bath time fun!

 

emotional

i boo-hoo’d my eyes out this morning after receiving this special gift from parker’s teachers:

it’s a photobook filled with photos from the school year and little pages with prayers, growth charts and a little poem from his teachers. my eyes are filling with tears AGAIN just typing this.

i am SOOOOO going to miss his teachers next year….they truly have such a special place in my heat!

parker is 3….how am i ever going to survive his very last day of preschool, then elementary school, middle school and high school graduation!!!!!!

of course i look to the future with excitement, but oh does my heart ache to see this sweet little boy grow up.

meal plan monday

so i caved this week and forced myself to actually meal plan and make a grocery list. i don't know why in the world i avoid doing this so much because in reality, it only takes a few minutes and it makes my life SO MUCH EASIER!!!!!

i even almost enjoyed grocery shopping yesterday! yes my friends, you heard me right, i could not believe how quickly and efficiently i made it through the store and what a relief it is to feel armed and prepared for a week of meals.

seriously, why do i torture myself each week and waste so much time running to the store to buy 3 items for dinner that one night?

enough of my rambling.....without further ado, our meal plan for the week:

Monday:

Breakfast--eggs, spinach and goat cheese (and no we did NOT have it this morning as i planned, but that is ok we will do it tomorrow!)

Lunch--fall harvest sandwich (bread, honey mustard, ham, cheddar cheese and granny smith apple slices)

Dinner--Salmon, cous cous (the new "pearled" cous cous by Far East is SO GOOD) and veggies

Tuesday:

Breakfast--yogurt with granola

Lunch--organic mac n cheese, stoneyfield farms yogurt stick and grapes

Dinner--burgers, pasta salad, sweet potato french fries

Wednesday:

Breakfast--eggs, spinach and goat cheese

Lunch--fall harvest sandwich (bread, honey mustard, ham, cheddar cheese and granny smith apple slices)

Dinner--spaghetti, bread, dipping oil, salad

Thursday:

Breakfast--yogurt with granola

Lunch--organic mac n cheese, stoneyfield farms yogurt stick and grapes

Dinner--leftovers

Friday:

Breakfast--cereal and toast (with flaxseed oil)

Lunch--grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches

Dinner--OUT!!!!

Saturday:

Breakfast--eggs, spinach and goat cheese

Lunch--pizza

Dinner--slow cooked pork tenderloin burritos with fresh salsa

ok, i'm off to edit a bazillion pictures from shoots this weekend. and more to come, but i've changed my photography business name to Southern Sass Photography, so stay tuned for more info!

have a great week!

quick and easy lunch

one of my friends, heather (who i really really think should start her own blog because she is full of humor and good ideas), shared this super easy recipe with me the other day and we tried it out this week!

easy+yummy+semi healthy = i must share!

it’s like a pizza only you use tortilla for the “crust”……so i’m not sure what to call it :)

here’s what you need though:

garlic salt

tortillas (we used whole wheat)

olive oil

tomato sauce

mozzarella cheese (we used fresh and it is SO good!)

this is where is gets REALLY tricky :)

step 1: brush the tortillas with olive oil and sprinkle garlic salt

step 2: bake coated tortillas for 5 minutes on 400 degrees until they become crispy

step 3: spread with tomato sauce and cover with mozzarella cheese.

step 4: bake for another 3-5 minutes at 350 until cheese melts

voila! parker has eaten this TWO days in a row…..you know it must be good!

i have a 3 year old….parker we love you so much!

dear parker,

three years ago today i had no idea how much my life would change when i first met you. your birthday is bittersweet……it’s so exciting to be celebrating your life and the blessing that you are, but it’s hard to let go of you a little more each year.

 

you are becoming quite the little man. you look older, you are SO smart and thoughtful and you constantly amaze me with what you come up with next! you are silly, fun and full of life! you love school, your teachers, life group, church and your little brother! you are so thoughtful and caring toward connor.

you love spending time with friends and have started asking to go to friend’s houses. kate c. is still your bestie and we just love watching you two play together.

today you had the best birthday! daddy and i surprised you with balloons and a bike outside your door when you woke up this morning. you were so excited! you also got a real kids camera and a cash register that you really wanted. i made blue and red cupcakes for you to take to school and you got your birthday crown. miss rhonda and miss cindy said you had a GREAT day! you were so happy it was finally your turn for a birthday celebration!

all of the excitement kept you from napping and when connor woke up, we headed to the JumpE place where you just had a blast! landon and tanner and kate and elle met us there……you had SO MUCH fun! afterward we went with kate and elle to fuel pizza where you and kate just continued to play and play! you passed out on the way home and went straight to bed.

parker, thank you for the joy you bring to our lives each and every day. we love you so much and feel so blessed to be your parents!

love,

mommy and daddy (or mom and dad which you now call us!)

 

connor’s 9 and 10 month post!

my sweet little connor, you turned 10 months this week!

   

you are all over the place these days. you’re a fast crawler and you’ve started cruising. sometimes you even stand all by yourself! you will take a few steps when we hold your hands and you think it’s funny!

at 9 months you weighed 17 pounds 11 ounces (10-25%) and were 27.75 inches tall (50%). this week i took you to the doctor to check on your ears (you had had an ear infection a few weeks ago and i wasn’t sure if it was back….just teething though), you weighed 18 pounds 6 ounces.

you are so much fun to be around. these past two months you traveled to hilton head and to maryland for jen’s wedding. you do NOT like riding in the car (we learned this on our way to hilton head when you screamed 80% of the time). for our maryland trip, we were more prepared with baby einstein videos :) you LOVE “baby macdonald”. when the hand puppet cow comes out, you squeal with delight. it is so fun to hear you get SO excited! you also love the bouncy tigger and try to mimic tigger. it’s really cute!

here you are at jen’s wedding, you had a blast pushing the stroller around:

jen’s wedding was at her dad’s gorgeous house on the water….we all enjoyed a gorgeous sunset!

you’ve learned how to clap your hands and you say mama and dada, although it’s mostly mama since you are definitely a momma’s boy!

you love to wrestle with your big brother and watch his every move. you two also like to play “chase”. parker loves to make sure you are taken care of.

you’ve got 6 teeth with numbers 7 and 8 breaking through. you are not a good teether……you get really fussy right before they break through. AND you are a biter! not in a mean way, it’s actually kind of funny because you get all excited when you see me and come truckin’ on over and you bite out of excitement!

connor we love you so much more than you can imagine!

**i took your “chair” pic that i do every month, but you insisted on SCREAMING during the photo shoot because i wouldn’t pic you up so i’m going to work on getting one this week when you are actually smiling :)**

happy mother’s day!

happy mother’s day to all of you moms out there and future mom’s to be. i know that this can be a tough day for those “future moms”, but don’t lose hope and wait expectantly……it WILL happen.

“delight yourself in the Lord and He WILL give you the desires of your heart!”. ~psalm 37:4

here are a few desires of my heart, thank you Lord for giving them to me :)

 

thank you parker, connor, brandon and of course God for giving me the greatest gift of all…..motherhood. children are a true miracle and i have been so blessed beyond anything i deserve. thank you mom for always being there for me as a child and now a mom myself! i love you!!!

 

the wait

this week is national infertility week. i have prayed for many friends who have dealt with infertility issues. who have waited and waited and waited to become pregnant and also those who have lost a child.

there is a special place tucked away in my heart for people dealing with infertility because i was one of them not too long ago.

i got pregnant right away, first try with parker my firstborn. with connor, it just didn't happen that way....at all. after 8 months of trying, i miscarried. i was devasted. i remember driving to the doctors office thinking this just can't be happening. this was an extremely difficult time in my life. the emotional rollercoaster of infertility will make any woman just about lose her sanity. the constant cycle of hope, waiting, not knowing, anticipation, devastation, depression and hope again is exhausting. and then to finally get pregnant and lose a child is downright heart wretching.

but there is hope! meet connor:

my sweet sweet connor was conceived just two months after my miscarriage! when i thought i would never have another child, here is my sweet baby boy sleeping at a healthy 9 months!

losing a child still hurts, but there is hope. i love what kelly wrote on her blog today. if you are in a similar situation, or in "the wait", you need to read her post....it is SO encouraging! i hope my story encourages you. i have numerous friends who have struggled with fertility and ALL of them now are either pregnant or have children. the wait is SO tough but SO worth it.

connor’s first haircut!

this little guy was in some serious need of a haircut…….

and this mommy just wasn’t ready for his FIRST haircut. clearly we were WAY past due. in fact we should have cut it before we left the hospital! my kids have both come out with long hair, but just a few strands of it! and i’ve never know what to do with it, as you can see below :)

but since we’ve got our professional family pictures scheduled for tomorrow, it was time…….and i love it!

unfortunately this not-so supermom photographer totally FORGOT her camera and was left to the not-so great quality of iphone pics :( i can’t wait for our family pics tomorrow….my new friend is doing them for us and she is awesome!

plugged in…..

are you????

there are so many reasons to get “unplugged” these days. to turn off the tv, shut down the computer, put the phone on silent….and there are reasons to run away, hide, disengage to deal with hurt, pain and suffering. sometimes it’s just easier to be unplugged.

i just LOVE our church. our message began this week with a very important announcement :: our pastor now tweets! yes my friends, my pastor of a different “vintage”so to say, was throwing out BTW’s during the message!

while i appreciate the technological advancement of our church, what i loved most this particular sunday was our message on “power in weakness” centered around Romans 8.

my heart right now is SO BURDENED for several dear friends of mine. they are going through some tough tough stuff. they are phenomenal women! and it’s times like these where you just want to ask God “why”? we often wonder why God “allows” stuff like this to happen to good people, people who have already been through SO MUCH. God did not create this stuff, this is man made and sin is to blame. we are NOT operating the way God had ever intended for us to because of sin. this is NOT what He created and thankfully our worldly home is just temporary.

Romans 8:28 says

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

i have prayed and prayed and PRAYED for these women. i’m at a point where i just don’t know what to pray for sometimes. thankfully, when you invite Jesus to be a part of your life, you also gain the Holy Spirit in your heart as well. the Holy Spirit grieves our grief and feels our pain with us. AND knows EXACTLY what to say when you just have no words to speak anymore….

Romans 8:26-27 says “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.”

And sometimes when we run out of words to say, we turn to anger, complaining and negative thoughts. have you been there? i have. many times.

i love the example our pastor used this morning…..he asked what came out if you squeezed a tube of toothpaste…..toothpaste of course! sometimes God allows different circumstances to squeeze my heart just to see what’s inside….am i speaking words of faith, hope and love or am i full of anger, negativity and pride? sometimes we become so overtaken by pride that maybe we need to be humbled. during these difficult times God is going to try and get us to go back to the fundamentals. to get plugged in.

friends, are you plugged in? maybe you don’t “need” to be plugged in right now because everything is going just fine in your life. or maybe things aren’t so great but you just don’t know where to begin.

i encourage you to get plugged in with a church that you can call home. not just a church where you go for an hour every sunday morning, go through the motions and check it off your list for the week. if that is you, YOU ARE MISSING OUT! that is not what this is all about, that’s what religions, fads, and trends are….something that probably won’t last or have true lifelong meaning.

i’m talking about a church where you can get CONNECTED and learn more about what God has already done for YOU, not what you need to do for Him. i also encourage you to find a “life group” within your church…..a core group of close friends who share the same values that you “do life with”. friends that you can call at 2am. we have just gotten plugged in with a new life group that is closer to home and we LOVE it!

i’ve got to run and get a few more things checked off my list for tonight, but i hope you all had a great weekend and have a great week!

have you missed me?

dear friends…..stalkers :) oh how i have missed you! i have been one crazy momma from playdates, to church life group picnics, MOPS, mommy and me, in-loves visiting, photographing numerous gorgeous families, internet issues, preparing for my moms photography class……….friends, it has been hectic and it’s not slowing down for a few weeks. life is happening and i need to find time/make time to document it!

i’m not complaining, i’m just feeling guilty….and missing you. missing my journaling of my life, as i know it. it’s just all happening way too fast, which may be why i am obsessed with capturing every single moment in a photograph. to attempt to hold on to those moments forever……….

i know i have neglected my blog, and i’m sorry. i’m hoping….praying that i will find a new balance shortly. you all are important to me, and this blog is important to me. please check back soon, my plan is to post regularly once again, once i can reclaim a little bit of sanity :)

Hilton Head Trip Part I

So I fell in love last week…..with Hilton Head! This was my first time there and I loved it! I love that it was family friendly, you could ride bikes everywhere, so many good restaurants to choose from and just enough commercialized so that I could go on a Target run 10 minutes away if I got desperate!

I loved where we stayed because it wasn’t very commercialized, yet we could ride bikes a few blocks and be at either the beach or our latest fave Rita’s!

Of course I took A LOT (and by a lot I mean like 1200!) of pictures, so here are some from the first batch :)

The boys loved riding in the bike cart!

SO excited to be on the beach!

  

Potty Trained!!!!!!

Me and my best friend!

I’m SO ready to go back!!!!