Date Nights are back!!!

Last year was not the best year for us with our “date night” life and we both felt it! I’m not exactly sure why except, my work got much busier and the night we usually had scheduled for date night I would end up swamped and need to get a million things done. I’m not sure why we didn’t recognize this earlier but we decided to change some things up so we could make this a priority again this year. 

My sweet husband knows that my love language is going out to eat (you think I’m joking...I’m not)! In preparation for the new year, one of our date nights in December was the go through and choose 12 new restaurants that we want to try, one per month. So we automatically have this one date night built in to our month!! Our January restaurant was Bohemian Woodfire Pizza! It was delicious and it was a really nice one-on-one time with my best friend! 

The second thing my sweet husband did was sign up for a date night subscription. We’ve done Date Box before and had some really fun ones and ones that we didn’t think the money was worth it. So, Trevor did some research and found a new one called Crated with Love. The thing I love about it is it’s all centered on a theme. The first one we got was all about communication. So the 4 different activities in the box were all centered on us communicating well. The one we did this month was all about treasuring your spouse! Hence the PIRATE theme! 

I didn’t win much so I was stuck wearing the patch! Ha! 

My favorite part was the last challenge. They gave us this cute little treasure box...

And the challenge was to write something you treasure about your spouse, stick it in the little treasure chest and hide it somewhere your spouse would see it that day. And then that person would do the same and it keeps going back and forth for the week. It was really sweet to wake up to every morning! 

We actually got a couple bonuses in January! First up, Neighborhood Jam! This was on our list as a restaurant to try this year but the opportunity presented itself early so we took advantage since they are almost always packed! This was a fun one with the boys too! 

And we are currently headed out of town for a weekend getaway just the two of us! Call it a baby moon, call it a getaway, whatever it is, I’m super excited for an uninterrupted weekend with my best friend!! 

If you aren’t currently dating your spouse, START!!! It’s seriously a game changer!!! 

Apologies at Our House

With two toddlers at home all day every day, we are provided with LOTS of opportunities to apologize to each other. I'm sure siblings have had their tiffs since the beginning of time, I know my brother and I had our moments, but I pray every day for my boys to have a great relationship. I want them to be more than brothers but true friends! Best friends. I read this thought about treating our siblings like we would treat our best friends somewhere in a devotional awhile back and it really stuck with me. 

Daily we talking about sharing, not taking toys from each other, why it's not nice to hit our brother or chase him around the house just to get a reaction. It can be draining some days...can anyone relate?

I have implemented a new line in our apology lately and I'm starting to see the fruits of it, so I wanted to share. 

Brother, I'm sorry I <insert offense>. You are my best friend and I'm sorry I treated you that way. Will you forgive me?

Trevor and I would always make them apologize and ask for forgiveness, but I made them add in the best friend part. I want them to speak it and know it! The cool thing is, Brooks now tells me that bubby (Rhett) is his best friend! It was the sweetest thing ever when I heard him say it without the context of an apology! Now this is part of our daily lingo. We talk about how our brother is our best friend and we talk about what best friends do for each other and how best friends are supposed to treat each other. 

We are totally still learning and navigating having two boys, especially so close in age. So, if you have any tips or tricks you want to share, please do!! 

2019 Highlights

I love seeing these fun Top Nine photos because it makes me remember all the exciting and fun things that were accomplished or celebrated this year! 

Finding out we were pregnant and that it’s going to be a GIRL! Celebrating Brooks turning 3 and Rhett turning 2. Being celebrated for some amazing accomplishments through UBAM and celebrating because I earned a FREE TRIP to Hawaii! Mother’s Day with my two little loves and Trevor and I celebrating 8 years of marriage at Living Kitchen! 

I’d say this list does an amazing job of celebrating the highlights, but it did miss a couple things!

Endless hours of work on our property...this might not seem like a “highlight” but when you get to experience the before and after, it’s a highlight seeing the beauty in where we live. Also, this hard work was great therapy! At a time when I was really struggling emotionally with not being able to get pregnant and really questioning God, it gave me some amazing time to talk to God and come to terms with HIS plan! I actually wrote a blog post about this but I never published it. Maybe one day... and obviously His timing is perfect!

Our new floors is DEFINITELY a highlight!! We had all concrete floors in our home which we loved but due to come unfortunate circumstances, we had to cover them. I do LOVE our new floors!

Getting 2 kitties! We are not cat people, ha, but we are big fans of these two cuties. Piper and Pistol!

Our trip to Branson for Brooks’ birthday!

Our yearly trip to Holland, MI for our family reunion!

My Girl’s Trip to Colorado with the best of friends!

Our weekend trip to visit GiGi and Great Grandpa!

The POLAR EXPRESS was a BIG highlight for the boys. They still talk about it and can’t wait to go back next year. 

Thanks for walking down memory lane with me! It’s been a great year, but there are definitely areas that I need to step up my game! The first one that comes to mind is DATE NIGHTS! Trevor and I did SO good at these for years and this year was hard to make it a priority. That is changing in the year 2020! We are both so passionate about marriage and helping others in their marriage, this is something that we need to do better with. We already have some fun things in the making, I can’t wait to share them with you all! 

Here’s to 2020!

Colorado Girls Trip

Oh my goodness, this trip was SO NEEDED!! First, I missed my friends and second, it is SO GOOD to get away and recharge! It was also nice to just be JILLIAN and not mom or whatever someone needed me to be! I'm so grateful for all those hats I get to wear, but it's nice to put those aside and have some down time!

Goodness, I've missed you!!

Love these ladies and check out that AMAZING breakfast!!!! SO GOOD!!!  Shoutout to Denver Biscuit Co! 

You are so pretty!!! LOVE YOU FRIEND!!!

Wine, cheese and bruschetta night! Seriously so yummy!!! And of course we had to get a picture of someone taking a picture of someone taking a picture of the spread! We also had some fun times playing a game and not following any of the rules! Ha! Nichole was totally the winner!! :) 

A little evening walk!

On Saturday we headed to the Maroon Bells Hike. It was FREEZING when we got out of the car. Like, in the TEENS!!! I didn't think we were going to make it very far! Haha! 

Laughing because it's so cold! HA!

It was so pretty right around where we parked, so we had to stop and take some pictures before we chickened out because of the cold! HA!

By the time we were done with our photoshoot, ha, it had warmed up a little, so we decided to brave the hike!

At one point we actually got a little hot!

I was about to die on some parts of this hike! Haha! I was already having trouble catching my breath without hiking (weird pregnancy problem) so when we started hiking and climbing in elevation, it was rough! At one point I had everyone check their heart rate and mine was in the 130's and everyone else's was in the 80's! HAHA! So, I was proud of myself to finishing!

We went to Aspen after our hike, ate lunch and did some shopping. We then drove to Carbondale and ate dinner at a cute little pizza joint that was started by a guy that went to OSU. Go Pokes!!

It was great just relaxing and hanging out with AMAZING friends!!! Ladies, I'm ready to go back already!!!! Or we can go to a beach! Haha!

So long Colorado!

Sweetest husband award goes to my guy!!! I got home and him and the boys had picked out Sunflowers for me!!! My FAVE!!!! Seriously, I need to go on more girl's trips so I can get this first class treatment again!!! :) :) :)

Gender Reveal

As we got closer and closer to finding out the gender, I was getting more and more set on hoping this baby was a girl. We had all intentions of finding out WITH our family, but I was getting a little afraid of my reaction if it happened to be another boy. Haha! This child would be SO LOVED either way, but for some reason my heart was becoming more and more set on a girl. To be honest, before getting pregnant, I loved the idea of having 3 boys, so my heart change was a little odd. Anyway, I told Trevor a few weeks before we found out that I really wanted to find out with him alone and then that night we would do something fun for our families. He didn't love the idea, but I came up with a fun way so he was okay with it. 

I knew I didn't want to just find out in the doctor's office, so we had our doctor put it in an envelope and we went to this cute little store in Utica Square called Lolly Garden. We picked out a boy outfit and a girl outfit and then had the lady working look at the ultrasound and only ring up the one that matched the ultrasound gender. We went and waited outside so we would have no idea which one she rang up. She even wrapped it up for us and made it so special.

What will it be???

SO excited!!!

We planned to go to a Mexican restaurant to open it because this baby is due on Cindo de Mayo (HA) but I didn't want to drive all the way to BA to go to Los Cabos which is where Trevor chose, so we just went to Peppers at Utica Square. This was perfect because Peppers was our first date almost 15 years ago! 

I honestly thought it was going to be a boy and was COMPLETELY shocked when I opened it up and saw the cute girl onesie and bow that we picked out in the bag!! We got the whole thing on video and you can totally see the shock and complete JOY on my face! I couldn't figure out how to add a video here.

A few weeks before this I was talking to Trevor about a cool, totally made up, cake idea on how to surprise our family. The next day I'm on Instagram and this ad shows up in my stories with a Surprise Cake ad. This is basically what I was describing to Trevor and I didn't know anything like this even existed. I of course bought it! Haha! The day before the reveal I made the cake and got everything ready, so all we had to do was stuff the cylinder in the middle with something blue or pink after we found out. 

We first had a couple twists and turns for our family. They didn't know we had a cake, so we initially sent them on a scavenger hunt looking for clues which led them to this cool cake. 

The cake was just a vanilla cake, not pink or blue, but this cool cylinder popped out when you pulled the lever. We stuffed the cute onesie and pink bow in there. 

Brooks has been telling me since the beginning that he wants a sister. He always said "I already have a brother, I don't need another one!" I'm so glad I didn't have to disappoint him!! HAHA! 

We are so excited to meet you sweet girl!!!

We had such a fun day finding out together and then getting to tell our families! We can't wait to meet you Holland Rose!!!