Playground Prepster: June 2014

Sunday, June 29, 2014

Hanna Sale Picks (Ends Today) & Vineyard Vines Sale & Crewcuts Swim Sale

Happy Sunday! Lots of sales are going on and I've been meaning to update the blog with some (thankful for a sleeping baby and a husband preparing lunch)!

The Hanna clearance sale ends today. A lot has sold out but here are a few great deals:

(we have these in short sleeves and shorts and love them)

Vineyard Vines is offering 30% off sale items with the code SUMMER3014. There isn't a ton in the kids section, but here are a few finds (sorry for the fuzzy pics):

Seersucker Shorts ($24.49)

Striped Polo Dress ($31.49)

Marlin Waves Shirt ($12.59)

Crewcuts is offering 40% off swim online with the code SPLASH, and crewcuts will ship for free. There are some great deals:

Boys Sale

These long sleeve rashguards are $22.80! Navy trunks are 28.80 and Seersucker trunks are $27. I love long sleeve rash guards - less sunscreen to worry about!

Girls Sale

I love these two rash guards (there's a cute blue stripe too). The heart one is $25.50 and the striped one is $23.70. This is a great time to purchase a Mara Hoffman suit if you love her style!

I hope you are having a great weekend!

Friday, June 27, 2014

janie and jack sale

I used to shop Janie and Jack all the time! It was by far my favorite kids clothing store before N grew into crewcuts. When I found out we were having a girl last December, my first purchase was a sweet little J&J shirt. I don't shop there quite as much, but I love their summer style. Their big end of season sale is here, and here are a few of my picks:

janie and jack sale by playgroundprepster on Polyvore

Happy weekend and happy shopping. I'll try and update with a few other sales, but my time is so limited and my laundry isn't folded ;)

Thursday, June 26, 2014

A Festive 4th

The 4th by playgroundprepster featuring a beverage dispenser

Evergreen beverage dispenser / Gap Stripe Seersucker Bubble Shorts - shocking pink / Gap Embellished Graphic Tee - blue galaxy / Gap Stripe Pocket T - atlantic blue / Izze, Sparkling Blueberry, 6/4/12 Oz / Izze Pomegranate Sparkling Juice, 12 Ounce 24 per case. / Boys Shorts: Club Shorts for Boys – Vineyard Vines / J.Crew Kids' chambray baseball cap / J.Crew Girls' glitter bow headband / Metal Bucket (Blue) Party Accessory / Amazon.com: Patriotic Star Boppers (stars & stripes design) Party... / 50 4th of July Drinking Paper Straws- Stripes Stars- 4th of July Party... / 4th of July Glow Sticks

The 4th is next week!! Next week! What do you normally do to celebrate? I feel like we do something different each year. Either a baseball game, a pool cookout, or visiting my parents. It also happens to be my grandmother's birthday so we usually have a birthday party as well (she will be 93 this year).
With KC being a month old on the 4th this year, I'm thinking we will stay home and possibly host my parents and grandmother. I put together some things to make it fun for the kids. I'm sure Party City/Target/Dollar Store have a lot of great items to make the day extra special for little ones. My boys aren't huge fans of fireworks (or apparently sparklers either) so I was thinking glow sticks may be a nice change. I'm sure we will have lots of great food and cake (or cupcakes) for dessert and I threw in our boys favorite "treat" drink - Izze (which we call Fizzy Pop). I'm in love with the straws from Etsy, it is funny how such little items can make a day feel even more special.
What would you add? I feel like I've slacked off this year and would love some suggestions!

Monday, June 23, 2014

Weekend Review

Happy Monday! This weekend FLEW by - although I think most weekends do. I'm really missing those slow newborn days, it seems we went from slow motion to warp speed in no time. I do love that summer is officially here - it is my absolute favorite season! Here are a few pictures from our weekend:

Not technically this weekend, but sweet KC's belly button cord fell off and since she officially had a real belly button N read The Belly Button Book to her.

The first day of summer included S'mores (of course). They really are our treat of choice.

A friend dropped off a present for KC and included gifts for the boys. The scented bubbles were a hit and helped entertain the boys on the wait for fireflies (we let them stay up WAAAAY past bedtime to see the fireflies).

We were worried the fireflies were already gone for the year, but all the sudden as the sun set they appeared. Luckily there were quite a few and the boys loved chasing them and N caught quite a few. They are a really special part of summer!

KC seems to enjoy waking up at 6am (I can't complain she is my best sleeper yet). Sunday morning she had a bath and I saw N was awake. We tried to sneak out for doughnuts but T caught us and so we all headed out for doughnuts!

Last night we made tacos, only I really didn't feel like making tortillas so we subbed in lettuce. It was the biggest hit with the boys. Each of them ate 3! I'll admit I loved them too. I always make our beans from dried beans since we are vegetarian and Chris made our fresh guacamole. We also sub out rice for quinoa for protein.

Now that our girl is growing, she's starting to fit into more of her clothes. These bunny pjs are one of my favorites! You can still find them on sale here.

VBS started today for the boys. I wanted to put KC in my favorite Tea romper and I did, for about an hour. I had N snap a pic of us before heading out and thought I would get a pic of KC in it once I had dropped off the boys. She had other plans. I fed her in the nursery, changed her diaper, picked her up to head out and noticed my arm was wet. Huge blowout. If it doesn't come clean I'm buying another. This was soo cute! It's on sale here.

I hope everyone had a great weekend. I cannot believe how fast June is going by! Summer should be twice as long!

Friday, June 20, 2014

Five on Friday: Revisiting Resolutions

Happy Friday! Our week started off strong and has slowly become a little less structured (the boys are still in PJs today and we've made a Starbucks run for me, where as the beginning of the week included a playground, the library, chick-fil-a, two loads of laundry and cooking - my goal for today is to make cookies with them). The nice thing about this week (and being on my own from before sun up until after sun down) is the boys have been so exhausted from summer they've been asking to go to bed before 7! I hope everyone has had a great week!

My first post in January was our resolutions for the boys. With half the year over, I think it's time to revisit and see how we are doing!

Here are the resolutions with an update:

1. Eat/Try veggies and lunch and dinner. I want to get them in the habit of expecting veggies to be part of their meals. We do it for dinner nightly already and I'm working on stepping up my lunchtime game. We have been working hard on this one. Dinner is still the time when the boys receive most of their veggies, but I always make sure they have at least one at lunch. I can do better I know. Dinner has been a real success for example, last night the boys had potatoes with sour cream and salsa, kale chips, salad and frozen grapes. It was a huge hit and they both asked for more kale chips and potatoes.

2. Learn to ride a bike without training wheels. This is mainly for N but I wouldn't put it past T to attempt this one as well. I will never buy another bike with training wheels again - it will most definitely be balance bikes from here on out. We can check this one off! N's been without training wheels for months!

3. Stick with piano. Again for N, I'd like to see him stick with piano for the entire year. While he loathes practice, he enjoys when he can actually play a song (He loved learning Christmas songs this winter). N is still taking piano lessons. We went through a really motivated period and now we are back to not wanting to practice. He just had a recital the first weekend in June and he was actually excited about it. He's learned some fun songs, which he enjoys, but asking him to practice is like pulling teeth.

4. Practicing "school-work" with T. This is something I did with N, and probably a little before it's time. T is at a point where he is very interested in letters and numbers and I feel like I should be encouraging it quite a bit more than I am (which technically isn't more than teaching him how to spell his name). I didn't attempt this one at all until N was out of school. I was such a tired preggo! Now with N out of school, once a day we take about twenty minutes and I work with both guys on math and reading. I'm really proud of myself because I'm not the type to be so disciplined (and I should be - I was a teacher)!

Now, for one I'm adding -

5. Floss at night. At N's last dentist check up the dentist mentioned his back teeth are now touching. We've always bought the kiddie flossers for the kids but our dentist said she prefers we use floss because it hugs the teeth better. I attempted flossing his teeth the first few nights and it was a pain (literally) for both of us. This one definitely needs work!

I hope everyone has a great weekend and a great FIRST DAY OF SUMMER!!

I'm linking up with Natasha, Darci, April and Christina!

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

The Minivan - 1 year later

A year ago we did what we said we would NEVER do, we purchased a minivan (cue dramatic music). Personally I really really wanted an SUV with a third row but there wasn't one that would work for us in our price range - so the minivan it was (my practical dream car is a Honda Pilot). It was a hard deal to make, but now at least once a week Chris says how glad he is we purchased the van. Here are my thoughts:

1. It's big! This is completely a pro and a con. I can fit a lot of people, bikes, and a stroller, and my kids still have plenty of room, but it took me about six months to get comfortable parking next to other cars (I drove a sedan before this). And because of it's size, we can no longer fit two cars in our garage.

2. I thought having a bigger vehicle would mean more mess, but I think the extra room makes it a lot easier to clean. The boys have more room to pick things up and its easier to find places to put things. Also if you get a newer model in the Elite - you get a built in vacuum.

3. I was convinced our gas spending would increase, but we traded in a 13 year old SUV and the van actually has more gas saving features and does much better on the highway than the old SUV.

4. I feel super safe in the van, especially with the kids. I have really strict car seat rules for my kids and I always have our seats checked by SafeKids for correct installation. With my old sedan I had to return a seat because it wasn't made to fit in my car, but as a car seat tech mentioned once, minivans were made for car seats. When I took the van in for a check, my only issue was that I'd used the LATCH system on N's seat and he's 2lbs over the weight limit for it, so they switched it to a seat belt install. I only had one correct installation with my old car.

5. Chris was always worried the boys would open the car door and bang the car beside us. He loves the sliding doors (and I love the button on the key that does it automatically - especially when carrying the car seat).

6. And now our sweet dog doesn't have to ride in the floor board with the boys' feet dangling on her.

pre-KC, but we still have enough room to fold down two seats and give her some space!

Honestly I definitely wouldn't have purchased a van if we hadn't discussed the possibility of having four kids. The Pilot would fit three car seats across and we'd still have a little room for the dog. The only difference is the back of the van fits a lot more stuff - especially when I'm toting bikes to the greenways.

Monday, June 16, 2014

Weekend Review: Father's Day

Happy Monday! I'm on my own today with three kids for the first time! We've been very lucky to have Chris with us for a week and a half (he has never taken off more than a week before and we were totally spoiled with the extra time). Saturday we spent the morning with our favorite photographer for newborn photos (I'll share soon). Sunday we celebrated Father's Day starting with bagels at the lake with our parents.

We ended with grilled veggies, fresh squeezed lemonade, and of course smores! There were also a few rounds of Trouble played (the board game was a hit as a present).

I hope everyone had a great weekend! I cannot believe it's already Monday!

Subscribe to: Posts ( Atom )