Playful Rooted

Okay buddies, first thing’s first because this is time-sensitive and I don’t want anyone to miss out! One of my favorite fitness accounts is Tone It Up; I’ve been following them for years. They’ve built an amazing community that’s all about positivity, confidence, and reaching your potential. I love it. They have a ton of free workouts on YouTube, but they also have an app that they launched a couple years ago, and this month, the app is 100% free! I know it’s already September 8th, but that means there are still three more weeks of free access to tons and tons of workouts! They have a GREAT postnatal section that I’ve really been enjoying lately. There are a bunch of workouts that are QUICK, which all the mamas out there can appreciate. My favorite so far is the Quiet Cardio for when you need to work out during naptime without waking the baby! It’s only 10 minutes, but you can always do it twice if you have the time…..or the endurance. (I do not yet. One day!)

Onto what we’ve been up to:

It’s cool today (finally!!), but lately, we’ve been suffering through some 100 degree/9,000,000% humidity level days around here. It’s been tough to stay outside for very long! So we’ve recently been back on the “scramble for indoor activities that will keep the kids occupied and happy” train, which led us me to create this toilet-paper-roll-and-construction-paper jet pack. I was surprised at how well it held up (all day!) and how much entertainment he got out of it. Creativity (and recycling!) for the win.

My little Sawyer Boy just kills me in this photo. The blond shaggy hair. That little curl at the back. The tummy. The diaper. The little foot. The eyelashes. The chubby arm. Almost 14 months and he just keeps getting yummier.

Ben turned 35 last weekend (or as I like to remind him, he’s halfway to 70). We didn’t have a big party, but we had a lot of fun celebrating at home with the boys. They were happy to help him open presents. 😉

Our sunflowers reached the point last week when it was time to harvest the seeds! We had three plants which each got to around 10 feet tall, which I still think is INSANE since they started from one tiny seed just a few months ago. Nature is amazing. And these are the best sunflower seeds I’ve ever eaten!

Speaking of garden-y things, we are now fully into Operation Kill The Grass in preparation for our garden expansion next season. This is honestly the biggest lesson I learned from growing a garden this year! You must. Kill. The. Grass. It was a huge mistake to let the pumpkin vines (to the left of Luca in this photo) ramble across the ground without first killing the grass. We had chiggers like crazy because of the tall grass (read: tons of horrible, itchy bites in my armpits), plus tons of vine borers that I couldn’t see to eradicate. The only saving grace was that the pumpkin vines rerooted throughout the plot, so we’re still getting plenty of healthy pumpkins, but it was a huge and risky mistake to leave the grass there. Rookie move.

So we’re currently using clear plastic sheeting to kill the grass in this photo, then after we harvest all the pumpkins, we’ll remove the vines and kill the grass underneath, too. In the spring, we’ll build two more raised beds on those bare plots. I honestly want to kill ALLLLLL the grass in our whole yard now (especially after reading this book!). I’m a very gung-ho person; when I decide I want to do something, I am ALL IN, but Ben is a little more measured, so we’re doing it a little at a time. Snooze. Regardless, I’m excited. Good riddance, grass!

My parents were able to visit last week for the first time in an entire year. I’m so glad they finally got to come and spend some time with the kiddos. Sawyer is a completely different person now; Luca, of course, is too, but the transformation from 6-week-old newborn to 13-month-old toddler is just enormous. We had a great time with them here, and it was so special to see my parents playing with my kids. ❤

This week, we’re reveling in the cooool weather (both boys are in long-sleeved shirts today!!), enjoying a couple play dates with friends, and restarting homeschool preschool for Luca. It’s the first day of school in our district, so it feels like the right time. We started this curriculum half-heartedly last year, but I’m excited to start it again and really dig into it this time. He’s so ready and eager to learn, and I can’t wait to see how he progresses this year.

Have a happy week!

xo!