labor of love that goes into it all. I spent two straight days recently just focusing strictly on getting the house work caught up, and it was the best gift I could ever give myself. I have so much clarity and am in general more productive when I'm not constantly distracted by being behind on everything.
The laundry is still taking a while to get caught up, but I have found that doing a minimum of three loads per day, start to finish, and being sure the clothes that each person wore that day is included into one of those loads does help me to get all caught up on it much faster than trying to wait for a magical nonexistent day in the future that I could ever possibly get it all caught up at once.
 I am grateful for a helping husband who does his best to help when he can, and is especially helpful on the weekends in general. But even our weekends, which used to be filled with fun activities and/or a special house project, have really had to slow down quite a bit and be more focused on quality time as a family and just doing what we can. We've managed to have several date nights out since having Preston, and for that I am grateful! Dates keep us connected, and really just allow me to stop and take a deep breath, and help me to re-evaluate everything and what/if changes need to be made to help make things run more smooth. We also try to have date nights IN a few times a week, usually on our tv nights (Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays). After the kids go to bed we will watch some of our favorite shows together. During off-seasons we will start a show on Netflix and watch it together on those nights, or we read before bed.
The biggest challenge: A week ago I would've said the house work or the laundry. But if I'm being honest with myself, the amount itself of those two things has not really changed much yet. It's more that my time to give to it has changed, since I exclusively breastfeed and homeschool. But throwing in tiny baby clothes does not add much to a laundry pile when you are already washing enough clothes for 5 people daily, plus towels and sheets. The amount of food I buy has stayed the same, but again, I have to make sure I make the time to devote to carefully meal plan and try to be sure I always have allergy-free food available for Charleigh. Eight weeks ago I may have said the biggest challenge was getting all the kids ready to go somewhere, and going somewhere on its own. But honest to goodness, the Lord equips what He calls those to do. I find myself overwhelmed at how natural it comes to me now  to do these things that would have concerned or stressed me out a bit before. I believe God has called me to raise up a bunch of little souls, and through Him, and ONLY Him, I'm somehow capable of doing it without freaking out all the time. Through His Grace, and a little bit of chocolate, I manage to get through each day generally pretty happy. That is, chocolate, Grace, and a lot of kisses! ;)

Errands: If I have any errands to run, and can go when Kyle is home either on a week night or weekend, I try to take one child with me. Kyle does the same if he is going alone. This helps give each child some alone time with each parent. I will often take Callie with me to the bank or a quick-run to the grocery store, and she LOVES to be a helper. She is GREAT at bringing in the groceries when we get home. :)