I spent Friday night from about 5pm to 11:30pm at our church’s scrapbooking weekend! Robb took the boys to the mall, which I thought was hilarious! They played at the play place, went to the costume store, and the sporting goods store..all places I never go to when I’m at the mall with the boys, I’m sure they had a blast!

I worked on Sadler’s first year album, I loved looking through his baby pictures…this was right before taking Sadler home from the hospital, one of the happiest days of our lives

one of my favorite outfits on him, i loved having him wear bright colors and still do!

Saturday morning I went to Zumba at 7:30 and then got back to scrapbooking around 9:30 until 1:30. I got a lot done, but have a lot to go yet, too!

At night we went out for dinner at Zing with Scott and Stacey, the food was so good! This was Robb’s salmon!

The grandparents watched the boys while we had dinner and then we got the kids together to play back at our house for a little bit.

Sunday we went to church, I dropped the guys off at our church and then went to pick up Lisa and we headed to the church we do Zumba at to hear my friend, the instructor, Angie speak! We snuck out early to get back to our church in time for Sunday School!

After Sunday School Robb and I dropped the boys off by my parents and we hit the road for Minnesota. We stopped in Wisconsin Dells for dinner at Moose Jaw, a favorite from when we stayed there 2 summers ago. We also did a little outlet shopping there to break up our trip! A total of 10 hours later we were in Rochester at our hotel.

Monday morning we had a little time to kill before my appointment so we stopped by Kohl’s on the way to the clinic for a bit.

My appointment was at 10:30 back at my old stomping grounds on the 19th floor of the Mayo building. My doctor said my blood levels and all the reports from the testing I had done this summer looked very good, so thankful for another great report! Next year I’ll need another biopsy,  and those results show a little clearer picture on how my new kidney is doing, it would be the first place to show signs of rejection, scarring or recurrence of my disease, which as of 2 years ago at my last biopsy, there have been none! So, those are always a little more nerve wracking but good to find out how things are looking! In the meantime, I’ll continue to see my nephrologist in GR every 6 months.

Coming up in October will be the 4 year anniversary of my transplant, seems like just yesterday, and a lifetime ago, all at the same time.

After grabbing pizza at our favorite spot, we hit the road again to head home!

We got home around 10:30 last night! Thanks mom and dad for watching the boys.

Since today is the first official day of Fall I thought I should do one final update to our Summer List, we scratched off just a couple more items.

Sidewalk chalk: Gray loves it when I make a little town on the driveway and he drives his little cars around:

And we went mini golfing just last weekend while we were at Craig's cruisers:

*pick berries

*feed ducks

*Fillmore park

*outdoor discovery center

*kollen’s park

*timber town

*Lawrence st. park

*farmer’s market/ market kid’s activities

*whitecaps game

*downtown fountain

*zoo

*coast guard festival (July 27-August 5) *missed the festival, maybe next year!

*hot air balloon show (June 30, July 1) * this was on our calendar but ended up being TOO HOT THAT WEEKEND!*

*truck parade (labor day) *not going to happen, made plans to go out of town that weekend!*

*memorial day parade

*have picnic

*bubbles

*water bed (Pinterest)

*run through sprinklers

*fly kite

*sidewalk chalk

*go garage sale-ing

*beach

*Meijer gardens

*library programs

*lemonade stand

*downtown street performers (thursday nights)

*play tennis

*go to cottage

*swimming lessons

*pool time

*bike ride

*mini golf

*soccer camp for Gray

*water table

*little pool

*sand box/swing set

*campfires

*hike trails

*trip to sandy pines

What a great summer! The leftover items I’ll have to add to next year’s summer list!

Monday

we went to play group, Gray played with the play dough almost the entire time, and this was the only time (that lasted about 30 seconds) that Sadler sat still the entire time!

i had been wanting to make this recipe all summer and Monday night was the night i finally did, it was excellent

Robb texted me this series of pictures Monday night while I was at zumba

grayden came home with these goodies from preschool on Tuesday. I’m not one to save much of this stuff so I take pictures and someday I’ll put them together in a photo book that will take up a lot less room than all this…

but this, I'll be keeping forever!

It was a beautiful Fall day on Wednesday so I busted out the leggings, boots and scarf!

we headed downtown for lunch with my mom, mindy and the girls. i treated the boys to some gelato afterwards, delish!

the goodies I got from my 31 party were delivered on Wednesday, I was so excited to see everything.

this is one of my faves, a casserole dish carry case!

sadler’s been waking up after a couple hours of sleeping during the night just screaming at the top of his lung and flailing around, we think he’s having night mares! poor babe

I’ll be in the New Testament starting on Monday and I can’t wait!

Sadler enjoying his yogurt Thursday morning, that kid loves to eat!

we headed to the circus Thursday night, we had an awesome time!

sadler sat by uncle jeremy the entire first half and hardly moved! amazing!

sadler had his stitches removed this morning, I waited for 40 minutes at the new biggby coffee shop to get him the strawberry magic milk in hopes it would magically make him sit still for it, i think it worked! he did awesome!

this little stinker was in hysterics today when i dropped him off at {day 4} preschool. turns out he had fun, just like he always does.

he’s showing me his ‘friends book’ it has pictures of all his classmates in it, so now i can put a face to a name when he has stories :)

I make that face a lot and now i now how not cute it is, haha!

poor sadler had a rough time at first wanting to cooperate for his swallow study.

in no time at all though he was fine and did super!

*sadler often chokes/coughs when he drinks so there was concern that he was aspirating. he did not aspirate during the test but he was really close every time he swallowed so he probably does aspirate at times. we now have to thicken all his liquids to a honey-like consistency :(

that’s our week! hope you had a great one!

As you know, last Tuesday was my 27th birthday. I feel so blessed to have been given this life and I want to make the most of it. I wanted to do something {special} to celebrate the 27 years God has blessed me with. I decided to spend the week of my birthday doing 27 random acts of kindness to spread a little cheer to their day!

Many of them are minor, they may have gone unnoticed, but a few of them I’m hoping brightened someone’s day and maybe urged them to pass on a random act of kindness themselves!

1. left a thank you note for the mail lady

2. put a cafe gift card on the car parked in the cafe’s parking lot

3. put a cafe gift card in Grayden’s teacher’s school mailbox from an anonymous thankful student

4. put coins in the sand box at the park for kids to dig up

5. put a ‘have a great day’ note on the mirror of a public bathroom

6. made a donation to the cafe

7. wiped up a spill on the cafe counter

8. bought my mom a cookie {even though she didn’t eat it!} for watching sadler for us while we went to school with Gray

9. gave a free haircut

10. brought cookies to our neighbors who’s dealing with some health concerns

11. brought cookies to a new family in the area

12. offered my sister a ride to zumba

13. snuck some special treats in Robb’s suitcase before he left for Utah

14. gave up the closest parking spot (can you believe it, Robb?)

15. taped a merchandise credit card to Younkers (that I always forget to use) on the door to the store

16. taped this note on the mirror in a store dressing room

17. taped a bag of microwave popcorn to a red box machine

18. put a diaper and new wipes case along with an encouraging nore in a changing station at Target

19. let a couple go in front of me to order at Panera Bread. Probably one of the most disappointing ones, the couple hardly looked at me, let alone thank me while they marched ahead of me. oh well!

20. I offered to watch one of my nieces while my sister spent some alone time with the other one!

21. Paid for the order behind me in the McDonald’s drive thru

22. Left a thank you note on a car parked in the ‘staff parking’ lot of our local hospital

23.left a dollar on the vending machine at the hospital

24. left some new crayons and a coloring book in the waiting room of the hospital

25. stuck a dollar in a children’s book at the library

26. put a note on a car parked in the ‘staff parking’ lot at Gray’s school

27. brought my dad a cookie at work

{obviously I have a thing for cookies :)}

The over all experience was super positive, I had a lot of fun coming up with different ideas at the different places we went each day. I felt a little sneaky at times, hiding things and then quick running off before someone would see me! I parked in the Walgreens parking lot for awhile waiting for people to finish using the redbox so I could tape the popcorn to it, and then I watched for awhile to see who took it :)

It totally gave me a high and I hoped it filled the people with kindness who received these random acts!

I specifically had to make sure my husband and family members received an act of kindness for putting up with me for the past 27 years!

Maybe you’ll consider doing this on your next birthday! I’d love to hear about it if you do/already did!

We didn't do anything too special Friday night, it had been a busy week for us with Robb being gone and getting home so early that morning, so we just decided to stay home at relax.

When the kids went to bed Robb and I played a little wii, did I ever mention how competitive we are??

Robb dominated at tennis, surprise surprise!

Honey, I know you won’t be thrilled that I put that picture on here, but it’s so cute; so in fairness I’ll post mine too, which I am also less than thrilled about!

And the baseball is definitely rigged!

Saturday morning I did 90 minutes of zumba, I went 3 days last week, making up for 3 weeks off!

We went to lunch at steak and shake, did you know kids meal are free on the weekends?! What a nice surprise!

Then we headed to get groceries, the boys filled up on samples! I usually get groceries on Tuesday’s but that was Gray’s first day of school so I never ended up going last week so we were in desperate need. Otherwise we avoid the grocery store at all costs on Saturdays but thankfully the boys did great and the samples definitely helped!

In the evening we went to Craig’s Cruisers for Robb’s work summer party, we all had lots of fun!

Sunday was an exciting day:

We all got ready to go to church and about 5 minutes we were about to head out the door, we heard a horrible bang and a then lots of screaming! Robb ran to find Sadler bleeding from his forehead! He had run right into an open door in Gray’s room!

We got  him cleaned up and I thought it looked ok but Robb stayed home with him to make sure while Gray and I went to church.

During Sunday School I checked in with Robb, he ended up bringing him to Urgent Care to get stitches! Turns out he has an ear infection too, poor buddy!

And just to remind you Sadler had stitches in his fore head back in February too! He is one rough boy!

After that ordeal, we met Robb’s family at Village Inn for my birthday lunch!

Then we headed back to our house for cake and presents!

At night we went to the evening service at church. When we got home {Robb} watched the Lions play and {I} read my new book I got from Mom and Dad L.

Sadler is doing fine, nothing phases that kid, he was back to himself right away! I’ll take him in on Friday to have the stitches taken out.

Hope you all had a great, safe weekend!