Five on Friday

I'm linking up with April today for Five on Friday!

Remembering that horrible day and all the lives lost. Praying for the victims friends and family. 

May we never forget!

Last Thursday we closed on our new house and are so excited!!!

I ordered this super cute baseball t-shirt yesterday and I'm so excited about it. I've been wanting a cute "photography" shirt and I fell in love with this one as soon as I saw it. If you're interested, you can find it here, along with several other items from these local photographers here in St. Louis.

As I've said before, there is a lot of work that we want to do around our new house and a couple of those things we plan to do before we move in. The major thing is the kitchen. We are gutting it and putting in a whole new one. My dad is building the cabinets and doing all the work and he's already started on building the cabinets this past week. Jackson's been Papa's right hand man all week while my Dad's been building them. 

Don't forget that Grandparent's Day is this Sunday! I posted 10 ideas here last week if you'd like to check them out or of course, there are tons of other ideas on Pinterest!

 I might be biased, but our kids have THE BEST grandparents ever. I honestly don't think we could make it without them.

100 Days of Summer 2015

If you follow me along on Instagram, then you've seen I've been doing a little Summer photo project. Back in May, I saw the idea here, to do a 100 days of Summer Instagram project and take a photo-a-day of our Summer. It was a very fun little project and something I'm so glad I did. Our summer was busy with selling our house, moving into our temporary condo and then searching for and buying a new house, but there was so much more day to day stuff going on with us and the kids and I'm glad I took the time to capture it, even if it was just on my iPhone. :-)

Some of the things we did this summer (besides all the house stuff): 

-Jackson played his first year of t-ball

-Uncle Jim came in town for a visit

-We went Strawberry Picking

-Played in the hose and in the kiddie pool 

-Went to several pools in the area

-Went to the Winery

-Got Ice-Cream from the Ice-Cream Man

-Jumped in Muddy Puddles

-Lots of Snuggles

-Lots of cake-pop trips to Starbucks

-Rode bikes on the sidewalk in front of our old house

-Went to the St. Charles 4th of July Carnival

-Went to Six Flags

-Went to the Zoo

-Went to Purina Farm

-Took Jackson to his first Movie

-Several trips to several parks

-Made pizzas at Grandma's

-Blew bubbles and played in Maw Maw and Papa's backyard

-Ate dinner on the condo patio

   -We frequented the grocery store and Steak 'n Shake

 -Had a big family Picnic at Rend Lake

-Got dirty and took baths on repeat

-Jackson went to preschool

It was a great summer and I am so sad to see it come to an end.

I put together a collage of all of our 100 days of summer so you can see all the pictures I took and so I can have a spot where all 100 photos are easily accessible. :-)

I had so much fun with this little project, I'm considering doing a #100daysoffall project. ;-)

Jackson's First Day of 3 Year Old Pre-School

Jackson went back to Pre-School yesterday and had a great day. He was very excited to go and kept saying "Can we go now?" as we were getting ready yesterday morning. He was great at drop-off and his teachers said he had a good day! They said he was a little quiet and shy for a while but eventually came out of his shell. :-)

He went during the summer as well to keep him used to going. His school has different summer camps there every 2 weeks, so Jackson went to 3 of these 2-week long camps, 2 days a week. I think keeping him in the groove of school really helped the transition back to school this Fall and he had a lot of fun too. 

He is in the Star Class this year and because he and many of his classmates are either already 4 or are about to be 4, they will be spending a lot of their day alongside the Pre-K Rainbow class, but will have some circle and learning time just as Stars. 

His teachers' names are Ms. Becky and Ms. Cathy. Thankfully he's in his new class with his best friend from school, Gabe, since Gabe is just a month older than Jackson. :-)

I found this super cute idea for a Back to School printable and then just re-created it in pic-monkey to make it my own. I also found this little "First Day of Pre-School" questionnaire here. Jackson was so cute and excited to help me fill this out. We measured him and weighed him on our scale at home. Then I asked him the questions. He answered them almost exactly as I had expected he would. :-)

And here are a few other pictures from our quick photo session before going to school yesterday morning. (He picked his back-pack out all by himself and was pretty proud of it.) I had also got him a new outfit for his first day and he loved that it had dinosaurs on the shirt. :-)

I'm so glad he had a great first day and he already can't wait to go back tomorrow!!! He's getting so big and I'm so proud of him!

10 Gifts for the Grandparents

Grandparent's Day is this month, Sunday, September 13th. So after scouring Pinterest for some cute gift ideas, I thought I'd share a few of my favorites with you all as a friendly reminder of the special day.

My Dad (who loves nuts of all kinds) would love this gift.

Free printable found here.

I thought this would be really cute to frame and give to my mom or mother-in-law.

Free printable found here.

I love any gift with my kids handprints on it, so I know their grandparents would love that as well.

Idea found here.

Like I said, I love handprint gifts. ;-)

Idea found here.



A super cute sign for the grandparents. This can be bought here on etsy, or could be a really cute and fun DIY project with your kiddos.

My sister and I did something similar for our Mom for Mother's Day one year, and we later re-did it to add "Maw Maw and Papa" to cover both of them. We'll be re-doing it again soon when my sister has her third baby this Fall.

 Idea found here.

I thought this would be a super cute printable to print out and frame for the grandparents and it would be a fun way involve your kiddos in the gift.

Free printable found here.



If you've followed this blog for any length of time, you know I am photo-obsessed. So naturally, I think this would be such a fun gift to give to the grandparents.

Idea found here.



I thought this was super cute and can be found on etsy here. Or it would be very easy to recreate just using Photoshop or my personal favorite... picmonkey.com.

And last, but certainly not least, another gift more geared for grandpa is this cute little jar filled with is favorite goodies. :-)

Idea and free download found here.


I think any of these (or any one of the hundreds of other ideas on Pinterest) would be so cute and thoughtful as a gift for Grandparent's Day. Our kids' grandparents are so supportive and are always there for us to help out or love on our babies. They love their grandkids to pieces and Grandparent's Day is a great day to show them how much we love them back.

Avery's 15th Month

 This is such a late post. By now, she is actually 16 months old. Ugh. However, I did take these pictures during her 15th month and wrote this post at that time too but kept telling myself I'd re-try to take her 15 month picture because I was unhappy with how it turned out. She did NOT want to sit still this night and I thought maybe I'd try again to get a better picture. That never happened so I thought I'd better just get it posted and just deal with the picture I got, so here it is, a month late. ;-)

Avery,

On July 28th you turned 15 months old! 

Size:

At your 15 month check-up at the doctor, you weighed 23.6 lbs (74%) and you were 31 1/2 inches tall (71%). Such a big girl. :-) At this appointment you had to get 3 shots and you handled it like a champ. You didn't even cry during the first one but cried a little during the second and third shots. However as soon as the nurse said, "do you want a cookie?" you immediately stopped crying. ;-)

Clothing:

You are still wearing 18 and 24 month clothes.

Shoe Size:

Size 5

Diapers:

Size 4

Teeth:

You have your 8 front teeth (4 on the bottom and 4 on the top) and you've gotten all 4 of your 1st year molars.You are currently working on getting your incisors.

Hair/Eyes:

Your hair keeps getting lighter and lighter so I would say it's a very light brown and your eyes are a brown.

Sleep:

You usually go to sleep between 8 and 9 and you generally sleep until 7ish the next morning! You are such a great sleeper and Mommy and Daddy appreciate that. You usually take 2 naps a day that are usually around 1-2 hours long.

Eat:

You love pancakes, toaster sticks, peanut butter sandwiches, pizza, carrots, macaroni, yogurt, apples, grilled cheese and you love fries and chips. You've got feeding yourself down now and won't even think about eating off of a spoon/fork from us. You have to do it yourself (oh joy!). We stopped giving you that last bottle before bed time this month and you never missed it or complained about not having it!! You still get milk in your sippy cup or water throughout the day and you do great with that. You got to have your first popsicle from the ice-cream man all to yourself this month and enjoyed that very much! :-)

Favorite Toys:

Any toy your brother has. Ugh... and so the sibling rivalry begins.

Milestones:

You love to sing and dance and have been learning the movements to "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed". It is just too cute to watch you do the movements. You love the opening theme song to The Office and you can be in the back room and hear it come on and you come running out to the living room to dance. SO CUTE!! You also started "singing". It is the cutest thing ever. You blow kisses and love to climb. You can get on and off the couch all by yourself now and you can climb up on things we'd rather you not! ;-)

Vocalizing:

You say a lot of words once, and then you often won't say them again. You've said "juice" when you wanted your cup and you said "duck" when we were at the park and saw ducks. You also said "hi dada" when you and your brother were out on the patio and Daddy was taking the trash out. Jackson said "hi daddy" and you repeated what he was saying. You've been able to say "dada" for a long time, but you put hi and dada together for the first time and it was really cute. You said bubble the other day when brother was blowing bubbles outside for you and you said "up/down" but won't say it again.

Personality:
You have quite the personality these days. You are strong willed, very independent and pretty demanding, but you can be sweet at sugar too. You are very much a girly girl and love shoes, purses, chap-stick, baby dolls and brushing your hair. You love water... bath time and swimming in the pool are a lot of fun for you. You have quite the cute little tan from being at the pool so much this summer. You are on the move and into everything these days. You are wearing me out sweet girl.

I think that about covers your 15 month update. You are such a blessing and we love you so very much Pretty Girl!

-Mommy xoxo

Five on Friday

I'm linking up with April today for Five on Friday!

 I've been wanting a new watch for quite some time now and finally got a new one a couple weeks ago. I kept going back and forth on whether to go with gold or silver but ended up going with gold. I love the one I ended up getting. :-)

We close on our new house in less than a week and I can hardly believe it! Next Thursday we will once again be home owners and then the real fun can begin. I feel so excited and overwhelmed... but mostly excited. ;-)

This week, the weather has been perfect! The temps have been in the upper 70's to low 80's with zero humidity. I wish it could last forever! While I was off on Monday, we had a few errands to run in the morning, but for lunch we stopped and got some food and took it to the park for a picnic. After that the kids played on the playground for quite a while. It was a really fun time for them and it was great to get out and enjoy the beautiful weather.

Jake and I have a date night planned for tonight. It's been quite a while since we've had a night out. With the move and buying a new house, it's been so busy and hard to find the time. We'll probably keep it low key and just do dinner and a movie. I'm looking forward to it. :-)

 Jackson will be starting back to pre-school on the Tuesday after Labor Day, so I took him to Target last week to help me pick up his school supplies and pick out a new backpack. :-) He thought it was pretty cool to be able to pick his own backpack and was very proud of his choice. ;-) I can't believe my sweet boy will be 4 already in a little less than 2 months. How is that even possible?

Happy Friday Everyone!! I hope you all have a great weekend!

It's National Dog Day

I found out this morning that it's National Dog Day, so I thought I'd write a short post in honor of our sweet pups! 

We have two lab mixes... Hunter and Max. I used to post about them all the time, back when they were our only babies. Now that we have human babies, they have taken a little bit of a back seat, but we love them so much and enjoy having dogs in the house to love and cuddle with. :-) 

I've always been an animal lover and thankfully, I married one too, so I think our house will always be home to dogs. They are just so sweet and loving and I can't imagine our lives without them.

Happy National Dog Day to all of our Furry, Four-Legged Friends!! :-)