Wordless Wednesday

Family princess

Someone has gotten herself wrapped around these boys fingers!

Family Photos

Right after Christmas, we got pictures done of the family.  All are done by Jina Armstrong Photography.

The Heart Remembers

I debated on whether or not to post this, but it was on my mind.  This day last year, I suffered a miscarriage at 8 weeks along.  He/she was to be due in August, right before school started.  Grant had already named the baby "Frosty", which I thought was funny since the baby was to be born in the hottest part of the year!  The hardest part of the loss was telling Grant that Frosty was in heaven.   To this day, he will randomly ask about Frosty and why he/she is with Jesus.

People who knew the situation were so great and supportive.  Daniel and I literally felt the prayers that were offered up for us.  We know it could have been much harder if we didn't have our faith and faithful friends and family.  Thank you to those who sent us those thoughts and prayers.

On Mother's Day this past year, Daniel got me this James Avery charm that says "The Heart Remembers".  I wear it daily as a reminder of my baby in heaven that I will meet one day. 

They say everything happens for a reason, and I truely think it does.  Hindsight is 20/20 of course.  There were 'signs' that the pregnancy wasn't up to par that we didn't pick up on. 

 

In March, we became pregnant with whom Grant named "Snowflake".  He came up with that all on his own.  I thought it was fitting since the other was "Frosty".

 

Then of course, Snowflake was renamed Reagan and she just started smiling back at people today.  I am truely blessed.



Stepping into 2013

We rang in the new year with some friends while watching our kids struggle until midnight.  As soon as our friends left, Grant asked to go to bed.

During this holiday, I've enjoyed spending time with my friends and family.  Especially watching Grant and Reagan interact.

He makes sure to say good morning to her and always tries to catch her attention.  She turns her head when she hears him, has done so since day one.  Grant knows when and how to give her the pacifier when she is fussy.  He's a great helper.  I can definitely tell he is getting older.  As with any child, he still hates to clean up messes he hates though.  That is a daily struggle.  He is doing a lot more pretending on his own.  Its so fun just to sit and listen to him. 

Here he is with his bow he got from Santa.  We've hunted so many pretend animals with this bow already!

We've been staying at home for the most part due to the weather and the awful flu season. We did finally decide to take Reagan to church, it was fun getting her all dressed up.

 

Daniel's birthday snuck up on me quite quickly, but I was able to make him the strawberry cake he wanted.  Grant decorated it, he went heavy on the sprinkles!  I hope he had a great birthday, I love him more today than ever!

 Here is Reagan at 1 month.  I did my best to make her smile to no avail.  She didn't start smiling at things until a few days later!

Here are some pictures we took after the new year.  I can't tell you how many pictures we took to get some good shots!!!



Happy New Year!

Days before New Year's Eve, we kept debating on what to do. With plans finally in place, the next decision was the menu. Finger foods was the plan, so I turned my new favorite resource, Pinterest.
I've made several food items from Pinterest so far. Each time it hasn't been something I would make again, plus the perfectionist in me gets a little mad that it doesn't look like the picture (and I thought the pictures would be a good thing!). Anywho, I ended up making something I haven't made before that Daniel recommended - Texas Caviar. I watched it being made in a cooking class I took once so I tried my hand at it. Easy to make, super easy if you have a food processor. It included fresh jalapeños in the ingredients. I decided to not take the easy route of canned and got fresh. I channeled my inner Rachael Ray and de-seeded, chopped and got with it. I was cleaning up and almost touched my eye to scratch it, but I caught myself. Phew! I narrowly missed that painful moment. I literally hand washed for 5 min to get the hot juices off. Smart girl ( so I thought). I went about my business and got ready. 5 min later guess who scratches their itchy eye (you know you saw it coming)...me! I blindly found my husband and begged him for help. Help, as in pull this contact lens out of my eye before I pull my entire eye out. It only took him a few times to succeed in the lens pulling and then relief.
I tell this story only because it later made me laugh. It felt like an episode of " I Love Lucy".
So went our friends home, with my glasses on, for a night of food, kids playing, and board games. We made it until 11:30pm and realized we had to take our sugar/sleepy high child home. To our huge surprise, he didn't fall asleep on the way home. We 3 made it home just in time to see the fireworks on TV at
midnight and give each other group hugs.
The next day we prepared to be a week out of our home. We had our house leveled in the middle of our home. That requires us to leave, and about 15 workers move in.
We spent the week at my parents house. It was weird waking up in my old bed. One night Grant and I played games in the original Nintendo. We even taught him how to blow in it to get it to work...haha. I'm sooooo glad you don't have to do ThAT anymore! The week actually went by fast and we got to be back in our own beds by the weekend.
Daniel had his birthday on that Sunday. Grant picked out a Smurf cake.

Grant said, "It's actually kind of beautiful!". All I could think about is how we would have blue teeth, but we went ahead anyways.

See, much blue.

This time it was my Mom's birthday.

Grant helped blow out the candles.

Like my husband said, "Maybe we should just have cake and ice cream EVERY Sunday!"

So This Is Christmas - Part 3

We spent the actual Christmas holiday at Grammie and PePaw's home in East Texas. We had shared that news with Chris, our elf, so he could relay to Santa that we were 'on the road'.

On Christmas Eve, we went to Daniel's grandparents home for what I always call overcrowded eating. When MY family gets together, its a maximum of 10 people in a household. When HIS family gets together, you always multiply that number 10 by a number other than 1. Just something I'm not used to. I could breathe a little easier this time as I watched Grant play with cousins around his age.

We then went back and put out reindeer food (you know, the nice mix of oatmeal and glitter) for Santa's reindeer. To our surprise, the dog ate it all! I tried to get a good picture of her covered in glitter, but she was eating it like she'd never eaten before! I couldn't help but think of the nice pile of glittery poo that would shine in the yard the next day. Grant started to get a little mad as I laughed, but I assured him there would be enough to lure in Rudolph and his team.

Grant made cookies for Santa with Aunt Erica and GiGi.

Grant actually slept in a bit while we checked out what he got from Santa.

It took a while for him to get up and going but then once he did, we couldn't slow him down!

Cookies and juice were all gone. Santa must be have been hungry!

Grant spent most of the day playing and pretending with the robot dinosaurs he asked for.

He was tired of me taking his picture...

Grant also got this McDonald's cash register play set. Its a pretty cute set if you have a little one. For the next few days he would randomly scream, "Donald's is open for business!" So he'd take my order, we'd exchange Ronald McDonald money, and he'd yell, "Donald's is now closed!" (He hasn't gotten the MC part down...sometimes he calls it Old Donald's....as you can see we don't go there much!)

"Cheeseburger and milk? Coming right up!"