weekender: the beginning of wrestling season

hi beautiful loves! 

This is the time of year where our weekends are less weekend-y and more weekish which is fun and exhausting at the same time!

Friday night started with the first of two days of wrestling! It was my first time meeting Tripp's team and I must confess...I couldn't love them more! They are some sweet and funny dudes (+ one girl which I am all team #Iamwomanheremeroar). This best picture I could get of Tripp that night!

They got done wrestling at 12:am on Friday night, only to be back at 8am the next morning...#colormepooped

{snapchat: lindsaymclovin}

We got done after lunch time went and grabbed a pizza so we could eat and pass out for a nap! Woke up 4 hours later to finally watch The Wiz which was AMAZING, y'all. I LOVED ITTT! 

Favorite Part: SANG NEYO, SANG!

Sunday, we skipped morning church from exhaustion...squeezed in a run then the good thing about the church we are visiting now is that they have a night option so we were able to still attend a service (yay for night church!).

then finally...it's us!

yay! happy monday to y'all! linking up with Biana!

catching up!

happy holidays friends!

We are smack dab in the middle of holiday [oh and wrestling] season here in the Otis house and I have some catching up to do! I had planned on being back Monday but we had a pretty busy weekend which meant recuperating yesterday [ya know, cleaning, grocery shopping, etc].

First off, I didn't shop at all! I unfortunately don't even know of any sales going on currently but I do have some cute pictures to share!

I started my holiday week with the GRAND decision to put oil pulling in my life on Wednesday and when my 15 minutes were up and spit the oil into a cup, HALF of my back tooth went with it. Yup, lets start the holiday with a broke tooth y'all! So this resulted in a dentist appointment not being able to be scheduled till this past Saturday.

A little more on Oil Pulling: I am not sure really if it helps with teeth health, whiter teeth, prettier skin or not, especially since I'm not exactly the poster child on all it has done for me [y'all remember the broken tooth right?!] but I continued doing it since Wednesday so 6 days in and the dentist couldn't believe that I had ZERO pain from the broke tooth and I have noticed whiter teeth so it's not enough for me to give up just yet. Stay tuned... 

[snapchat: lindsaymclovin]

 

Thanksgiving day was spent with my mom's parents and her brother which is always entertaining! I made my first ham and it turned out edible [shocking]! [cherishing this scarf given to me for my birthday]

Then Thanksgiving night was spent with Tripp's family which included these nuggets and 3 adults trying to put a gingerbread house together...[how many adults does it take?! the answer: a bunch]

Friday night we had a date night! We like to try new places and we tried a mexican restaurant called Little Donkey...not a favorite for us. The drinks 4 out of 5 stars [I got a sparkling margarita]. The food was 2 out of 5. The atmosphere was 5 out of 5, cute little place.

Since we weren't full after dinner, we decided to go next door to Steel City Pops! I got the divinity [holiday] pop and Tripp got the Maple Bacon pop. I was in HEAVEN!

Speaking of sweets, during the off period I tried making a Caramel Pudding Cake and it didn't turn out too shabby! I didn't have ice cream so I stuck some marshmallows on top!

Speaking of CAKE...We started the couch to 5k program on Thanksgiving day...don't ask...it involved seeing some thanksgiving pictures that were not flattering at all and I am so happy to say that I have ran 3 out of the past 5 days!

I've been working on my gallery wall and I put a few more touches up yesterday! What else do I need?!

Thennnn...we ended the weekend babysitting these two nuggets and turning our house into a big fort because that's what cool Aunt and Uncles do!

I've missed y'all! Breaks over for a few more weeks! Let's talk all things Christmas!!

weekender || the one with mom's 60th party

happy Monday loves! 

This weekend was BUSY, y'all. My mom turns 60 on November 29th and since that's all uber close to Thanksgiving, I found this weekend to be best to throw her a dinner to celebrate turning 60 and fabulous with her girlfriends. I do have a lot of fun planning and throwing parties so it was fun, the not-so fun part was that Tripp also had a wrestling tournament this week so my help was unavailable. I have to say that mom and her sweet ladies seemed to have a good time though and that's LITERALLY all I wanted for mom's milestone birthday!

 We had assortment of cupcakes and coffee mocha punch [which is so delish by the way]!

Chili- Moms favorite..like she can literally eat it everyday

Then a small potato bar which I wish I had leftovers because it was quite yummy!

My mom and Grandmother! 60 and 87 never looked so good!

Love seeing her happy and she got the sweetest gifts!

Mom, Grandmother and her sweet friends!!

Okay, so I could just share that part of my weekend with y'all, I call that the GOOD part but I like being honest and real on here so it wasn't all parties and good food. I've missed my brother like crazy this week, it comes in waves but this week they were more frequent and rougher. I don't know if it's because I was planning something for my mom or because it's getting closer to the holidays but I miss that dude so bad. I often thought while planning the party this weekend how even if my brother was here, he wouldn't be helping ha. I mean I'm the daughter and that's my job so I would just be complaining how he wasn't helping but I would much rather be complaining about him rather than missing him. People who haven't had a loss like that just don't understand so I didn't want to talk about it this week with the people around me. Being a sibling that's lost a sibling, I am also not a fan of sharing with my family how I feel. I know they experienced the loss when Micah died too but they had different relationships [son, grandson, nephew] and I don't want to bring up sadness if they are having a good week. It can be frustrating to try and get them to understand my pain being Micah's sister. I feel protective over our relationship because he was my only brother and I was his only sister. I get irritable when people try to relate their relationship with him to mine, I don't know if that's just me or if that is apart of grief. I just spent the week being very internal, I don't know whether that was good or not but that's what happened. I started this blog to talk about grief so I just wanted to share that even a year and half later, waves hit and they stay around longer than a day but I'm determined that we're gonna make it, y'all!

here is a little Monday motivation for you:

happy Monday! It's officially Thanksgiving week and my only work day whoooohoo! Linking up with Biana, as usual!

weekending.

hi little loves! 

Was it just me or was y'alls week/weekend crazy busy and exhausting?! Waking up with a headache was definitely not how I intended on starting my Monday but nevertheless, here we are!

Catching y'all up on our lives and linking up with Biana!

So we went and saw The Intern for my birthday I know I mentioned several times on here wanting to go and see it and y'all I LOVED it. Even my husband did. It was just a happy movie and sometimes you need to see that and Robert DeNiro is such a gentleman in it. 

Then we had a little birthday get together at my Grandparents house and it was just nice to literally have all my favorite people in one room for my birthday. My g'parents house holds such good memories for me and is literally one of the calmest places I know. 

 my favorite guy!

 my mom took this picture because somehow I always end up in the middle of their bed since I was teeny tiny. Photo Evidence Below::::

& back to now:

my favorite couple!

PRESENTS!

Uncle Al waiting for them most important part: the cake to be cut!

Tripp's Nanny has the same birthday so we celebrated her! {ps. I finally got Tripp on snapchat}

 Tripp was pretty close to dressing like a woman for halloween but he quickly decided he can't handle the shoe pain ha!

 Trick or Treating with the in-laws.

 This is my sister-in-law's family included Jaxon's little girlfriend.

 Jaxon was spiderman.

 Willow was Cleopatra and was thrilled to get to wear makeup! Homegirl can put lipstick on better than me!

Ended the night early because it POURED after the kids had trick or treated at about 3 roads.
Yesterday we spent some quality time with the godchild so like I said, BUSY!

Today starts my second favorite sports season {1st is the Crossfit Games}, WRESTLING season! Be prepared to be hearing alot of wrestling and coach wife talk from now until February...then we switch gears into soccer....whew! 

Glad to spend my Monday midday with y'all! 

weekending, again.

Hi lovelies!

I love being with you guys! It feels good to spend a typical early morning with y'all and to make it through the hard two weeks. I felt all the love y'all were sending my way and it was so refreshing to hear that I wasn't alone and that y'all can relate. That is really the whole reason I started the blog, I have felt alone in so many moments and I never want to have someone else feel that way if I can help it. Anyways, I really just took a moment the last part of the week and weekend to be in the moment with my husband so I could come back this week with y'all super refreshed! 

Here's our life lately::::: {follow along at snapchat: lindsaymclovin instagram:@_lindsayotis}

It was Tripp's last Middle School game on Thursday, we had dinner with friends after but no pics were made :( #bloggerfail

Tobes so wants to be an outside dog, unfortunately he is just a tad too small.

 My cousin Jess is the best at doing any kind of art work you need. She did all of my signs for my wedding and she came in clutch with my pumpkin door hanger.

 

 This was Friday night when mom and I saw a mouse skirt across the floor #firstworldprobs

We've been trying to seal up every hole in our house to get rid of those things! If you wanna SCARE ME TO DEATH, just put a mouse in my house. #literallystandingonchairs

 

Literally 95% of the time I am the one napping on Saturdays so it was super refreshing that he was the one that napped for a few hours. Am I the only one that can relax better if someone else is relaxing?! #amIweird

Then Sunday after church, we had to run by Tripp's work and I found it necessary for a selfie. Please notice the strategically placed sunglasses to cover up where I need botox BAD. 

This weekend has been getting cooler in Bama, like 70s in the day and at night the 50s so we have just been leaving our windows open and not running the AC. Look how cold it got down to at night?! It's hard to wake up with this temperature waiting on me #brrrrrrrr

 

 Then I was running behind on the blog and of course...this is what I was dealing with?! #ineedamac

Linking up with Biana::::::Hope you guys enjoyed the update! I have a week full planned on Not A Mom!