Friday Favorites: Canadian Adventure Part 1

Hi Foxy Friends! I'm actually recapping a trip before several months have passed and then it gets awkward. But I started this blog to remember this time in my life, I need to start actually posting stuff.

Our flight was at 7am, so we were at the airport around 5:30am, Baby Fox (as you can see) was not in the mood to take pictures, he was super tired. Luckily our Aunt and Uncle live about 10 minutes to the airport, so we spent the night at their place the night before, so all we had to do is hop in an Uber and head to the airport.

Not sure how this guy got in there, but it crept Mini Fox out, and she stayed on the opposite side of the seat.

He's taken a nap and in better spirits

Arrived and was greated at the door by Abbie, Deena and Deena's kids with lots of jackets, hats and gloves in hand for us! Boy was it COLD! We went to dinner right away, although it was really lunch for us, but dinner for them, it worked out though. We got back and went swimming right away, the kids had a blast!

Mr. made friends with the cat, they were inseperable...should I be worried?

After the kids went to bed we decided to take a walk and really experience how cold it was. The dogs needed to walk, so we all went.

We tried to take a picture, but it didn't really work out, eh.

 Spent the rest of the night chatting, eating the best cheeseball of my life and then we picked up Alison from the airport around 11pm. It was a hug fest and she loved it (read sarcasm here, we're allowed one hug when we see her and one hug when we leave, she puts up with us, but she keeps coming back, so she MUST like the hugs a little). No pictures here...what were we thinking! Oh and Alison is the master packer...take tips from her.

The next morning, Mini Fox wanted to head outside to help feed the dogs, she could NOT wait to a) pet the dogs b) go out in the snow.

 

Living her dream.

We ate breakfast and then headed outside to tobboganig and Ski-dooing. I don't have nearly enough pictures with Lana, so I told her all the pictures are going to be taken.

That's Mr. right there, off to explore.

Meanwhile my kids learned how to sled.

Then they took a ride on the ski-doo.

Afterwards we headed back to the house for some lunch and Abbie had gone to get her kids from school, and they were so happy to be reunited. It took them a few minutes to warm up to each other, but soon they were attached at the hip. We had brought a few Valentine's for our friends.

A little after lunch we had to leave to get to Waskesiu Lake, but first we stopped to see Abbie's new house being built, so dang cute. Will have to go back and take another picture of these two in the same spot when it's done.

We ended up putting all the guys in one car, then we put the older kids in one car to watch a movie, and then I got to sit with G, she's the cutest.

We stopped at Deena's SUPER generous parents house, and they fed us all dinner. Seriously, the night before, while we were picking up Alison at the airport they said, hey when you stop to get some cross country ski stuff, why don't you eat dinner too, that way you don't have to go out with the 15 of you...so with about 17 hours they threw together a fab dinner for all of us.

We arrived at the Elk Ridge Resort and got settled. Abbie and our family stayed in one cabin, and then everyone else, including Baby Fox stayed over in the other Cabin. The girls were a little hungry after their bath so they got a snack. Hard to get a good picture when food is involved.

Put the girls to bed and then we stayed up and chatted. Girls were doing great sleeping, so we decided to see if we could go see some Northern Lights. First Abbie and I decided to walk outside and about 30 steps outside, we decided it was way too cold and went back to retreive the car and drive around.  But first I had to take a picture with the ice sculpture. It was cold.

We didn't find any lights, but we found a really cool street with no lights, and beautiful trees and stars. We headed back and Abbie took Mr. out to see the same spot, it was so pretty.

The next morning was gorgeous out our window.

Okay so this is getting long and I haven't even gotten to the dog sledding or the ice skating...so we're going to make this a to be continued on Monday! Hope you have a great weekend! We have a full sports schedule, horseback riding, karate, soccer and baseball. Then Mr. is leaving for a trip on Sunday, so I'm taking the kids to the movies. See ya next week!

5 Ways To "Get On Your Bike" And Make Some Mom Friends

Hi Foxy Friends! You must be thinking, how can getting on your bike, make you friends? Let me tell you a story. Back, about 10 years ago, I was at my cousins graduation party from college and my uncle was giving a speech about my cousin. Saying how charismatic he was and how easily he made friends. Then he went onto say that when they moved, he had no neighborhood friends, so he simply got on his bike and went door to door looking for friends. Ever since that speech Mr. and I would tell each other, we need to get on our bikes to make some friends. So I'm giving you 5 ways to "get on your bike" and make some Mom friends.

| ONE |  Take Initiative

When we first moved to our city, I had one friend, but she didn't have kids yet. You know how that is, when you have kids and they don't...it's harder to get together and too many months pass before you see them again.  It is a daunting task to try and make friends in a new city. Where to begin? This part can be scary, you have to take the initiative to find friends. I went online, searched "MOM Groups" in my city, and a bunch popped up. To be honest I can't even remember when the group was called, it was an app...not even Facebook. It was like findfriends, or something...but I said, what the heck. we're meeting in public places, I can do this.

| TWO | Show Up

So I went online found peopel to meet up with, and this is important, you have to actually show up! Super scary, to show up to Starbucks and not know what anyone looks like? I just showed up, didn't know anyone, but we all had kids, that's at least one thing in common.  I don't even drink Starbucks, but gosh darn it, I was showing up to find my people. It took many meet ups to find people who got me, but eventually I did.

My first play date with my new friends.

7 years later we're still talking, granted the one on the left moved away, but we still try to get together when we can.

| THREE | YOU Make The Plans

I find that when you are trying to make new friends, if you ask, they will most likely say yes. Most people are not planners.  I am a planner, have you seen my day planner? I like making plans.

So I find a time that works for me, and I sent out a text message or email and say, hey let's have a play date, or let's do a Mom's Night Out...and then it gets the ball rolling. It just takes one person to take the initiative and the rest will fall into place. Am I almost always the one initiating? Yes, but they keep saying yes, so I'll keep planning.


| FOUR | Find Common Activities

What I mean by this is you need to find something you like to do, and you'll find people. After having Baby Fox, I wanted to get back in shape, I had heard (by one of the ladies from the Starbucks meet up), that there was this thing called Stroller Strides (now called FitMoms), I mentioned them here. Basically it's a group that meets outside, with strollers and you go through a series of workout moves, each day is different, and you get to workout with your kids in two. Sometimes we would have 30+ woman all running with their kids from station to station doing different exercises. It was an amazing way to meet friends and to also get Mom advice.

Do you see me?

| FIVE | Make One On One Time

It's all great and dandy have a group of mom friends you meet up at the park. But what we all crave is that person to call or text random photos to.  This part is a little more time consuming, but worth it in the end, you have to  make time for some one-on-one time with your new friend. Whether it is a play date with just the two of you and your kids, or a Mom's night out. Make time to really get to know your new friends, so that your conversation is more than just surface/small talk and you can start talking about things that really matter in your life.

So those are my 5 ways to make Mom friends. I know it can be super scary, but if you put yourself out there first, more times than not, people will welcome you with open arms, because remember they are just like you and probably feel great that someone reached out to them.

Linking up here

A 5th Annual Pumpkin Patch Outing

Friday I had to get some blood drawn, so here's me waiting in the lobby of the hospital...what else is there to do but take a selfie? Discretely of course so no one sees.

For dinner this one asked for pancakes with syrup, and the other one wanted apple pancakes...so they both got what they wanted. For the record she's a good little cook.

That big one closest to you is the apple one. I just made regular pancake mix and then diced up apples. Of course we had bought the bacon thinking we were going to bring it to my aunt and uncle's last week, so we had to make it before it went bad.

Saturday was morning snuggles while Mommy made breakfast.

This is what Mr. wanted for breakfast, bread/cheese/egg/bacon/egg/bacon/egg/cheese/bread. I'm not even kidding, that's the stack he had on this thing.

Mr. had to study so I took the kids on some errands while he studied before soccer time. Of course Target was on the list of places.

We grabbed some lunch from Chick-Fil-A (my first time ordering/going there), note to self, 4 pieces of grill chicken nuggets is not enough  for the girl, but more than enough for the boy. If she had it her way, she would have eaten hers and his.


OH and I did I mention that it wasn't 100° out? It was more like 84° with some cloud coverage, made they whole soccer thing so much more bearable.

 

I knew you wondered if I took a selfie of us, of course. The girl couldn't be bothered with stopping to swallow her food.

Soccer was good, the kids weren't boiling and Baby Fox got a good run in! Successful day in 3-5 year old soccer.

After naps, we let Mr. study some more and I headed to my parents. It was cute to see Baby Fox in the stroller and Mini Fox holding onto the side...role reversal.

Mini Fox is a super drama queen when it comes to injuries, so my sister put a frozen face mask on her head when she bumped it and we made it a crown. Here Baby Fox is kissing it better for her.

And no princess it complete without her gun.

These kids really know how to play my Dad, he lets them pretty much do anything.

Sunday we headed to the pumpkin patch with friends. We got there first so I tried to get a picture...this is what I got.

 

he really wanted to do this:

Mr. found somewhere we could hang out while we wanted, bays of hay to jump off of? Perfect!

My mom bought this skirt for Mini Fox...when she was 3 months old! It finally fits...so cute right? I found that shirt at Gymboree at the after Halloween mega sale.  Do you see Baby Fox in the background jumping?

Wish I was  a little further away, but he just  jumped when I was trying to get a picture of both of them...I just love that smile that I caught.

Even though it's blurry, it's totally her personality, Ms. Daredevil, doing anything her brother can do.

Our friends got there and we went in, and I tried to get another picture of them...

Our friends daughter was helping Mini Fox across the bales of hair.

The best picture we got of the kids together.

So sad our third friend couldn't join us...she's off having a baby! This is year 5 with this tradition! I can't believe we've been going to this pumpkin patch together for 5 years! Next year there will be 7 of them in there, crazy town!

Our family pictures...not so great, please just let us get ONE photo from our photo shoot next week, just ONE, that's all I'm asking.

Hey she's smiling!

He's smiling...now can you guys just do that together at the same time?!

And then we ended the whole day with hay jumping.

After lunch and naps, I promised the kids we would go to the park, now that it's not a bazillion degrees out. He wanted to ride his scooter and she wanted to ride her scooter too, aka tricycle.

When we got there our friends from down the street were there.

The witching hour...she hit her brother and tried to steal his laptop (aka leapfrog).

Step 1: Time out

Step 2: Talk it out

Step 3: apologize to brother and hug it out.

And then we had ribs for dinner, which were delicious and Mr. ate them before I could get a picture, they were yummy. FYI Stater Brother's has them on sale right now.

Hope you all had a great weekend! Do anything extra fun?!

Linking up with Erin for Weekend Snapshot4, B Loved Boston and Champagne & Suburbs  for Weekending,  and Ashley at A Cute Angle for Monday Madness