A) Sleeveless Chambray Shirt a) Vintage Sunscapes Wrap Skirt 
B) Vintage Layered Cake Top b) Striped High Waist Shorts
C) V Pocket Tee in Stripe  c) Vintage Pleated Cotton Skirt
D) Chambray Pocket Tank d) Bird Printed Shorts

Last date night, Ben and I ended up being twinsies, so for the next date night, I’m going to be doing a little more outfit planning to make sure that doesn’t happen (as funny as it was last time). Plus, I just love any excuse to dress up! The above combos are some outfits that I am dreaming of for some of our summer date nights. We’re aiming to get in at least one each month. I think all these pairs are definitely better together, don’t you?! And seriously, I have a gift card to Madewell, so I’m really thinking of spending it on the sleeveless chambray button down or maybe I’ll get lucky and find a similar one at the thrift store. That style top will definitely pair well with lots of things in my closet!

If you could pick any outfit for your next date night out with your love, what would it be? Are you more of a dress or a separates gal? I used to be a dress gal, but lately, I’ve been loving mixing and matching my separates!

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Thank you for your continuous support of this space and my sponsors! These opportunities really wouldn’t be possible without you, so thank you!

Soul’s been wearing that dress for two days in a row (this picture was taken on day 2). True’s in love with her whale dress (by misha lulu). Remember, she has a water/ocean/mermaid obsession of late, Brave loves her spider man shoes so much, and Glow’s the only one that really lets me dress her these days. These are my girls.

These girls of mine are also already laying claim on the various articles of clothing I own and keep asking me to save it for them when they get older. Soul’s tries to lay claim to all my jewelry and they often discuss who will get which shoe. I think these pair of clogs go to Soul. I’m hoping they all end up the same shoe size because that will save us lots of money during the teenage years, but I’m also sure that will cause lots of fights. I’m thinking the fighting between these girls won’t actually end until they all have families of their own. Right now the fighting revolves around the sharing of toys, then it will be the sharing of clothes, and then the sharing of a vehicle, and hopefully when they’re grown, they’ll just love sharing recipes, marriage and parenting tips together (basically, just sharing life!) and it will no longer involve fighting. They will eventually learn to share. That’s the goal folks, that’s where we’re headed. At least, that’s what I’m praying.

Sometimes, baby fever hits and I give Ben a look and say, “Don’t you wonder what a boy would look like?” And then he reminds me how chaotic our life currently is, how much work it is to make sure they all have our attention, and how much it cost to actually raise children (kids are expensive!), and then I’m like, “Oh yeah. We’re good. We’re totally good.”

on me: shirt, vintage from cut + paste. shorts, thrifted. shoes, t-bar clogs c/o lotta from stockholm. on true: dress, misha lulu. shoes, salt-waters. on brave: dress, misha lulu. shoes, gap kids. on soul: dress, thrifted. shoes, gifted from my friend joanna. on glow: dress, misha lulu. shoes, salt-waters.

Simple Crunchy Shell Taco. Easy go-to meal when I need fast and delicious. Ground turkey, taco seasoning, cheese, greek yogurt, and whatever greens we have on hand with lots of Tapatio sauce (at least for Ben and me). Ben has his on whole wheat tortillas, but us girls opt for crunchy shells.

Orzo with Feta, Basil and Shrimp. We all really liked it! We made two batches, one had imitation crab meat because True is allergic to shellfish and sans the spice, and then we made another with the shrimp and lots of spice! My only change to the recipe was that I added minced garlic in with the marinade and pretty well doubled the spice for ours. Ben liked all the flavors, but he didn’t like that the orzo wasn’t a whole grain. It’s my first time cooking orzo, so does anyone know if there’s a whole wheat version of it? We also both agreed while it was pretty spot on for flavors, it definitely could have used some vegetables in it. Next time, we’re thinking of throwing in either artichokes or roasted red bell peppers. I think that would add another yummy (and healthful) good dimension to the dish. Or even just cherry tomatoes like Frédérique suggested in last week’s family meal comments.

Week 6/3 – 6/7

Monday: Spaghetti
Tuesday: Leftovers
Wednesday: Homemade burgers
Thursday: Easiest Posele (from Gwyneth Paltrow’s new cookbook)
Friday: Pizza night

I wasn’t able to get my meal plan up at the end of last week, but I still wanted to make sure to do it because it keeps me in check for meal planning this coming week. I seriously use these posts to do our real family meal plan, so during the weeks I don’t share it, I probably didn’t plan and Ben probably ended up cooking. How do you plan for weekly meals?

The biggest news of our week is that we got a piano! And piano lessons officially start for the girls on Thursday. I’m excited and they’re excited about it, so maybe we will have another Mozart and Beethoven in the making. I’ll do a later post on the piano and what I learned as I was consulting with various piano technicians as I was searching for a used piano. You can see another view of the piano on my instagram!

This week’s learned, links, and thankfulness…

True and Brave have pretty good fluency in reading. I’m amazed and thankful that I can be part of their learning (though it is hard as heck!).

Don’t wake Soul up from a nap in the car. She’s scary!

I’m thankful for Danni’s and Annie’s honest blog posts. Contentment and mom guilt are definitely things I wrestle with too.

With summer here, I’ve been checking Treehouse Kid & Craft and Kiwi Crate for some summer kid projects! Both sponsors that I adore!

I can’t believe it’s June. We’re so excited for some of our summer plans. Any of you have a vacation in the works?

Crystal Lewis has a kickstarter project going on. I’ve been a big fan of hers for. like. ever. and I’m excited for the possibility of a new album. If you are too, I say you go check it out here!

Thankful there’s one week left of homeschool! We’re going to end the school year with a poetry night. The girls have been hard at work learning poems all year long. I think they have about 8-10 memorized.

This hanging chalkboard would be great for a little summer learning and drawing! Plus, it’s only 10 bucks!

We’ve got real summer heat this weekend, so we’re spending time working on indoor projects and maybe watching a movie! What are your plans this weekend?

They homeschool, but the program we go through is so great because they get to go to school one day a week (with other homeschoolers) and they still get to experience normal school things like Open House! Ben had to work late that night and couldn’t get out of it, so it was a Bratcher girl night out and True and Brave were so proud to show me what they have been working on.

When we walked in, the secretary and director were saying hi to the babies and then proceeded to ask their names, which I’m pretty sure if you have two sisters at the school named Brave and True, you’re dying to know what the heck the parents named the other kids! I always think it’s hilarious to see people’s reactions to their names. We know people will either love it or hate it. It really doesn’t faze us because we know we gave them “unusual” names. We also pretty much thought about every possible way their names could be ridiculed, so when someone says, “True or false,” we internally just roll our eyes because been there, done that. Plus, Ruby is a “normal” name and I got ridiculed like crazy for it. The boys I grew up with manage to take my simple name and butcher it a little and made fun of me with it. So “unusual” name or not, kids will always find a way to make fun of it.

Anyhow, the school year is coming to an end in just one week. I’m so excited! The girls are excited! We’re all definitely ready for summer vacation, though we will still continue with cursive and math through the summer. There just won’t be that much pressure since we won’t have a teacher to report to (we have a credentialed teacher come monthly to check out the girls’ progress and my lesson plans). We finished our language and science book for the year a couple weeks ago, so we’re still trekking on with reading, writing, math, spelling, and history. Once this school year is over, I’ll be sure to do a post on what we used and my thoughts on it based on this year. If things get a little quiet here next week, it’s because we’re wrapping up school things. Once we’re done, we’ll be ready to play all day, every day. Okay, not really, but we will definitely be much more relaxed. Yippee!

Okay, so it isn’t my first cookbook, as I’ve had one cookbook given to me in the past, but all our other cookbooks are Ben’s. Either he purchased it or we gifted it to him because it was on his wish list. He was the main chef in this house up until a year ago when I started taking the reins and meal planning, and I started doing the cooking myself. So this It’s All Good cookbook by Gwyneth Paltrow is the first ever cookbook I bought for myself! Hip hip, hooray! It’s a milestone for me.

My friend Steph recommended it and she told us there was a recipe to make our own Sriracha sauce and that pretty much sold me, and I ordered it. Just at first glance, based on the pictures, I loved it. I love the simplicity of the design. Next, I started diving into the recipes and the combos for the dishes had me smitten even more. Now, all the recipes don’t have a picture of the finished dish, which is slightly disappointing because I think food pictures are a big deal, but I’ll survive. Maybe next time Ms. Paltrow will add more pictures! I’m definitely going to try to incorporate at least one dish into next week’s meal plan.

I haven’t had time to read the book cover to cover, so I know there’s a lot more information in there about diet and allergies, but overall just based on the recipes and pictures, I like it. Now, I hope it all tastes as good as it looks! Do you have a favorite cookbook? I’d love to hear other recommendations!