Young Party of Four

Another month has come to an end in 2017. This year seems to be flying by. We have continued with our Second A Day project and are loving it more and more everyday. This month we did a lot of fun things and it was actually really difficult to use just one second per day of a video. We had some days that we could have used three or four different videos and plenty of days that a second or two seemed way too short but we tried to keep it within reason. I have also been dealing with some technical issues this month that almost sidelined our project. First off, my phone has a major issue with the motherboard that causes it to have severe glitching and static on one side almost constantly. Ironically, the phone still works underneath the static so I could still take videos. I just had some issues doing it because I can still only see half the screen. Until I get home and put the video on the computer, I can't actually see it well enough to know if I got what I meant to get. We'v...

This weekend we got started on our Spring Happenings list. Our neighbor told us about a week ago about a Touch a Truck event at UCF. She is a teacher and was given a bookmark too that let four people into the UCF Women's basketball game after the Touch a Truck event so when her and her husband saw UCF, they thought of us. They asked us what we thought and if we would like to join them. We said, of course! We have done one Touch a Truck event before and the kids thought it was awesome. That was before Will's explosion in interest in anything on wheels. We knew this was right up his (and Kenzie's) alley. We set out early to make it to the event when it opened. We knew that they were supposed to have a "no honking" hour which we decided might be better since the kids sometimes get overstimulated with a lot of loud noises. Kenzie and Will can also be sort of jumpy sometimes and if we put them into an already overstimulating environment (that they aren't used ...

So, technically it isn't "spring" yet but that never stopped Florida from feeling like summer most of the year so I'm not letting it stop me from calling some of our fun events we have planned "Spring Happenings". Last year we had the inaugural years of the "Youngs' Summer of Fun" summer bucket list. We also brought back for the third year in a row, the "Christmas Advent Activities". This spring (henceforth used with little regard to what season it really is and mostly used for the time between now and when Kenzie gets out of school at which point we will bring back the summer bucket list despite it not being summer yet...) we have quite a few fun things we would love to do. Sort of like a bucket list but there are far fewer of them so we aren't making a formal list. Here are some of the things we have planned: UCF Basketball Game UCF Baseball Game Touch A Truck Event at UCF Pinkilicious: The Musical (for Kenzie and myself) ...

So this Sunday we finally remembered that we have an infared fryer. We have had this thing for years now but rarely break it out for some reason. Not sure why. We love how it cooks chicken, turkey breast, and whatever else we can think to throw in it. We initially considered doing a turkey breast but they were crazy expensive and we knew that chicken was just as good. Whole chickens were on sale at Publix so we couldn't pass up the opportunity. We just had beer can chicken last week and we smoke chicken frequently so the fryer was a great option for something a little different. It is fairly quick and the chicken is always good. We decided to use a rub we already had made this time. We pulled out our Memphis Style Rib Rub that we use typically on ribs that we smoke. We used this one because we know it isn't super spicy which works better for the kids and we had a lot of it so we weren't worried about running out. We put the rub on the chicken first and then applied p...

I can't believe it. We are almost ready to convert Kenzie's "baby" room to a "big girl" room. We have always actually had plans to make this change right around the time she turns 5. We figure that is a good time. She will be a whole hand old! Eek! She will be a few weeks away from starting kindergarten and she is old enough to express a serious interest in her room as her own personal space. This is far less about us choosing a theme or what we like and more about making sure she is getting what she wants (within reason) and we are there to keep her in line to make sure this change will grow with her. When we decorated her nursery way back when, we went with an owl theme. When she was born, owls were all the rage. This was before it became more about choosing a color scheme rather than a theme for a nursery. People have always done it, but it has definitely become more commonplace since her birth. So... we went with these adorable owls. They were awesome ...

Happy Valentine's Day! I have mentioned in earlier blogs that we usually don't do much for this holiday. We never really went to dinner or anything. We might cook something special at home and get each other something small. When we had kids, we started getting them a few small things and continued to make a special meal. This year was no different. Kenzie was confused why everyone had school and work on Valentine's Day but she was still excited about the idea of a Valentine's Day party at her school so I guess she was okay with it. To start celebrating Valentine's Day, this year Kenzie and Steven got to visit with Julie, Eric, Evie, Grandma, and Grandaddy since Julie, Eric, and Evie were in town on their Disney vacay. Unfortunately, Will and I didn't get to go because the morning of the day we were supposed to visit, he finally came down with the crazy virus that Kenzie had last week. We totally thought we were in the clear with this one but it is a doozy ...