30 Things I'm Thankful for in June

Do you ever have one of those months that just feel incredibly blessed? June was definitely one of those months for us. With the official announcement of baby #2, a visit from my college bestie and her family and a weekend trip away, I just feel so lucky to have celebrated this month.

1. Baby announcement that I’m due with our second blessing December 4. Watching my facebook feed EXPLODE!
2. Celebrating Lucan’s June 3 (golden birthday!) birthday among family.
3. Recognizing that June 3 is also the date I first met my parents as I came over from Korea.
4. 1.5 days of vacation spent with Mandy and Aaron and their two delightful kiddos. Lucan loves their daughter, Bridget.
5. Lucan had his first sleepover with Bridget in his room. Lucan slept in his bed and Bridget slept in the pack-n-play in his room. Poor B, I think Lu was bouncing off the walls and B was just looking at him incredulously like he was a hyper-active nut.  But Lu talked about it for days afterwards.
6. My parents exceeding blessed us by watching Lucan while we snuck off to Kansas City for the weekend.They also planted flowers, weeded, trimmed hedges, did laundry, ironed and cleaned. My parents are fantastic.
7. We picked 22 pounds of strawberries. We probably shouldn’t have done so many. Lance has told me previously that I have a knack of taking something fun and taking all the fun out of it by going over the top. We made jam.  A lot of jam. Freezer jam and beautiful strawberry jam in jelly jars. Making 22 pounds of strawberries, into jam results in a massive amount of sugar and pectin. Let’s just say this jam was not cheap nor is it especially good for you. But tasty and jewel-like it is!
8. Volunteering at VBS. It’s a fun time, every time.
9. First parades of the summer: Grimes and Johnston = candy central. Lucan also got his first ferris wheel ride, which he thought was great. It should be great, for $8! Talk about rip off!
10. The garden is coming up green and healthy. Nothing has rotted off. Yet.
11. Attending my friend’s essential oil workshop and winning a bunch of freebies!
12. Generous friends. We're being gifted a really nice wagon by some friends who no longer have use for it.
13. Seeing my friend’s faith played out as she watches her dad slowly say goodbye to this world.
14. Celebr-Asian! Lucan and I like to celebrate our heritage. We let Lance tag along with us :)
15. Movie dates with a good friend to see The Fault in Our Stars. A very good movie version of the book.
16. Homemade bread and strawberry jam as a treat. Delicious. 
17. Wal-Mart having a sale on Bomb Pops (pregnancy craving!) 
18. Finally getting our winter wardrobes transitioned into storage.
19. Lucan got really nice gifts from our family at his birthday party. He’s a lucky little boy. And he had a ton of fun playing with all his cousins.
20. Sunday school picnic at a friend’s house. So many people and children, so much fun.
21. Lucan passed his three-year wellchild check up with flying colors. Our precious pediatrician said that Lucan was the best three year-old she had all week. Go Lulu!
22. Our sump pump. This might strike you as something odd to be thankful for, but with the torrential rains we’ve experienced in the last three weeks, our house would have flooded without it.
23. Friends and bloggers who made restaurant suggestions to us for Kansas City. We ate our fair share of yumminess!
24. Loving our new pastor and his energy filled sermons.
25. Long, quality conversations with Lance about life.
26. Lucan says “thank you” for the funniest things – like washing his beloved blankie or having clean underwear to put on. I suppose Lu is teaching me to be thankful for the little things :)
27. Lu also likes to say “momma got a baby in her tummy. I got a baby in my hands.” And then he mimics rocking a baby in his hands. (Yes, I’m the mom who thinks her child is the most adorable thing ever.)
28. Elastic waistbands. I don’t know why so many pregnant women deny themselves the comfort of stretch. Who really cares if you wore pre-pregnancy pants until your third trimester if you are completely miserable? Ah, the wisdom of second pregnancies :) 
29. Fresh garden food!
30. The sweet, kind stranger who let us budge in line with him at Oklahoma Joes in Kansas City and save us an extra 30 minute wait.

It was exceedingly HOT at Celebr-Asian. Yikes.

Lucan was thankful for his balloon sword.

Sweet, sweaty cuddles.

Chik-Fil-A is one of a kind. They came out to everyone in the drive through line and handled them little samples of their ice cream. Yum!

Sweet friends and Lucan's pool. Bridget and Tristian were a little hesitant. Not Lucan!

Both were a little cold after their swim.

How adorable are they? Seriously, arranged marriage.

My college bestie, Mandy.

Our husbands are two peas in a pod. They get a long exceedingly well considering Mandy and I just usually leave them at home and tell them to figure something out :)

Parade selfie. Lucan was getting tired of waiting in the hot sun after 30 minutes.

Our strawberry adventures. Next year is probably not in the cards. This is only one of two flats we picked. Everyone was over strawberries at this point.

Ferris wheel ride. Lucan talked about it for days afterwards.

Lucan at his three year well-child check. It seems ironic that one day later he got pink eye and a cold. You should note that Lance is concerned that the mirror is going to fall off and kill Lucan.

I let Lucan push a cart at the grocery store. I'm going to live to regret that decision.

1. 

   Silly boy singing a "Happy Birthday"message to our friend Ron.

   
   

   

   Mowing. Daddy's big helper.

   
   
   
   

   

   This was the best family picture we could manage at Lucan's birthday party. At least we tried :)

   
   

   

   Lucan loves opening presents, especially with a little help from his cousins!

   
   

   

   First garden produce of the year! Green pepper for the win!

   

   A fun Citrus Lane box this month. Lu devoured his Plum Organic snacks, has enjoyed his new puzzle, and thinks his blueberry soap is awesome. We also got a wet bag for swim clothes, etc. which I'm sure will come in handy! The markers and activity book are a little mature for him, but it will be a good someday activity.

   
   

   

   I rocked supper with grilled romaine BLT salads. I'll post the recipe later!

   
   

   

   Happy, well-rested parents in Kansas City! Parents deserve a mini-break at least once a year.

Citrus Lane Review - November 2013 - Toddler

This is the third month of my subscription to Citrus Lane. I think this is my least favorite month, truth be told. I've been trolling the internet to see what other moms have received and I saw that many moms received a "mom treat" of lip balm. I want a "mom treat" in my box - just like the fab nail polish I received in September. Bitter much? Yes.

Just a recap - Citrus Lane is a subscription box service that sends a box full of toys, books, munchies, etc. each month tailored to your child's age and gender. For a single month it's $25 (but you can get some pretty sweet promo codes to take it down to approx $15/month) or you can subscribe and get a three month, six month or an entire year's subscription. If you're interested in trying, here is my referral link (thanks!) and you'll get $10 off.

Bumkins Lunch Tote - approx value of $11
Faber Castell Beeswax Crayons (approx value of $9.50) and Faber Castell Doodle Pad (approx. value of $3)
Build a Burger from Green Toys (approx. value of $6)
Organicasaurus Baked Organic Corn Snack from Good Boy Organic ($1)
Tiny Prints - 4 sets of address labels for free with a $99 purchase (worthless)

Lunch tote - cute print, but not needed. Some of the other boxes I saw received adorable Skip Hop plates and some received reusable snack bags. I would have much preferred one of those. I don't have much need for many packed lunches for Lu and I already splurged on a PB kids one for him. But it has polka dots and Lance the jury is still out on whether or not polka dots are appropriate for los ninos. No se.

Beeswax crayons - they draw very nicely as they larger for a toddler grip, the wax is super soft and easy for Lucan to color with, but at the same time they're crayons. The same with the paper. It's nice for Lu to have a doodle pad, but the back of my church bulletin can serve the same purpose. We'll store these in Lu's diaper bag for a two minute diversion sometime.

Build a Burger - it's cute and organic plastic (how does that work?), but how much play time can a single burger get? Yes, both Lance and I have had to endure eating a plastic sandwich multiple times now, but it's really not all that fun. We had some friends over to the house on the weekend and they enjoyed feeding the sandwich to their elders as well, but I'm just not seeing repeat play time with this one. I saw on other blogs that some boxes included a plastic tug boat for the bathtub. Now that's what I'm talking about - I want a bath boat!

Corn Snack - we haven't tried them yet. But Lu has yet to be very taken with any of the snacks Citrus Lane has sent so far. The first month he ate the dried blueberries out of the granola bar and last month he told me the chips were yucky (and they were). We'll see about this one.

Address labels - okay funny story. I obviously didn't catch on that you had to spend $99 to get the free address labels, so I went through the entire process of designing ones I liked and actually got to the ordering process where I got stumped. I kept getting an error message about my promo code and did a live chat with a Tiny Prints rep to discover the only way to redeem the offer is to order $99 first. Yikes. No thanks. Worthless. 

Recap: least favorite month. No "mom treat" and I don't really feel like there was a main "headline" toy for Lucan. Last month we got Lu's octopus light (which he adores and points out the fish shapes every night) and the month before we got some cute wooden blocks. I suppose the lunch box was the "headline" item, but when has a lunchbox ever been super exciting for a toddler? Um, never.