If you saw on stories you know what we took Rylee to the dog park. At first I didn’t think she would know how to play on all the obstacles but she got the hang of it so quickly! It was really fun to watch the kids teach her new tricks! I think they were just as excited about it all as Rylee was!

The really great thing about this KOA is where it is located. There are so many really cool things to do in the area! We found THE BEST restaurant called Po House that was only about 10 minutes away. Holy cow guys, the food was SOOOO delicious and the view was incredible! We ended up staying out until 9:00 because we were enjoying ourselves so much!
One of the days we drove down to the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. Man did it live up to my expectations! It was so gorgeous and the history surrounding it was enchanting and mind boggling. Below are houses that the lighthouse keepers lived in with their family, and in one of the pictures you can see the original foundation from the lighthouse that was built over 100 years ago! They had to move the lighthouse because the ocean was getting too close but they kept the original stones on the new site. On each stone is the name of the lighthouse keepers. It was just so fascinating!! David and I decided that if we lived 100 years ago this is where we would want to be!

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The entire weekend I just kept thinking how much I was in love with our life and our family. We were so grateful to be able to stay at a wonderful KOA and have so many new experiences together! If you haven’t been to the Outer Banks yet I highly recommend it and check out either of the two KOAs that are in the area and see which is the right fit for you and your family!

Popsicles, kids and summer are the perfect combination right? I mean, can you even get through day one of warm weather without a boat load of fruit and popsicles?! The kids and and were super excited to partner with Chilean grape to share a super easy and VERY delicious recipe! If you check out my stories you can see the girl’s how to video on making them! They are pros! Hahaha
These popsicles are a quick and easy treat! All you need are grapes and your favorite liquid. We used coconut water!

Day 65 at home. Or maybe it's 6,500, who really knows?! Haha! Like most of you we are learning to get really creative with how we are entertaining ourselves and it is leading to some really wonderful experiences and memories! We recently picked up a bunch of new Peppa Pig toys from Jazwares that the kids have been playing with a ton lately.  Jazwares created these Surprise Balloons that have a different set of themed Peppa Pig characters, the kids were so excited opening them up and comparing the different sets! The other night they gifted us tickets to their show and boy was it hilarious! If y'all want to watch it head on over to my stories and get a glimpse at the amazingness.   

It was such a treat to be able to partner with Jazwares and the Peppa Pig Family to have the girls put on a show for us. Their different sets include surprise toys which is always such a hit with kids! Wyatt's favorite by far of course was the car that drives itself and makes noise! To make it easier on y'all I have linked the different sets that the kids have. If you end up making your own video with them tag me, I'd love to see it! ​

A lot of you followed along in our stories the other weekend when we were able to stay at the Chetola Resort in Blowing Rock. It was SUCH A BLAST!!! We were all so pleasantly surprised at how comfortable we were there! The condo we stayed in had literally everything you would need while on vacation (and a lot more)! My family used to go on big ski trips every year with our whole family. Being at this condo reminded so much of that time and all the fun we had piling into a condo sleeping all over the place. This resort would be IDEAL for big family trips!! I have saved all my videos in a highlight but on my Instagram, you can do a tour of where we stayed and see all the amazing perks.

One of the things I loved the most about the Chetola Resort was how much they have going on at the property. You could have your vacation never leaving the property and be 100% happy. There are the beautiful trails windy through the resort, a s’mores bonfire at night on the weekends, live music, YOGA, and so much more! The kids were so excited about the s’mores. One of the evenings we had dinner at their AMAZING restaurant, Timberlake’s, and there was live music playing! It was such a fun surprise! Wyatt cracked us up, he was so exhausted from all the fun that he fell asleep right at the table.

If you eat at Timberlake’s you HAVE to try their Ahi Tuna Nachos. I day dream about them they are so good! We all devoured them and cold have eaten them at every meal if it was socially acceptable! 😅 Okay, I’m gong to go see if I can get them delivered. A 3 hour drive for delivery wouldn’t be too much to hope for right?!

I think the crayon really make this photo of the Ahi Tuna Nachos truly amazing and drool worthy!

We have been to Blowing Rock a few times since moving to North Carolina but this was BY FAR the best experience yet! No one was ready to leave. If you are planning on traveling to the Blue Ridge Mountains you need to do your best to stay at Chetola Resort! It a short drive from the resort to the Parkway, to Hawksnest and Appalachian Ski Resort!

Oh and guys! There are a handful of swans on the property and it is THE COOLEST! They are so much bigger and more beautiful than I had imagined! We were all in love with them.

You know that super annoying phrase “look on the bright side!” It typically processed something ridiculouly stupid like spilling your drink on your shirt, or your kid peeing on the floor.
Well, I’ll let you in on my little secret. I am normally the one saying that phrase! Today Wyatt peed on my foot while I was making a post about self control and patience. How ridiculous right?! Well as I was on my hands and knees cleaning up yet another puddle I thought, “well, at least my floors are getting a good cleaning! I typically don’t scrub them like this!” I know, you can quietly hate me a little for being miss cheery in that moment.

If you have been following me for any length of time you know that I have my days, or months. I am pretty open about the struggles and reality of mothering and homeschooling 4 kids. BUT lately I have been making big strides with myself. I have forced myself to get up before the kids so that I don’t wake up to demands of breakfast and after we are done with school for the day we have mandatory “leave mom alone” time. It might sound weird to some of y’all but the kids know that during this tim they are to help each other out as much as possible and let me brain rest. Some days it isn’t long but it helps so much.

I have also tried really hard to put things into perspective. I feel like this has been one of the most beneficial things for me to be able to look on the bright side. The other day when we were working on grammar one of my kids absolutely flipped. Like shove the table, scream and throw her pencil at the wall. (Too much honesty?? Hahah) In that moment OF COURSE I was frustrated, well first shocked then confused then frustrated, then about 10 seconds later it hit me. ON THE BRIGHT SIDE isn’t it wonderful that she is here at home dealing with these huge emotions instead of at school either shoving those feelings deep down and exploding on one of us when she got home, or letting her emotions out and getting in trouble or having 20 eyes judging her.
Here she is safe. Here she has a mother that can get to the root of the problem with her. Here she can walk away and take a breather so that she can move forward with the day.

I feel like I could talk about this forever and really easily sound super cheesy but friends, it works! It so works! If looking on the bright side is not something that comes really natural for you force yourself to try any ways. Try it on everything! Right now a big storm is starting to roll through. My husband is 30 minutes away at work and I’m feel vulnerable living on the lake and none of our neighbors are home. It was starting to get real anxiety. Then I choose to force myself to look on the bright side. Yes there is a tornado warning. BRIGHT SIDE: how lucky are we that we have a basement we could go to for safety. BRIGHT SIDE: I put dinner in the instapot earlier today because we typically have tumbling and evening are crazy. Tumbling is canceled but now dinner if ready so if we lose power in the storm we will have a great meal waiting for us anyways. BRIGHT SIDE: The closest fire station is Less than a mile from our house. so if anything happened help is literally 2 minutes away. BRIGHT SIDE: my kids are all here with me so we can get through the storm together.

No matter now small your bright side might be I promise you it will help Every. Time.

I think we can all agree that once school starts things get soooo crazy. Even though we are homeschooling I feel like our weeks are jam packed! Now more than every it is really important for our family to make sure we take time each day to just enjoy each other. A favorite way we do this by playing tag in the back-yard. I am not sure what it is about playing tag but it turns everyone into kids. Their giggles and squeals are the perfect way to end our day. This back to school season we have partnered with Academy Sports + Outdoors to share how they are a one stop shop to get the whole family not only back to school but back playing outdoors. I love that they have so many different brands to choose from and a wide variety of prices that allow you to work with any kind of budget!

The only problem with shopping at Academy is that I want eeeeverything! Hahaha but really, there are so many super cute outfits! I love that I can get shoes, clothing and outdoors gear for the entire family in one place. I had to show some self control when shopping so I didn’t buy the whole store, so instead, I added some photos below of what I have my eye on for when the weather cools down a bit! (Anyone else LOVE fall clothing? I don’t know why but I am obsessed with leggings and sweatshirts.)

Okay, I shouldn’t have done that because now I think I need to go get those backpacks ASAP. Its so fun because the girls’ style is evolving and turning into something that I really love as well. Gone are the days of character everything and we are (very joyously) welcoming an era of stylish little cuties! I need to step away from my computer because I just accidentally added all of that stuff to my shopping cart and my will power is fading! 🤣🤣🤣 But really, how am I supposed to say no to those black and floral Nikes??

Can y’all believe how big Kate looks in these photos? Put some athletic clothes on her and her hair up and she instantly looks 12. {I’m not crying, you’re crying!}
I know everyone talks about back to school shopping but at Academy Sports + Outdoors you can do back to school and back to sports shopping all in one place! {as well as shopping again each time the weather changes because you cant have too many cute athletic clothes right?}
For your viewing pleasure I have added a slideshow of the girls trying to jump at the same time. I cant stop laughing at it!

Okay for real guys, what is going on with this summer?! It’s like our bodies haven’t gotten on board with the fact that it isn’t winter! They have had a cough/runny noses ALLLLL summer! Anyone else have a summer like this? We finally found Nosiboo and are absolutely in love! It makes all the snotty noses so much easier to manage!

This cute little bear face belongs to the Nosiboo Pro. It is a nasal aspirator that you can plug into your wall. There are many different suctions strengths to choose from so you can find the one that best fits your needs. Something that I really love about it is how easy it is to clean. As show above the collection area can all come apart giving you the confidence that it is 100% clean!

If you have been on the fence about purchasing a Nosiboo I promise you, it is 100% worth it! This morning Wyatt was having such a hard time breathing and he is still too young to blow his nose effectively. I was so so happy to be able to pull our aspirator out and in a couple minutes he was breathing much easier! The girls always think it’s hilarious because the collection area is clear. If you can imagine it results in a TON of giggles. Honestly I think it is something that makes the whole process even easier because they see it as kind of a game. Hahaha.

I highly suggest you give the Nosiboo Pro a try for yourself (just in time for back to school sicknesses!). With everything that we as parents have on our plates let Nosiboo handle all the snotty yuck!

Our kids are VERY good at vacationing. I don’t know what it is but give them even a motel down the road and they are living the good life. It is all just so exciting to them. When we drove down to Kissimmee to stay at Windsor at Westside which gave us a huge house inside a resort they basically felt like they had died and gone to Heaven. But who and I kidding, we all felt that way! It was seriously so perfect. They kids got to experience sleeping in their own bedrooms, we had our own pool and hot tub and just down the road was a splash pad, pool, lazy river and arcade. We had all these big plans for things we wanted to take the kids to go do but honestly they just wanted to hang out at the house. It was kind of a win win. Wyatt would have been happy to each fruit pool side the entire week!

I mean really, could he get any cuter??!?!

One of the kids favorite games was “dad fishing”. They would try to swim across the hot tub without being captured by dad. As you can see they didn’t win very often! Hahaha. Oh man, looking at all these photos makes me want to plan my next vacation!! Look how happy they all are!

One of my favorite things was that it really felt like a home away from home. We didn’t have to leave the pool to put Wyatt down for a nap when he was tired. We could just go take him to his room for a peaceful getaway then continue playing in the back yard while he snoozed. It was super clear that Jane’s favorite thing was having her own room. Every morning she woke up and told us how nice it was to sleep in such a quite room (it didn’t hurt that she also had a king size bed to stretch out in! Hahah).

So I guess really my goal in life is to create a life where the weekends feel like vacation. Where our home feels like a vacation. We are getting one step closer all the time. We are living in the sunshine and have a lake front house. But in reality its more than that isn’t it. It’s the frame of mind. I am not very good at just letting loose and relaxing. I can do it in spurts but when I am home I just see all the things that need to be done. How do y’all balance life and a vacation mind set? For me one of the biggest things is the house. I need to get better about keeping it clean so that on the weekends I’m not forces to clean the entire house all at once! (Any organization tips welcomed!!)

I’m not sure synchronized diving is in their future. Oh man, but how cool would that be?! Hmmm... I might look into that now. I did tumbling and trampoline as a kid and I always said that if I had two kids they would do synchro tramp. What do you think would be cooler if you could pick something for your kid to do (and they actually did it and loved it) Snychro Trampoline or Synchro Diving??

If any family or friends want to come stay with us just raise your hand! We are ready to go back!!

the kids swimsuits are form TicTac Babies and Roolee

Dang, Jane had so many more teeth the last time I posted! haha.  In all honesty I am completely surprised at how much has changed since I was last in this space. I have been missing it though. I really love documenting our life and sharing the things we love but it's hard to fit that all into Instagram. This blog used to be a place to collect all my thoughts, our adventures, and the extra photos. I think I need to make a habit of that again. Not that y'all particularly missed it, but I did. 

So much has happened and I don't think I could adequately bridge the gap so we are just going to start fresh. As of right now my girls are all in school and absolutely loving it and I am trying to balance all the other aspects of life. We have a contract on a house here in the same neighborhood and if all goes as planned we will get to move in at the end of the month!! Like a good mom I planned two things without remembering my own daughter's birthday so it is going to be a jam packed and overly exciting last week of April! We are supposed to close, the next day is Kate's birthday, then the day after that we head to Florida to stay in an awesome VRBO and go to HARRY POTTER WORLD!! Speaking of which, I still haven't bought tickets for all of that. Honestly I was overly surprised when I saw how much it all cost and I think I have been in denial since. I guess it's time to pull the trigger though!!

As I am sure y'all have gathered from the overabundance of photos in our backyard we are absolutely LOVING living on a lake. Just about every day after school they girls head out back to play in the water. Have no fear, I have worked with all of them on ISR swimming and all three girls, yes, even 3 year old Kate, can swim laps in the pool all by themselves. Wyatt is getting really good at floating and is improving every day. Today it was very exciting because he was consistently turning himself over to his back to float! He is overly obsessed with jumping off the wall (which he then floats and gets to the wall to pull himself out) and swimming to the stairs. I will try to post some videos of the girls swimming the next time we all go, it's so fun to see them all thriving in the water! 

All in all life has been really good to us down here. We miss a lot of things about Alaska but this is home now and we are building out community. I hope y'all enjoyed these behind the scenes photos of our life! 

We moved away three weeks ago and in those three weeks we have stretched and grown more than I could have ever imagined. I can say without a doubt that no matter where we are living the most important thing really is family! I mis amy husband dearly but I am so so grateful to have this pint sized crew by my side. They are such a great reminder of how magical the Holiday Season is!! They are filled with so much wonder and excitement it makes every day feel like a party.

Something that we really love doing; especailly this time of year, is giving back to others near and far. It can be small things like making cookies for our neighbors or larger acts of kindness such as making care packages for homeless shelters. A simple thing we have been working on is showing kindness to those around us. We smile at others as we pass, give compliments to brighten someone’s day and help others when we see they are in need. This Holiday season we are teaming up with Gymboree to promote their campaign Give Happy I love that my kids are already learning to Give Happy!

To help us get ready for the Holiday season (read: make sure my kids are stylin’ in all those holiday photos that will last a lifetime) Gymboree has outfitted our kids with the cutest clothing from their Holiday Line! They have so many adorable an affordable styles to choose from. It was wonderful to get outfits that fit my kids unique personalities. My favorite part of their Holiday Line is that all of their styles go so well together so I can outfit all four kids separately and still have a cohesive look. Yay for not having to work hard to coordinate!! Head on over to their website to check out all their cozy mix and match holiday pieces and create your own holiday look!