It's Been Awhile!

Hello blog friends (and family)!  So I was supposed to be back Easter Sunday from my blogging hiatus, but I have found that blogging did not make it back near the top of my priority list!  I have enjoyed spending lots of time with my family, and my usual blogging time has been filled with sleep...whether it's going to bed earlier or taking naps while Little Man is sleeping!

I hope to make a more regular appearance and get back in to reading more blogs again!!

I've missed documenting Little Man's life and all the pictures I have taken...so I will just post a few of our moments from the past few months, along with Little Man's 18 month update...I do have pictures from 19 months, but no written update.  He will be 20 months this Thursday, so I will be letting you know many of the new things he has been up to!

18 month update

Little Man loves to wave at us while he’s eating, and then put his hand on his heart, and he expects us to copy him.  Sometimes he wants us to wave our hands in the same pattern as he is doing.

He loves to see our bellies and bellybuttons and touch them and laugh really hard!

He loves to fill in the blanks of our songs:

You are my sunshine. My only sunshine.

You make me happy when skies are gray.

You’ll never know dear, how much I love you.

Please don’t take my sunshine a-way!

Rockaby baby on the tree-top!

When the wind blows, the cradle will rock.

Oh how he loves you and ME!

Jesus loves ME!

He loves to act like he doesn’t want us to get him out of the crib when he wakes up in the morning or after nap time. 

He loves stuffed animals, and he loves to snuggle with them.  When in Cracker Barrel (after 18 months), he picked up a dog that’s dressed as a bunny and when you press his foot he sings a “Hop” song and his ears and paws move.  He was attached immediately.  Our pastor (who had invited us to lunch) bought the dog as a surprise on the way out.   So sweet!  He was also drinking some water today (4/1) and went over to the dog and acted like he was pouring some water in his mouth!

            Also in Cracker Barrel, our waitress asked if she could scoot him over to the table behind us because there was an older couple admiring him.  He almost didn’t want to come back to our table after that!

He loves to play outside especially pushing his fire truck (he’ll get in occasionally, but mainly just pushes it.) He also likes to walk up and down the driveway.  He doesn’t like to walk in the grass when it gets too tall

He loves to point at big trucks and say “truck!”

He is still so friendly and says “hey” to everyone he sees.  If we let him walk around in restaurants, he goes up to everyone and says “hey” and sometimes even pats them on the leg.  Quite a few times, the “strangers” pick him up and talk to him.

He loves to eat bologna.  The only meats he eats right now are bologna and chicken nuggets.  The only veggies he eats are peas and corn.  He pretty much eats any fruit, but his favorites are bananas and grapes.

He loves to give hugs to other kids.  He still likes to pull hair, but he’s learning not to!

He loves to walk by the toilet, and shake his finger saying “No! No! No!”

Vocabulary he knows on his own:  tractor, ball, doggy, Hey, bye-bye, please, up, lo-ney (bologna), I love you, truck, uh-oh, Oh no!, shoes, socks, bath,

He likes to hear his echo in the garage and any place he thinks it’s going to happen.

He has little girlfriends at church.  Harper is his age, and he loves to say “Ha-pa”  Lydia is about 7, and she loves to play games with him and pull him around in the wagon.  Aubrie is his friend from Bible study that comes over for playdates!

He knows how to say  “GiGi, Bippie, Papa, Grandad, Ashee, CoCo, KiKi, Amy, Chaser, Lindsay, Joel, Seth, Wheeler, Effie, Ray-Ray, Mony (Tony), Cliff (Cliff Fagan), and other names”

He loves to walk by himself.  At the gym, he walks when I get him out of child care, and he says hey to every person that passes by.  He likes to get a sticker when he leaves, and he tries to put it on before taking off the back.

He is much better about letting me take him to his classroom, Sunday School, or the gym child care without getting too fussy.  Sometimes he will even say “bye-bye” when I leave the room.

He still loves to dance and clap.  He likes to watch the Andy Griffith show (well…the opening and closing credits).

18 month pictures (March 19, 2011)

Hope everyone is well!! I am back to reading and I hope you'll pick back up on mine too! :)

Recipe Challenge 2011: Chicken Fried Steak and Homemade Mashed Potatoes!

 I am making a rare blog appearance on my Lenten journey for a commitment that I started at the beginning of the year.  Kitchen Belleicious' Recipe Challenge 2011!

Last night, I made K-Belle's Chicken Fried Steak for the first time!  It was lots of fun to do and definitely not something I've ever done before!  It turned out pretty well for my first time.  You can find the recipe here!

I also decided to make some homemade mashed potatoes to go with it.  After perusing some recipes on-line, I just decided to make them on my own.

I boiled 5 small brown potatoes, whole with peeling.  After about 25 minutes, I drained the water, put them in a bowl and mashed them (with our meat tenderizer).  

Then I melted 2 tbsp of Smart Balance butter and about 4 tbsp of light sour cream in the microwave.  I added that to the mashed potatoes with some salt, pepper, paprika, and garlic powder.  I mixed and mashed some more, and they were done!  They were my favorite part of the meal, and there are enough leftover to enjoy them tomorrow too!

Hope y'all are doing well! Miss you!  I'll be back after Easter!

Ash Wednesday

 One of the primary opportunities Lent provides for us is a time of self-examination. This is a time to take an honest look at our lives and to discern what is helping us to grow in our faith and what is holding us back. It may be the perfect time to discern what we leave and what we take, what gets done and what is left undone. Those choices will ultimately show where the real treasures lie. 

-Brian Prior

One of the things I will be leaving behind this lenten season is this blog!  I really enjoying blogging, but sometimes it takes up too much of my time...especially going to all the blogs that I love to read!  I read everyday and I feel bad when I don't get to read someone I'm following.  But, I'm going to take the time that I normally spend in blog world and use it to focus on my relationship with God.  The only times I will blog will be for Little Man's monthly updates.  I will miss y'all!

I don't want to leave y'all hanging about the yard sale, so I wanted to let you know that we were very happy with the amount of money we made!  We sold a lot but also had a lot left over.  We took everything left to a church thrift store.  My next job is to organize the space upstairs so I can really put time into my Mama's Messages business!

I hope everyone has a great Lenten season!! See y'all after Easter!

I'll leave you with a picture I took of Little Man after church:

He was walking around the house making clicking noises :)

Happy Wednesday Y'all! And Happy Lent!

This is bloggable!

We will be doing something random, or something of a coincidence happens, or really just anything could be going on, and the mister will say, "Well that's bloggable!" or "Are you going to blog about this?" 

Well he said it last night after we watched a video of Little Man laughing when he was 3 months old...and that led him to look at a YouTube video I had posted of me telling my sisters that I was pregnant with Little Man.

We were getting ready for Sister #4's wedding.  I gave her a present and inside was a picture frame with a little sign instead of a picture.  It read, "Little One...Coming Soon...September 2009!" My mom was the only one who knew at the time, so this was the reactions of my sisters and cousin:

The surprising thing is that when we checked it out the other night, the mister said, "How many hits do you think your video has?"  I guessed 750 because that's what it had the last time I had watched it.  When he said, "18,000 something!" I couldn't believe it!  I guess people use YouTube to try to get ideas for how to share with their family members that they are expecting :)

Happy Friday Y'all!

Playing Catch-Up!

Last weekend the mister and I had a MAJOR clean out of our house.  We have been talking about doing this for a LONG time, and I was hoping we would have it done by the end of February.  The first time we really had a chance to really get it done was last weekend...yes, the last weekend of February!

We knew we wouldn't really get the job done right with Little Man around, so we took him to the in-laws on Thursday night.  He would stay there until we came for him on Saturday evening!  I was in agony knowing that I was leaving my baby for two whole nights, and I was going to be at home!  His crib would be empty.  It would have been somewhat easier if we were going away on a fun vacation, but it was so hard just being at home cleaning out!  I had to take some pictures of him before we left him, and the mister had to take pictures of me practically crying as we were pulling out of his parents' driveway!

(Btw, I had just worked out before these pictures were taken!)

When we did walk in our door, the mister said, "Hey! At least we can be really loud!" and he went directly to a really creaky spot in our floor and walked over it a few times.  I screamed really loud, and said, "I would rather him be here then to be able to scream!"

We got an early start to cleaning out on Friday morning.  We literally went room by room, and completely cleaned out every nook and cranny.  No drawer left unopened, no space left untouched.  We wanted everything out that didn't have a purpose!  It was a tedious process, but we finished the whole downstairs after working from 7 in the morning until 11 that night.  We did take a break for meals, and a quick walk for me, but other than that it was full on clean out mode!

The next day, we tackled our FROG (Finished Room Over Garage).  I posted about it here.  So that's the before picture, and I will post the after picture after our big yard sale on Saturday.  We were so happy to go through everything, including our attic space and declutter our lives!  I now have space to set up a nice "Mama's Messages" work area upstairs!  I am currently thinking about how I want to arrange everything.  I really want to paint the room now, but that's probably too much to ask!  

We are having a yard sale this Saturday, and I really hope me make some money to buy organizational items and some bins for my work space!  We are hoping to sell a TV, bed, loveseat, chair and half with ottoman, Elliptical, the mister's guitar, lots and lots of clothes, shoes, some jewelry, and more!

In the midst of cleaning, we did find lots of hand-me-down neighbor baby clothes that we had boxed away because they were too big at the time, and now Little Man a new wardrobe!!  Some of our neighbors gave us Polo shirts in practically every color, and another neighbor gave us this cute elephant sweater vest! Score!

(This pic was taken in our closet, so you can see some of the organization!  Looks much neater than it did before!)

We actually finished a little earlier than we thought on Saturday (about an hour), and we met my in-laws for dinner to pick up Little Man.  It was SO wonderful to see him!! I know he had a great time with his Papa and Bippie, but the next time we do that, it better be because we are having a romantic getaway!

Happy Thursday Y'all!