New Year Challenge

My very brave cousin started a blog to share her weight loss goals and journey for 2014. In her latest post she ended it with this challenge for herself and her readers: Name 5 positive things about yourself and name 3 things you like about your body. Here it goes, I think I might struggle completing this perhaps due to a lack of self esteem and also partly to not come across as delusional. I think it can be easier to list these things about other people rather than for yourself.

Name 5 positive things about yourself: *****

1. I am punctual and complete things in a timely manner.
2. I can cook and bake food that is quite tasty.
3. I am honest. Here's an interesting article I came across this week. Bob and I must be incredibly trustworthy ;)
   
4. I am dependable.
5. I like to try new things.

Name 3 things you love like about your body: *****

1. I can get a tan in moderate sunlight exposure while wearing sunscreen.
2. My dimples (on my face ;)
3. My arms, I like that they are a good length for reaching things, but right now they could probably benefit from some lifting and toning exercises.  

Well, that was a fun little self evaluation exercise. I kept realizing that some of my positive attributes tend to come across in the extreme and sometimes don't seem very positive. I guess that is something I can work on this year. Happy new year folks. I'll leave you with a cute picture of me and the kitty from this morning.

A Merry Little Christmas

I always love this time of year and celebrating Christmas with family and friends. Besides keeping up with my roles of wifey and Blake's mommy I tend to take on extra projects and activities during this time of year. They are never a burden and I enjoy each moment and the busyness. I realize others may not care for being busy and how hectic this time of year can be, but I guess the extrovert part of me thrives on it.

At the beginning of the month I was able to attend the Christmas party at my former school where I taught for four years. I have also made it a tradition to bring by cookies to my former coworkers before Christmas break. The first thing the music teacher said the year I announced I was not returning after having my baby was, "Who is going to make us cookies?" So far I have kept up the tradition of bringing them cookies for two years. Plus it is a good reason to come by, visit, and catch up with everyone.

 A few days before Christmas Blake got the cutest set of tiny books in the mail from a relative. I don't have much else to say about that, but I had to post the picture. I just love my little book worm!

 

 I was a little bit late getting Blake in to see Santa this year. I knew he wasn't going to like it, so here is my unhappy baby taking his picture with Santa.

This year I decided to take on a project to make something for my grandmother. During the spring I saw a pin on Pinterest around Mother's day showing how this lady made a present for her mother who had several grandchildren. I pinned the pin and was determined to make one as a Christmas gift for my grandmother of all her great grandchildren. Here is how that turned out.

 

Christmas Eve was spent with my grandmother, her five children plus spouses, her twelve grandchildren plus spouses, along with most of the great grandchildren.  We had to reserve the Family Life Center at our church in order to accommodate that many people. I failed to take any pictures, but I had a good time visiting with everyone, played Dirty Santa and won a Starbucks gift card.

Christmas morning was a little more exciting this year since Blake seemed to understand that there were (presents) new books for him to look at and read.

Two hours later he eventually tore off the wrapping paper on the box which is next to him on the couch :) I look forward to him comprehending more and being more involved as he gets older.

My sister and I along with our families went over to my parent's house for Christmas lunch and more presents. Yet again, I did a poor job remembering to take pictures, but here is a nice Christmas picture of my sister and me plus the hubbies and children.

 I really try to not make a habit of showing off my presents on the Internet, but at least this isn't on Facebook. Here is an unexpected gift from my hubby: A Snow White Cookie Jar. She is simply gorgeous! Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs has to be one of my favorite classic Disney animated films. I also have a ceramic figurine set that I hope to display in a china  cabinet one day. For now I will just have to settle for staring at this gorgeous piece every day in my kitchen.

That has been most of our activities thus far for the Christmas season. We still have more relatives to visit and presents to give which will probably leak over into the new year. For now I am probably signing off for the remainder of 2013. Happy New Year and God bless!

April Showers

April showers...bring May flowers. That could be true this spring. Oklahoma City is officially out of a drought with the 7th wettest month on record ever.

But that's not what this post is about...We have been busy with baby showers this April. We have several people in our lives expecting little ones of their own this May/June.

The first shower this month was for a dear friend/couple (B&C) at our church. I enjoy hosting showers, but it gives little opportunity to take pictures of the event. Plus having my baby boy in tow, gives even less opportunities to take pictures. But it was a fun time and even the babies seemed to enjoy themselves.

My cousin whose mom is my mother's twin sister, is due with her baby in May as well. She had a shower thrown by her college friend last weekend.

I did bring Blake to the shower and he is in most of the pictures that I took using my cousin's camera :) This was the only picture I managed to get on my phone.

My husband's cousin's wife is also expecting and I went to her shower on Saturday in Edmond.

 

At that shower they had each guest make a hair bow for the baby girl. They had a craft table set up with headbands, bows, flowers, etc. and hot glue. Every guest made a hair bow or band and hung it on a tree. A very cute idea that I had not seen before in person. (I may have seen it on Pinterest!)

Then the finale was our family triple baby shower which consisted of my sister and two cousins. My grandma has three daughters and they each have a daughter who is pregnant and due in May. It was decided at our family Christmas Eve party that a triple baby shower would be thrown for all of the mommies. Little did someone in the room know that they would turn up pregnant shortly after Christmas. Another one of our cousin's is pregnant and due in September. It has been a fun and exciting time in our family.

Pregnant sisters!

 Three pregnant cousins! (Picture "borrowed" from my Aunt's Facebook page).

My little man played and played and played...

....Until he had too much.

 That finishes up our April showers, but we have one more at church next week! Then we will have a break, at least until my other pregnant cousin's shower at the end of the summer.

One more thing

Signs of a busy Momma:

• Messy house
• Neglected text messages

• I get on my blog to post something specific and totally skip it! So back to the last post.

One of Blake's most favorite things is naked time!
This boy sure enjoys not having his clothes on. Which is fine with me, plus he looks so cute!

Yesterday morning I was letting him play sans his clothes and he became interested in Mommy's foot and proceeded to chomp on it for a bit. He really went to town.

Good thing Mommy had just had a shower :-)

Moving on...

For our birthdays Bob and I decided to catch up with the times and get a computer that runs faster. The laptop we had been using as a desktop was at least six years old and was S.L.O.W. So slow in fact, it was rather time consuming to even turn it on and check my e-mail or open a PDF document with a busy baby that needs most of my attention :-)

So now that I am hooked up with windows 8 my blog should no longer suffer from a lack of posts.

We shall see...fingers crossed.

Happy 2013

Happy New Year!

Then end of 2012 really got away from me. I really meant to squeeze in a post before 2013. Oh well, so on to our Christmas recap.

We got to open presents with our little man for the first time which was a lot of fun (for me especially). I really enjoy buying things for Blake, but at the same time I know he has two grandma's who are very willing to buy him things as well, so I almost don't have to buy him stuff, but it's still fun to do.

Here he is with his presents, stocking, and daddy.

Daddy may have been more excited about the super hero stocking stuffers than Blake.

 

We also had a White Christmas on Christmas day, so I took our baby outside only for the sole purpose of getting his first picture in the snow. I put him in that thick cozy sleeper with a hood and we were not even out there for two minutes and then we hurried back inside!

 

We also went to my Grandma's Christmas Eve party with about 35 people of my extended family.
Then two days after Christmas we went to a cabin and spent time with Bob's family and visited his grand parents.

Then before the end of 2012 our 4 month old started rolling over for us. We are looking forward to 2013. Life will never be the same, especially with a baby that is becoming more mobile!

Thanksgiving weekend

This year we have yet another reason to be thankful. God has blessed more abundantly than we could ever imagine and now one of those blessings is our baby boy!

With our newest blessing I was hesitant to leave or travel on Thanksgiving day. Luckily both of our families were very flexible and let us host Thanksgiving lunch at our house. When I told people my plans of hosting Thanksgiving they thought it was more work than just going somewhere. However, you'd be surprised at all the food that shows up when you tell people you are providing a turkey. We had more than enough food for our group of 8 adults (both sets of our parents and my sister & brother-in-law) and 2 children (my nieces). Hopefully Aunt Rachel and Uncle Eric can join us in the future.

Our first Thanksgiving with Blake!

We did not participate in black Friday shopping.
But we did hit the road to visit some great grandparents that Blake has not had the chance to meet yet.
We made some special visits to Pryor and Moodys, OK.

Here is a four generation picture on Bob's dad's side of the family.

 Then Saturday was the extremely dramatic bedlam football game. Here are my boys rocking their OU threads.

 All in all it was a laid back Thanksgiving holiday, just like we prefer things around here. No big deals, just great times with family.

From birth to 4 weeks

It's almost been a month (4 weeks ) since  we have welcomed our new addition into our family.

I went into the hospital at 6:30 am to be induced. We got started around 7 am and less than twelve hours later we had a beautiful baby boy!

Three days later we were on our way home.

And life hasn't been the same since. In a good way.

I almost feel like time has stopped for me. The month of September has flown by, but I am still stuck thinking it's the end of August. I've spent the whole month doing almost the same thing every day, and I couldn't be happier. I love being a mommy and staying home with our little guy.


At the beginning Blake mostly did this:

Or he would be eating, which we are not posting a picture of that.

We are getting closer to the point where Blake is not constantly feeding or sleeping. He is slowly learning how to stay awake and play a little bit. Yesterday we had a friend come over for a play date, which honestly he did more feeding than playing, but we managed a few pictures for the occasion.

 I can't believe a month has gone by already. I've always heard people say that "time goes by fast", or "they sure grow up quickly." Isn't that the truth? Time has flown by, but we are looking forward to the weeks/months/years ahead.

Church Shower

Last Sunday we had an amazing shower at our church. My connection group, sister, sister-in-law, and niece helped put it together.

It was a good night/bedtime story theme. We had some amazing cookies shaped and decorated like books, yummy blue punch, as well as cupcakes, fruit, and vegetables.

Not only was the food amazing, but we got some really sweet gifts for our little one. He will be well dressed, well read, and have lots of blankets.

The shower was a lot of fun, and a bit of work getting through all of the gifts. This week I've been busy getting things settled, washed, and organized.

Here's all of the little boy clothes washed and hanging in the closet.

 Our little boy will be ready for football season!

I also managed to put together this little swing. 

And since I'm posting pictures, here's the one I took for 35 weeks pregnant.

Yep, 35 weeks and still so much to do. I hope little boy can stay in for a bit longer so mommy can get everything done.

20 Weeks -Halfway there

This week I am twenty weeks pregnant. So far this has been the most that I have looked and felt pregnant (naturally right?). All of the sudden my pregnant tummy seems to be more pronounced and bending down to get things has been easier. I suppose there is more of this to come?

Pregnancy has been really interesting. Once I got past 12-14 weeks I started feeling normal again and not so tired and wiped out. I've been feeling pretty good for the past six weeks. In the mornings when I get to school I am rather hyper. This is without any caffeine whatsoever.

I've also started eating two breakfasts, but after talking to people it sounds like I am eating a normal sized breakfast now. Pre- pregnancy I would just eat a fiber one bar and that would hold me until lunch. Now I am eating my fiber one bar in the car on the way to work. Then, when I get to work I get my classroom ready and then I eat a bowl of cereal. It's quite convenient since I keep bowls in my classroom and the cafeteria has milk.

People ask if I have had any cravings. I do, but it's not like any typical cravings I imagined having like pickles, watermelon, eating something salty or sweet. Whenever it's time to eat I often think gravy sounds good. G-R-A-V-Y yum yum! I'm fine eating whatever, but gravy always sounds even better, no matter what.

When we go out to eat and my husband tries to tell me to pick where to go, I just tell him you pick, because not matter what this baby is always going to pick gravy. Anything I eat will taste good, but the baby wants gravy.

Here I am twenty weeks pregnant, plus our fur baby, Swarley.



We went to the doctor this week for the twenty week ultra sound and came back with these pictures.

a foot... a face shot... and a profile



Our photo of the gender is being with held at this time. Most of our family is clued in, but we are waiting to tell the internet for now.

oh baby!

If you haven't heard the great news yet, we are having a baby!

Baby Kennedy will be making their debut at the end of August or early September.
Hopefully, I will be done with labor by Labor Day :)

The process has been very exciting for me so far. On my birthday I got to see our baby on an ultra sound. On Valentine's Day I got hear the heartbeat at my regular OB appointment, and on leap day, February 29th, I had another ultra sound.



Yesterday after my monthly OB appointment we made another appointment for an ultra sound on April 10th. Hopefully, this is when they will be able to tell us if baby Kennedy is a boy or a girl.

Today I am 16 weeks and I am feeling good.
One of these days when I have a significant baby bump, belly picks will be in order on here. Right now I can conceal my condition, but as I understand that won't last for much longer.

going to the chapel

And they're, gonna get married...

Well, actually it'll be at the country club.

This Saturday Bob's sister is getting married in Hot Springs, AR.

We're are so excited for them. Here's a pic of the happy couple.




At the end of Spring Break I was able to attend one of her wedding showers in Houston with some ladies from her mom's church.

We took this picture before we went.



This will be a big weekend for us. We'll get to leave Friday morning and spend some time with lots of family and friends. Looking forward to making some memories.

weekend fun

This weekend we were in Texas, but it wasn't because of a football game... and luckily we flew and didn't have to drive through Dallas traffic.

Actually, we got to go to Houston to visit Bob's parents. A weekend is never enough time to spend with them, there's always so much to do. This time we went over to the Kemah boardwalk and ate sea food at Landry's right by the water. The weather was very atypical for Houston, it was not humid and around 75 degrees.

Saturday evening we were able to enjoy the evening sitting around a fire in the backyard.




It was nice seeing the Sooners win while in the great state of Texas. My condolences go out to the Longhorns. It's okay Texas, you still win... for having big malls...

not quite Betty Crocker

This year for my mom's birthday I got the idea in my head that I was going to make a flip flop birthday cake for her. Sounds thoughtful doesn't it? Well, I guess I should have thought a bit more and considered that being creative and artistic is not my forte.

She found a picture of it in a magazine and mentioned she thought it was cute. I found a video online that gave step by step instructions on how to put it together. Without the video I'm not sure I would have attempted making it. This is not a strong talent for me at all. Here's how it turned out. (I'm not going to bother posting the Betty Crocker one, it's miles ahead of mine!)





It seemed to be a hit with the grandchildren, so that counts for something.



Happy Birthday Mom!