50 States Before They Graduate

Last summer after we took our first plane ride with both kids and after we checked off three more states on my son's scratch off US State Map, we decided that we should officially try to see all 50 States before the kids graduate high school!

Currently, our 8 year old son has been to 15 states and our 5 year old daughter has been to 11 states.

We are very relaxed with what counts as a state visit. We just have to walk around in it.

Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin 2010. When Little Man was 3 weeks old. We did this trip several times before we finally moved back to Wisconsin when Little Man was 11 months old. We often drove this, and also took Amtrak several times. 

Minnesota, North Dakota and Montana 2011. When Little Man was a year and a half we took an Amtrak trip to Montana. 

Arizona. 2012. Little Man's first plane ride. He turned two while on this trip! 

Illinois, (Ava's first state) Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma. 2016. Ava's first trip. We spent a few days in St. Louis, and then traveled to Kansas for our nephews High School graduation. We also drove to the spot where Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma all met. 

Iowa. 2016. A random day trip to see a museum. 

Florida. 2017. Our first plane ride as a family of 4. And our first trip to Disney World. 

Kentucky and Tennessee. 2017. An epic road trip to Nashville to watch the Total Solar Eclipse of 2017. Plus who doesn't love Nashville!!! 

Indiana and Michigan. 2017. Ava's first time to these states. We drove to visit friends and to see where Little Man was born! 

Tennessee. 2018. We loved Nashville so much we decided to go back again! We flew in for a short visit to watch our favorite Professional Hockey teams, the Nashville Predators and the Los Vegas Knights. 

We currently have flights booked for states 16 and 17!! And are finalizing the details for 18 and 19! We have a lot of states to visit in the next ten years. I am not sure if we will actually accomplish this, but we will sure have fun trying! 

Walt Disney World in June

It was one year ago this week we made our first family trip to Walt Disney World. Yes Walt Disney World in JUNE!! It is currently 95 degrees in Wisconsin and this weather slightly reminded us about how insanely hot it was last summer on our amazing week in Florida. It was over 100 degrees every day, and it was HOT!!!

While we had an absolutely amazing time, and I can't wait to go back, next time I will do everything in my power not to go over the summer months. In all of our pictures you can tell we are covered in sweat.

Disney World being so amazing, you often only see the fabulous pictures, because for the most part it is amazing and fabulous. Below are four of my favorite pictures from our trip. They didn't make Facebook but they show the other side of Disney. The tired, exhausted, hot kids side! Which you will have any time of year.

If you want to survive Disney World in the insane heat here are things we couldn't survive without.
1. Stroller - we brought our UppaBaby G-Lite but rent one, if you don't bring one. Our 7 year old ended up riding most of the time while our 4 year old had to be carried, we could have easily used a double and we don't use strollers any more.
2. A Cooling towel 
3. Money for Water - we brought water bottles in every morning, but we ended up buying bottled water from the stands all over the park. It was just so hot and we just desperately wanted ice cold water.
4. A Fan spray bottle combo. I debated buying one from Amazon before we left and I didn't. The first morning we walked 5 feet into The Magic Kingdom and paid $20 for one. But it was so worth it. And our original one stopped working and my husband exchanged the broken one for a working one!

Disney World is truly an amazing trip. And our kids being 4 and 7 were a perfect age for it. The best part was seeing the magic through their eyes. For months before our daughter was talking about how she was going to dance with the beast. And she did, and that made it so worth it!

Adorable Maxi Dress Pattern

My five year old is Maxi Dress Obsessed!!! And maybe that is because I only wear Maxi dresses. Stores have a few child sized maxi dresses but not a lot, so I decided to seek out a cute pattern and make her one myself. 

After some debating on which pattern, I purchased this awesome pattern from Etsy. It's called the Bella's Dress and Maxi by SimpleLifePatternCo.

I made a size 6 for my very tall daughter and being a maxi dress, this calls for close to 3 yards of fabric for a size 6. I did not have 3 yards of the same fabric on hand and before ordering fabric just for a dress I decided to make a "practice" dress. I did not want to waste 3 yards of fabric and not have a dress turn out. So I picked 3 different random prints I had on hand to come up with the best combination to make a "practice" dress.

I LOVE this little practice dress!!!! The combo came together nicely and my daughter LOVES it as well. She tries to wear it every day! The pattern was so easy to follow and the dress was very easy to make! I was very impressed with this pattern and I can't wait to make it again.

I accidentally messed up cutting the skirt fabric so it ended up being a little shorter than it was supposed to be, but I like this length on her. I also did not have enough of the navy ruffle fabric, so I purposely made that layer shorter.

This is a fabulous pattern if you are looking to make a maxi dress!! (And it twirls, because every 5 year old needs a good twirl dress!!!)

Quilt Number Ten!

Quilt Ten!!!! This is probably the second quilt I ever started. I can't even tell you when I started this. I made the blocks for this at a local quilt shop in a block of the month club. The quilt shop is no longer in business and has been for a while. So this has been sitting in my closet unfinished FOREVER!!!

I quilted it right before Christmas this past year on my first ever experience using a long arm machine. I rented one from a different local quilting shop. I also quilted quilt seven and quilt eight at the same time. It just again took me forever to actually bind the quilt and finish it.

I had a lot of fun using the long arm machine. I was so intimidated by it, but it was so easy! I can't wait to use it again. But for the small throw quilts I usually sew, I can just do those on my machine at home.

I like the start quilting pattern I picked. It was completely different than what I would normally go for.

Again this is probably a quilt that will end up on my daughters bed. Simply because she loves blankets!! And she is a five year old hoarder!