New Year's Resolutions...or not.

Ahh, I love a good New Year's resolution! For the perfectionist in me I love nothing more than a "clean slate", a fresh start. One of my favorite promises from the Lord, "that His mercies are new each morning"--yes! Each new week, a new turn of a page in my "Month-at-a-Glance"...Gets me giddy! But man, a whole new year! What could be a better place to start all those things that I put off every other day. So needless to say, my list of resolutions is usually about a mile long. For the past couple of years, Shaun and I have made lists that consist of our resolutions/goals for the year in all areas of life, spiritual, physical, relational...We'd post the list to keep it in front of us, then without fail, I'd find the list 6 months later stuffed between papers in the office. But at least we wrote it down, right?

Oh, and how I love a good list! Sometimes the need for lists is so great that it demands a "list of lists". So, this year I made a new resolution...No resolutions, just one grand "To Do" List! Weee! I have a feeling this will be a pretty dynamic list, growing as the month goes on, but here's for starters...

*Grow closer to my Lord and Savior and get to know Him more

*Be a better wife

*Be a better mommy

*Fix healthier meals and snacks for my men and myself

*More Fruits and Veggies

*More Water!

*Read 6 books

*Streamline business systems for more productive "work time"

*exercise 3-4 x week

*Run a 5K

*Less daytime TV (blasted 5 hour long Today show!)

*Connect with friends and family more

*Find glitzy sheer drapes for dining room

*Find a few accents for dining room--FINISHING TOUCH--yay!

*Put fabric behind glass on cabinet in office

*New knobs on cabinet in office

*Redo/organize closet

*Let go of clothes I've been hanging onto for who knows why! "Let it go, Brett"

*Transform master bath into a spa escape

*New reading chair for Master

*Finish decor in Trey's room to complete look

*Start a veggie garden

*Organize garage before it gets out of control!

*Pretty much just organize every drawer and closet in house;)

I guess that will do for now. Can't wait to start scratching these babies off!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! Wow, how is it already 2011?! Were we supposed to be flying around in spaceship cars and wearing silver jumpsuits by now? I suppose if you're a true GaGa fan, then you've got half of that down.

2011 is the year that the love of my life turns 30!! My baby boy turns 2, I thankfully will still be a youthful 28, and holy cow, it will be my 10 year high school reunion!!! yikes! I can remember hanging out with Brookie after cheerleading practice talking about our latest edition to the "saga" that was high school. oh the shananigans, haha, so ridiculous! I'd love to tell that "high-school me" a few things--I don't think I ever dreamed that I'd be where I am in the next 10 years--married to the most incredible man that loves the Lord with all his heart, my very best friend and man that I adore living life with, parenting with, and becoming a better "us", AND Mommy to the most precious, adventurous, best-sense of humor little 18 month old boy ever, sweet baby Trey:)

And without further ado, here are some pics of the big guy...

My two favorite men looking so festive in front of one of my favorite Christmas trees yet! We did a little family photo shoot care of Mom and the camera timer. It was quite the adventure trying to get Trey to say "cheese!" without lunging forward to grab the camera before the timer went off.

Christmas card contender from the first snow of winter...we took about 15 of these, and I changed like 5 times. Shaun looked perfect (and the exact same) in every one of them:) It eventually didn't make the cut, but totally blog-worthy though, I think!

haha, can we get this kid a snowsuit or at least a winter coat that fits?

Halloween weekend was quite eventful this year, and so much fun! Our brother-in-law Evan is the Chaplain for the William & Mary football team, so he and Shaun's sister Christina came for a visit Friday night before the game on Saturday. We don't get to see them very often and it was so fun to just have time to hang out and catch up:) And Trey just loved having his aunt and uncle around for a couple of days, especially when Evan would play his guitar. Trey loved to strum along:)

And thanks to a later kick-off we were able to go to our first community Fall Festival! Trey was Mickey Mouse this year for Halloween, and I have to say, the most precious and squeezable Mickey ever!

This was at the top of one of the bouncy slides where he kept getting hung up on his belly and by the time he figured out how to flip around he no longer wanted to come down the slide. It was so funny:)

What a great shot of these two! Such a happy day!

One of my favorite parts was the pony rides, and despite his expression in this shot, Trey really loved it too.

Here are just a few extra pictures of Mickey I was able to catch at home.

(this is actually pre-Mickey...I loved the "dancer look")

(the gloves were a short-lived accessory)

Kyndra is the oldest of our awesome next door neighbor's kids. She and Trey love to play together. And they love their hugs! She's a cute little bunny:)

Run, Mickey, Run!

And this was just the first door (Kelly's house:) )--You'd think we'd dragged them to 50 by their faces, haha, hilarious!

We'd collected a group by the end of our trick-or-treating--it was so fun to meet so many of our new neighbors. We're loving our quaint little Hardie Farm more and more each day. It's got the perfect "community" feel!

This video was when Kyndra and Trey saw each other in their costumes just before going out to trick-or-treat. It was hilarious! They were so excited!

These last three are some of my very favorite shots...Mickey texting someone very important, perhaps Minnie;)

(Trey, I love you, Sweet Boy! You are such a joy to us--and everyone that you give your precious little "Hi!" to--, and you made one fantastic Mickey Mouse!)

Casual Elegance on a Budget. part 1

After settling into our new home for almost 4 months now, we've finally started to hang some pictures on the walls and make it pretty cozy. Thankfully, we've had everything we've "needed", but now we're at the spot where it's just fun and luxury purchases from here on out. The Lord has blessed us with a bit more living space than in our previous abodes, so there are many more "empty" spaces that are just crying for that perfect piece of furniture or artwork. So the hunt is on!

There is such joy and excitement in turning a house into a home! And the only thing that can perhaps make it a bit more "exciting" (frustrating at times? yes), but for sure more challenging is...A BUDGET! I'm not talking these crazy $100,000 budgets that they give Candice Olson to turn their blah bedroom into a Divine Design, but a REAL budget! My goal is just that...a divine design of my own in less than a 5 year period of time, which is what it seems it may take at the rate I'm going so far.

One of the hardest parts has been nailing down our style for this home. I narrowed it down pretty quickly--we're not country, though I do love a little shabby chic at times, we're not ultra-modern/sleek, we're not traditional--but putting my finger on the perfect description of what my vision for our home was pretty tricky. However, I've discovered it! It's what I decided to call "casual elegance". Warm, cozy, inviting with a touch of glitz, glam and sophistication. Funny thing is that I totally made that up (so I thought) and was talking with Mom and she described her style as "casual elegance"--omg! Like Mother, like daughter--how crazy is that?!

I wish that I had some beautiful before and after pictures to show you room-by-room for this post, but visit me again and in the quasi-near future we shall! But for now, would you be satisfied with some of our newest pieces? Alone they are cool, but I can't wait to see them each come alive in a fully complete room design! yay! This is so fun:)

Ok, so the very first "big" purchase was a great find in the Crate and Barrel mag. It's a leaning 3 pc. shelf-desk unit.

We've been thinking about this front room a lot, because who has enough space in their home to have a non-functioning space? Well, we certainly don't, and since it's the first room when you walk it we want it to look fabulous, welcoming, and just have "us" painted all over it, but most importantly, we want it to be a room that we use and not just walk-thru. We were so excited to find this as our first step towards that very idea.

Now. I've been jonesin' after these chairs at TJ's for months! It's got to be one of the most gorgeous chairs I've ever seen, and one that would fit perfectly into our "casually elegant" home:) You can't exactly tell from the picture, but the damask detail is a velvety chenille--yum! And the model is pretty cute too! I'm hoping to be able to find a second one because ideally they will be head chairs in the dining room. Keep your fingers crossed for that!

Another functional TJ's find! I had to move the old coffee table--if I had one more vision of a child loosing their eye to the corners on that thing I was gonna lose it! So, for safety-sake we have found a new home for that great table, and now we are polished, functional and baby friendly all at the same time!

Couldn't pass up the opportunity to get these legs on the blog--geez, do you just want to take a bite out of them or what?!

To be continued...

The Reids Visit

We had such a great time with the Reids when they so graciously took the trek down south to visit:) It was quite the adventure with the two boys, too! They enjoyed each other most of the time until one was on the horse when the other thought he shouldn't be. Haha, it's so funny to watch kids learn how to interact with each other. The guys loved playing in the water table out back (and how cute with their sweet little tummies hanging out--Trey's does a little more hanging, but who's watching;) )

Uncle Jorge was the favorite "ride" at the Redgate amusement park.

"...And they all fall down"

This one cracks me up...Zeke's giving me his best "Blue Steel" look and here's our son drinking the pool water.

Well, after about a month and a half blogging hiatus "WE'RE BACK!" Thanks for visiting us again! Wow, what an eventful and awesome several weeks since our last post! We've vacationed on the Outer Banks, moved out of our apartment, moved into our new home, celebrated our baby boy's first birthday...twice, and tried to fit some daily life in there every now and then:)

Here are a few pictures to welcome you back, and we'll have the rest up soon!

Jenny had such a great idea for Zeke's birthday that I had to use it myself. She handmade a birthday sign that she could use year after year--I love the sentiment and nostalgic feeling it will have in years to come. Of course, the jungle theme was for his first party. Thanks to Bella and Tia, arts and crafts the morning of the party as lots of fun:)

I was hard at work painting signs for Trey's party all week at the beach, so here they all are! It all came together really well. The caricature in the back of Trey was done at Harris Teeter by this great artist a few days before we moved--for FREE! Shaun and I got ones done too!

After I worked him to death, Shaun needed a quick pre-party "nap".

Everyone thought we were crazy for having Trey's party the weekend of our move...we even thought it was a bit crazy, but with a faithful moving crew and a lot of prayer it went so smooth and we got more done that I think we would have had we just been focusing on the move. Nothing motivates like that sense of urgency:)

Just a quick shot of the fam before the festivities begin.

I think you can still see remnants of Bella's lipstick on Trey's cheek:)

Bella made all of our birthday cakes growing up so we got so excited when it was finally time for her to resurrect or cake decorating tools and bless the grandkids with her talent--Here's Trey's awesome Jungle cake, which is pretty incredible even after surviving a car ride from Madison Heights, a move, and serious packing/unpacking for two days!

It might just be a baking miracle!

The Birthday Boy trying to figure out this thing called "cake?":)

As the party winds down, Big takes a little time to relax.

First cake experience:)

Many more birthday pictures to come, but here are a couple just from the last week or so at the house. We love eating out on our patio. I missed this so much at our apt.

Some of our new favorite things...I've started noticing Trey using critical thinking skills, instead of just randomly doing something smart, but not quite learning it yet. A lot of times when he's playing quietly I'll look over and notice he's flipping through some of his favorite books, but he's started moving his mouth while he'll flipping thru like he's reading the words. As his Tia would say, "He's smart as a tack!" :)

He walked over to the pantry the other day as I expected him to start pulling everything out--there was a lot on his level, but instead he sorta searches around then spots his tin of maple sticks (his snack of choice), grabs it, then proceeds to pry the lid off and grab himself a treat! haha--amazing!

As we sit here I'm watching him play his drum (formerly known as the formula can:) ) What a joy it is to have the privilege to watch him grow and develop by leaps and bounds every single day! Trey, I adore being your Mommy!