Visitors

We just enjoyed a long holiday weekend and grandma Shelley and grandpa Tim were in town to spend it with us. Max loved this and he loves his grandparents...all of them, so he had the best time.

We decorated the new 9 foot tree.

Went to dinner.

Had Froyo because Max and grandpa love Froyo.

Decorated the house with lights.

The Elf appeared. There is a story to this elf that I will have to explain in another post.

Made a ginger bread house.

Had another Thanksgiving at our house with just the five of us. This way we had leftover turkey and i got to use my dining room table.

We ended the long weekend with the grandparents by eating tacos and watching the Packer game.

Max was sad to see them go, but he's pretty excited to fly to Wisconsin on an airplane soon to see all of his grandparents.

Happy Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving with our Arizona family, the Seiferts. Of course we made grandma's buns for the occasion and this year they turned out excellent. The past few years they were a bit dense...ok, a lot dense. We figured out the problem, basically we are impatient, and slowed down a bit and the buns turned out awesome. We were proud!

Max helped me make the cranberry sauce in the morning. He was so happy to do this. He just loves to cook.

We then hit up the park for some play time before we headed up north and played in the driveway on Max's very fast scooter. 

We typically take a family photo, but we didn't this year. Basically, we forgot. Plus, Max was having so much fun all afternoon that I just didn't want to interrupt his fun. It was a long day for everybody, but a fun day spending it with family and friends. We wish all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Girls Weekend

This past weekend my girlfriends and I hit the road to Palm Springs for a day of shopping and another day of rest and relaxation. I have the best circle of friends near and far and it's important just to get away from the craziness of life and laugh uncontrollably...and that we did all weekend long.

While I was away Max had a fun filled weekend with daddy. They went to the zoo.

Played in the sandbox.

They baked cookies together and watched football. Max told me when I got home that the Packers are his favorite team and the Bears are stinky! That's what happens with a weekend alone with daddy. Of course while I was away we FaceTimed because I can't go three days without seeing my favorite little man.

It was a much needed time away and I am so thankful for the friends that I have in my life. I look forward to our 2017 shopping trip.

Throw Back Thursday

On this Thursday I am throwing it back to October since I missed a couple posts that I should have done. Halloween weekend we carved pumpkins. Max was all excited until it was time to scoop out the guts of the pumpkin...then he was not having it. He was not interested in getting his hands dirty, so daddy scooped out the pumpkin for him.

Max was happy to supervise daddy when it came time to carve the face that Max and I drew together. Max made sure daddy followed the black lines.

That weekend we also did a fun art project. I colored bubble mixture for Max using food coloring. He then blew the bubbles onto canvas for his artwork. He had fun with this. We are putting his artwork on display in his toy room.

We also took a bike ride to the park. Max loves to ride his big boy bike now that it's not so hot outside.

Why Rodan & Fields?

I joined the Rodan + Fields sales consultant team this past weekend. For those that know me, that's a big deal. I am not a fan of direct sales and I truly dislike people that try to sell to me all the time. This is different though. This is a product I have been using for the past four years. It's a product I believe in and talk about with my friends and family members. It's not sales when you are already inadvertently promoting the product to those closest to you. It's fun and social. With that said, I decided it was time to get a little commission from something I have already been doing for the past four years. It doesn't hurt to have a little side cash.

I have been using the Redefine regimen at night and the Reverse regimen in the morning. I like both regimens for different reasons. The Reverse is great because I have brown sun spots on my face and the regimen definitely reduced the spots and completely removed some of them. I brought this into my morning routine about a year ago to try it and once I started seeing results I just love it. I am so glad there is a product that can help erase the sun damage that I have done to my skin over the past decades. I wish I would have taken before and after pictures from when I started this, but I didn't so I will be posting other people's pictures.

The Redefine is great too. My favorite part is the eye cream that I put on before bedtime. I do not have crows feet and I have no appearance of them beginning. Is it from the cream that I have been using for the past four years? I don't know, but I do know that it's tighter around my eyes since I started using the cream.

 I have the amp roller arriving to the house this week. It's a micro-exfoliating roller that works with a serum to make your skin more firm and youthful. I don't think my skin is super aging, but I do believe in doing things now to your skin to benefit the future of your skin. It's all about preventing what could happen to your skin with aging. So, I can't wait to start using my amp roller.

Now, the last item that I have not tried, but cannot wait to try is the Lash Boost. This looks awesome! It's a serum that you wipe on your eyes nightly. It works at night to lengthen and thicken your lashes. This will eliminate you having to get eyelash extensions. I have not had eyelash extensions, but have always wanted to have them. Now, I can give this a try and see what it does. I have seen others results and it looks amazing. One thing about this product is that it doesn't stain your eyelids like other lash boost products are known to do.

 


Now, I promise you that I won't turn my blog (or other social media accounts) into a sales pitch, but I will keep you posted of any great deals and how my lash boost and amp roller experience is. If you want to take a look around you can shop at https://jkoechel.myrandf.com/. Please feel free to let me know if you have any questions.

Night Out

Saturday night was our first time hiring a babysitter and getting out of the house with our friends. In the past we either took Max with us, or Tayler watched Max when she lived with us. Max doesn't like new people and it takes him forever to warm up so I was a little worried on how it would go. We found a really good babysitter that was referred by a friend. She came to the house a couple weeks ago to meet Max and she brought with her some hot wheels and play-doh. Talk about coming prepared. This girl knew what she was doing and that made me feel better.

Come Saturday night Max was happy to show Ms. Diana a new toy that he recently received. He was not freaking out when she got to the house, but then again we built it up to make it a big deal that Diana was coming to play with him. Then...it was time to leave. Max lost it (like I expected him to) and we had to just walk out of the house. I did feel bad that we had to just leave like that, but it was for the best. On the way to our friend's house I checked the Nest to see if Max was calming down. He wasn't. He was curled up in the corner just bawling his eyes out...but only for 10 minutes. Diana then had him playing a mustache game and hot wheels that she brought with her. In no time he was having fun and that made us happy.

While Max was at home making a friend out of Diana, we were having a wine tasting party at our friend's house. It was a lot of fun! I "won" an in-home wine tasting party at a charity event we went to back in April and we decided to have it at our friend's house. After the hour of wine tasting you could purchase bottles if you would like. Of course after an hour of tasting 8 different bottles of wine the wallets were very easy to open.

We had cheese and cracker boards for the wine tasting. Following that, I put out a crostini bar that turned out better than I thought. It was a lot of fun that people got to assemble their own crostini's. Plus it took some of the work away from me assembling all of the crostini's. We then made our own pizzas that our friend's grilled in their egg.

One Uber ride later and we were home safe and sound to relieve the babysitter. Max survived his first babysitter experience and he was talking about Diana a lot in the morning, how much fun they had and all the activities they did. I will definitely be hiring her again.

Halloween Overview

My favorite holiday of the year came and went just like that. I think it's so fun to get creative and dress up. It's even more fun now that I get to see my son dress up and try to enjoy the holiday as much as I do.

During the day I thought about how this holiday might not be as much fun for Max as it is for me. Think about it: Max is this overly shy boy (this is an understatement) and I am asking him to dress up for Halloween and go up to strangers (he has severe stranger danger) and ask for candy. I started to realize that Halloween for Max might be a little frightening, so I decided that if he doesn't want to go up to houses and ask for candy I won't be upset. I won't make a big deal out of it and I will help him feel comfortable as much as I can.

We ended up trick or treating with our friends in their neighborhood. By the way, this neighborhood goes all out on Halloween with decorations and gives away good candy and even some houses gave away full size candy bars. Jackpot! Max was pretty excited for this (even though he didn't show it to anybody but Andy and I) because he would be trick or treating with Briggs. I held Max's hand the hole time as we went from door to door and I helped him trick or treat as he had fear written all across his face every time he approached a door and a stranger came out. I am proud to say that Max trick or treated for over an hour and he had a great time. I know I had a blast!

This is the best photo Andy got that night.

We get home and put all of Max's hard work into a bowl for him to check out.

Even though this holiday might be frightening for Max right now, he may grow to love it like me, or hate it like his daddy. Either way he said at the end of the night "Mommy knows how to do Halloween and daddy isn't good at Halloween." That's about right kid!