March 2013 Recap

Just a quick recap of our month:

It was my birthday and my family came over to our house so we could celebrate.  I set the dining room table with a runner that was wrapping paper from the $1 aisle at Target.  The green and white napkins were also purchased at Target on clearance.

 I requested lasagna and my sister obliged.  Mmm...see those squares of provolone?

 And an awesome salad.  She is our salad queen!

 Every year I request my mom's famous Italian Cream Cake.  This year she made it into cupcakes.

 Here's me on my birthday!  You know you're getting old when you have to hold things up to the light just to read them.  LOL

I got to do an impromptu photo shoot for this little guy, my nephew.

We celebrated Easter at my parent's house.  We went to the sunrise service at church but didn't see much sun when the storm rolled in.  Here, Hunter is getting ready to find easter eggs.

My mom enjoying the Easter egg hunt with Hunter.

I don't remember what rolled under the bed but I caught Hunter trying to fish something out.

And out of order...but this was the delicious ham my parents had for Easter lunch.  Yum!

Cuteness

I had a work even last week where I and my family were invited to go bowling.  After fixing Hunter's hair I just had to capture his cuteness!   And just ignore the bump on his forehead.

Pirates and Chores

On the days that Korey and Hunter are together all day they try to make something fun.  On this day in particular they made pirate hats.

One afternoon I was in the grocery store with Hunter and we happened upon the toy aisle although I didn't realize it.  Hunter started yelling out for a yellow toy and when I finally saw what he wanted it was a $6 toy.  Now this is not that much money but it wasn't on my "list", I was in a different store so everything was backwards, and the store was crowded.  I was ready to go and did not feel like spending the money on this toy.  So I tried to compromise with Hunter by letting him get a $1 Hot Wheels car.  Well he was still complaining about the yellow toy after we walked away so I made the hard decision not to let him have any toy "just because."  I told him we would go home and talk to his daddy about it because it was time the boy started earning his toys.

So Korey drew up a chore chart for Hunter.  Sorry it's sideways but the chores are laundry (I hand him the wet clothes and he puts them in the dryer), coffee (he gets it out of the freezer), trash, behavior in general, and dinner time (not asking to get down before we are done).  These are all things that we already had him helping with around the house so we told him that he could get stickers whenever we saw him doing these chores and then he could get his yellow toy.  He was excited! He understands that when you go the store and get something you have to "pay for it." So we told him that when he got enough stickers he could use them to pay for his yellow toy.

And...Hunter earned enough stickers to go and get the yellow toy!  Although we didn't have a set numb he had to get but we waited until Daddy got back from Africa so we could all go together.

Smart kid that he is picked out the multipack of Hot Wheels so he could have many cars to play with.

We laughed at how he picked out the pack with the camper van and the truck carrying the boat.

He lined them up on the windowsill so he could play.

We've started a new chore chart.  Don't know what his prize will be for this second round but we like this method.  The other night we finished dinner without commotion and Hunter wanted a sticker but I told him no because he had been rude to me before dinner.  Well, he immediately apologized when he realized he wasn't getting the sticker (which we still didn't give him).  This boy has attitude some days so we have to keep that in check!

Mommy's Makeup

Ooops!  I must have gotten in a hurry one day when I came home and failed to put my purse in the closet.  I was working in the kitchen and turned around to find this little boy digging through my makeup case.

Thankfully he didn't try to put any on!

Driveway Time

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving I got to come home early from work so I got started on my pie baking.  I made 5 pies plus a batch of lasagna soup!

It was so nice to have the afternoon free that Hunter and I took advantage of the daylight and went outside in the driveway to play.

Be still my heart!

So cute!

He wanted to ride his scooter so he pulled it out and rode around for a few minutes.

When did he get to be so big?

Halloween 2012

This guy loves firetrucks and ambulances and things that go "woo woo woo."  When I found the fireman costume on sale at the consignment store I knew that it would be perfect for Hunter.  Plus, it was low maintenance.  Toss on the coat and pants.  Done.

This was our first Halloween to actually let Hunter dress up and participate.  His first year he was only a few months old so we put him in a costume for about five minutes just to take pictures.  Inside.  Last year he participated in a church fall festival but he wasn't dressed up.  And by participated I mean he ran around the gym and we chased him.

This year was the year.  We dressed him up and took him door to door to trick or treat.  He doesn't even eat candy (yes, I know).  But we did use it as an opportunity to meet our neighbors.

Thus, cuteness abounded before dark.

Hunter was joined by his cousin Levi.  He didn't last very long but he was so cute in his costume.

 Here's my sister and her husband.  And Levi the Giraffe.

 I love a man in uniform!

 Fireman Hunter patrolling the sidewalks...for stray candy.

 And Hunter and his daddy off to see more neighbors.

Triple Trouble

Korey has a cousin that was coming into town a couple of weeks ago and his mom wanted us to come down for a mini family reunion.  We packed up the car and headed south the weekend before Thanksgiving.  And of course Dallas traffic put us an hour and a half behind schedule due to two wrecks.  Sigh.

We ended up arriving at 10:30pm at night and Hunter and his cousin Brandon quickly reunited and started playing.  We didn't go to bed until 1am!

On Saturday we we were reunited with Korey's cousin.  They have a 2 year old also so we spent the weekend with 3 two year olds.  And it was seriously so much fun seeing them together.  (I'm just realizing in the middle of typing all of this that I don't have all of the pictures downloaded.  Guess I'll do another post later!)

We went to a pumpkin patch and Hunter climbed up on the pumpkins.  It was the last weekend before Halloween so it was very crowded.

Here are the three cousins!  Andrew, Hunter, and Brandon.  Nana bought them each a Halloween shirt so we dressed them up in them for our Saturday adventures.

This was at the pumpkin patch.  The three of us moms were crouched down behind the sign holding our kids up.

On Saturday night we put all 3 of them in the bathtub together and they were so cute.  We, of course, aren't posting those photos.

Here are the three cousins!  Becca, Korey and his brother Kevin and their kiddos.  We had so much fun hanging out with them.  I wish they lived closer.

Here are the ladies from our weekend.  Bekah, Corey, me, and Korey's mom "Nana."

Serving Home

After we moved out of our former home and into my parent's home I took a blogging break minus a few family posts here and there.  I spent the summer praying and obsessively talking to my husband about our family blog and the possibility of starting a new blog.  I kept thinking about what I wanted to blog about and even though "food" seemed an easy choice there are tons of food blogs and it didn't encompass the new home we were about to have and what we wanted to do with our home.

What is it that we want to do with our home?  Well, this is "the home" which means we aren't going anywhere for a good while.  This is it.  No more checking the MLS listings and counting out pennies to see what we can afford.  Our new home has enough room in it for us to grow and expand as a family (no I'm not pregnant) and have room to entertain.  But not just entertaining.  Entertaining with a purpose.

For awhile Korey and I have been talking about using our home to bless others.  For example, we've already signed up to host DNow in November.  Actually, I signed us up before we ever moved in.  Crazy, I know.  I grew up going to DNow as a youth in our church and I have fond memories and it's always been one of my desires to be able to host.  We also really want to get to know our neighbors, invite them over for dinner, and build a relationship with them in the hope that we can share God with them.  Both of us have been overseas to share God's love with people but we feel a burden for us to just go across the street and get to know people.

All this to say that I decided I wanted to start a blog about this process.  I wanted it to be separate from our personal, family blog which is not going away.  So yes, I will have two blogs and no, I don't know how I'm going to keep up with them when I work full-time outside of the home and I'm a parent to a toddler.  But try I must.

What's in the blog?  Well, because I like to multi-task there will be a chronicle on decorating, organizing, entertaining, and feeding others.  It will be about how I make our home a place to welcome others.  I don't claim to know everything or even have the necessary skills.  I'm just jumping out into the deep end and seeing what happens.

Our family blog is hosted on Blogger but after doing some research I started the new blog on Wordpress.  All.By.Myself.  Without paying a designer.  And I still don't think I know what I'm doing.  But somehow I managed to go through all the steps to get it to where it is today.  Oh and let me just say that Wordpress and I almost broke up a couple of times.  I told Korey somedays it felt like I was walking into a BioChemistry class and being asked to take a test on something I knew nothing about!  It was exhausting, people.  And I still have a long list of things that need to be tweaked, added, or fixed on my blog.  I see why blog designers charge the prices they do.  You deserve it!

With all that said, join me as I blog here and at my new place, Serving Home!

Pizza Night

Every Friday night is pizza night at my parent's house.  Sometimes my mom makes the pizzas from scratch, crust included, and other times we eat Papa Murphy's.  On this particular night we ate Papa Murphy's.  Hunter LOVES pizza.  He asks for it all the time.  We never have to worry about him eating his dinner on Friday nights at their house.

Hunter's First Day of Preschool 2012

My baby started his first day of preschool yesterday.  It's his second year to attend.  The night we went to meet the teachers he started to tear up in the hallway but I assured him we weren't leaving him like we do on Sunday mornings.

There are ten kids in his class!  The sad news is that the kids from his class last year are in different classes based on their birthdays.  Not a familiar face for him.

He had to have a nap mat this year and I had purchased one last year but the storage unit sucked it up into its depths so I had to go buy another one.  When I brought it home Hunter loved it and laid down in the middle of the living room.  He got mad at me when I tried to put it up.

I got an unexpected day off from work so I was able to go with Korey to drop Hunter off and I was able to pick him up in the afternoon.  At 2pm on a Tuesday!  Needless to say I was ecstatic that I had this opportunity to be a stay-at-home-mom for the day.  I even made him homemade waffles for breakfast.

We took pictures on the front porch.  Hunter is wearing outfit #2.  Outfit #1 ended up being too big so this was a random scramble of clothes.  He is proudly wearing his Galveston souvenir t-shirt and carrying his nap mat.

Love this pic!  He is growing up way too fast.  

I snapped this quick pic of Hunter in his new room.  He wouldn't take off his backpack and I guess he is listening to something his teacher is saying.  He did cry a little when I passed him off but it was the same as he does on Sunday mornings at church.  I wish I had a video monitor so I could see what he's like during school!  We had a talk at breakfast about obeying his teachers.  I wonder what he acted like towards them.

When I went to pick him up from school, I left Korey at home so I could spend some quality time with Hunter.  I took him some juice and snack and I was just so excited to be picking up my son in the middle of the afternoon on a Tuesday so we could hang out.  This working mommy misses things like that.  We got to go to Toys r Us and then I took him to the firestation so we could see the firetrucks and ambulance.  Such an awesome day for him and me!