Tad Archives - Page 6 of 62 - Feathers in Our Nest

Last Weekend: Family Walks, Teething Woes, Grocery Shopping, Lunch Out, Food Trucks, & More

September 29, 2014 by Aliesha

I feel like I’m overdue for an update on what our family has been doing lately! Last week we were dealing with teething woes (see below), and so I’m just now catching back up on lost sleep!

The weather has been glorious the past few days (after 3+ days of rain early last week), so we’ve enjoyed some really nice family walks! The girls love our quiet neighborhood where they can run free.

Jude was teething last week, so there were several nights when Tad and I were taking turns snuggling him and trying to get him back to sleep. After two very bad nights, he finally started sleeping better! He has two new teeth on the top that he is quite proud of.

Saturday is my grocery shopping day now, since Tad is off and it means I don’t have to shop alone. I usually go to Aldi, but the nearest one is 35 minutes away, so we try and make a day of it! There is a Hobby Lobby there too, so we swung by and grabbed a few things for some craft projects.

Aldi has really expanded their organic line lately! I was able to buy grape tomatoes, Gala apples, quinoa, frozen blueberries, frozen strawberries, diced tomatoes, fire roasted diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste, and animal cookies (special treat) – all organic and at great prices! I also love to buy their organic spinach and other salad greens. Aldi is such a blessing to our family!

Tad took us all out to lunch on Saturday, which was so sweet. We went to a new (to us) local restaurant and enjoyed delicious sandwiches!

CC wasn’t feeling great on Saturday (cold?), but she’s totally better today.

On Sunday we had a wonderful worship service at church. (Have I mentioned lately how much we love our church? It’s a BIG blessing to have our souls fed every week.) Two people were baptized after the 11:00 service, and then there was a fun food truck rodeo for the whole church.

The girls played in (or near, as in Vera’s case) the bouncy house for a little bit. Two of the food trucks experienced delays on the way (flat tire and stuck in traffic), so we didn’t end up staying at the rodeo. The one truck that did make it had a pretty long line, and our kids were getting pretty hangry! (You know, so hungry you’re angry = hangry.)

But we had a nice time for the few minutes we stayed!

I’m just thrilled to finally get to wear chambray, jeans, and scarves again! Yay, fall!

Oh, I also just discovered some beautiful new printables from Ann Voskamp. You just have to go here and sign up (free), then you can access beautiful designs like these!

Lovely reminders of truth!

How was your weekend?

Vera’s Pink & Gold Tea Party: Part 1

August 25, 2014 by Aliesha

On Saturday we celebrated Vera turning four years old by hosting a pink, gold, and mint FANCY tea party! Vera seemed so grown up drinking out of a china tea cup!

MiMi (my mom) made beautiful rose pillowcase dresses for the girls to wear, and for at least a few pictures, they wore flower crowns that I made and pretty little gloves too.

Cordelia was a little lady too.

I was so pleased with how our family picture turned out!

Love my sweet Vera!

Jude and Tad both looked quite dapper!

MiMi and her grandgirlies:

Pops and Uncle Nicholas celebrated with us all weekend as well!

Grammy always seems to know how to get Vera to laugh!

Grandanny adores his grandgirls too!

Of course Mister Jude loves all of the funny faces Grandanny makes!

“Hey! That’s my hat!”

We were so glad cousins Haley and Brayden could come to the tea party as well!

This was the best photo of the cousins that we could get!

Tad served drinks to everyone. The sparkling lemonade was popular!

Vera loved her cake (chocolate with pink buttercream frosting).

She even blew out her candle without any help!

We gave her her first bicycle and she was so thrilled! “I asked for a bicycle and you gave me one!”

I couldn’t have thrown this party without my amazing husband, who helped tremendously, and who wore a gold bow tie so cheerfully!

I’ll have to share more details about the party in another post tomorrow!

The Perfect Date Night

August 20, 2014 by Aliesha

This past weekend, we went to Richmond because Tad had an opportunity to preach at his home church (he did a wonderful job, by the way).

On Saturday, Tad’s parents were sweet enough to watch the kids for us so we could go out on a date together! Of course I took the opportunity to dress up. (P.S. My hair was done in less than 3 minutes… sock bun curls for the win!)

We went to a unique shopping district (one that we love visiting when we get the chance), where we were able to visit a really fun chocolate store (where I got some fancy chocolates for Vera’s tea party) as well as a Goodwill Boutique (where I found a tunic dress in the 15 minutes we had before closing).

After shopping, we went to a lovely local restaurant and had great window seats!

The food was spectacular, but then again, when you don’t have to make it or get up a hundred times during the meal, it does tend to taste better. We both ordered free-range chicken stuffed with smoked gouda and spinach, served with broccolini, cherry tomatoes, and rosemary polenta!

We had creme brulee for dessert!

After dinner we drove through a gorgeous historic district that had me drooling over every house and wishing we could go back and leisurely walk through the neighborhood!

We went and saw a movie at a cool theatre that was in a former iron foundry that made locomotives, so it had a hip industrial vibe.

It was such a blessing to be able to spend so much time with one another! Sometimes we forget how badly we need time away to talk and hang out! A BIG thank-you to Tad’s parents for taking good care of the kiddos so we could spend time together! And, a huge thank-you to Tad for concocting the perfect date night!