I skipped a couple weeks of ‘insta.friday’  so, to catch up here’s all my instgram photos dumped on the blog on this Wednesday, hump day.

starting where we left off on Tuesday, Sept. 25, the day after we got back from our Mayo trip.

this boy got even cuter while we were away!

the boys keeping themselves entertained before I headed out to my friend Heather’s jewelry party

Wednesday was a beautiful day, we enjoyed a donut at the farmer’s market and shopped a little bit downtown

on the way home we stopped at the park, we had it all to ourselves

grayden was trying to be like aunt Alyssa on ‘crunches’ love his imagination

Thursday

Sadler's been getting a lot of time-outs lately!

nap time for the boys=reading time for me

it was written just for me,

Friday,

daddy’s big helper with the dishes!

Monday i took the boys to the mall with me to break up our day at home, we didn’t last long at the ‘tree house’ sadler would RUN down the slippery slide and gave me, and all the other mom’s mini heart attacks!

I got this new candle at Marshall’s, its so, so good!

Gray napping in his ‘tent’

Monday night dinner via Pioneer Woman

he wasn’t sure what to do with himself when he got a time out while we were outside, looks like he’s mimicking mommy’s yoga moves!

Tuesday's dinner was a hit, gray asked for seconds (which never happens anymore) but it was all gone!

recipe coming soon!

Tuesday, diggin’ my new, comfy, cozy shirt, $7.99 at TJ

Gray’s class picture day at school, how handsome is he?!

speaks for itself…

Wednesday

he keeps himself SO busy

he’s naughty and he knows it!

Thursday

went to mops, this is the cute craft we made the time before, it doubled as our name cards!

again, he finds trouble on a daily basis!

Robb and I went on date night to panera bread, we sat there talking for so long we got a couple of free pastries!

our family picture for the church directory, super impressed with my happy boys!

Monday, sadler was catching up on some much needed sleep from being sick over the weekend, fell asleep in his highchair!

minutes before he was hamming it up in the forward camera!
 

such a handsome boy was feeling much better!

grayden added his personal touch to my decor!

Thursday was grayden’s first class field trip! I signed up to be a parent helper and went along on the nature walk to the park!

that catches me up! hope you’re having a great week!

so thankful

so blessed

God is faithful

This past weekend:

Friday night:

I hosted the freezer meal party here, always a great time!

Saturday morning we went to ‘breakfast on the farm’ at a HUGE local diary farm. we had a pancake breakfast and got a tour of the farm.

For dinner we had a ‘soup night’ at my parents house, i made chicken noodle soup, it was the perfect night for it!

Sunday morning Robb and Grayden went to church and I stayed home with a sick Sadler :(

After church, Grayden went with my parents to visit my grandma and grandpa, while Robb and I took Sadler to urgent care.

We waited for quite awhile to be seen, so Robb got creative keeping Sadler entertained :)

we thought he had another ear infection, he would wake up screaming, inconsolable, multiple times during the night, but it turns out he has a virus and asthma flare up.

we slept the rest of the day away!

*Last weekend

Friday night we hit up art prize, the boys did great and really enjoyed all the cool exhibits

Saturday morning, we had our family picture taken for our church directory.

I spent the rest of the day shopping and spending girl time with my friend, Emily! this is one of my favorite purchases for grayden (and then sadler, someday!) to grow into! I love that everything can be worn by both boys!

Robb and the boys kept busy at the cottage, closing it up until next summer.

Sunday we went to church, my niece, Peyton, was baptized. Such a special occasion!

It was our turn to lead our Sunday school class, we talked about using positive affirmation in our marriages.

After Sunday School we had lunch and a celebration for Peyton at Mindy and Kyle’s house. The boys took naps when we got home and we headed to church again at night.

That about wraps up the last couple weekends!

Blogging has taken a back seat here at the lubbers home. Our days and nights have been FULL, full of fun and other day to day duties. So before these things get pushed further and further back I wanted to do a little house blog keeping around here before I totally forget.

A couple questions to address, I'm saving time here by just paraphrasing instead of going back through the comments for the exact wording, Sadler's nap time is ticking away so I gotta be quick!

A few of you wondered about my new iphone case, the brand is Tech Candy, its from a Home and Co, a local shop, downtown. On that same token, my rose gold necklace is from etsy.

Someone wondered why I continue to go to Mayo even though I’m not seriously sick or diseased anymore. Since my transplant in Oct. 2008 I’ve gone back for check-up at 4 months, 1 year, 2 year and just recently at the 4 year mark. They like to keep close tabs on their patients since their transplant outcomes are reflected upon them and their practice. I am also followed by a local doctor in between my trips to Mayo. People go to Mayo for a number of reasons, they have a department for anything from dermatology to obstetrics to allergists, its an amazing place and I HIGHLY recommend them if you or anyone you know is having concerns with their health.

A sweet reader who works in speech therapy wondered about Sadler’s recent thickening change. At this point we were only told to come back to have him retested in 6 months and see if there is any change. In the meantime, all we are doing is thickening all liquids to a honey consistency. The specialist wasn’t sure why he’s doing this but did say he could grow out of it. I’d love to hear your thoughts or any suggestions you may have, if there is anything additional we could be doing, I would love to hear! You can email me at katielubbers @ hotmail dot com

Also thanks for all the sweet comments on my random acts of kindness/birthday post! Posting about it kinda took the randomness about it away, but I wanted to remember this for years to come and give out some ideas for anyone interested in doing it themselves! The ideas are free for the taking!

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!