#shayeveryday2014 Week 1

Well...here we are again :).

I'm taking one photo a day, every day, in 2014.  This year has started off pretty great!  Lots of sweet time with my loves...

Day 1: The first day of the year was spent hanging out at home with my little ones all morning.  We love having indoor picnics for lunch...this is us at lunch :).  Later that afternoon, we went to my aunt's house to celebrate my sweet Grandmother's birthday.  She's our New Year's baby!

Day 2: I was looking for Smith and heard all of this commotion in the laundry room.  He had turned off all of the lights and placed two flashlights on the dryer...and was playing his electric guitar in the "spot lights".  Tongue out and everything...my fear is that he'll one day be in a Kiss cover band.  I'm not sure I'm made for that!

Day 3: After working out and showering, the kiddos and I had brunch at the gym cafe.  Pancakes are the perfect meal post-workout, right?

Day 4: It was a beautiful Saturday!  We stayed home and enjoyed being outdoors.  The kids are loving their new bikes that Santa brought them.  These are my 3 loves...and Poppy. ;)

Day 5: Lunch after church with my sweeties.  

Day 6: This boy was prepared for the cold day!  It was 12 degrees when we left for the gym!

Day 7: What's better than shopping with my mom?  Shopping with my mom the fancy schmancy interior designer for my new house!  I love spending time with this lady...and I love that after all of these years, I am finally able to really abuse use her professional talents!

I had so much fun sharing 2013 with you!  You can keep up with me every day in 2014 on Instagram @mixandmatchmama or find me here too...

Find me on Twitter here.

Find me on Face Book here.

Find me on Pinterest here
Find me on Instagram here.

And people...you sure had a lot of questions about my boring little A Day in the Life of Shay post yesterday!  Who knew my little Monday could stir so many inquiring minds?!  This Monday, I will go through and answer most of the questions you asked me about that post on my blog as a little Q&A.  Tomorrow...we have a Pajama Party scheduled!

And for dinner tonight?  Soup!  It's January...we should really be eating it every day!

Click here to read about my favorite soups for Winter!

And this morning, I saw that my favorite jeans at Gap now come in a really pretty light pink color (hello spring!) and they're 30% off!

In fact, all regular priced items at Gap are 30% off today!

Have a great day!

#shayeveryday2014 Week 2

Day 8: We went to the dentist for cleanings!  It was cold and rainy...but I had a list of errands to run after we were done.  When we got in the car, I told the kids where we needed to go and Kensington said, "Can we just go home and get cozy by the fire instead?".  And we did.  Because sometimes, it takes a five year old to tell you to slow down and just do nothing.

Day 9: Still raining!  Under our umbrellas, we took a picture of our mother and daughter Wellie feet :).

Day 10: I love him so much :)

Day 11: We spent the day in Andrew's old pickup!  We took this picture as we were all piling out to go inside Starbucks  Andrew just loves his old truck...so occasionally, we ride around in it :).

Day 12: Cousins!  I love these three kiddos!

Day 13: I did some grocery shopping with the Mix and Match Daughter!  She's my little foodie :).

Day 14: I didn't want to drop them off at school on this day!  I really wanted to keep them and just have fun.  Love hanging out with these kids!

And if you think taking pictures with my kids is simple...here you go...

...sit still and smile is apparently not an easy thing to do!

And one final picture...I came home the other night and found them all like this.  Play room a mess, everyone tired, and even the dog was exhausted...with her head on a sword.  These are my peeps.

And Gap is having their huge MLK Event starting today!!  

Up to 50% so many styles!  Hurry people...sizes will sell out quickly!

I love their boyfriend shirts!  They wash and wear time and time again!

I'm actually wearing this sweater right now!  Click here for the un-distressed version of the jeans, here for the tank and here for the sweater.

This is me this morning!  I'm wearing everything I linked to above (but the pink tank instead of the grey!).  And click here for the scarf (available only in grey now).  It's only $10!

This great sweater comes in multiple colors!  It's so cozy and feels so luxurious but at a great price!

Click here for all of the Gap MLK sales!

Dinner tonight is the perfect little One Pot Meal!  It's my Enchilada Chili!

In less than 20 minutes, your family could be eating this.  Delicious!

XOXO

#shayeveryday2014 Week 3

Hello!  Hello!  If you have been contemplating all of the goodies I showed you from Gap on Tuesday...the store is now 40% off today!  Happy Shopping!

Day 15: Us

Day 16: Two tall blondes.  Only I'm not really tall.  Or blonde.

Day 17: Yay for Friday!

Day 18: Happy 4th Birthday Smith!!

Day 19: What?  You don't wake up with two Hulks and a robot?  We did!

Day 20: It's Monday and we have an incredibly crazy week!  However, these two are pretty chill about everything... :)

Day 21: Somewhere on the other side of the world, there is a little girl who has no idea that her parents ran around like crazy on this morning to get to their immigration appointment in Dallas.  She is already so loved, and we can't wait to bring her home.

You can keep up with me every day in 2014 on Instagram @mixandmatchmama or find me here too...

Find me on Twitter here.

Find me on Face Book here.

Find me on Pinterest here
Find me on Instagram here.

And some bonus pics for you...

On Friday (the day before Smith's birthday), we met up with Tab and his kiddos at Chuck E. Cheese for a little pre-party celebration.  Lucky Erika was out of town and missed the whole thing ;).

Just for the record, the very first words out of Tab's mouth were "Ebby Lee doesn't have a bow in her hair, but at least Bowen has shoes on.".  For a daddy with 3 kids and no mama for the weekend, I wasn't going to judge...Erika probably is but I am not!

B and I hung out all night!  I love borrowing someone else's baby for a few hours to get my baby fix!

Ebby Lee was a rock star with the basketball!

Like father, like son.  He loves to shoot things.

Nixon joined in!

I decided it was time to ride a roller coaster with Bowen.  This was us lying back on the roller coaster :).

Kensington rode next to us!  We had so much fun "riding".

Pizza and cake...perfection.

I gave Bowen pizza.  This was his first piece of the night.

And this was him with his fifth piece.  Yes.  His fifth.  And he's 14 months old.  He was happy, so I just kept feeding him.  This is what happens when you let me babysit :).

All 5 of the kids crammed in there picking out their awesome prizes (which probably cost us $4,389 in tokens!).

I'm so glad that Tab and his kiddos could come enjoy Chuck E. Cheese with us!

And I have two delicious recipes to share with you today!  First up...

 ...my Valentine's Day cupcakes!  These are so simple (just wait until you read the recipe!), so festive and so delicious!

And I'm also sharing my yummy homemade Spaghetti and Meat Sauce too...

You should make both recipes tonight...the pasta and the cupcakes :).

Happy Thursday!

#shayeveryday2014 Weeks 4 & 5 plus some answers to questions!

Because last week was so crazy, I didn't post my #shayeveryday2014 pics on the blog...today, you get a double-dose!  Plus, I'm also answering a few questions at the bottom of the post about the wedding.

Here we go...

Day 22: The life of a kid whose parents are building a house.  Lots of waiting at random places. We are all working on our patience...

Day 23: Sean and Catherine gave the kiddos these shirts to wear when they asked them to be in the wedding.  I thought their last day of school before leaving for California was the perfect opportunity to show them off!

Day 24: We're going to California!!

Day 25: Rehearsing for that crazy live TV wedding with my hubby...love him.

Day 26: My little brother is married!!

Day 27: Just keepin' it real...after the crazy big wedding, we were up at 5:30...the shuttle bus departed our hotel 30 minutes late, we were stuck in LA traffic for 3 hours, I got motion sick and puked in a moving shuttle bus and we almost missed our flight.  Long day.

Day 28: That time I showed up at my friend's house to discuss the Bachelor wedding...and wore my bridesmaid dress :).

Day 29: Love these two crazy faces!

Day 30: Cuddles in the car before going into school.  We needed this cuddle time because Kensington had been crying all morning...about nothing.  Seriously...nothing.  At all.  Just crying.  Little girls.

Day 31: While Kensington was at a play date, Smith and I ran a few errands and stopped for pizza.  Loved this precious time with my boy!

Day 32: We ended our cold Saturday with (another) round of Frozen!

  Anyone else singing Let it Go constantly at their house?

Day 33: Smith was all geared up for the Super Bowl!  Oddly enough...I think the Broncos were in this same position just minutes before the game started.  And then during the game.

Day 34: What I need to survive a Monday...coffee and chocolate.

Day 35: Happy Tuesday!  It was a cold and rainy one!

You can keep up with me every day in 2014 on Instagram @mixandmatchmama or find me here too...

Find me on Twitter here.

Find me on Face Book here.

Find me on Pinterest here
Find me on Instagram here.

I received so many sweet comments from my two wedding posts and several questions as well.  I don't have time to answer all of the questions but I thought (since this post had a lot of wedding in it) I could answer a few here...

1. What did you do during commercial breaks at the live wedding?
The two cellist played music during the commercial breaks and we all sat and listened just like at a "normal" wedding.  The entire service was very respectful.  We didn't get up and move around, no one had their makeup touched up and the director didn't come forward.  We all just sat quietly and listened until the service started again.

2. What does grown sexy mean?
I don't know?  Sophisticated, maybe?  Maybe I'm not hip enough to know that lingo!  Whatever it means, I think it translates into beautiful wedding...because that's what we got!

3. How were we treated by the Bachelor staff?
They were so nice (as always!)!  We really had a normal destination wedding experience.  Everyone was so friendly and helpful...perfect.

4. Why didn't I take more pictures of the bride and groom?
Because it was a normal wedding and I don't normally stalk the bride and groom for pictures.  I was having a great time enjoying our family and friends and they were having a great time making the rounds with their guests.  I know some of you wanted 100 pictures of them...but I was really focusing on enjoying my little brother's wedding and not so much on taking a million pictures of the two "celebrities".  I tried to take as many with them as I could without being that annoying sister who followed them around all night.

5. What did I think of the honeymoon talk?
I had one reader comment that she watched the wedding with her 3 teenage daughters and the honeymoon/suite cam stuff made her uncomfortable.  Here's the thing...married sex is awesome.  I highly recommend that married people have sex.  Yes, I think they focused too much on that aspect (them waiting until marriage to have sex) because there is so much more to their relationship than that one thing...but they did...and there isn't anything we can do about it.

I will be proud to show this to my kids and explain to them that Uncle Sean and Aunt Catherine went against the norm and waited to have sex until they were married.  I actually think it was the perfect opportunity for parents to explain waiting and abstinence to their tweens and teens.  That being said, there was a lot of footage that was filmed of them that didn't get aired and I'm bummed about that.  These two are way more interesting than just the sex stuff.

Again, thank you so much for all of the sweet emails and comments!  We just love you all!

On my foodie blog today...Strawberry Nutella Pies for Two...

...the perfect little dessert to make for your Valentine.

XOXO