Friday
I feel like my weekend began on Friday this week since I worked through the morning while Chase napped but called it quits around noon and took the rest of the day off from any sort of work-related stuff and enjoyed an afternoon with some of my girlfriends and our little ones!
We met up at Discovery Place Kids in Huntersville and it was AWESOME. I have been to Discovery Place in Charlotte twice before but the Discovery Place Kids location is less expensive (only $10) and basically a child’s paradise. I’m pretty sure I never would’ve wanted to leave that place when I was a kid. There are so many different areas that are perfect for imagination games, including a fake animal clinic, a pretend grocery store, a construction zone, an “under the sea” exploration area and more.
Since our group was full of babies who aren’t exactly mobile, we spent most of our time at the water table. There were plastic bucket seats along the perimeter of the table that worked perfectly for our little ones!
After 20 minutes of water table fun, Chase was a little more interested in Lilly than the water toys.
The two little lovebirds decided to go for a joyride in Chase’s snazzy convertible before we left.
Chase looks awfully proud to have such a pretty date next to him, even if she was more interested in finding a good station on the radio than she was in him.
We had a great time at DPK and Chase crashed hard on our way home. Play date success!
Ryan and I spent the rest of our Friday night walking around the neighborhood with Sadie and Chase before Chase went to bed and I did a little baking for a party we had on our agenda for Saturday.
Oh! And I joined Snapchat on Friday. I have no idea what I’m doing yet, but you can find me at juliepbfingers.
So far I’ve just been sharing an overload of photos and videos Chase, Sadie, smoothies and dry shampoo. Basically my life in a nutshell. I’ll try to take you guys along on our NYC travels via Snapchat but I make no promises that what I share will be particularly exciting or amazing. I’m still new at this but I’d love to connect with you there if you’re a Snapchat fan!
Saturday
Saturday morning began with protein pancakes, coffee and a workout! My friend Carrie and I met up for a 9 a.m. Burn Boot Camp class and the workout was a tough one, as always. It focused on push and pull exercises and we did a lot of chest presses, push ups, assisted pull ups, low rows and more. The workout ended with four minutes of burpees (split up into two two-minute bursts) and I arrived home ready for a shower and a snack!
Chase was in the middle of his morning nap, so I spent some time categorizing recipe pages while I ate since I am on a mission to actually accomplish one of my 2016 goals and update my horrific recipe pages. (I have more than 400 posts to categorize, so that’s great…)
Brittany told me about a plug-in I can use to make thumbnails show up so everything will be a lot more visually appealing, so I’m trying to tackle this one on my own. Since I am far from tech-savvy, please wish me luck!
Once Chase was up, we headed out on a family walk that included some fetch time with Sadie at a local park. By the time we made it home, we were ready for lunch and Chase went down for nap number two of the day.
Since my flight to NYC was scheduled to leave in the early afternoon on Sunday, I wanted to get some packing out of the way and spent some time organizing my belongings for our travels, figuring I could tackle Chase’s stuff later. I wonder if I will ever learn to love packing? For some reason it’s always one of those tasks I dread.
A little before 4 p.m., Chase was up again and we were ready to head out to my friend Alexis’ house. Our group of girlfriends have been hanging out for a while with our babies and even though a few of our husbands have met here and there, we wanted to try to get everyone together with the babies and had this date on the books for a while. Though two families unfortunately could not make it at the last minute, we had the rest of the gang show up and had a blast eating, drinking and chatting away!
Of course we had to get a picture of all the little ones together! We lined them up in age order and hoped for the best…
Sitting four babies with minimal self control close to each other proved to be quite hilarious. (I love the way Lilly is looking at Chase like he’s a total maniac. Ha!)
(Side note: Right after I dressed Chase in that outfit, I realized it was probably time to retire it but Ryan and I were in a rush to get out the door. His pants were clearly way too short but we all laughed that we were dressing him in baby capris. Sorry buddy!)
The mamas stepped in to make the picture-taking go a littler smoother, though there was no chance we were going to get everyone looking at the camera at the same time.
All of our babies ended up getting a little fussy around the same time (oh the joys of the witching hour), so Ryan and I ended up home in time to put Chase to bed before making a quick teriyaki salmon dish for dinner. So good! And it felt nice to get some healthy food in my belly after eating my fair share of way-too-tasty chocolate chip funfetti cookies and chips with guacamole and buffalo chicken dip at Alexis’ house.
Now I’m sitting here on Sunday morning typing up this recap before the craziness that comes with a day of travel sets in. I hope you guys had good weekend and are enjoying your Monday so far!
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Love your top and sweater at your saturday night out gathering! Where from? 🙂
I guess this is why advertisers use babies, puppies and kitties to sell me stuff. Works. Every. Time.
I seriously thought snap chat was a hook up website but everyone is all about it now, I’ll have to check it out and see what the rage is!
Such an adorable little group of babies and pretty mamas!
Ah man they’re all so cute together!!! They’ll be best buds growing up 🙂
omg that convertible picture is priceless!! haha! Hope your time in NYC goes smoothly!
Welcome to Snapchat!! 😀 I just added you so I’m excited to follow all your adventures that don’t end up on the blog, twitter or Instagram! <– major stranger stalker alert <3
Those are the cutest babies ever! What a fun time. Hope you are having fun in New York!
Julie- Can you share the recipe for the Salmon?! Thanks!
Oh all the babies together…. precious!!!! Chase is such a cutie!! Have fun in NY!
I travel a bunch so I’m constantly unpacking and repacking. What helps me is to keep it simple (try always packing the same outfits or shoes or toiletries to decrease the amount of decisions). And also focus on being done! Kinda like a workout — while packing I focus on “this will be so great when I’m all packed and ready” or “i can’t wait to wear this while exploring nyc” rather than “i hate packing!”…and the same with unpacking. It’s kind of like folding laundry, I try and do it as fast as possible and put things close to their “home” and before I realize it I’m done!
happy nyc travels!!
This is too much cuteness for one post! Looks like a great weekend. Enjoy your travels.
It must be so fun to have a group of friends with babies at similar ages!
Looks like such a fun weekend! So happy to see them in a little baby community. I’m sure it will be amazing to see the wee ones all grow up together. 🙂
Pumped to hear what NYC is about. I’m certain it will be a great trip!
You will love discovery place kids once Chase is walking! I did a year membership when my twins were about 16 months old and even now (4) we still go every once in a while and the kids still love it.
just added you on snap, yay! you’ll get the hang of it real quick 😉
Haha I love the picture of all 4 babies lined up! So cute 🙂 And I’m sure I would have loved a place like that as a kid. There’s a place called the Science Station in my home town and I think I wanted to live in the building growing up haha.
So true about Snapchat – I joined recently and still have no idea how to really use it for all that it’s good for, and it’s really just another reason to share videos of my little! Have fun in NYC!
Cute shoes in that last picture!! 🙂
I’m new to Snapchat as well…..and it’s mostly pictures of my dog and my 1 year old. ha!
Hi Julie!
I love the nude colored flats you’re wearing in these pics. Where are they from?
So many cute babies!! I just added you on Snapchat! I’m @Erin.fairchild
I used to love these kinds of places as a kid! I remember one had a fake grocery store set up in it that I loved. Hah! Must be where my love of grocery shopping comes from!
Where are your flats from? So cute!
I love how you all have babies so close in age! That must be an absolute blast!!! 🙂
OMG I can not get over the baby cuteness! My boyfriend’s brother and sister-in-law had their first baby last Thursday. We went to the hospital 6 hours after he was born. Holding him was truly one of the most amazing experiences. I had never held a newborn before and I was just in love! I hope you have a great week!
Hi! I love your nude flats in the mommy/baby group photo. Where are they from?!
Oh my gosh–the babies are soooo cute!!! How cool is that to have so many friends with babies all around the same age!? Sadie of course has a stick with her, haha. Snapchat is fun! I’m sure you have a ton of friends you are following but my username is stlcardsfan05 if you want to see a ton of pictures/videos of my border collie, silver lab, and Cardinals baseball haha
This post was so, so, so entertaining to read! Thanks for brightening up my Monday! LOVE <3 all your fun "day-in-the-life" stories. All the babies together are ADORABLE. Unbelievably adorable and fun and heartwarming that you have a bunch of friends and their babies to hang out with and commiserate with! I think I want to play in that Discovery zone right NOW. And I am far from baby-aged. Love that water table, and Chase's love of the little girl! lol
I'm so excited about the recipe index! Although I know it's a lot of work for you. But I'm still super excited. Thanks!!
After having 7 trips in one month once, I learned some packing tips that helped me hate packing less (I hate it too!) I keep a toiletry bag with doubles of my products already packed (i.e. shampoo/face lotion/cleanser/deodorant). I also keep duplicates of meds in that bag (ibuprofen/antihistamine/motion-sickness/what have you) that I switch out annually (or when those meds expire). Ditto the feminine products – duplicates already packed! That way when I'm ready to travel, all I have to do is pick clothes. I keep a checklist of everything I don't want to forget and the things I have to do before I go (charge camera battery – this is when I'm bringing my pro camera – cell phone charger, car charger/phone, kindle charger, usb drive). I also have a special big pink bag that I put ALL my cords and chargers in, including my laptop stuff. That way whenever I'm looking for anything related to tech, I know it's all in that one bag inside my suitcase. I also bought see-through mesh type make-up bags (on amazon or at walgreens) for all the items inside my make-up/toiletry bag/medicine bag, so I can group like things together and so that they're not all floating around willy nilly, but I can still see what they are. Hope this helps!
Love all the baby group photos! Did you meet your momma friends in a group in the Charlotte area? I am a new mommy to a little boy who is 4 months and semi new to Charlotte and have no mom friends and need some bad to have baby talks with haha! Would love to know how you all connected!
Aww so sweet! LOVE that photo of Chase driving the convertible. His expression is priceless!
Cannot get over the cuteness! Can’t wait to hear about how the NY trip went! <3
Hi Julie! So…I just this minute set up a blog through Blue Host – I have NO CLUE what I am doing so I decided to check out my favorite blog (yours) and get some tips! Any tips at all would be so appreciated!
Also….I noticed that you have the doTERRA petal diffuser in your Things I’m Loving Friday Favs – I don’t know if you have one already or if you use doTERRA, but if not, you can get the diffuser and oils at wholesale! Here is my website if you want to check it out 🙂 – http://www.mydoterra.com/toyourhealthessentials
Where are Chases’s shoes from?!
Chase is a legit model baby! CUTEST LITTLE GUY EVER.