Finally sharing what happened. (And where I disappeared to!) DITL VLOG

a portion of today's video is kindly sponsored by [Music] Factor well hey friends so glad you stopped by to hang out with me today it's been a while since I've picked up the camera because I was on an extended holiday an extended break from work but I'm back at it and it doesn't even feel like work at this point because I have missed you I hope you all have been well Weston and I literally last night got in from our trip to Ireland and we came home to a clean house and then proceeded to make a mess in it I don't know what this video is just a vlog hanging out together getting some stuff done doing a bit of decluttering and unpacking and settling in and sharing with you how the last couple of weeks have gone we're going to start here in the laundry room because this is probably the biggest task that I have to do and I would like to get this done sooner rather than later get that laundry rolling and that can be washing and drying and processing through all day while I work on other stuff I'm going to try to also take it easy today I am pretty tired I am going to try to get through what I can but not not freak out about the rest and it's a gorgeous day right now and I really want to step outside but before I do that let me get this kitchen island cleared off I feel like I would feel better with that going got the laundry started and I'm going to get this mess under [Music] control if you're new here I'd like to give you a warm welcome hi my name is Natalie and I love to make videos about homemaking and simple living I like to balance peacefulness with productivity and I would always love to be able to gently motivate you or to inspire you to take some downtime if that's what you like to do while you're watching YouTube videos and for those of you who have seen my videos before welcome back like I said earlier I have missed being able to post videos but the break has just been so wonderful so thank you so much for your patience while I was gone I'm so excited to be able to share with you a few little highlights and clips here and there from our Ireland trip throughout this video but if you would like to see the full travel Vlog for our Ireland trip I will leave my patreon Linked In the description box it's just five bucks a month over there and you actually get access to everything that I've ever posted on that platform I like to post just the extra stuff over there and the Ireland trip is part of that one of my favorite places we visited when we were in Northern Ireland was the Giants Causeway amazing the basalt columns that are just like naturally forming in these geometric patterns it was so cool to see and when we were uh visiting dun loose Castle which is down the roadways I found this handmade Pottery for sale uh using some of the mud or clay from the Giants Causeway so I added this to my collection and brought it home with me isn't that pretty I got a couple of other uh souvenirs and little things that we picked up for the kids for our home actually we had a family member of westons give us a couple of things too which was really sweet I'll do sort of a souvenir haul for you guys in a little bit but getting this kitchen taken care of wiped down getting the sink taken care of this feels so much better I definitely have more to do around the house but I think I'm going to sit outside for a minute this beautiful Sunshine is calling my name let go I've got some popsicles that we're enjoying I'm sitting here thinking man there's like nothing in our fridge nothing to eat what am I going to make for dinner tonight you know all of those mom homaker thoughts and guess who shows up can anyone say factor factor Weston and I actually picked our Factor meals for this week back when we were in Ireland and I am so excited to open that box and get my fridge stocked up and thanks so much to factor for sponsoring the next couple of minutes of today's video factor is America's number one ready to heat meal kit offering a wide variety of delicious and nutritious meals that are delivered straight to your door Weston and I enjoy picking out our meals on the factor website or mobile app they offer protein packed keto calorie smart Chef's Choice and even vegan and veggie options it's easy to select exactly what we're craving and what fits our dietary or lifestyle needs and every meal is delivered fresh never Frozen just heat eat and enjoy Factor meals can be heated in the oven or the microwave in just minutes and one of the things I love so much about factor is their flexibility and customizability when we were out of town we were able to pause our subscription and also choose what we wanted to be ready for us when we get back creamy Parmesan chicken sundried tomato chicken my favorite turkey chili and zucchini the sage and black pepper pork that one's your favorite isn't it I always order it when it comes on the rotation oh my goodness one of the things I missed about factor I missed a few things but the wellness shots oh my gosh I was craving them I usually have one in the morning every morning on our trip I was like oh I just really want the ter turmeric spice one oh so good and they're good for you if you'd like to check out factor for yourself head to factor75.com or click the link below and use code Natalie b50 to get 50% off your first Factor box and then 20% off your next box that's code Natalie b50 at factor75.com to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next box while your subscription is active thanks again so much to factor for sponsoring that part of today's video and for being such a great support of my channel and helping me help support my family and making free content available over here for you guys and I really have you all to thank for the love and support which enables me to work with sponsors that I absolutely love I'm so so grateful after a very rainy week in Ireland um I am just enjoying this sunshine so much it was so funny everywhere we went um when people would recognize that we were American one of the first comments was oh so sorry for this weather that we've been having oh the weather's just been awful and Weston and I we are not scared of rain we actually really enjoyed it it was very cozy it was really sweet to like sit in a little coffee shop or a pub and just have the rain drenching down the windows or to be in our airbnbs or hotel rooms it just made it so special special and cozy and I don't know kind of romantic we loved it and man when you leave for I mean we were only gone for 7 days when you come back during this time of the year specifically it's like the world has changed there are so many leaves on the trees the like the little buds that we left are now actual leaves and they just keep getting bigger and bigger and as we were driving back down our driveway coming home we were greeted by the most beautiful site I have to show you you guys the Tulips bloomed oh my goodness you guys the Tulips blo my kids just roast me now this was such a happy sight to be greeted by there are still some varieties that haven't bloomed but some of them have they're so pretty but as you make your way down farther look at these oh my goodness we left with only a few daffodils BL bloomed and so many more came up in different colors and varieties and then also look at all of these tulips this side of the driveway gets more sun so these are a little bit more bloomed than this side but I actually planted more over here so I would say within the next several days or week or so all of these tulips are going to show color they are so pretty oh my goodness and we have some absolutely gorgeous daffodils that have popped up this one has kind of been knocked over what these ones I know they're so pretty there was another one over here that was like a double Bloom look at this one just gorgeous I might be tempted to snip a couple of these cuz I feel like I want to see them in a vase in my kitchen that one's pretty too so many of the ones that bloomed while we were gone are like those specialty varieties and these ones were already bloomed just like your typical yellow these are a little bit of a smaller variety I got a mix an assortment of different ones um as well as an assortment of different tulips and these are just so gorgeous did you hear us yelling yes I did hear you yelling cannot wait to see them bloom and I'm actually waiting to um film my April garden tour for my patreon on page uh until these are more bloomed out a little bit because I think if I wait all the way until May they will be on their way out so I'm just going to wait for like Peak Bloom time to film that video to show off these a little bit later on oh and sneak preview on the Bella pooke tulips those have gotten so much taller this one this is probably the sunniest spot on our property this one has definitely bloomed look look at how gorgeous that is oh my gosh so exciting there's so much work to do through here but let's just focus on this speaking of work to do there is definitely more inside the house that I got to keep tidying up and unpacking and making my way through the laundry I just got a notification on my phone from our washing machine that it's time to transfer the wash into the dryer and thus the cycle continues but first birthday planning with Haley pink cake a pink cake sure I would buy all heart candies on the bed sure that works for me so do you want seven individual candles or do you want a a big candle that is like in the shape of a seven a big candle that's in the shape of a seven okay on a pink cake with heart candies on them mhm cool Factor me and my close to my birthday and it has lots of those pork ones cuz they're delici you're so cute you want me wait you want me to order Factor meals for your birthday yeah okay and I want to buy a house that looks like this my birthday this estate this English Estate for your birthday um you want to buy ply it your birthday's on a Tuesday which means Daddy's going to be at work so do you want to save what we do for fun for your birthday until the weekend no dad takes his day off at Tuesday oh oh that would be so fun but I don't think he can do that yes he can I'll tell his boss you'll tell his boss to let him have a day cuz it's my birthday just what would you say if you call up his boss say I would say hello let Dad stay home it's my birthday hi I'm calling in regards to your employee Weston Benet uh it's my birthday on the 23rd and I want him to stay home from work oh and you say yes that would be fun but they really need daddy no they don't he's such a good worker isn't he we're so grateful he works so hard hat yeah here you go give my hair some sunshine do you want to maybe go see the Tulips that day yeah or maybe we could see it this week sometime maybe tomorrow does that sound good yeah okay you can have it be a whole birthday shebang what's a birthday a shalele what's a shalele I don't know it's an Irish thing you know you're Irish I am yep cuz your daddy's half Irish and apparently I have some Irish too why cuz we were finding out more about our families why cuz it's interesting why oh here we go Okie do it is the next day I know I said that I would keep working and I did a little bit bit off camera just puttering around and trying to get through the laundry and all of that I definitely have more work to do today that I will take you guys along with me for but this morning we woke up our power went out there's an unexplained power outage going on right now where we live and uh where we live it can be out for quite a while so we needed breakfast and coffee and we hit the road brought some school with us and we're going to visit the tulip fields and my favorite Nursery because it's that time of the year and I'm ready to do some planting do some spruing up of the landscape around our house so I have a few things that I'd like to pick up and every year we like to visit the Tulip field so we're going to do that we're at the nursery right now let's go check out what they have and then go visit the chips are you guys ready yeah be here you know I really want you to stay [Laughter] so [Music] cute blue Blue SC I'll put this there we go now we all have gloves did you get this kind too uh no I just got these what I like the mix Le grow here I know it's oh we need to get some some carrots we'll find some carrots hopefully oh yeah let's do the rainbow blend hey look sunflowers oh yep there's some sunflowers the French breakfast radishes this time come here by these have some golden beets in them oh yeah I want to do the same kind of can we find snow peas are these them let's see the snow peas that we had were so good it was the mammoth melting yeah that's oh yeah these do those are so [Music] good they grew up so much since the last time we were here it look like actual they do they're so cute so cute hello so cute they're following us are they interested in you guys like what you doing look at them there's Liam and Judah and Haley emu look at this one over here there's a sheep we saw so many sheep of course when we were in Ireland there's just the one here at this Nursery this is christensen's Nursery in skaja Valley it's lamming season everywhere but in Ireland where there are a ton of sheep oh my my goodness the little lambs everywhere were just adorable like we never got sick of seeing them they were everywhere and so precious silly but sometimes I feel your lips of mine lovers be lost but we will stay on a solid [Music] ground this time it is for Real another way will you be my only and dearest every day so find me at the rain home again home again what a beautiful day it's always such a treat to go see the tulip and we picked up a couple of things at the nursery I got a couple of rose bushes which will be gorgeous they're the John F Kennedy ones and they're like a white rose I don't have any white roses yet I just have the Julia Child yellow roses so I got those and a couple of little herbs um I have trouble starting my own herbs so I usually get herb starts except Dill I have to direct so that a couple of things and the Sunshine is calling my name but we've just got to finish some stuff up here in the house so that I can actually enjoy what's going on outside I still have laundry to finish up in fact I started a load when we got home because we do have power restored here which is great and we are finishing up some homeschooling for the day the kids are at the table here with me and since we're sitting down and I kind of have to go through this stuff anyway and get it where it needs to go I wanted to show you a little souvenir haul I'm not much of a souvenir person I don't like to bring in a bunch of extra junk into my house but if it's something that's functional that I could use anyway I will make the exception for that um and then typically if I don't know what to get or everything just kind of seems like junk what I go for is a Christmas ornament and so our tree is filled with ornaments from different places that we've visited and different trips that we've taken and that's really fun um I pretty much saved all of my souvenir shopping with the exception of that mug that I showed you and then also a a Woolen sweater that I bought there I saved the rest of the souvenir budget for one particular place which was so very special for us to visit it was Kong Ireland County Mayo um which is kind of like on the west coast the wild Atlantic way and it is one of the filming locations for one of my all-time favorite movies The Quiet Man with Marino Hera John Wayne and I can quote almost every line from that movie I have seen it so many times I grew up watching it Weston also grew up watching it it's really special in his family as well so it was really fun to visit some filming locations they have a replica Cottage all put together with some actual pieces from the movie um actual costumes that they wore and stage set pieces and props and it was a blast it was so fun and then they have a gift shop and so that's where I got the majority of the um souvenirs that we picked up there was a little tour guide pamphlet uh that you can go around the town we didn't go to Every location around the town cuz we were there actually quite early and a lot of these places weren't open yet but it was a stop on the way with with more traveling and road tripping that we had to do that day I got the same little um Christmas ornament for myself as well as for Weston's mom um because we quote this line to each other all the time if you've seen the movie you know this the character mine o Flyn he says when I drink whiskey I drink whiskey when I drink water I drink water it's when he's offered water to like water down his whiskey cuz he's you know hitting the bottle a little hard Ruthie and I quote this to each other and so I bought her this it's so goofy but she will love it and I will love it too so we'll both have that same one on our Christmas tree we got Haley this adorable little stuffed lamb did you love this yes yeah isn't it so cute we saw that and immediately knew that's the one for Haley and then growing up Weston always had one of these little traditional Woolen hats um I think I actually have a picture of him wearing his and uh we've always wanted to get one for the boys the boys look a lot like Weston and so we just thought it'd be sweet all of the gift shops have this style hat everywhere in Ireland uh but we thought that this was special because For the First Time like a couple of weeks before we left for our trip we showed our kids The Quiet Man movie and they loved it and so we thought that this would be a bit more meaningful we got this it's kind of a green color for leam and then Judah has a blue color that he has been wearing since the moment we gave it to him it's so sweet and that's a practical sort of you can actually wear it and use it souvenir that's kind of what I try to look for with souvenirs not just like random little things that just take up space and collect dust I'm always looking for art for our home and so I was so excited to see these beautiful art prints that are of different scenes from The Quiet Man this is by an artist named Tim Maloney I will leave his website in the description box if you guys want to check him out but this one is called Welcome Home quiet man and it's beautifully matted here and I have a couple of vintage frames that this would fit in into and this is from a very iconic scene in quiet man when he comes home to his family cottage from his childhood very very sweet let me see oh good job where's that this is page 16 where where is that the one you want to do too yes yes page 16 good job okay there you go that's done for the day Weston's Uncle Paul um is his mom's brother and he has always lived in Northern Ireland uh with his wife Bev they put together these sweet little bags for Weston and me and then Weston's brother and sister-in-law he included some like authentic candy that we don't have over here really fun little things that are kind of a staple in the area and then he said and just so you feel at home I also included some American candy there were also some bags of of crisps as they call them potato chips over there potato brand is Pretty stinking good and then he also just took the liberty of getting us some souvenirs from the places that he heard we were planning to visit so we didn't even have to really go into the gift shop which I actually don't like shopping for souvenirs especially like little chachis and stuff like this and so he took care of it for us and it was so sweet and I'm so glad that he did cuz it's even that much more more meaningful because it's not necessarily something that I bought but something that was given to me so these are a couple of sweet little magnets this is from Giants Causeway and it has it has these little sheep on it and then the the salt columns so cute it's kind of like a 3D one and then here's a little like Photo one of Carrick Fergus castle and then he also has a few little photos of the castle we stayed in Bal galy Castle Hotel and this is one of the older photos of it it was built in 1625 and this Photograph was taken in 1890 how cool is that and then this is it in modern day then this is the church that lon's cousin got married in when we were there it was so sweet this was built in 1694 Donna Gendry Parish church just beautiful how sweet that we have these special little like curated souvenirs and momentos from our trip so sweet he also has like uh travel guides and brochures and stuff that he included and because I like to Garden he got an Irish wildf flower mix a seed packet and I am going to go plant this within the next couple of weeks included a little caricature of that's Paul that's Bev so very sweet and they just had this little bubble ready for us us and we we packed very light for our trip just in a couple of carry-on sizes with room to spare because we knew that we would be getting a couple of souvenirs oh he got West in this little keychain the medieval helmet keychain so so thoughtful oh I have to show you this too this is totally beside the point but Weston's other side of the family um his Grandma Doris sent him a birthday card we actually left for Ireland on Weston's birthday so this arrived in the mail while we were gone and she included some childhood pictures of Weston like when I say the boys resemble Weston you can really see it in this picture I believe he was 10 years old 10 or 11 years old in this picture so right around the boys age they turned 10 this year which I cannot believe look at how sweet oh he's such a cutie pie oh and this is when he was really little I think he was like probably two or three years old picture I know they changed to Green when he got older isn't that funny won has green eyes now but he didn't in this picture I think by the time he was this age he did though there we go you know I keep saying that I'm going to get to the laundry in this video I keep telling myself that too and I'm just I don't think I'm going to get to it such is life I keep it real around here and sometimes we don't get it all done our Costco grocery order just got delivered we are so in need of groceries I ordered a new new pair of snips and pruners for gardening this year and I noticed I think this may be the first time that the heat activated little hatch at the top of my Greenhouse has opened this year it may have opened while we were in Ireland but I didn't see it happen before that we had some really good weather here while we were gone thus the uh color on the Tulips so I'm just putting that in the greenhouse and I'm headed inside not to do laundry because my family can't eat laundry for dinner so let's go make some dinner it's more interesting to watch someone cook than it is to watch them sort laundry anyway right tonight I'm going to do a dish that is super easy to throw together it's kind of like one of those Costco Staples you get the ston mill artichoke jalapeno Parmesan dip which you don't even use half of that uh some baby spinach chicken thighs um and you kind of mix that all cook it all up together it's one of those just dump and go sort of things um and then I'm going to serve it alongside asparagus cuz it's asparagus season Haley is going to go snap the ends off of those for me and I'm going to get the chicken started see the part where it's thick like Mom's finger you kind of want to go down until it's thick as your finger and snap it in that spot okay so Haley finger width dad did he keep like making his character Hollywood in California yep but Hollywood we were also in a place in Ireland that they called Hollywood they actually had like a Hollywood sign on the hillside it was so funny what it was it was as we were getting into a mountain pass another one mhm okay I've got the chicken thighs the artichoke dip some wor toer uh I have some sliced mushrooms that I threw in there and then I found a can of what are these sundried tomato halves and they've got sort of an Herby flavor so I'm going to put the lid on it oh I also have like salt pepper garlic powder onion powder put the lid on it let it simmer until that's cooked um until the chicken is up to temperature and then I'm going to rip up some baby spinach throw that in there before serving it and I'm going to serve it with pasta and the asparagus oh I'm also throwing these capers in there too y you love Capers uhhuh I threw some lemon slices in there which oh I do have lemon juice in there um this would almost be like a inauthentic chicken picata one of my favorite things to do after getting home from a trip is to cook a meal in my own kitchen and this dinner turned out so good it was so nice to be able to to spend time together as a family just catching up and chatting we missed our kids so very much but we were so grateful for the time that we spent in Ireland just the two of us I hope you enjoyed today's video imperfect as it was thanks for coming along with me as I got some stuff done as we had some downtime enjoyed some beautiful Springtime weather and flowers and plants if you enjoyed today's video don't forget to give it a thumbs up and be sure to come back next week for my next video thanks so much for for spending a little part of your day here with me on my channel and I'll catch you later [Music]

Channel: Natalie Bennett

Views: 56,000

Keywords: organize with me, declutter with me, messy to minimal, how to declutter, minimal mom, clean with me, minimalism, minimalist, decluttering, clean declutter and organize with me, declutter and organize with me, natalie bennett messy to minimalist, satisfying declutter, cleaning motivation, 2023 goals, new year resolutions 2023, how to be a minimalist, how to have a simple life, Life update, Health update, Husband and wife vlog, Homestead, First time homesteader

Id: 2wSfUTlaYhg

Length: 30min 49sec (1849 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 23 2024