Scrub-A-Dub Dub 2 Kiddos in the Tub

Since we've been in the house and are a little more settled now, I've made a better effort to get my dslr camera out a little more. Yay!! So this past Monday evening, while the kids were in the bath, I decided to get a few pictures of them. I'd like to have a few prints made of these pictures in black & white to hang on the wall in our hall bath. I think these turned out pretty cute and I can't wait to see them framed. :-)

Avery Says...

Avery has really started talking lately and it's so fun to have somewhat of a conversation with her now. It always amazes me how much she knows and can say. Here are just a few things she's said lately that blew my mind or that I just thought were really cute.

One night last week as Papa was pulling into the drive-way...

Me: Avery, is Papa home?

Avery: Nope, don't think so.

Last Monday while we were out shopping and I was pushing Avery in the cart...

Me: Ouch Avery, you kicked me.

Avery: Sorry Mommy 

(Heart melted ♥)

While we were at her ear tube follow up appointment last week, we were in the waiting room and she stood at one end of the room and said "set, go" and then ran to the other end. 

As she was going down the stairs the other day she counted them... "2, 9, YAY!!" (Jackson counts the steps as he goes up and and down them so she's picked up on this from him. Ha.)

I was in her room hanging her bunting up over her bed and as I was doing that she came into the room and said "pretty". I'm glad to know she approves. :-)

While she was eating lunch...

Me: Is it good Avery?

Avery: Mmmm Good Good!

While she was eating a sucker in the car from the bank on Monday:
Avery: Mommy good good, Maw Maw good good, Brubber (aka brother) good good. :-) She had to tell each one of us in the car that her sucker was "good good!"

For some odd reason she calls every drink "tea." She calls every cup or drinking fountain "tea." When she wants you to fill her cup back up, she says "tea". I have no idea why, Ha.

 She calls popcorn, "cockorn"which I think is too cute.
She calls our dog Hunter, "Humpfer". 

She is obsessed with Peppa Pig, Minnie Mouse and Sophia the First. She has a couple Sophia shirts and a Minnie Mouse shirt along with Sophia, Paw Patrol and Minnie Mouse Jammies that she requests all the time. I was getting her out of the bath tub last night and before I could even get her out she was saying Paw Patrol. She already knew which jammies she wanted to wear. Ha. She also has a Sophia cup that she just has to drink out of just about every day. I can hardly get it washed for her before she's asking for her "Fia" cup. It's not looking good for me that she's not even 2 and already she has a say in what she wears and which cup she wants to drink out of.

That's all I have for now, but I'm sure I'll be back soon with more. I can't wait to hear what she comes up with next!

Project Life 2016: Weeks 1-3

A few years ago, I decided to try Project Life and make a digital page every week. I worked hard on it for close to a year, but got pregnant with Avery and just didn't feel like doing anything for a couple months. I got behind and just decided to give up. I loved making the pages though and loved having our memories documented, but life got so busy and I got overwhelmed with it. 

Well, I decided to give it another try. I thought I was still not too far into the year to start and catch up, so here are the first 3 pages from this year. :-) Now hopefully I can get caught up and stay caught up and not quit this go-around. :-)

Week One

Week Two: A Little Something to Remember mini kit freebie from Blagovesta Gosheva

Week Three: It's the Little Things mini kit from Amanda Yi

Wordless Wednesday

She's such a ham!!!

The Highs and Lows From Our Weekend

Our Valentines Day weekend didn't go quite how I had hoped, but overall it was still pretty good.

Friday morning, before leaving for work, I cleaned out Jackson's backpack from the day before and found this adorable Valentines Day card he had made for Jake and I. It was so sweet.

Then while at work Friday, right before leaving for lunch, these gorgeous flowers were delivered to my office for me. ♥ My sweet Valentine did good. ☺

Friday night, Jake and I celebrated Valentines Day with Dinner and a movie which was really nice.

Saturday, we met Jake's family at Sweetie Pies for lunch. His cousin and her family were visiting from Germany. So we all met up to see her and her newest member of the family. She had a baby boy last April and it was our first time to meet him. :-) After lunch we all went back to my Mother-In-Law's house for the rest of the day to hang out and catch up. It was a very fun day.

Avery meeting her new cousin. :-)

Saturday night, Jackson decided to stay the night at Grandma's house so we just planned on picking him up on the way to church the next morning. Well Sunday morning it started snowing and didn't let up for a few hours. We got out on the road to head to pick Jackson up and go to church but it was a slow go. 

While we were driving, Jake's mom called and said Jackson had thrown up twice that morning and though he didn't seem to act sick otherwise, we may not want to take him to church. So the plans changed and we ended up just picking him up and taking him home. Round trip it took us around 2 hours to pick him up and get him back home again. We got stuck behind a set of snow plows on our way home, which didn't help matters. Thankfully, Jackson fell asleep on the way home and we didn't have any throwing up in the car (we were prepared with a big bowl in case he did). The rest of the day included Jackson throwing up many more times and him just basically laying around. My poor buddy. I felt so bad for him. It was definitely the worst case of a stomach bug he's ever had. I did get an opportunity to clean and sanitize the house and get a few more boxes unpacked that day, but thankfully we celebrated Valentines Day on Friday because there would have been no going out that day with the snow and Jackson being sick.

I was able to snap a few pictures of Avery for Valentines Day. She was blowing kisses here! Too cute!

Monday morning, Jackson woke up feeling much better, thank goodness. I was off work for President's Day so my mom and I planned to get up and do a little shopping. Unfortunately, there was a snag in our plan. My mom started a load of laundry before we got going and thankfully noticed, before it got too bad, that the drain in the laundry room was backing up. Ugh. Of course, my dad and Jake were both at work when this happened. So we called my dad and he turned around and came home to save the day. He rented a sewer rooter and was able to get us all fixed up again.

While we waited for the sewer to be fixed, the kids played in their new rooms. They are just loving being in the new house and I love seeing them play together. :-)

So our weekend definitely had some ups and downs, but we are all back to work and school again today and everyone seems to be staying well. Prayers are appreciated that no-one else in the house gets the yucky stomach bug that Jackson had. I really really really don't want it and I'm praying no-one else gets it either.

The Move and What I'm Loving Most About Our New House

After 6 long months, we finally moved into our new house this past weekend! The move went well and the weather was 60 degrees and sunny! Perfect moving weather. 

We are loving the new house so far! It's working out quite nicely. One of the things I'm most excited about is the space. The rooms actually feel bigger with our furniture in them. I didn't really ever think the rooms were all that big when they were empty but now they seem quite big. That is such a great feeling coming from the small 2 bedroom condo we've been living in for the last 6+ months. 

I'm also loving a full warm shower in the mornings. The condo had warm water for about 10 minutes total and then it turned freezing cold. I'd have to rush through my shower every morning to ensure it stayed warm for the duration. Jake had to start taking a shower the night before just so he'd have warm water. It's nice that we can both take nice long warm showers every morning and not have to worry about the water turning cold. 

The kids are both back to having their own rooms with a place for all their toys. Jackson had been bunking with us in the condo because there were only 2 bedrooms and Avery just doesn't sleep sound enough for her to share a room with Jackson (who doesn't understand the word quiet very well). So it's nice to have them both back in their own rooms. 

I'm loving our new kitchen. It's so nice and spacious. There is so much cabinet and drawer space. It's far more than I've ever had before. Our old house only had 2 small drawers in the whole kitchen and no pantry. It was tiny! It's so nice to have so much room for everything.

One thing I've not mentioned so far here on the blog is that my parents have actually moved in with us for a while. It is temporary but while my dad is working on the house and my mom is helping out with the kids so much, it just made sense if they stayed with us. They were renting a house about 40 minutes from where we wanted to move and it just didn't make sense to drive all around town every day to get the kids to them and my dad come to the house to work. So we are fortunate enough to have an extra room in our finished basement that is working out really well for them. They will eventually have their own bathroom down there as well but it is needing some renovations. It has been great these last few mornings getting ready for work and being able to walk out of the door without having to worry about getting the kids up and ready and take them out in the cold to my parents house. They are great helps and we are so appreciative. 

One more thing I'm really loving about the new house is the master bathroom. It's nothing to write home about. It's not large or lavish by any means, especially with it's country blue tile over over the place, but we've never had a master bathroom and I just love it! It's so nice to have our own bathroom. We'll be gutting it at some point and renovating it down the road, but even in it's state right now it is so nice and convenient to have. :-) 

(A few of the rooms in their current state. We still have some work to do obviously, but we're getting there.)

So that is my long list of things that I'm loving about our new house. It really feels like home to us and we are so happy here!

Happy Friday

Happy Friday!

Today I'm linking up with Christina, April and Natasha for Five on Friday!

 Tonight is our last night in the condo!!! Yay! Moving day is tomorrow and I could not be more excited!

 We signed Jackson up for both T-Ball and Soccer this week! I'm super excited to watch him play this Spring!

I've been putting the finishing touches on Jackson's 4 year photo book this week. Better late than never right? I usually try to get their books done for their birthday parties, but I've been so busy, I hadn't gotten around to finishing Jackson's book up. It should have been done back in October, but 4 months later, I'm finally getting around to finishing it. You can view the entire book here if you'd like. :-) I just love my books from Mixbook.com!

Yesterday, my sweet sister had her gallbladder removed so my mom was helping out at their house and couldn't pick Jackson up from pre-school. So I left work early, picked him up and we had a little mini date at Starbucks. We go there often for cake-pops and he always wants to go inside, but we're always in a hurry and just go through the drive-thru. So yesterday, since we didn't have Avery with us and we had some extra time, I thought it would be fun to take him on a little date to Starbucks. :-) We enjoyed our Mommy-Son time together. 

And since most of this post has been about Jackson, here's a cute picture of Avery and I that my mom took last Saturday. She just loves helping. She's my little shadow!

That wraps up my Friday Five. I hope you all have a great weekend! Our weekend will be spent packing and then unpacking, but we couldn't be more excited!!

1-31 of 365

So I decided to try and do a 365 this year. I did something similar last year with the 100 days of Summer and it was a lot of fun. So I thought a whole 365 would be fun as well. I decided that if I made it easy on myself and did a combination of iPhone and dslr pictures, I may just keep up with it. So far, a majority of these pictures are iPhone pictures, but that's okay. It shows what our days are like right now and that's just what I wanted this 365 to be about. I wanted it to tell a story of what this year is like for me. Not just work related, photography related or family related, but a mixture of all of it. I knew solely taking dslr camera pictures just wasn't realistic as I don't bring my camera with me everywhere I go. Especially not to work everyday. So it will just be a mixture of both. I thought it would be fun to post my month end results and maybe talk a little about what we did that month. Just post the highlights so they are documented here on the blog... so here goes. :-)

The month of January went by in a flash! I absolutely hate Winter, so I'm always glad to see January go. This January however, hasn't been too bad and we've been so busy, I've hardly had time to even care about the cold weather. We've had some cold days, but the month ended on a great note. It was in the 60's and sunny this past weekend! Yay!

We've been working on the house, so a majority of our month was focused on getting it ready to move in this coming weekend! We are so excited! 

The kids have had fun playing with new toys from Christmas, we got our first accumulative snow of the Winter season and the kids were super excited! I came down with Strep Throat and Jake and I have managed to go on a couple of lunch dates!

I had 3 photo sessions this month, which was a nice surprise since Winter is my slowest season. We put together a Sunshine Basket for a close family friend who had surgery, we got our hardwood floors refinished at the new house and I had a nice relaxing evening at the hair salon. We had a few family dinners and Jackson started a new semester in Pre-School. We also started packing up our condo and got our passports in the mail for an upcoming trip to Costa Rica with friends! 

So that pretty much covers our month of January!! It's been a busy and exciting month and we're very much looking forward to February when we get to move in and start our new life in our new house!