On Wednesdays it’s Life Lately!

If you’re new to my blog, Life Lately is where I share about my life lately, or think of it as a recap of the past week or so. Also Life Lately posts are some of my favorite posts to read on other peoples blogs as well. They’re usually flooded with pictures and recaps talk’n about Life Lately, so here we go!

Life Lately has been good! We enjoyed the kids Thanksgiving break and being home for 5 days and Jarret being off for 4 days. When Monday rolled around it was a hard start for the kids because they had to go back to school and their Dad had to go back to work.

Sidenote: Two Saturdays ago Jarret surprised us with fresh & warm donuts when he came home! Since he works nights, he gets off work in the wee hours of the morning and that’s when the donuts are fresh!

Monday I mailed 📫 my Christmas Cards and I’m feeling very accomplished! Already in the mail 11/26✔, part of the reason I sent them early was our new mailing address is on them and I wanted family & friends to have that.

This past Friday we decorated our little-skinny tree!

Last year for the first time we purchased a big beautiful (fake) tree, but the living room in this house is too small, we don’t have enough options on where we could move the couch to accompany the tree…

The kids did the ornaments all on their own this year!

I still need to get my tree skirt out of storage, I thought I got it out last time I went but I’m missing a box. #movingproblems

I’m proud and happy about our little tree, it fits just right in our living room and the kids love it too!

Thanksgiving 2018!

This Thanksgiving was the first Thanksgiving🍛 we were truly by ourselves, The Mehaffey 5! Last year my Mom & Dad were here with us and this year it was just us. One of the hardest things about living away from family is the holidays when you want to spend them all together. To fly as a family of 5 on Thanksgiving weekend is ex-pens-ive and to drive (which is waaaayyy cheaper) takes two days, which is 4 days just in driving and the kids have 5 days off, so do the math….yeah.

But we make a conscious effort, every holiday, to be cheery and express gratitude with the kids and explain why we can’t always be together. As the kids get older, they are able to understand and know that if we go out now, then we won’t be able to spend such a long time away in the summer visiting and spending time with family.

Jarret got home at 7 Thanksgiving morning, he went around and said his hellos and then went to bed!

Aren’t these paper plates cute?!? I got these at Target!

Everyone was getting hungry and I was trying to have everything warm and out on time!

On the menu was: turkey breast, honey ham, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole, corn, gravy and rolls!

I made my turkey in the Insta-Pot, this is the recipe I used. (It turned out great!)

Keeping the potatoes warm in the crock pot!

Everyone was ready to eat!

Traditions.

Traditions are important to us and sharing them with our kids and explaining how or why they started is important and starting new traditions of our own!

In my family, after we cleaned up the kitchen a little, we would all go for a nice family walk, you are so stuffed from all the delicious food, it’s either go for a walk or fall asleep, haha!

We went for a walk, and Jarret stayed home and took a much needed nap because he only slept for a few hours that morning.

The weather on Thanksgiving was absolutely beautiful!

I’m sharing some insta-story video that I posted while on the walk!

The girls were such little raga-muffins in these pictures because they wanted to wear their dress up nightgowns over their clothes and then it was windy so their hair was everywhere, is what-it-is.

Naomi loves to sing!

Later that evening Bryce & Jer had special bro-time playing video games!

Another tradition, this one’s from Jarret’s side of the family, is on the day after Thanksgiving (which is Friday) you use the leftover turkey and make Turkey Tacos!

I chopped all the leftover turkey, cooked it in a little olive oil, onion and garlic and fried some taco shells and they were delish!

 

A little taste of home to keep his family’s traditions alive too!

Black Friday Shopping.

I took advantage of Black Friday shopping but not really on Friday, I did more of my shopping on Thanksgiving day, online! I feel like most of the sales start that evening and I only went to one store, Ulta Beauty and bought some hair products on major sale!

Big Sexy Hair products were $8, that’s a steal! Bryce went with me in the later afternoon and it’s situated right next to a Best Buy and WOW, the parking lot was packed with droves of people walking in and out!

---

Over the weekend.

We went to Build-A-Bear, I’ll share more about this later…

We hung Christmas lights,

Bryce was taught how to put them up and…

on Sunday we went for a nature walk.

Bryce, Maddie and Naomi all wanted to bring their back packs. The girls had their stuffed animals in them and Bryce had his r.c. car!

Maddie was collecting sticks.

Little patches came along too!

And here’s the parents in charge of the crazy, I was so happy when Jarret suggested we all go for a walk outside!

The kids love it too and it doesn’t take much to get them in touch with their outdoorsy-side!

Can you tell this is my Happy Place!?! Get me outside, give me a trail and I’m good.😉

Naomi loves-loves-loves all the songs she learns at school and loves to sing them at home for us, here’s a little taste!

---

This post was jam-packed with pictures, and if you want to see us last year at this time, click below!↓

Here’s Life Lately last year, 2017!

Talk to ya soon,