The Francis Family

10 Minute Onesie Dress

2012-01-30T09:30:00.000-06:00

This weekend, I made this super easy little onesie dress for Jillian to wear around Valentine’s Day! I found the idea and tutorial here!

One 18 month onesie, 1/4 yard of cute valentine fabric, and 30-40 minutes (because I’m not a speed sewer and it was my first time to make this) of my Saturday night produced this cute little dress!

I’m planning on having her name embroidered on the top so it isn’t so plain. It would even be cute with a little appliqued heart in the same fabric or coordinating fabric!

I love that it’s still a functional onesie!

Seriously, if I can make this dress, anyone can! :)

Hope y’all have a great Monday!

photo-a-day: week 4

2012-01-29T10:00:00.000-06:00

January 22: Brody looking so big in his tie that he wore to church that morning!

January 23: Jillian was hard at work at Brody’s tool table!

January 24: Snuggling with my girl before her afternoon nap! She was sleepy from a fun morning at Bible study!

January 25: We had our first of many play dates with Preslee Turner! Jillian looks so big next to this sweet, petite girl!

January 26: Heading out the door for MDO! She looks so big!

January 27: Bowling with my family for my mom’s birthday!

January 28: Jillian, Josh and Brody hanging out while I shopped at a local store this weekend!

Our Friday in iPhone Pictures

2012-01-28T08:45:00.001-06:00

Brody and I started our morning early snuggling on the couch and watching Play House Disney. Brody wore this mixing bowl on his head while we watched tv. He acted like this was a completely normal thing to wear on your head! :)

After Jillian woke-up, we all went into Brody’s room to play and read books for most of the morning. I read this Noah Ark’s hand-puppet board book to Jillian at least 20 times this morning. She loves it! These types of books are so cute and fun for little ones!

Jillian went down for a quick morning nap and I got my car packed with meals for our freezer meal swap. We ended up with 10 meals for this coming month. I’m excited about all the new recipes, and of course, I’m most excited about 10 nights off of cooking! I made Erin’s Bow Tie Fiesta Pasta and Joelen’s Pesto Chicken Stuffed Shells for the swap. (I included the recipes at the bottom of this post.)

Around 10:30, I woke Jillian up from her nap and loaded the kids in the car. Jillian took a monster truck and a baby doll with her in the car today! Our rough and tough girly girl! :)

We swapped meals and then met Lisa, Sara, and their kids at Sam’s to eat lunch. Lisa is having her 3rd baby next Friday, so we enjoyed her last Friday out for a few weeks!

We made a stop at Target and then came home so the kiddos could nap.

Last night, we went to dinner and bowling with my family to celebrate my mom’s birthday.

My sweet guy and me!

I wore this purple shirt, jeans and leopard shoes and Brody told me several times that he didn’t like what I was wearing and that I needed to change clothes before we left the house. Nothing like a 3 year old’s honest opinion, even when you don’t ask for it. :)

Here are the recipes I used for the meal swap! Try them! They are both sooo good!

Bow Tie Fiesta
Recipe from Blue Eyed Bride

Ingredients:
8 ounces bow tie pasta
1 pound ground beef
½ onion, chopped
½ green bell pepper, chopped
1 (15-ounce) can tomato sauce
1 tablespoon chili powder
Salt to taste
1 cup sour cream
1 cup salsa
½ cup sliced black olives
¼ cup sliced jalapenos (optional)
1 tomato, chopped
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

Directions:Cook the pasta using package directions and cooking for 7 minutes; drain. Brown the beef in a skillet, stirring until crumbly; drain. Add the onion and green pepper and mix well. Cook until the onion is tender, stirring constantly. Stir in the tomato sauce, chili powder, and salt. Combine the pasta, ground beef mixture, sour cream, salsa, black olives, jalapenos, and tomato in a bowl and mix well. Spoon into a 9×11-inch or 9×9-inch baking dish. Sprinkle with the cheese. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 to 30 minutes or until brown and bubbly.

Pesto Chicken Stuffed Shells
Recipe from What’s Cookin’, Chicago?

12-16 jumbo pasta shells
water for boiling pasta
4oz cream cheese, softened
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan or Asiago cheese + 1/4 cup for topping
3 tablespoons prepared pesto (homemade or store bought)
2 cups shredded cooked chicken
2 cloves garlic, minced
salt and pepper to taste

In a large pot over high heat, boil water and prepare pasta shells as directed on package. Cook pasta shells only until al dente. The pasta will finish cooking when the dish is baked. Drain the pasta shells and set aside.
In a large bowl, combine the rest of the ingredients, except the 1/4 cup of cheese for the topping. Fill the pasta shells with the filling and place in a baking dish. Sprinkle the remaining 1/4 cup of cheese over filled shells.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and bake shells uncovered for 30 minutes or until shells are bubbling hot and cheese melts.

Have a great weekend!

Flashback Friday

2012-01-27T08:00:00.000-06:00

I came across these pictures of Jillian on my computer recently. She had just turned 3 months old and was looking oh-so-cute in her personalized little sister onesie on this particular day!

I wish I could just jump through the computer screen and snuggle this little baby girl! She is growing entirely too fast!

Happy Friday!

Rainy Day Fun

2012-01-26T08:00:00.000-06:00

It was rainy and cold here yesterday! Thankfully, we didn’t have any plans for the day. I always look forward to Wednesdays because it is one of our only mornings at home during the week. The kids and I spent the entire day in our pajamas playing and hanging out!

We spent the majority of the morning in Jillian’s room cooking and baking with her play kitchen.

Brody had gotten out one of my cheese graters to use while he cooked. He pulled it apart and said, “Look Mom, it looks like a backhoe!” He was right! Creative little guy!

Working hard in his sister’s pink kitchen! :)

After cooking, Brody gave Jillian a stroller ride in her baby doll stroller! Ha!

Once Jillian went down for her morning nap, Brody and I put the ingredients for dinner in the crockpot!

Then, I did some laundry and Brody obsessively washed his hands for about 30 minutes. This is his new thing! He loves to wash his hands, fill the sink with water until it almost overflows, then play in the water. I have to stick my head in every minute or so to make sure there isn’t a flood in the bathroom!

After lunch, we had a special little visitor! Preslee came over with her momma for a little while for our first play date! Brody and Jillian loved having her at our house! Jillian really loves her and thinks she her own little baby doll! :) I have several more pictures to share, so I am going to do a separate post for them! How sweet are these 3 together?

That afternoon Brody was wearing his argyle socks (they obviously matched his jersey so well) and he suddenly came up to me crying. When I asked him what was wrong he said, “I don’t want to wear these socks anymore. These socks are lazy!!!'” I have no idea what he was talking about, but it sure was funny!

After Josh got home from work, we ate chicken taco rice bowls, which was my easy crockpot meal from earlier in the day! I included the recipe at the bottom of this post. It was so easy and SOOO good! I found the recipe on my friend, Amy’s blog, and she found the recipe here!

Josh and I ended our night at small group! My friend, Holly, made these amazing Snickers surprise cupcakes. They were seriously so good and such a great way to end a fun, easy day!

Taco Chicken Rice Bowl

1.5 lb. boneless skinless chicken breasts

16 oz. jar salsa

1 can ranch style black beans (I had regular ranch style beans, so I just used those instead)

1/2lb frozen corn (I forgot to buy this, but will definitely add it next time)

1 tbsp chili powder

1/2 tbsp cumin

1/2 tbsp minced garlic

1/2 tsp dried oregano

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1/4 tsp salt

STEP 1: Add all ingredients to the slow cooker along with 1/4 cup of water (for good measure). Give everything a good stir and make sure the chicken is covered in the mixture.
STEP 2: Secure the lid on your slow cooker and cook on low for 8 hrs.
STEP 3: Near the end of the cooking time, cook two cups of rice according to the package directions.
STEP 4: After 8 hours of cooking, carefully remove the lid of the slow cooker. Stir with a fork to shred the chicken (it should be super tender and will shred easily). Build the taco bowls by placing rice on the bottom, then the taco chicken mix, shredded cheese and fresh cilantro.

Hope you all have a great day!

Happy Birthday, GiGi!

2012-01-25T08:23:00.001-06:00

Yesterday was my sweet mom’s birthday! Because of work and kids, we decided to not go out and celebrate until this weekend, so we just had a little cake party at our house last night with my parents, and Jill and Brandon.

I thought the cake turned out super cute. I love red and turquoise together!

Cake table!

Brody loves birthdays and thinks everyone else’s birthday is another chance for him to blow out the candles! :)

Jill, Jillian and mom

Cute girl!

Happy Birthday, Mom! We love you!

photo-a-day: week 3

2012-01-24T17:33:00.001-06:00

I’m a little behind, but better late than never!! A few of you asked how I do these pictures as polaroids. I did a post on how to do this last January when I did one whole week of these pictures, then quit! Ha! You can read it here!

January 15: Brody fell asleep playing with his toys in his room that night.

January 16: Brody and I went to see “Beauty and The Beast” with a few friends. He wasn’t too sure about the beast, but he was really happy at the end when the Beast turned out to be nice.

January 17: We went to Bible study at church and then came home to relax and do things around the house the rest of the afternoon. Brody wanted to cuddle on the couch. I never turn down an opportunity like that with our busy 3 year old!

January 18: Wednesday are our day at home! I love it and look forward to it each week. The kids stayed in their pajamas most of the day and even watched a DVD together in Brody’s room. This sweet moment lasted for approximately 45 seconds. :)

January 19: The weather was so nice and warm that we delayed afternoon naps after MDO and enjoyed some time outside!

January 20: We spent the morning at playgroup, then met some small group friends for lunch! Jillian rocked her ruffled shirt and cardi that day! :)

January 21: Josh went to coffee early with a couple of friends from church, then came home and snuggled and read to Jillian! She has him around her little finger! :)

Afternoon Fun

2012-01-21T10:52:00.001-06:00

It’s been unseasonably warm this past week! To be honest, it hasn’t really felt like winter all month…which I’m totally ok with! :) We are loving the warmer temperatures and so thankful we have been able to get out and do things that we usually never get to do in January!

I picked the kids up from MDO on Thursday and it was almost 60 degrees outside, so we ran by Sonic to get some ice cream ( a reward for Brody for something he had done the day before), came home, changed into play clothes, and headed outside. It was actually the kids’ naptime, but I just couldn’t stand the thought of the 3 of us not enjoying the beautiful weather. Sometimes you just have to be flexible, and this was one of those days! :)

Little sister benefited from Brody’s reward!

She has gotten SO good at using spoons and forks when eating! She loved getting to practice her skills with the ice cream!

This was Jillian’s first time to really play outside! We haven’t played outside since the fall and she wasn’t walking then, so she usually sat on a blanket or in her exersaucer. It was so fun getting to watch her run around the yard and play with all of Brody’s toys.

I think we will need to get a second car before the spring! They both love this thing so much!

Driving! She kept cutting her eyes back like this to make sure Brody wasn’t coming after her. Story of her life! :)

Brody decided he needed to bring out almost all the toys in his room to play with outside. This was super fun to take back inside! :)

Hope you have a great weekend!

Sleep Where You Fall

2012-01-19T09:35:00.005-06:00

Josh or I always go into the kids' rooms before we go to bed to check on them. When I peeked opened Brody's door Sunday night and looked in his bed to check on him, I quickly realized he wasn't there. I looked over to the right and found him curled-up in front of his tool table. He had apparently gotten out of bed to play and had fallen alseep on the floor!

The next night, we went to check on him before going to bed and found him on the floor asleep right by his bed. He had been playing again and hadn't quite made it to the bed before falling asleep!

I went to check on him Tuesday night, expecting to find him in the floor again, but he was asleep right where he was when we left his room earlier in the night. (I absolutely love to watch my sweet kids sleep. There is nothing sweeter to me as a mom!)

Josh went to check on Brody last night before bed and this is what he found! Seriously, how can that even be comfortable? :)

We have loved our new nightly adventure this week of finding out where Brody falls asleep! He's soooo quiet once he goes to bed that we never know if he is up playing or if he is already asleep! We just love this funny boy!

Little Cowboy

2012-01-16T07:56:00.001-06:00

One of the parties Brody and Jillian went to on Saturday was a cowboy themed party for their friend, Seth! Seth’s grandma took these pictures of Brody having lots of fun as a little cowboy!

I love this picture!

Roping steer!

Apparently he really worked hard at this!

Riding the pony! He loved this and has talked about it all weekend!

A picture from Jill’s phone of Brody riding a stick horse! So cute!

Seth’s mom, Rachel, is ridiculously talented when it comes to party planning! She doesn’t miss a single detail! Look at this adorable table!

Happy 2nd birthday, Seth! Thank you for inviting us to your super fun and super cute cowboy themed birthday party!

photo-a-day: Week 2

2012-01-15T12:00:00.001-06:00

January 8: I went to a diaper shower for my friend, Lisa, who is expecting her 3rd baby (3rd boy) at the beginning of February. My friend, Holly, made these adorable diaper cookies for the shower with Hayes’s monogram on them.

January 9: Brody was sharing his snack with Jillian after MDO. I love this sweet picture!

January 10: I worked on our MOPS craft that day before our meeting on the 11th. I blogged about these book marks here.

January 11: Josh and I had a meeting at church that night so Jillian and Brody stayed in the nursery. When we got home that night, Jillian would not go to sleep! This picture was taken at 10:00 that night. She was so wound-up! It turned out several of our friends who had kids in the nursery that night experienced the same thing. We joked that they must have given them candy in the nursery! :)

January 12: I went to the gym that morning and road the cycling simulator after I ran on the treadmill. It kicked my rear! At one point my legs were hurting so bad that I didn’t think I could pedal anymore. I really like this bike even if it did almost kill my legs!

January 13: I had to take Jillian to the doctor for a quick nurses appointment. She and Brody had fun playing in the waiting room for a few minutes! I loved her little pink and black outfit she wore that morning.

January 14: Josh and I attended a marriage conference this weekend, so my mom and sister took Brody and Jillian to 3 birthday parties on Saturday!! Bless them! The kids were invited to 4 parties, but one overlapped so we had to miss one. This is a picture of Brody at Seth’s cowboy themed party. He loved getting to ride the pony!

Rosette Book Mark

2012-01-11T15:41:00.001-06:00

I had our MOPS group make these cute rosette book marks for our craft project at today’s meeting! I found the idea on this blog via Pinterest.

The rosette is made out of fabric and hot glued to a giant paper clip. It can be used as a book mark or to hold together stacks of papers, bills, mail, ect.

I watched this vlog to learn how to make the rosettes. They were very easy to make!

I bought the giant papers clips in packs of 5 for around $2.50 at Office Depot. I cut the fabric 2 inches wide by 18 inches long. That made a good-sized rosette without it being too big for the paper clip.

These were very easy and very inexpensive (about 65 cents each) to make! They would make great gifts and can be made in any color/fabric combo!

I seriously wonder where my craft ideas came from before Pinterest!! :)

Our day in iPhone Pictures…

2012-01-10T16:31:00.001-06:00

These two containers of hairspray got our morning off to a crazy start!

We had plans to meet some church friends for breakfast this morning. While Jillian and Brody played in the living room, I finished getting dressed. I kept hearing this spraying noise that sounded just like hairspray being sprayed. I was finishing up doing my hair at the time and saw that I had my big can of Freeze-It on the bathroom counter, so I decided the noise wasn’t hairspray and maybe it was Brody just making noises with his mouth. I finished getting ready and when I walked into the living room, the fumes and spell of hairspray just hit me in the face! Jillian was sitting on the floor and Brody was standing over her with the little travel can of hairspray (that I forgot I had) spraying her hair!!! He basically used most of the can on her hair and it was completely stiff!!! Their clothes, the hardwood floor, and his hair were also completely covered in hairspray!! I was trying not to laugh at the entire situation, but it really was hilarious! :) I changed both of their clothes and did what I could with their hair really quickly so that we could go meet our friends. There was no time for a bath. Jillian seriously looked like she had a greasy, slicked comb-over all day! Ha! Thank goodness for a bow! Oh, and that was Brody’s second change of clothes because the first one happened after an accident, not of the peeing nature, earlier in the morning! I accumulated quite a pile of laundry by 8:45 this morning! :)

We met our friends to eat! It was a fun morning visiting with friends, letting the kids play, and enjoying some great food and coffee!

Jillian was taking off her shoes so that she could put Taylor’s shoes on her feet!

Jillian and Mollie!

We ran several errands after breakfast and then came home to eat lunch. After lunch, I gave both kids a bath and finally got all the crusted hairspray out of their hair! I took this funny picture of Jillian’s hair when I was washing it. I cannot believe how long it is getting! :)

While the kids napped, I knocked-out some things on my to-do list, one of which included finishing up some details for our MOPS craft project for tomorrow. I ended-up using a back-up plan, but I think (and hope) it’s going to be super cute. I will share details tomorrow with you all! This is the fabric we are using for the project.

Also, I keep forgetting to blog about this, but thought today was a good day since I was posting iPhone pictures…

This is an awesome devotional book that I started using this year along with my reading plan for my quiet time. I’m sure a lot of you have heard of it or may even be using it as well, but if you aren’t and you are looking for something to use this year, I would highly recommend you buy this book! I noticed that they even have the book as an app that you can buy for $9.99 and it includes the entire year of devotions for you to read on your phone.

I hope you all have great evening!

photo-a-day: week 1

2012-01-09T08:00:00.000-06:00

I tried this last year and only posted the pictures once! :) I am determined to do a little better this year!

January 1: After church on Sunday, we went to Dillard’s for their big New Years Day sale. We got tons of great deals on clothes for all 4 of us. I somehow ended up with only buying purple clothes for myself.

January 2: We hung out at home all day. It was cold outside, so Brody bundled-up to go outside and play!

January 3: The kids and I ran some errands. It was such a pretty day, so we went to play at Chick-fil-a before naptime. The kids had the play area all to themselves and had such a fun time!

January 4: I took the kids to Boingo Bounce that morning to let the kids play. We had not been in months and both Brody and Jillian had a lot of fun playing!

January 5: Josh and the kids picked-up a pizza that night while I ran a few errands. Jillian LOVES pizza and looked so big eating the entire slice by herself.

January 6: After a couple of months of our Keurig acting a little crazy, we had a replacement one delivered to our house on the 5th, and used it for the first time the morning of the 6th. I was SO happy to have a working Keurig again! And I even got to use my new, cute mug!

January 7: Jillian had a little experience with static electricity! :)

Hope you all have a great start to your week!

Initial Hair Bow Holder

2012-01-07T14:48:00.001-06:00

After 15 months of having a little girl, I finally got around to making her a hair bow holder! I had been keeping all of Jillian’s bows in a big bin. It had gotten really disorganized and I could never seem to find the bow I was looking for without dumping all of them out on the floor! :)

I went to Hobby Lobby and bought a wooden “J” and a roll of polka dot ribbon. I used some pink paint I had leftover from Jillian’s First Birthday party to paint the J pink. After it dried, I hot glued two long pieces of ribbon at the bottom of the J and attached one at the top as a hanging loop! I made the two strands of ribbon really long so that they could each hold a lot of hair bows.

Here it is hanging on the inside of her closet door with all her girly hair bows!

I kept all her headbands, hats and bows connected to headbands in the bin.

This project was super easy and super inexpensive! I think I spent about $5 on it (not including paint, since I already had it).

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Christmas with our families

2012-01-05T08:00:00.000-06:00

We spent Christmas night with my family at my parents’ house! Brody was SO excited about all the gifts under the tree!

Jillian LOVED the clothes she got from Jill and Brandon. She kept hugging them!

Big Daddy helping her with her new baby doll.

Brandon, Jill and Josh opening gifts

Jillian walked her new stroller all over the house!

Jill and Brandon-Their first married Christmas!

Jillian and Gigi-Big cheesy smile!

Our happy (or not so happy) little family!

We made the 3 hours trip to see Josh’s parents on the day after Christmas. It was nice to get to have Christmas with them after the rush of Christmas weekend. We spent a couple of days at their house!

Silly girl!

She loved opening her gifts from Mimi and Poppy.

Josh’s parents opening a gift from us.

Brody got a robot…

and a new guitar!

The four of us!

That sweet smile is deceiving sometimes! ;)

This picture makes me laugh every time I see it! I was trying to take a picture of Jillian and kept asking her to smile and she took off running into another room. I followed her and this is how I found her. I guess she had enough picture taking for one weekend, so she hid from me! Haha!

We seriously had the BEST time this Christmas! Brody is at such a fun age and everything was so exciting for him this year, which made it even more fun for us! Jillian has grown so much in a year and we loved watching her enjoy Christmas this year, too! I sometimes can’t believe we have been blessed with two sweet, adorable kids. We just love them to pieces and enjoyed every single memory we made with them this Christmas season.

Christmas Morning 2011

2012-01-04T16:51:00.001-06:00

Before Josh and I were married, we decided that one of the boundaries we would set for our little family, when we had a family, was that Christmas morning would be spent with just us and our children. We wanted those mornings to be special and just about our kids. We started the first Christmas we were married (just the two of us) and have spent all 5 Christmas mornings at home, and loved every minute of it! I’m thankful for the time as a family of 4 and love making memories with our sweet little ones!

Brody was SOOO excited when he woke-up Christmas morning! I loved seeing his reaction to his gifts!

Sweet little sister was so surprised to see new toys set up in the living room!

She spotted her little kitchen and took off running!

We loved getting to shop for pink girly gifts and tough boy gifts!

Brody used his new tools on everyone and everything that morning!

Happy boy!

Jillian set-up her picnic from her picnic basket.

And then did some more cooking!

After we opened all our gifts, we got ready and went to church. Our church had a 9:00 service that we attended. It only lasted about an hour so we were quickly back home and in our pajamas and ready for pancakes for breakfast! Josh always makes homemade pancakes on Christmas morning. It’s one of my favorite traditions.

Brody was telling us all about what he learned at church. :)

We tried to take a few pictures of all of us, but it’s hard with two busy kiddos!

I thought a lot about last Christmas and how little Jillian was!

Love these 3!

This picture made us laugh! We were trying to get a picture of the two of them and Brody wanted to hold Jillian. She looks really amused! Ha!

One more Christmas post and then I think I can get back to regular blogging! :)

Hope y’all are having a great week!

Christmas Eve 2011

2012-01-02T15:49:00.001-06:00

Happy New Year!! I hope each of you had a great Christmas and a wonderful start to 2012. I got a little behind on blogging, so here is my attempt at playing catch-up starting with Christmas Eve!

One of our family traditions is to go to the Christmas Eve candlelight service at our church. We look forward to this special service each year and always enjoy the time together as a family. The kids sit in the service with us and have the opportunity to go to the front on the stage as the Christmas story is read. It’s such a sweet time!

Getting a picture of the two of them together is pretty much impossible now that Jillian is walking! They usually end up walking away in opposite directions. :)

I guess they were high-fiving each other for making it so difficult for me to get a good picture of them! Ha!

I bought this dress for Jillian back in May and was so excited it fit for Christmas. We may get a few more wears out of it for Valentine’s Day!

Brody has loved wearing this red tie, so I guess I’m going to be on the lookout for more little ties for him.

We ate dinner after the service with my parents, Jill and Brandon, and then headed home to make cookies for Santa!

We made Christmas tree, star, stocking and candy cane sugar cookies. Brody had a great time using the cookie cutters to cut them out.

Decorating the cookies with icing and sprinkles!

Cookies, milk and a note to Santa from Brody.

Before bed, Brody told “A Christmas Boy” (that’s what he named our Elf on the Shelf) goodbye. A Christmas Boy was heading back to the North Pole that night. :) We didn’t make a big deal about our elf during the month, but we did enjoy hiding him around the house each night so that Brody could look for him the next morning.

Up next….Christmas Day!

Hope you all have a great afternoon!

Happy Birthday, Jesus!

2011-12-24T08:00:00.000-06:00

Josh and I have loved creating special family traditions for Christmas. Our sweet kids will only be this little once and we want to make sure that we take every advantage of using this time to make memories as a family of 4, as well as using these tradition to teach our children the true meaning of Christmas. We decided this Christmas to have a “Happy Birthday, Jesus” party. I think this was an easy way for them to understand what Christmas is all about!

Our cuties ready to bake!

Brody loves to help bake and Jillian loves to supervise.

We made Christmas colored cupcakes by using food coloring to dye the batter green and red. I layered the colored batter in the cupcake tins similar to the rainbow cupcakes we made earlier this year.

We sang “Happy Birthday” to Jesus and let Brody blow out the candle! I still had an extra candle left over from celebrating a first birthday, so we used it. :)

Enjoying his cupcake!

Brody told me a couple of weeks ago that he thought Jesus was probably turning 3 and would like a Diego present for his birthday. Love it!

Merry Christmas Eve!

2011 Christmas Card

2011-12-23T09:22:00.001-06:00

I finally put our Christmas cards in the mail on Wednesday, so I thought I would share them with all of you! I really love the way they turned out!

Merry Christmas to all our wonderful blog friends! We are so thankful for each one of you!

Christmas Train Ride

2011-12-22T08:00:00.000-06:00

Yesterday morning, the four of us went for a ride on the Christmas Train!

It was a 45 minute train ride, which was the perfect length for us since we have two small children.

This was Brody’s first train ride and we did not tell him about it until we got to the train depot and he saw the train. He was SO excited! This is a picture of him making train noises while we waited for it to depart.

They served hot chocolate on the train and Santa walked through all the train cars to visit with the kids.

Brody sat like this most of the ride…just watching out the window and taking it all in!

Jillian had a great time as well! She liked chatting with the family sitting behind us! :)

Last night, we made our first gingerbread house as a family. Brody loved every minute of the fun and so did Josh and I!

I put the house together and then we let Brody do the rest.

He did a great job decorating! I loved watching him place every single candy on the house. It took almost an hour, but he sat the entire time and never lost focus. Pretty impressive for such a busy boy!

So proud of the finished product! He asked me to take some pictures of it! :)

I love this picture…he is admiring his work and smiling as big as he could!

What a fun day we had making memories with our sweet kids!

Easy to make Teacher’s Gift

2011-12-20T08:00:00.000-06:00

I couldn’t decide what to do for our kids’ Mother’s Day Out teachers for Christmas, so I searched on Pinterest until I came across this cute gift idea for Starbucks gift cards!

What did we do before Pinterest? Seriously! All my great ideas originate from Pinterest these days!’

Here is the original blog post that details how to make these cute little gifts. I printed the “Thanks a latte for all you do” at Sam’s Club on photo paper. I uploaded the image online and had them printed as a 5x7 photo. Then, I glued them onto cardstock.

This project uses baker’s twine. It’s really hard to find locally. I found this post from my friend, Sarah, about how to make your own baker’s twine. It worked perfectly for this project!

Super easy and super cute!

Picture with Santa

2011-12-19T08:00:00.000-06:00

Last Thursday evening, we took Brody and Jillian to have their picture taken with Santa. We were both interested to see how Jillian react when she saw Santa. You can tell from the picture that he didn’t scare her, but he also didn’t really impress her! :) Brody, on the other hand, loved Santa! He practically talked his ear off!

I cannot believe how big our babies are this year! Look at our boy’s cheesy smile! Ha!

This is last years picture…Jillian was right at 3 months old and Brody was 26 months old.

Brody in 2009- He was 14 months old. This may forever be my favorite Santa picture! He posed like that and we laughed until we almost cried!

This was in 2008- Brody was only 2 months old! I feel like this picture was taken just the other day! It’s crazy how quickly time flies!

I love having these sweet pictures to look back on each year and see how our sweet kids have grown from year to year.

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Winner and White Elephant

2011-12-16T11:03:00.001-06:00

The winner of the fresh entity 2012 scripture calendar is Melissa! Congratulations!! Thanks to all of you that entered the giveaway! Make sure you all visit Kimmie’s Etsy shop if you would like to purchase a calendar for yourself or someone else on your Christmas list!

Josh and I are going to a Christmas party tonight and are taking white elephant gifts. We are supposed to find something around our house to re-gift or spend very little on buying a gift. I have a few ideas, but I am open for suggestions!

Tell me the best white elephant gift you have ever given or received!

Have a great Friday!

fresh entity 2012 calendar giveaway

2011-12-14T13:00:00.000-06:00

This is such a great giveaway and just in time for Christmas! One of my sweet, sweet college friends, Kimmie, who blogs at Fresh Entity, is giving away one of her 2012 Scripture Calendars. These calendars are beautiful and would be a wonderful Christmas gifts for anyone on your list!

This 2012 calendar printed on watercolor paper can be used as a desk calendar or a wall calendar. It fits any 5x7 frame for those of you who would enjoy it in your workspace. Or if you prefer, you are also able to use the little clip to hang it from a nail or hook anywhere in your house. Each month has a unique design and encouragement from Scripture. These would also make great teacher gifts!! They can be ordered from her Esty store for only $15!

To enter for you chance to win the calendar, please leave a comment! The giveaway will end tomorrow night and the winner will be announced on Friday morning!

Have a great afternoon!

Freezer Meal Swap

2011-12-12T15:00:00.000-06:00

In October, I blogged about doing a freezer meal swap with some of my friends from playgroup/church. Friday, we did a second freezer meal swap. This time there were 6 of us that participated (we each made 2 different recipes for the swap), so we each ended-up with 12 freezer meals for the month!

We all made different recipes for this swap, so we have a completely different set of meals than we did last time. Between the 12 meals, Christmas, and an occasional night eating out, I don’t think I will have to cook the rest of the month! Woo whoo!

Here are the meals for this month:

Poppy seed chicken (I shredded the chicken, not cubed it. Serve over rice)

Oven-Baked Chicken Chimichangas

Pulled Pork

Taco Soup

Chicken Broccoli (This might not be the exact recipe, but I think it’s pretty close)

Baked Ziti

Chicken Spaghetti

Baked Spaghetti

I also linked the recipes from our last freezer meal swap on this blog post if you are interested in seeing other meals we have made and swapped.

Have a great afternoon!

Our Weekend

2011-12-11T17:36:00.001-06:00

We had a fun, busy weekend!

We made a quick (less than 24 hour) trip to see Josh’s parents this weekend. They live 3 hours from us, so we got down there Friday night and spent the day with them on Saturday.

Josh’s dad will be 70 on Monday, so his mom hosted a birthday party for him at their house on Saturday afternoon.

We had lots of great food and were able to visit with a lot of his parents’ friends that we had not seen in a while!

The party was during part of the kids’ naptime, but they both woke-up in time to enjoy part of the party! This girl had a great time! Can you tell?

She is walking all over the place now, so she made her way around the party yesterday and begged for food off of guests’ plates! :)

My very talented friend, Holly, decided she would just teach herself how to decorate sugar cookies a month or two ago. She does such a great job and every single cookie I have seen that she has made is SO stinking cute! I had her make some cookies for party favors. Aren’t these great? They taste as good as they look, too. If you are local, you need to order cookie from her for your next party!

I put the cookies in little bags and tied them up so that each guest could take one home with them.

Brody had a great time at the party, too! I think he loved having lots of people to talk to during the party.

As soon as the party was over, we hopped in our car and headed to my dad’s extended family Christmas. I always enjoy spending time with this side of my dad’s family.

Brody had a great time with my grandma!

He was completely amused by the blow-up Grinch!

My dad and all his cousins all had girls, so there were 7 girls 10 and under there last night and Brody! He is definitely outnumbered with all his girl cousins!

Sarah, Avery, Adeline, and Jillian

My grandma ended the night by painting finger nails…Brody skipped out on the fun! :)

We left Christmas and drove 3 hours back home. We got home around 10:30. We had such a great weekend with all of our family! I am so thankful for such great family to celebrate with this time of year.

Hope y’all had a great weekend!

Bliss Cupcake Cafe

2011-12-10T11:34:00.001-06:00

The kids and I went to a fun little blogger/Twitter meet-up at Bliss Cupcake Cafe yesterday morning. Bliss is on the square in Fayetteville and is such a fun little place to visit! Our family loves any excuse to stop at Bliss for a cupcake! What is even more fun for us is that some of our friends own Bliss, so we love getting a chance to support their wonderful business.

These were all the yummy flavors they offered on Friday that we got to sample…Chocolate Milkshake, Red Velvet, Lavender Honey, Pumpkin Spice, Carrot Cake, Neapolitan, and German Choc Cake. They also had a Gluten Free Blueberry that Brody loved! They post their cupcake selection each day on their Facebook page and on Twitter.

Jillian Kate was trying to reach the cupcakes! She knows the good stuff when she sees it!

Rebekah was helping Brody choose a cupcake

Can you tell he was enjoying his cupcake? :)

Stella, Cilla and Brody- Loves these 3 cuties!

And how cute is Cilla’s outfit? Perfect for a morning eating cupcakes with friends!

Miles and Brody go to the same MDO and are a month apart in age. They had a great time together! Miles is such a sweet boy!

Jillian loved her Bliss cupcake!

Melissa and Grayson

Sydney and Stella

Shannon stopped by to visit for a few minutes and grabbed a cupcake to go!

Taylor and Grace- Brody had a great time playing with Grace!

Jillian and Emily-Emily went to college with Josh and me and I have loved that she is up here and I get to see her more often! She is so sweet!

Kelly, Hollis, Jillian and me-Notice how Jillian is eyeing Hollis’s bow…

She would not stop trying to take it off her Hollis’s head! Seriously!! She was being a little toot!

I think she was just jealous that Hollis had a bigger bow on than she did! Hollis-we are sorry that you were tortured by Jillian! :)

If you live in NWA, you have to stop by Bliss soon for a cupcake! You will not be disappointed!

Christmas Card Blessing Ring

2011-12-08T08:00:00.001-06:00

I blogged once before about my love of blessing rings! I first learned about these from my friend, Katie, and since then, have made several of these for various occasions. I have rings for each of my children’s baby showers and birthdays. I also keep a ring that has encouraging notes from my friends that I have received over the last several years. It’s great to have them all stored in one place so that I can go back and read through the cards whenever I want.

I decided I would make a blessing ring to hold Christmas cards we receive from family and friends this year. It’s such a fun, cute way to display the cards, and this entire project only cost me $4!

You will need these items for your project….a 5” neck ring with 2 hooks and a few rolls of Christmas ribbon.

This is a close-up of the necklace. I bought it at Hob Lob in the jewelry/bead section. It comes in silver and gold.

The ribbon is from the scrapbook section. It’s Ribbon Trends brand and is 5/8” thick.

To make the ring, hole punch the cards in one of the corners and slide them onto the ring. Then, tie ribbon between every few cards. I saved several pieces of ribbon to tie between cards that we will continue to receive over the next two weeks.

Here is the finished product hanging on our tree.

I love having these all in one place so that I can look through them during the Christmas season.

How are you displaying Christmas cards you are receiving this year? I always love hearing new ideas!

Pinterest Inspired Christmas Gift Wrapping

2011-12-07T13:45:00.000-06:00

Pinterest has some great ideas for Christmas gift wrapping! I love to see all of the creative ways people coordinate their gift wrapping for Christmas. It inspires me to try to be a little more creative with my wrapping this year!

This is a neat idea to prevent bows and ribbon from getting smashed while piled-up under the tree...use a paper sash instead of ribbon.

Source: etsy.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

Newspaper, baker's twine and initial tags...such a cute look! I noticed Target had some initials that would work for this style of wrapping in their dollar section!

Source: myblessedlife.net via Jennifer on Pinterest

How cute would this be with red and green yard for Christmas?

Source: margotmadison.blogspot.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

Stamped brown paper with festive ribbon. A fun and cute way to personalize gifts!

Source: myblessedlife.net via Jennifer on Pinterest

I love the look of this woven ribbon.

Source: marthastewart.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

Here is a cute idea for wrapping a gift card. It's a snow globe!

Source: thecreativemama.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

A fun way to wrap a Starbucks gift card...a clean cup, tissue paper and bakers twine!

Source: saucysprinkles.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

Do you have any fun or creative ideas for Christmas gift wrapping to share?

Tuesday

2011-12-06T17:44:00.001-06:00

Last night, we took dinner to Matt and Julee. Brody went with me to deliver the meal. While we were there, he got to hold Preslee for the first time! He did such a great job and was very careful with her. I’m realizing how much he has grown in a year because he was never really interested in holding Jillian this time last year. If he did hold her, it didn’t last for long and he wasn’t always very gentle. :)

Sweet boy! He kept telling us, “She’s so cute!”

After spending a little time with Preslee, he was ready to chase Romeo around the house!

I go to a Women’s Discipleship Class on Tuesday morning at church. This week, we talked about fostering and adoption. Josh was asked to come to speak to our class about his adoption. He was adopted at 2 days old. I am so proud of him for sharing! It’s a great story that he will hopefully share on here one day soon!

After Bible study, Brody, Jillian and I went to eat with my friend, Holly, and her 2 kids. Our boys are a few months apart in age and our girls are 3 weeks apart. Our lunches together are always crazy, but we always have great time with their family!

Jillian and Taylor eating lunch!

Brody is still doing GREAT with potty training! We seriously cannot get over how easy this is when you wait until they are ready! He woke-up dry after sleeping through the night last night and woke-up dry from his nap. He also used the potty at church this morning. He is SO proud of himself and we are so proud of him, too! We started a sticker chart this week for potty training! (Source for chart)

Funny story…when he finishes using the bathroom he says, “Mommy and Daddy, lets go to the kitchen and jump up and down!” The first few times he used the bathroom, we jumped up and down and apparently started something! :)

I’m about to head to the store with a HUGE list for another freezer meal swap this week! There are 6 of us participating this time, so I will have 12 freezer meals to store in our freezer on Friday. I’m looking forward to enjoying the Christmas season and not cooking much the rest of the month!!

Hope y’all had a great day!

Riffraff Giveaway Winner

2011-12-05T15:42:00.001-06:00

First, the winner of the Riffraff Giveaway is Karah! Thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway. Make sure you check their Facebook page often for the latest items that have been added to their store. They also update Twitter with new merchandise @ShopRiffraff.

We had a great day yesterday! We went to church yesterday morning and I put Jillian in Christmas clothes for the first time this season.

I got this dress at the at end of December last year. Jillian was 3 months old then and was in the 95th percentile for weight at the time, so I assumed she would be a big girl this Christmas and bought her an 18 month in the dress. Turns out she is petite and is only wearing 12 month clothing right now. This dress is a little big, but I thought it still looked cute on her!

After church, we finally decorated the tree. It’s been up most of the week, but I just haven’t taken the time to decorate it. Brody loved getting to help. I love how excited he is about Christmas this year! It makes the season even more exciting to experience it with him.

Since we were working the nursery yesterday morning, we didn’t get to go into service, so we went back last night to actually attend the service. After church, we met Jill and Brandon to eat pizza. Jill kept the kids entertained while we waited on our pizza. (I think Brody and Jillian look a lot alike in this picture.)

This weekend, Brody suddenly decided he wanted to use the big potty. No, our 3 year old still wasn’t potty trained, and not from a lack of trying on our part. He just wasn’t interested. We tried multiple times to potty train and tried all the recommended methods, and nothing worked. Finally, my friends just told me to wait until it was his idea and assured me it would happen. Sure enough, they were right. He woke-up Saturday morning with a dry diaper and used the potty all day on Saturday and Sunday with no accidents. He woke-up dry from his naps and dry from sleeping through the night. We don’t even have to ask him to go to the bathroom. He just tells us when he needs to go! It’s been so great and SO easy!!!

We told Sarah and Ryan about it at church yesterday and they were so sweet to get him a surprise for all his success this weekend. We stopped by the house last night to pick-up the surprise which was Whoppers and some glow bracelets. He was thrilled! I’m hoping he continues to do well this week and we make a lot more progress!

Hope you all had a great day!

Miss Patty Cake

2011-12-04T08:00:00.000-06:00

Yesterday morning, we went to a Happy Birthday, Jesus breakfast at church featuring Miss Patty Cake!

The kids got to wear Christmas pajamas to the breakfast. Brody wore his reindeer pajamas and looked so big!

We had a great time eating breakfast together. Jillian sat in a big chair and ate her breakfast at the table.

And she was all smiles while we were there!

Love these boys!

And I love my baby girl!

After breakfast, Miss Patty Cake took the stage! The kids loved her!

We had such a fun morning together!

I love getting to make lots of fun memories as a family this time of year!

__________________________________________________

Today is the last day to enter the Riffraff giveaway! Don’t miss a chance to win this solid drape button down shirt!

Hope you all have a great Sunday!

Brody’s Haircut

2011-12-03T12:47:00.001-06:00

Brody was in desperate need for a haircut yesterday, so I took him to this cute little place for kids called Pigtails and Crewcuts. They have several fun little chairs for the kids to sit in while they get their hair cut!

Brody has had about 20 haircuts, but this was the first time someone besides Julee has cut his hair. It sort of felt like a first haircut all over again to me! Ha!

The stylists asked me how I wanted his hair cut and I sort of froze! I have no idea what Julee does to his hair and I never have to tell her how to cut it. She just does it. I tried to explain to the girl where to use scissors and where to use clippers, etc. I really wasn’t sure if I was explaining myself very well, so I just hoped for the best!

She did great job on Brody’s hair and was very patient with him.

Jillian had fun playing with trains at the train table while we waited!

He was telling the stylist that he had hair on his shirt and he needed her to get it off for him. She ended up using a lint roller on his sleeves just to make sure all the hair was gone! :)

After we left, I asked him if he had fun at his hair cut and he said, “I like Julee better.” :) We may have to request a house call from her for his next hair cut!

Hope y’all are having a great weekend!

Preslee Bell Turner has arrived!

2011-12-02T08:00:00.000-06:00

I have been dying to share these pictures of my best friends precious little girl, Preslee, who was born on Tuesday morning!

Isn’t she gorgeous? I love her dark hair!

6lbs 13 ounces, 20 inches long

Julee went into labor late Monday night (and it’s quite the crazy story that she will soon share), so we all headed to the hospital around 2am on Tuesday morning to await Preslee’s arrival!

Preslee’s beautiful momma in labor!

Jill, Matt, and Matt’s mom, Lisa, just waiting…

This picture was taken around 4 in the morning. Julee looked great!

Julee and Jill

We all guessed delivery time, weight and length for Preslee while we waited.

And at 6:56am…she finally arrived!

The Turner Family!

Holding Preslee for the first time

I went back-up to the hospital Tuesday evening and took Preslee (her parents and grandparents) her first birthday cake from Rick’s Bakery. :)

Getting a little more snuggle time with this little girl!

I can’t help but look at Preslee and be overwhelmed when thinking that SHE is the baby we prayed for as Julee went through 2 years of infertility. She is an answer to so many prayers, and we are so thankful and so excited that she is finally here!

Hope y'all have a great weekend!

Riffraff Giveaway

2011-12-01T08:20:00.000-06:00

One of my favorite things about the town we live in is all the wonderful, local boutiques we have here! One of my VERY favorite local boutiques is Riffraff! I posted once about Riffraff after many of you asked where I bought the shirt that I wore to Jillian’s birthday party.

Riffraff is such a neat store that has a little bit of everything…clothes, jewelry, painted furniture, home décor, baby items and SO MUCH MORE!! One of my favorite things about their store is that you can shop their great selection of items from your computer. They add items to their Facebook page each week and you can buy the items they post and have them shipped to you! (They ship worldwide! Woo whoo!) They also have a blog!

The fabulous owner of Riffraff has generously offered to giveaway this adorable shirt that they have named the "Jennifer Solid Drape Button Down" to one lucky reader! This shirt sales for $56 in their store. They shirt they will be giving away is a size medium.

How cute is this? It is adorable paired with leggings and I’m sure is just as cute with a great pair of skinny jeans!

Seriously the CUTEST top!!!

To enter this giveaway go ‘LIKE’ Riffraff’s Facebook Page then come back and leave me a comment!

For an extra entry, follow them on Twitter @ShopRiffraff, then come back and leave a comment letting me know you are following them!

Giveaway will end on Sunday, December 4th, and the winner will be announced on Monday!

Good Luck and don’t forget to Shop Riffraff!!

Chore Chart

2011-11-30T11:30:00.000-06:00

Brody is really into to helping around the house! He loves to help me with any tasks I am doing and he always does it so cheerfully. I decided to jump at the opportunity and try a chore chart with him while he was wanting to help and not being forced to help!

I printed off a chore chart this weekend and chose 3 chores (since Brody is 3 years old) for him to work at accomplishing every day this week. I will probably rotate through a list of several chores so that he has 3 new chores to work on each week. I just don’t want him to get bored and become uninterested with the same 3 over and over each week.

Chart is from here.

This week we are going to work on…

Unloading the silverware tray from the dishwasher. (Only spoons and forks. This is one job he already LOVES to help with! I posted a video almost a year ago of him doing this.)
Take his plate to the sink when he is finished eating.
Pick-up his toys before going to bed. (This is something he has been doing for over a year, but it never hurts to have a reminder.)

I also have a place for Extra. This is for anything he does around the house without me asking him to do it. He always does things to be helpful without being asked, so I wanted to make sure we are acknowledging the extra things he is doing to help.

I keep this chart posted on the refrigerator with the stickers near it so that we can immediately put a sticker on the chart when he completes a chore. At the end of each week, we will see how many he has completed and then reward him with something small like some candy or maybe a trip to the dollar section at Target!

This isn’t about making Brody ‘work’ around the house. I don’t care if he completes all 3 each day or none at all. He is 3 and I understand that. We just want to begin to teach him, even at 3, about responsibility. Hopefully, this is a fun way for him to learn! And as of right now, he is having a lot of fun with this…can you tell? :)

Hope y’all are having a great week!

Cyber Monday Deal

2011-11-28T00:00:00.000-06:00

Have you heard of E-mealz? I did a review of one of their meal plans this summer and absolutely loved the ease and convenience of their program! Seriously, no one is making me say this! :) They truly have a great program that allows you to prepare healthy, home-cooked meals for your family while staying on a budget. Here is a link to the review I did in case you missed it.

I received an email that E-mealz in offering a great special for Cyber Monday as well as another special for the holidays and I wanted to make sure you didn’t miss out! An E-mealz subscription would be a GREAT Christmas gift for the busy wife or mom on your Christmas list. Make sure you check out these promotions and hop over to their site to take a look at all their meal plans.

Get the Biggest E-Mealz Discount today on Cyber Monday

Sign-up for E-Mealz and get the Holiday Plan for free and 30% off of your new subscription. Another option is purchasing gift certificates for 30% off for all your friends and family. Use the code CYBER to take advantage of these deals. Start checking people off your gift list early and get ahead of the game!

Join E-Mealz During November and December and Get a Holiday Plan for Free

E-Mealz has a traditional Holiday Menu Plan available for Thanksgiving and Christmas. There are two new additional versions of our Holiday Plan for 2011: Gluten Free Holiday Plan and Low Carb Holiday Plan. E-Mealz knows it can be daunting to enter the kitchen to cook for your family during this time of the year, so take this as your easy way out!

As you prepare for the holidays this year be good to yourself and let E-Mealz be your game plan!

Happy Cyber Monday!

Happy Birthday, Big Daddy!

2011-11-27T08:00:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was my dad’s birthday! To celebrate, our family met for dinner, then headed to a nearby bowling alley to bowl!

I told Brody on Friday that we needed to get something for my dad for his birthday and Brody insisted he get to pick out a gift. We went to Target and Brody told me he thought Big Daddy would like a new toy, so we walked-up and down every toy aisle until he found the perfect gift. Brody was so excited for my dad to open his gift. He bought him a Diego play set. I know it was what my dad had been wishing he would get for his birthday! Ha! Brody was so excited and so proud of his gift!

Jillian Kate was so excited to be at the bowling ally! I loved her little outfit! This was one of shirts I got her at H&M when we were in Chicago.

This was Brody’s first time to bowl and he looked so big in his bowling shoes!

We are a crazy bunch!

Where’s Jillian?

Jill and Brandon-It was so fun that our entire family went bowling together! We have never done that until last night.

Brody bowled a strike! We couldn’t believe it! We were not using any bumper pads so this was extra impressive. I love this picture because he is looking at us trying to figure out why we are all going crazy!

The strike on the score board!

After bowling, we headed back to our house for cookie cake. Brody told my mom that he thought my dad needed a golf themed cake, so that’s what she ordered. Obviously, he loves a golf-themed party! :)

Happy Birthday, Big Daddy! We love you and are so thankful for you!

Hope you all have a great Sunday!

Thankful

2011-11-25T15:00:00.000-06:00

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! Our family did! We have so much to be thankful for this year!

We started our morning with homemade pancakes, courtesy of Josh, while we watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. Jillian loved her pancakes…can you tell? :)

Our sweet boy loved them as well!

We headed over to my parent’s house for lunch! It was such a beautiful day that we spent a little time outside while the last few side items were cooking.

I told Brody that I couldn’t believe this was his 4th Thanksgiving! I feel like we were just celebrating with our 8 week old baby boy! :)

Brody and Big Daddy

Brody kept trying to climb this tree and when he couldn’t climb it he said, “I sure wish I had sticky toes and fingers like a frog so I could climb!” I have no idea where that came from, but it was really funny!

My dad helped him climb the tree and Brody was very happy to have made it up the tree!

Our littlest turkey on her 2nd Thanksgiving!

She wore squeakers shoes and would walk and then sit down and look at her feet! She couldn’t figure out where the noise was coming from and why it stopped every time she sat down!

Daddy and his girl!

Jilly Kate and mommy

The girls

I took about 25 pictures of the kids together and these were 2 of the better ones! Getting to little ones to look and smile at the camera is sometimes near impossible!

A little sibling love!

Our little family! I am SO thankful I get to be a wife and mom! I couldn’t love these 3 more!

And just for fun…a picture from Thanksgiving last year! Haha! Happy little family! :)

When we were putting Brody to bed last night, I told him I was so thankful for him and so thankful that I got to be his mommy. He didn’t miss a beat and said, “Your welcome, Mom.” Ha!

Hope you all are having a great day eating leftovers, watching football and recovering from Black Friday shopping! :)

Flashback Friday

2011-11-18T08:00:00.000-06:00

I love going back through picture files on my computer and seeing what our life looked like a year ago! It’s always fun to see how much the kids have grown and changed, and it’s fun to think back on events and memories we made at that time.

These pictures were taken this exact same weekend last year. It was our first time to travel with 2 kids and we went to Branson with Josh’s parents to Christmas shop. It was the first time Jillian had stayed anywhere but our house. It was the first time I had packed for a family of 4, and it was the first time we had all been on a long car ride together. It was such a fun weekend! And I had no idea how little our sweeties were at the time. Jillian had just turned 2 months old and Brody was 25 months old. I remember being one busy, tired, but very happy, mommy at the time!

She didn’t love Brody as much then as she does now! :)

Brody still had such a baby look to him! I cannot believe how much he has changed in a year!

Hope y’all have a great weekend!

Walk This Way

2011-11-16T17:00:00.001-06:00

Here is a video of Jillian walking! This was when we were at Josh’s parents before our trip last week. Yes, bribed her with gold fish. Josh held them in his hand and she walked to him. Whatever it takes, right? :)

I cannot believe our baby girl is walking! We are so proud of her!

Weekend in Chicago

2011-11-15T14:33:00.001-06:00

This post is crazy long with lots of pictures! Good luck getting through it! :)

We arrived in Chicago on Thursday afternoon and headed straight to our hotel. We stayed at the Dana Hotel. It was really neat and contemporary, and was only a couple of blocks from Michigan Avenue. It was a great location for us to walk everywhere we needed to go all weekend!

The lobby is all glass so we had a great view of the city!

We quickly changed clothes and headed to eat at Giordano's. It was about a 3 minute walk from our hotel, so we got there quickly, which was good since we were starving! It was definitely the best pizza we have ever eaten! I’m not just saying that…I seriously mean it! It was SO good!!

After dinner we headed back to our room. We wanted to walk around more, but it was freezing and so windy, so I knew it would be pretty miserable. We had a great view from our room, so we still got to enjoy Chicago at night from our warm room.

We slept-in a little on Friday morning, which was amazing! Then, we got ready and headed out for the day!

I was bundled-up for our fun day out shopping!

We spent the entire day shopping at all the fun stores on Michigan including Water Tower Place! Such a neat mall! We also spent a good amount of time at H&M! Loved that place!

Josh took a little break from shopping! :)

We got to see this lovely statue of Marilyn Monroe on Michigan as we walked later that afternoon. It’s huge and seems so out of place, in my opinion!

We had to head back to our room early that evening so we could change and go to mk The Restaurant. My dad told us about this great little place, so we made reservations there for Friday night a few days before we headed to Chicago. They had fantastic food and it has such a great dining environment! And they seriously have the best fries. We enjoyed getting the chance to eat there.

Saturday morning, we slept in, then we watched Game Day, because if it’s Saturday, Josh is watching it! :) We got ready and headed to the John Hancock Center.

We hung out there for a little while and ate lunch at The Cheesecake Factory, which is at the bottom of the center.

After lunch we did a lot of walking! We stopped at Millennium Park.

Lots of neat architecture there!

Cloud Gate…I was slightly obsessed with taking pictures of us with this thing! It’s just so fun!

We walked to several more places that afternoon, including the Children’s Museum/Navy Pier!

Navy Pier wasn’t too busy when we were there, but I imagine it’s such a fun places during the warmer months!

We walked and walked and walked some more and saw lots of other neat places! We went back to our room at 5 to watch the first half of the Razorback game! We had sold our tickets for the game since we were going to be gone, so it seemed so strange to be watching a home game on TV. At half time we left and went back to do a little more walking and shopping and eating!

Sunday morning we took a taxi back to the airport and flew back home! Our flight was only an hour and a half so we were home pretty quickly and back to see our babies!

This is the only picture of the 2 of us together from the weekend! It was when we were leaving our hotel Sunday morning.

We had such a wonderful, much-needed weekend away! Chicago is such a fun city, especially this time of year. I’m ready to go back again! :)

Weekend Recap

2011-11-14T08:00:00.001-06:00

Josh and I just got home last night from a wonderful, long weekend in Chicago!!!

We went to celebrate our anniversary, and had the best time together! It was the first time I have been away from Jillian overnight and the farthest away we have been from Brody, but both kids had a fun weekend with Josh’s parents. We were so happy to get hugs and kisses from our babies when we got home yesterday!

I will share lots of pictures from our fun weekend over the next few days, but first, I need to get caught-up on laundry! :)

Hope you all had a great weekend, too!

Also, The winner of the NWA Boutique Show VIP Ticket Giveaway is Ginny! Ginny, I will email you details today! Congratulations!

Northwest Arkansas Boutique Show Giveaway

2011-11-10T16:00:00.000-06:00

I am giving away 2 VIP Tickets to the Northwest Arkansas Boutique Show, which will take place at the Springdale Convention Center Friday, November 18- Saturday, November 19!

In addition to getting to be one of the first to shop at the event, each VIP ticket holder will receive a signature shopping tote swag bags, a delicious treat from Briar Rose Bakery, coffee or iced tea from Mama Carmen's Espresso Cafe, a savory treat from My Brother's Salsa and Catering Concepts, free return admission all weekend and the chance to win hundreds of amazing door prizes!!!

There will be over 150 merchants from over 5 states selling all kinds of unique finds from home decor, clothing, accessories, gourmet foods and much much more! You don’t want to miss this great event!

Just leave a comment to enter for a chance to win! Winner will be announced on Monday!

VIP shopping will be from Noon-2PM on Friday, November 18th.

Happy 4th Anniversary!

2011-11-10T08:00:00.002-06:00

Four years ago today, I married my very best friend! It was an absolutely perfect day that we shared with each other and our wonderful family and friends.

We had no idea what was ahead of us, but there isn’t one thing I would change about the last four years. The good times, the hard times, the fun times….all of these have made our marriage what it is today, and I’m so thankful each has brought with it an opportunity for our marriage to grow.

It’s been a crazy, busy, fun four years! Our life looks a little different than we imagined it would 4 years later, but we absolutely love it! It’s funny to think this is the year we had planned to start having kids! Ha! Just another reminder that God’s plans are always best! :)

Happy Anniversary, Josh! I love you SO much and look forward to many, many more wonderful years with you!

Catch-Up

2011-11-09T11:11:00.001-06:00

Wow! I got behind on blogging without even realizing it! It’s been a little crazy/busy around here the past few days, so I haven’t spent much time on the computer. Here are a few random things that I either wanted y’all to know about or I want to remember!

First, our friend, Flint, has a website that is about all things related to college football! They have a section on their site that is dedicated to great tailgating recipes. Flint featured one of my recipes yesterday. Make sure you check it out here. Also, they have an entire section on the site dedicated to women. It has great articles that include football terminology to impress the men in your life, gift ideas, tailgating tips, game day attire, and more. Visit their site and make sure and send your guys to check it out, too!

The BIG NEWS at our house this week is that Jillian has finally started walking some! She has taken about 2 steps by herself consistently for a few weeks, but last night she took about 8 steps by herself! We were SO excited! What made it even more special was that Brody was the one we were letting her walk to and he was loving it. He would sit in the floor with his arms out and she would walk right to him and then give him a big hug. :) We tried to video it, but we never got a good one. Hopefully, we can catch her doing it again soon! We are so proud of our baby girl! What’s even crazier is that Brody started walking this exact same week two years ago!

Another big, but sad, milestone for Jillian this week was that she bit someone in the church nursery on Sunday. Yes, she did. The best part of the story was that Brody got bit at MDO on Halloween. His bit mark stayed around for several days. It was a big one!

I wasn’t upset that he got bit, but I felt terrible for him and hated that it happened. I know those things happen. I also knew that at some point, I could be a parent of the child doing the biting. Sure enough, not even a week later, Jillian bit another child! Josh and I were actually in the nursery when it happened. She leaned over to hug a child and I think it an attempt to kiss him, she bit his head. I was glad we were in there so we could deal with it immediately. I was also thankful it was the child of some of our closet friends and it was also there 4th child. :) She has been back to the nursery twice since Sunday and hasn’t done that again. Thankfully!

This picture was after church Sunday. Cute, but guilty! Ha!

I am planning on posting a giveaway for local girls later this week and I also have another fun giveaway coming-up from one of my favorite local boutiques! Make sure and check back soon for those!

I hope y’all are having a great week!!

Who does she look like?

2011-11-05T11:30:00.001-05:00

We get asked a lot if Jillian looks like me or if she looks like Josh. Here are a few pictures of me as a baby that I think shows she looks a lot like I did at her age!

This is when I was 13-14 months old, so exactly the same age Jillian is now. She gets her crazy curls from me for sure! :)

This was at the same age…I think she looks at lot like me when she sleeps, too!

I think I was around 2 in this picture. I can definitely see Jillian in this picture, too!

What do you think? I’m always curious if other people see the similarities, too! :)

Random Thoughts…

2011-11-02T16:22:00.001-05:00

Josh and I went to a fundraising dinner last night for a crisis pregnancy center in our area. It was fun to get dressed-up and go out just the two of us!

We had a great night with friends and enjoyed learning more about the ministries of Loving Choices!

After spending entirely too much time pinning sewing projects on Pinterest, I decided that I just needed to attempt to sew again! So last week, I started on the Christmas pants for Jillian. It probably was not the smartest idea for my first project to include ruffles, but I survived making them and just need to finish the waistband. The pants have been like this for a week, but I keep forgetting to go get elastic. Hopefully completing these will give me the confidence to tackle a few more pinned ideas in the future. I’m pretty sure all major sewing projects will still be given to someone with more experience than this girl! :)

I meant to post this yesterday, but this was Brody’s candy haul from Monday night. We only went to 5 houses and he got a cookie at one house, so this candy is from 4 houses!! I am pretty sure the majority of it is from our friend, Heather! I kept seeing her stuff handfuls of candy in Brody’s bag! Ha! He was so excited about all the candy!

Monday night, one of our friends (who is a huge Alabama fan) taught Brody to say, “Roll Tide”. This is all I have literally heard from him for 2 days! He will randomly yell, “Roll Tide” and then I will ask him what he supposed to say, and he says, “Woo Pig Sooie”! It’s really funny! Today, he walked through the kitchen singing a song that he made-up. The words were, “Momma say roll tide, roll tide, go roll tide”. I can’t help, but laugh at him! We may be a house divided before too much longer if Clint keeps encouraging Brody to be a Bama fan! ;)

Hope y’all are having a great week!

Halloween Fun

2011-11-01T10:50:00.000-05:00

Brody dressed-up as a Razorback football player last night! We gave him several options of things he could dress-up as this year, but this is what he wanted and I think he looked adorable!

Big cheesy smile!

Since Brody was a football player, it only made since that little sister dress-up as a cheerleader!

Brody was calling the Hogs and she was doing the arm motions! I love that she can already knows how to do this! Smart girl! :)

Love these three!

We went to our church’s Blocktober Fest for a little while last night. It was like a big fair on our church’s campus in Springdale. Brody had so much fun getting to ride all the fun rides! They had a whole section of kid rides that he could ride by himself!

This one made me a little nervous, but he loved it! :)

Jill and Brandon came a little later in the evening and Brody wanted Jill to ride the spinning bears with him. This ride would have made me sick so I’m glad he didn’t ask me to ride! :)

We left there and then stopped by a few friends’ houses to trick-or-treat! It was a fun night with our little cuties!

Also, the winner of the Missy Prissy Bow Boutique Razorback Hair Bow (that’s a mouth full!!) is Carie! Congratulations! If you would, email me so I can pass your info onto Abbie! :)

Weekend Recap

2011-10-31T08:00:00.000-05:00

This little girl got to experience life as an only child on Saturday night! Brody spent the night with my parents and Jillian got to have a little extra attention from Josh and me.

The three of us had fun night together! We laughed thinking about how easy it seemed to only have one child! It’s so funny how your perspective changes with each child. :)

We went to eat and made a stop by Carter’s, the mall, Target, and Chick-fil-a for dessert.

Brody had such a fun time with my parents while we were having a fun night with Jillian! I don’t think he has spent the night with them since the week Jillian was born, so he was very excited to get to stay at their house!

Sunday evening, our small group had a bonfire, hayride and cookout. It was a perfect fall evening with our friends!

Brody and Hannah! These two get along so well and are such good friends.

Kinsler and Brody “driving” the tractor!

I love this picture of Brody. He was making tractor noises while he pretended to drive! The boy was obsessed with this thing!

Jillian and her friend, Rahley! I didn’t want Jillian’s little pea coat to smell like smoke from the fire, so she wore one of Brody’s coats that washes well! :)

The guys!

After we roasted hot dogs, we went on a fun hayride!

Brody sat in my lap the entire ride and we snuggled under a blanket!

After the hayride, we made s’mores and then headed home! Brody was so tired from his fun weekend that he fell asleep on our way home at 8:00!!

I hope y’all had a great weekend!

Missy Prissy Razorback Hair Bow Giveaway

2011-10-30T14:45:00.000-05:00

Even though the Razorback Game was pretty ugly yesterday, we still won!! To celebrate, I am hosting a giveaway for this adorable Missy Prissy Bow Boutique Razorback hair bow!

To enter this giveaway, go ‘like’ Missy Prissy Bow Boutique Facebook Page, then come back and leave me a comment!

Just a reminder…Abbie at MPBB will custom make bows to match any outfit. This would be a great idea for Thanksgiving and Christmas outfits. She has always done a fantastic job making custom bows to match outfits for Jillian! Email her at missyprissybowboutique(at)yahoo(dot)com for custom holiday bow orders.

Giveaway will end October 31st and the winner will be announced November 1st.

Good Luck!

Blogger Lunch

2011-10-29T15:25:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, the kids and I met several blogger/twitter friends for lunch!

Laurie, Leah, Niki, Lauren, Whitney, Hillary, Amanda, Me and Kelly

Lauren was visiting from Florida, so it was fun to get to see her again! We met in Atlanta last April.

Yesterday was the first time for me to met Leah and Niki, although I felt like I knew them from their blogs and Twitter! Whitney and I met about a year ago. She doesn’t live too far from here, so she is able to come up for things regularly!

I’m usually the only one looking at the camera these days! :)

Brody and Jillian did pretty well at lunch, although I was a nervous wreck because there was a sign on the door of the restaurant that said something like “well-behaved children welcomed.” Super! Ha!

We had such a fun time yesterday getting to meet new friends and visit with some of our favorite friends! I love the great friendships I have made from blogging!

Hope you all are having a good weekend!

Two-Ingredient Pumpkin Muffins

2011-10-28T08:00:00.000-05:00

We actually turned these two-ingredient muffins into three-ingredient muffins. I had these earlier this week at church and the person who made them added chocolate chips into the muffins. It made them extra good!

The original recipe calls for one box of spice cake mix and one 15 ounce can of pumpkin puree. (I had to use half of a 29 ounce can of pumpkin because that’s all I had on hand.)

We waited to bake these after Jillian went to bed so that Brody could get a little extra time with mommy! He was so excited to get to help me!

You need to use a mixer to mix them, but I let Brody stir them for a little while before we got out the mixer. :)

Brody wanted me to throw some chocolate chips in his mouth before we mixed them into the batter.

Yummy!!

Fill the muffin cups about 3/4 full and bake at 350 for about 20-25 minutes.

They are super easy and delicious!

Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

2011-10-27T16:19:00.001-05:00

We went to a local pumpkin patch/corn maze with our MOPS group yesterday morning! It was a fun morning full of farm animals,train rides and pumpkin picking!

Sweet Jillian! I love this cute headband and flower that a blog friend sent us last year!

They had a little fenced in area with some goats that Brody got to pet!

This picture cracked me up! He just kept his hand on the goat while the goat ate like it was no big deal!

After we got to see the goats, Brody rode the cow train. He was SO excited about it!

I think it’s such a cute little train!

They rode around the corn maze and back.

Jillian waved “bye bye” to Brody as the train pulled away!

After the train ride, we got on a big trailer and rode out to the mini pumpkin patch to pick pumpkins.

I let Brody pick two pumpkins…one for him and one for Jillian!

He was so amazed that these pumpkins were still on the vine!

We rode the trailer back and stopped to take a few pictures on the hay bales. They were staring intently at a scarecrow that was beside them! Ha!

She did not take her eyes off of the scarecrow the entire time!

My little pumpkins and me at the end of our fun morning together!

And just for fun….Here are the 3 of us this same week last fall when our MOPS group went to the pumpkin patch! Jillian was only 5 weeks old! :)

Hope y’all have a great evening!

Pumpkin Painting

2011-10-26T16:15:00.000-05:00

We went to the pumpkin patch this morning! While we were there, Brody picked two mini pumpkins to bring home. One for him and one for Jillian. I’m still going through the pictures from the pumpkin patch, but I thought I would share pictures of Brody and Jillian painting their mini pumpkins after we got home from the pumpkin patch!

I let them take turns painting in the high chair. That seemed like the safest place for two little ones to use paint! I let Jillian paint with her hands. It was a little messy, but much easier than giving her a paint brush. I didn’t get many pictures of her painting her pumpkin because I had to help hold her hands so that she didn’t lick the paint! :)

She used pink and blue paint and was really amused by the way her hand looked once she was finished!

Brody painted with paint brushes. He used red and blue paint for his pumpkin.

He started out by using one brush for each color…

And painted with both hands!

He really enjoyed this little craft!

Saying “cheese” while posing with his pumpkin! Ha!

Showing the finished product!

Little pumpkins all finished and dried!

This was so much fun for all 3 of us, and now we get to use the pumpkins to decorate our kitchen for the next few days!

Our Weekend

2011-10-25T20:40:00.000-05:00

We had a really uneventful weekend, which was wonderful! I feel like our fall has been packed full of fun, busy weekends, but a weekend with no big plans is always nice!

Saturday, we went to watch the Razorback game at The Green’s house. It was a lot of fun! Jillian and Brody always love spending time with Payne!

We had some great food for lunch…grilled duck, grilled pork tenderloin, salad, green bean bundles and fried potatoes. We had cookies for dessert along with this banana pudding I made. I should have taken a picture before I took it over, but this is proof it was pretty good! :)

Here is the recipe I used. It’s Paula Deen’s banana pudding and I sort of fell in love with it when we visited her restaurant last summer. I was pregnant and I ate quite a bit of dessert while we were there, including this pudding! Jill even made this recipe for my baby shower since I loved it so much. I made it in a 9x13, but my sister makes it in a huge bowl and it seems to work better that way!

Ingredients

1   12-ounce container frozen whipped topping thawed, or equal amount sweetened whip
1   14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
1   8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
2 cup milk
1   5-ounce box instant French vanilla pudding
6-8   bananas, sliced
2   bags Pepperidge Farm Chessmen cookies (I used Vanilla Wafers instead)

Directions

Line the bottom of a 13x9x2-inch dish with 1 bag of cookies and layer bananas on top.

In a bowl, combine the milk and pudding mix and blend well using a handheld electric mixer. Using another bowl, combine the cream cheese and condensed milk together and mix until smooth. Fold the whipped topping into the cream cheese mixture. Add the cream cheese mixture to the pudding mixture and stir until well blended. Pour the mixture over the cookies and bananas and cover with the remaining cookies. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

___________________________________________________________________________

One other thing I did this weekend was I cleaned out our bottle cabinet! I have no idea why I have waited so long to do this. I don’t think Jillian has used a bottle since she was about 10 months old. She has either nursed or used a sippy cup. I realized with all the additional sippy cups in our house, we needed our cabinet space back so we could store all of Brody and Jillian’s cups. It was a little bittersweet when I packed them away, but I am happy to have the additional cabinet space now!

And this is just a sweet picture from this weekend…I went to check on Jillian on Saturday night and I found her holding hands with her little baby doll! Precious girl! I just love her so much!

Hope y’all are having a great week!

Our Rocking Chair

2011-10-24T08:00:00.000-05:00

For my first Christmas, my parents bought me this sweet little rocking chair. I was 10 months old at the time and this little chair was the perfect size for me.

After 26 years and 3 moves, my rocking chair was moved to our house this weekend so that it could be used by my little girl now. I couldn’t be happier!

For years, my parents continued to move and store this chair so that one day my kids could use this chair. I never fully appreciated it being saved until this weekend when Jillian sat in it for the first time and gave us a big cheesy grin! It melted my heart!

The finish on the chair is a little scratched, especially on the seat, so we are planning to have it sanded and painted. I really think it would be so cute if it was a light pink and had a cute little monogrammed pillow to match her bedding in the seat.

Brody has loved getting to rock Jillian in this chair. I’ve tried to get him to sit in it, too, but he keeps telling me that it’s for Jillian. :)

Thanks, Mom and Dad, for such a sweet and priceless gift! I know Jillian will love this chair as much as I loved it!

Play Date

2011-10-21T15:00:00.000-05:00

This morning, two of Jillian’s church friends came over to play. Jillian was so excited to see her friends!

The girls played with Jillian’s girly toys and with Brody’s toys as well. Jillian loves Brody’s new tool box.

This is Rahely! Isn’t she so pretty?? She and Jillian were born on the exact same day! Rahely is just a few hours older than Jillian. It’s so fun that the girls are birthday buddies! :)

And this is sweet Addison! I always love her adorable clothes and bows! She is just 6 weeks older than Jillian and Rahely!

We had such a fun morning with these sweet girls and their mommas. Josh and I are in small group with both girls’ parents, so we get to spend a lot of time with these families. We had a great time visiting and letting the girls play! They all play together so well. Hopefully, they will continue to be great friends as they grow-up!

Brody had a fun morning with the girls as well. He was very sweet and tried to make sure the girls were sharing toys! Ha! He is such a great big brother!

Hopefully, the busy morning will cause these 4 to take great naps this afternoon! That’s always the best part of a play dates! :)

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Tuesday

2011-10-19T11:50:00.000-05:00

The weather decided to change quickly here! The temperature was in the 80s on Monday and then in the 50s yesterday, so Jillian got to wear a sweater and boots to Bible study yesterday morning!

Michelle Duggar came to speak at our Bible study yesterday morning! This is our Tuesday morning group with Michelle and a few of their daughters.

Didn’t we do a great job matching the colors we wore? :)

Both times I have met Michelle, I have been amazed at how young she looks. Seriously, no wrinkles! It’s amazing!

I always enjoy hearing Michelle speak! She spoke on building character qualities in our children and was kind enough to answer so many of our questions. She is such a great encouragement to moms and she is honestly one of the kindest, most humble people I have ever been around. You can just tell from hearing her speak how much she loves her children and how much joy she finds in motherhood. It was a great morning getting to learn from her!

The kids always nap well on Tuesday afternoons since they play hard in the nursery on Tuesday mornings. They were asleep by the time we got home yesterday. I think they look alike when they sleep!

Since it was a little cooler yesterday, I thought it was a good night for chili, so I used the turkey and black bean chili that we had in our freezer. I am LOVING these freezer meals! It frees up so much time in the afternoons since dinner just has to be cooked. Plus, no mess in the kitchen!

Brody helped me make corn muffins to go along with the chili. He loves to help in the kitchen and I love having his help! He kept telling me that he did need me help and he wanted to “stare with the whiss” (stir with the whisk) by himself!

Also, thank you all SO much for your help with paint colors! Seriously, you have no idea how much I was dreading choosing a color, so I am so glad that y’all helped by narrowing it down to a few! :)

Hope you have a great day!

Shades of Grey

2011-10-18T14:45:00.000-05:00

For while now (about a year), we have been talking about repainting and redecorating Brody’s room to make it more of a big boy room. We finally decided it was time to do this, especially since Brody is now in a toddler bed.

This is the color scheme we are most likely going with for his room!

Source: woodlanddreams.net via Jennifer on Pinterest

This is the bedding we ordered! I love chevron! I think it’s going to look super cute with some accent pillows with fun prints in yellow and turquoise.

Source: babybedding.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

We are planning to have the ceiling painted a creamy white color to match the trim and baseboards and have the walls painted grey.

I went to Sherwin Williams yesterday to choose a grey and quickly became overwhelmed by all my options! I asked one of the girls that worked there what some of the popular greys were and she told me grey wasn’t popular. I was so confused since they had a huge section of grey paint sample cards as well as big brochure of all their grey paint colors! Ha! Maybe she was new, or maybe she didn't know grey has become quite popular? :)

These are the sample cards I came home with yesterday.

I have a few favorites, but I am curious, do any of you have a grey paint color in your home that you love? We are trying to stay with a SW color because that’s where our painter buys his paint, but I am open to any recommendations that you have on greys! Thanks in advance for your help!

Busy Weekend

2011-10-16T21:00:00.000-05:00

We had another busy, but fun, fall weekend!!

Friday night was FNO at our church, so we dropped the kids off and then headed to a fellowship with our small group! We had a great time eating dinner with our friends. We sat at boy/girl tables and this was the girl table!

After dinner and dessert, we moved to the living room and played Just Dance on the Wii, Pictionary, and Catch Phrase!

The guys were pretty serious and competitive during our games! It was such a fun night!

Saturday morning, Brody and I went to a birthday party for one of our friends, Noah. It was his 2n birthday and we had a lot of fun getting to celebrate with him!

The party was in Noah’s backyard, which is beside some horse stables. Brody loved getting to see the horse that was out yesterday morning.

They had a lot of fun riding toys for the kids to play with and this car was Brody’s favorite. I really think he was a little big for it, but he didn’t seem to mind.

After the party, I took Brody home and then headed to a consignment sale in our area. I have gone a few times, but I haven’t gone since we have had Jillian and I have heard lots of great things about the girl clothing, so I went to check it out. I got tons of great stuff for Jillian! My favorite find was this cute smocked Christmas dress that I got for $10!

Yesterday afternoon, we headed to another birthday party for Brody’s friend, Hannah! She is turning 3 this week and she had a cute bumble bee themed party!

Her party was at the same place we had Brody’s party 2 weeks ago. Brody loves getting to go there and Jillian has really started enjoying going as well! She and Payne had a fun time together!

Will, Jack and Brody- These 3 boys crack me up! Will loved his cupcake!

Brody loved al the yummy snacks at the party!

Sweet Payne eating his cupcake!

Sarah held Jillian while she ate her cupcake and apparently Jillian thought Sarah might take it away from her so she quickly shoved the cupcake in her mouth…

And this was the end result! Ha! She ate more of the cupcake at Hannah’s party than she did the smash cake at her own party!

This morning, we went to church! Jillian looked so cute and was so happy this morning! We tried to get Brody to jump in the picture but he said, “No, thanks!” :)

She is really crazy about Josh right now. When we tell her to say “momma” she says “dada” and then starts laughing!

Tonight, we had dinner with the Greens at our house! We had a great time with them and Brody and Jillian had fun getting to play with Payne! It’s fun to see the 3 of them interact and play now that Jillian and Payne are older!

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Happy 13th Month, Jillian Kate!

2011-10-15T12:35:00.000-05:00

Today, this cutie pie is 13 months old!

I cannot even describe how much we love this girl!

Jillian has the sweetest, funniest personality!

She is so petite and girly, and so sweet and loving!

And lately, she has become just a little dramatic! :)

She is the cutest little girl I have ever laid my eyes on! (Of course, I’m not partial! )

She is changing, learning and growing so much each day! We are loving every minute of the fun!

Here are a few things she has been up to this month:

She is wearing 9 month clothes and some 12 month clothes, size 2 shoes and a size 3 diaper.
She is still a good sleeper! She goes to bed around 8 or 8:30 and sleeps until 7:00 or 7:30.
She takes 2 naps a day still. She wakes up a few times during her afternoon nap, but I know she isn’t ready to get-up until she wakes up laughing and talking! :)
She is still nursing twice a day. I was so excited to have made it to a year with her! That was my goal! I never imagined that she would continue to nurse after that point. Brody just quit on his first birthday, so I guess I figured she would just wean herself around her birthday as well.
She eats anything we put in front of her and she eats all.day.long! People don’t believe us until they see her eat. She is so petite, but she can put away some food! :)
She is pulling up on things and standing for a few seconds alone. She is walking all over the places as long as she had someone to hold onto!
She is into everything! We cannot take our eyes off of her for one second.
She is so happy and social! She loves to talk, smile and wave at people.
She loves to play with her baby dolls! She hugs and kisses them and pats their backs. She says, “aww bebe” when she hold them.
She is saying a lot of words! Some she says regularly and others she says when we tell her to say them.
If she doesn’t want something she shakes her head “no” until we stop offering!
She loves to play in Brody’s room with his toys. She also likes to steal his food at meals when he isn’t looking! Ha!
She loves bath time! If we say the word “bath” she takes off crawling into the bathroom.
She loves to sing! I keep hoping one of our kids will be a good singer. Anytime we sing to her she sings with us. She also loves to play peek-a-boo.
She loves MDO, the nursery, and staying with family.
She is such a little ham and always gives us her biggest cheesy grin.
She is such a sweet, sweet girl!

Happy 13th month, sweet girl!! We love you!

Pinterest: Free Fall Printables

2011-10-14T08:30:00.000-05:00

Here are a few of my favorite free fall printables that I have seen on Pinterest recently!

I think this fall subway art is SO cute! I love the colors!

Source: myblessedlife.net via Jennifer on Pinterest

I love these little fall favor tags! These would be cute attached to little fall treats for your kids' teachers!

Source: myblessedlife.net via Jennifer on Pinterest

This is such a cute printable of all the things we love best about fall!! The fall colors on this printable make it extra cute!

Source: myblessedlife.net via Jennifer on Pinterest

I love the candy corn on these cupcake toppers!!

Source: bhg.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

This is a variety of printable fall bucket lists! I think this is such a fun idea and a great way to make sure you accomplish lots of fun, fall activities. You can frame these and then check them off on the glass of the frame with a dry erase marker. This will allow the printable to be used each fall!

Source: designfinch.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

Happy Fall!

Dr. Brody

2011-10-13T16:37:00.001-05:00

After MDO today, we went to see Julee so that Brody could get his hair cut. I let Brody take his new doctor kit into the appointment with him thinking it would help keep him entertained while Julee cut his hair.

On the way into the salon, Brody told me he was going to use his doctor kit to check on Preslee. He said she was sick and wasn’t feeling good! When we walked in the salon he told Julee to sit down on the couch so that he could check Preslee. :) Julee was sweet enough to play along and listened to all the “doctor’s orders!”

Listening to her heartbeat!

Giving her a shot!

And just to make sure the mommy-to-be was healthy, he checked Julee’s ears!

He said after he was finished that “Preslee was all better!” :) Preslee is a lucky girl to have Brody looking out for her already!

Ribbon key chain tutorial

2011-10-11T16:22:00.001-05:00

At MOPS tomorrow, I’m having the moms make ribbon key chains for their craft. We make these every year in MOPS. They are one of my favorite crafts! I thought I would share how to make them since I was already making a few examples of them to share with the girls tomorrow.

Here are the supplies you need…

1 inch cotton webbing (This can be bought by the yard at craft/fabric stores)
3/4 inch ribbon
7/8 inch heat-n-bond
1 1/4 inch end tip key fob hardware (bought online)
tape measure
scissors
Pliers (I used needle nose pliers)
Iron and ironing board/or hard surface

The first thing you want to do is to cut your cotton webbing, ribbon and heat-n-bond strip. We are making them 8 inches long, but if you want them longer, I would suggest 10 inches.

Next, turn your ribbon over and attach the heat-n-bond to the back side of the ribbon. You want to put the adhesive side on the ribbon and the paper side-up. Run the iron over the paper for a couple of seconds. Don’t leave the iron on too long or the adhesive may dissolve.

Allow the adhesive to cool, then peel the paper backing off of the adhesive.

Next, center the ribbon with the adhesive side down on the webbing and run over with the iron. You may want to cover your ribbon with a towel and then run the iron over it so that the colors of the ribbon do not bleed. ( At this point, you could run the webbing through your sewing machine and do a straight stitch down both sides of the ribbon to give it a finished look. We are obviously not going to sew ours at MOPS.)

Next, fold the webbing in half with the ribbon side up and slide it into the key chain hardware. Use your pliers to clamp the hardware around the webbing. Make sure you crimp the hardware as tight as you can. It helps if you have someone hold the keychain while you clamp it, or else the webbing tends to slide around.

Attach it to you keys and you are done!

There are lots of color options of webbing if you don’t want black! These are the 3 colors I’m using for our craft tomorrow.

Here is the box of ribbon for the girls to choose from to make their key chains. There are tons of options and you can personalize these to your style.

Have a great afternoon!