Lately.

We have been having so much fun lately I have been super slacking on my blogging and even more so taking actual photos beyond my iPhone! I looooooooove sunny summer time. Especially here in KC where the temperatures are proving to be much kinder to us than when we were in Oklahoma!

So what have we been up to lately? First off, we were super excited that our friends, The Pikes, came up to visit the weekend of the 4th. We tend to always make the efforts to be together around the 4th of July and on occasion we do a pre Thanksgiving with them as well! Anywho, they came up along with their crazy cute three girls to spend a few nights with us. We bought a blow up pool for the back yard, bought lots of beer, prepped food for a cookout and brought out all kid toys imaginable. Needless to say Harper was in heaven the entire weekend having little girls around to play with! The 4th was awesome (minus me having to wake up at 4:15 on the 5th to teach two back to back classes at the gym). However, the 5th may have been my favorite day of their visit. Kristen and I snuck away from the kids while the boys watched all 5 of them for a girls morning. We drove down to the plaza and spent a good amount of time at H&M, drank iced green teas, shot on over to Trader Joes to stock up on wine and good snacks, and ended our morning with picking up Chipotle (mmmmmmmmm!). The boys went out that afternoon to ride go karts and then the adults and the bigger kids all went to the Royals game that night. Josh's mom and Anthony rode up to see us that weekend too so they stayed with Paxton and Savannah while the big kids were taken on a special night of baseball and fireworks. It was awesome! 

Last weekend Josh and I celebrated our 5th anniversary! We decided on doing very small gifts for each other and then to go out for a nice dinner. It possibly may have been my favorite anniversary thus far. Typically we plan a trip but this year we are considering going somewhere later in the year so we stayed home. We woke up and took the kids to Chick-Fil-A for breakfast (I know, I know, not  fancy or healthy but the play place in there is awesome!). Afterwords, we ran some errands and when the kids went down for a nap I went to go get a mani/pedi! OMG it was amazing. An entire almost 2 hours by myself getting a little pampering. Then we went home and got all dressed up (which I failed to get a good pic of us looking all fancy) and called a cab to take us out to eat at 801 Chophouse in the Power and Light District. The food was amazing, although I ate waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much. I cannot emphasize how miserable I was after the meal. Like beyond miserable. Lets put it this way....I may or may not have eaten some sourdough bread, bacon wrapped scallops, half of a filet, lobster mac n cheese, broiled and breaded portabello mushrooms AND key lime pie. Besides my (over)eating issues it was by far one of my favorite dates I have ever been on with Josh. We had such beautiful conversation about our life, our kids, our love and our future. It was real and honest and heartfelt and I may or may not have shed a few happy tears. We even kept our iPhones out of sight for the whole thing. Perfection. It was simply one of those nights that will go down in the books. One of those unforgettable nights filled with special moments and words exchanged. I love him. He is so wonderful and I am very thankful that we found each other.

Beyond that we have been pretty low key and not doing a whole lot beyond the house and hanging out as a family. After teaching 5 fitness classes 3 days a week and waking up at 4:00am in the morning I am quite spent by the end of the day. Josh has been working long days as well and then coming home to continue his work so he too is pretty exhausted in the evenings. We are also doing a really good job of cutting back on eating outside of the house and cooking healthy meals every night at home. I have found that if I plan out the meals for the week it makes things much easier. Plus I am always looking for fun new recipes because I'll be damned if I am going to only eat grilled chicken and veggies to be healthy. Blehhhh.

Any who, I think I am finished with my ramblings. Can you believe I wrote an entire post and didn't really mention the kids?! Weird. I'll have to dedicate a blog post to each one of them soon because I know you are all dying to know the craziness they are up to. =)

 Sweet, clean Harp vs. ornery dirt covered Pax. Tride and true boy vs. girl around here!