Kansas City Favorites

So without going into the details of my trip, I thought it would be more fun to post our favorite places that we went and some family photos. KC is a really fun city with something for everyone!

Fritz's Railroad Restaurant 

This place is INCREDIBLE. It is located in the Crowne Center
which is a shopping center in Downtown KC. We usually go to the big Crayola Store there. Ok, back to Fritz's. The feel is a 50's diner and each kid gets a hat when they come in. You order your food through this telephone at your booth.

All around the restaurant is a "food delivery system" where your food is brought to you on a little train. A mechanism causes the train to "drop off" the food to the platform above your table, which then lowers to deliver your food.

The food is great, the kids go crazy, it's a blast. Just make sure to get there before 11:30. We were lucky to beat the lunch rush.

Power and Light District

Me and my husband had a great night out with my brother, sister and my brother's girlfriend in the Power and Light District in Downtown Kansas City. It's just cool to walk around and look at everything and there are numerous bars and restaurants so you will never get bored! 

We had a great time, I definitely can't wait to go back and try more awesome food and fun :)

Super Splash USA

 

This outing was an absolute miracle. This small waterpark is only a few minutes from my mom's house and we discovered it by a sign on the highway on our way home from Macy's (a sign, go figure). It was the day we were leaving and I wanted to wear the kids out and it is only $10 to get into this waterpark. (37 inches and under are free).

The only problem with visiting a waterpark is that Leonard usually FREAKS OUT. I knew I was taking a chance, but I had plenty of hands to help. Miraculously, Leonard went right up to the water in the play area and spent HOURS wading and swimming and splashing. I was so shocked! Bela was a little fish as usual, but I was really impressed with Leonard.

So those are a few of our trip highlights, didn't want to totally overwhelm with family vacay stuff, but if you are every traveling that way, you have some neat place to go. Here are a few more links of my faves.

Deanna Rose Children's Farmstead

Country Club Plaza

Nelson Atkins Museum of Art

IHOP Missions Base

The Dishwasher - Friend or Frenemy?

So before everyone throws stones and accuses me of blasphemy, let me preface this by saying that these are the random thoughts and ramblings of a slightly overtired mom, you may take this with a grain of salt if you wish.

Ok, so this all started when some random piece in my dishwasher came off and we couldn't figure out how to re-attach it so we left it off.

 Poor, broken dishwasher

Soon I realized my dishes weren't getting very clean and obviously that little part was important.

There isn't money in the budget for a new dishwasher at the moment so I just started handwashing my dishes. So after a couple weeks of hand washing my dishes I realized something.

My dishes were always clean. 

Almost always put away.

I was spending less time in the evening washing dishes.

Very. Peculiar.

So here are some thoughts. How helpful are dishwashers really? 

We load it full of dishes throughout the day.

Meanwhile the number of spoons in the drawer is dwindling.

45 glasses are used in one day.

You usually forget to TURN IT ON.

If you remembered to turn it on, you have to UNLOAD all of those dishes.

This usually doesn't happen till the next day.

Here is what I am finding. We have breakfast. While the kids are playing I wash up the dishes and put them in the strainer. Takes about 5 minutes. A couple hours later i'll notice they are dry and put them away. Another 2 minutes. I do the same for lunch.

So here comes dinner time and I actually have eating utensils and glasses! The dinner dishes clean up surprisingly quickly and sometimes I'll even put them away before I go to bed.

 

Clean and happy dishes

I wake up with clean dishes and nothing to put away. Maybe it's all in my head. Maybe I am nuts. But I am kind of enjoying my dishwasher not working. It makes me wonder if we are just being duped into thinking that dishwashers save time. Is this some sort of ploy by appliance companies to sell a huge, space wasting, waste of time? 

I don't know, but I am starting to wish that I could put it away and just take it out for big family dinners and Thanksgiving dinner.

So who knows? Maybe I'll change my tune soon, but the overwhelming feeling of accomplishment (and the constant supply of spoons) is making me put off a new dishwasher for just a little longer ;)

Kansas City - Loose Park

We had an amazing time in Kansas City, MO visiting my family. There is so much to do and see there and it's just gorgeous too. We went to Loose Park our first day there. It is an absolutely amazing park. It's HUGE! It has a playground, rose garden, splash park, numerous ponds, walking paths, it's so much fun! If you are ever in KCMO, you have to go, you could seriously wander around for hours.

The only bad thing about this trip to Loose Park was how HOT IT WAS! It was almost unbearable!!!! I don't really know what we were thinking taking the kids out in that heat, but they had a great time.

 

This was Bela at the end of the trip at Chik Fil a. She ended up sleeping the whole time and missed lunch!

More to come if I can ever get three seconds to sit down :)

Finally Home

So we made it home alive driving all the way to Kansas City and back with 2 toddlers. Quite a miracle I must say! We had such an amazing time and did so many fun things and still managed to not do a lot of things on our list.

I took this photo somewhere in Illinois I think (don't worry, I wasn't driving!) It's just a whole lot of farms driving through that part of the Midwest, but it's still pretty.

We usually stop and go see the arch whenever we drive to KC but the thought of getting the kids out and then making them get back in their carseats again didn't seem like a good idea!


I have no idea how to even blog about our time there because it would take forever so I will probably do a few and post lots of links so if you are ever in the KC area, you have some fun things on your list to do.


We stayed with my parents and they were totally awesome to let us stay in their "wing" of the house so we had our own area with the kids. My parents had a FULL house! My other 3 siblings live at home, plus my sister's friend is starting an internship at the International House of Prayer so she was staying with them until it started AND another of my sister's friends flew in from Georgia for a visit. There was plenty of room for everyone and it was awesome!

 One fabulous baby girl

 The adorable Lightning McQueen cake that my sister made for Leonard's birthday

 My awesome sister, Carmen

 My brother, Josh

 The Feathers kids going out together for the first time in a LONG time! Joined by my hubby and my brother's girlfriend :)

I have to once again sing the praises of the Flylady because it was so nice to come home to a CLEAN house. Because it wasn't crazy I got almost all of my unpacking done yesterday! There will be no post vacation chaos for the Russell family and that makes me very happy!

So life is back to normal and it's not as fun being with my family all the time, but at least I have new stuff to babble about on my blog!

Travel Like a Flylady

We are taking a road trip to Kansas City today so before I checked out for a few days I wanted to share the Flylady tips for traveling. When you have kids (and even if you don't) packing and preparing for a trip can be a stressful experience. It doesn't have to be, so let's find out how. The Flylady Travel Guide can be found here. 

I'm just going to talk about a few of the things that have really helped me, plus a few that are specific to kids.

First of all, this is so much easier if you are already using the Flylady Method for your household cleaning. 

Because I am packing for everyone, I start a couple days ahead of time by setting aside clothing that will be worn on the trip. I also like to have a "staging area" for my packing things. This can be a spare room or a spot in your bedroom, just wherever the kids won't get into.

 Make sure your laundry is clean (duh) and make sure the house is tidy. It's so much easier to pack when the house is neat and tidy. Don't try to pack in chaos. It means your stuff will be chaos. It was alot easier to gather things when they were where they were supposed to be.

 I printed out the Flylady list and sat down a few days ago and prepared my packing list. I will put it in my suitcase and use it when I leave too :) This TOTALLY helps!


It's almost 9:30 the day we leave (we are leaving at night) and we are basically done packing aside from checking the list and finishing packing the snack bag.

 So here is the snack bag. It's a good size bag but it's not huge like a cooler. You can put ice packs in it and it has separate dry and cold sections. I bought plenty of healthy snacks to minimize drive thru stops and gas station candy bar stops ;) Plenty of water and juice too. Got it at Walmart for $9, not bad :)

Here's a big one. The fridge. We will be gone for a week, so I made sure that I didn't get tons of refrigerated items at the grocery store this week. I also did my fridge cleaning last week so it was nice and clean to begin with. Since the fridge is totally bare (eek!) I put our leftover ziti in the freezer (hubby suggested!) so we have dinner when we get back :) Any remaining produce will go in the compost this afternoon. Make sure there aren't any science projects in the back.

Here's a cool Flylady tip. Put some Mr. Clean or Pinesol down the toilet and all your sink drains. It's supposed to help with that weird stale smell. We'll see how it works when I get back.

I cloth diaper my daughter, but will be using sposies on this trip. Right after I finish this I will be washing her remaining diapers so there are no stinkies in the diaper bin. Also make sure to take out ALL YOUR TRASH before you leave. 

Make sure your house is nice and clean before you leave so you come home to a nice clean house. This will make it easier to unpack, get reorganized and skip the post vacation chaos that tends to linger for a week after. 

The Flylady suggests that as soon as you get home, start a load of laundry before you crash, good idea! 

A lot of the "before you leave" stuff will only be easy to do if you get the majority of your packing done ahead of time. Preparation is everything, I printed the list a week ago and did everything spread out over a few days, so today I just have some minor tasks to complete. Not stressed out! No sense in getting completely flipped out before having to spend 19 hours in the car with a 3 yr old and almost 2 yr old :)

So if you have a vacation coming up, start planning now! Print out the list, modify as needed and make the start of your vacation as stress free as possible, so you can enjoy the rest! It totally works. I promise :)

Cutesy Up Your PJs

Well, your kid's PJs at least. My little one was in desperate need of some PJs so of course that presented a great opportunity to SEW :)

I have always used the same pajama pant pattern. It is Simplicity 2734 .  It is actually simple and they go together super easy. I haven't done the top yet because I really have issues sewing knits, but from the looks of the pattern, it's Erin-Proof :)

For the top I just picked up a pack of toddler camis at Walmart. I wanted to do something cute on them and putting a little applique on a little top (or anything) is super easy. It's not a new idea, but a little bit of fusible bonding web can go a long way for lots of fun! Just don't go crazy and start ironing little hearts to your designer jeans.

It's really easy to go online and find templates for all kinds of shapes and designs 

 I ironed on pieces of fusible bonding web to the fabric I wanted to use. Then I traced the designs directly on the paper side of the bonding web.

 I then cut them out :)

You essentially have an iron on applique now. Iron on according to the instructions and sew around the edges. I started out with something simple because I am not the best at sewing in circles but it actually turned out pretty cute.

 Now I have cute PJs for my little girly.

Not original by any means, but it's really a fun way to use up your scraps and make something plain, fun. Now go get some fusible bonding web and start ironing!

A Birthday Boy

It's hard to believe that three years ago I gave birth to this handsome little boy, embarking on the incredible journey of motherhood.  I remember after he was born and being so terrified because I was responsible for keeping this tiny baby alive. It was so daunting to me at the time, but I have learned that we are equipped with everything we need and what we don't know, someone we know knows.

We had a low key day, going to Toddler Power Hour at the local library and had some cake to celebrate. We are visiting my family family next week and they are planning a fun party when we get there so today was simple.

I had Lenny help me make the cake since it didn't have to be perfect ;)

 It was a lot of fun and Bela joined in the fun to help decorate.

Not perfect by any means, but it was more fun to watch them decorate it than make a perfect cake :)

It was a fun night and we look forward to more celebrating! Happy Birthday Lenny!