Hello Monday!

Hi friends!! Happy Monday!!!

How was your weekend??

Our's was great!!

We have a little tradition in our family that when our girls turn 8 years old, they get a "real" American Girl Doll. My daughter Cora Maye is celebrating her 8th birthday this upcoming week...so it was her turn for her special doll!!

Since there is no American Girl Doll store in Raleigh (that's the closest "big" city to us)...we planned a little weekend getaway to Charlotte, NC!

We left Saturday morning, arrived around lunchtime in Charlotte and were lucky to check into our hotel early! We then headed over to Southpark Mall and had lunch at the food court (Chipotle for Aaron and me- Chick Fil A for the kiddos ;) and then went to the American Girl Doll store!!

After shopping, we headed back to our hotel and just had a fun rest of our day playing and swimming at the hotel pool! Later in the afternoon, we went to church and then walked to Whole Foods and had dinner there! They had a super fun eating area especially for parents with kids and we had the YUMMIEST dinners! We got cookies for dessert and walked back to our hotel. 

Everyone got snuggled in their jammies and we watched a couple episodes of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives before everyone passed out! 

 The next morning we were up, bright and early. Because 5 kids in a hotel room. HA!

We went downstairs to enjoy the complimentary hotel breakfast and it was SO SO good. 

We stayed at the Hampton Inn and Suites Charlotte/Southpark at Phillips Place and I CANNOT say enough good things about this hotel!! The staff was amazing! I told them we were celebrating Cora's birthday and they had a card and Happy Birthday balloon waiting in our room! Everything was SO clean. The decor was SO nice. The location was AWESOME. You could totally walk to the mall if you wanted to! And the complimentary breakfast was AMAZING. If you are planning a trip to Charlotte- definitely check out the Hampton Inn and Suites Charlotte/Southpark at Phillips Place!!! I know for sure that's where we will be staying the next time we visit Charlotte!!

We got home to Greenville in the early afternoon yesterday and after we got unpacked, I got right to work on packing lunches for the week. I mentioned in a post last week I am trying SUPER hard to stay on top of making lunches...especially now that James needs a lunch 3 days a week! I made the girls and James lunch for the 3 days, Marshall his lunch for Tuesday when he goes to daycare while I work and Aaron lunch for tomorrow. After I showed Aaron all of the lunches I packed...he said, "I think we need to get a separate fridge dedicated just for lunches." HA! It's actually not a bad idea at all! We have a deep freezer in our garage...but I would actually love to have a separate fridge to put all of our lunches, extra milk, eggs...stuff that can be bought a little bit ahead of time- but that needs to be refrigerated versus frozen!!!

I also made some muffins for the kids to have for breakfast this week!

This recipe is from my friend Jackie...she makes these muffins all the time and my kids go NUTS for them! This recipe makes a dozen muffins- so next time I will double it just so I can have some ready for breakfast for the week and some in the freezer for the following week!

And now it's Monday! What are your plans for the week?

If your kiddos are in school...have they started yet? Do they start this week? How is all of that going??

Marshall and I are going to the gym this morning and then running errands until we have to pick James up from school around lunch time. I start working with clients tomorrow at my new job AND it's Cora's birthday...so a BIG day at our house! 

It's going to be a FUN and FULL week. 

I hope whatever you have going on this week, even if you are dealing with HARD stuff, can be filled with JOY! 

Linking up with Heather, Johannah and Lindsey today!!