Month Recap...

Got a couple pictures to post from May...since I didn't make one single post all month!

A quick run down: I've been using my spare time lately to de-clutter my house. Closets, basement, crawl space, garage, dresser drawers--everything's getting cleaned out!! Ava's room recently underwent a minor makeover, as well. Just moved some things over to the nursery and gave her a new *B-I-G* G-I-R-L bed!! She loves her new bed! And the napping hasn't stopped!! It's been a beautiful transition. :) She continues to surprise us at how easy going she is about everything. Sleeping through the night = 3 days old (ok, at least 6 hrs straight)... Potty training = 4 days (I expected months and months of agony)... Sleeping in her big girl bed without a struggle & napping = the first day we tried it out!! Unbelievable! We find that she does spend a lot of time up there talking to her "friends" and reading books before she falls asleep. It's pretty cute to listen to. Thankfully, she hasn't fallen out of her bed yet, either. But rest assured, I lined the perimeter of her bed with several pillows and blankets for weeks when she first moved into the big bed... just in case. : ) We always expect the worst, I think. I had nightmares of how this transition might go... up all night crying, banging on her door for someone to let her out, in our room every 2 hours, or the WORST scenario: no more naps!! My visions were not pretty. My anxiety was way worse than hers! She's such a peach. And now my 2nd will probably live up to my worst nightmares! Haha! See, the anxiety's kicking in already. ; )

Speaking of my 2nd, the big day is rapidly approaching! I'm so excited to meet her. So many emotions surround childbirth. I'm ecstatic to have another baby and constantly have dreams about her little pink cheeks, downy soft hair, and sweet baby scent. Snuggling, nursing, listening to baby squeaks, those little white bumps on baby noses. There is nothing in this world we live in that is more rewarding than nurturing & mothering a newborn baby. And then there are the days when I think, "oooh boy, here we go again!" Diaper changes, fussing & crying, non-stop nursing, wack-a-doo body, spit-up, up-the-back-and-out-the-sides-diaper blow-outs, ridiculous fatigue. For some reason, these things happen to come to mind at times when my toddler is showing her devil horns... conveniently. ;) But like I told my husband the other day, their babyhood is gone in the blink of an eye. It really amazes me...and saddens me...that my daughter is almost 3 years old. Her babyhood is gone. Those chubby thighs (she kinda still has them ;), silly raz-berries, backwards crawling, jumping like crazy in her bouncer are all over for her. Too fast! But in moments of chaos, it seems like they'll be babies forever and we'll never catch a break. Then you blink and 3 years have gone by! I can only imagine how it will feel when I've blinked and 26 years have gone by! It's all just ages and stages. Cherish them!


Some pictures from the past month...

The first really nice day of summer! It was 74 degrees and Ava decided to play in the leftover rain water in her water table. I later decided to fill it with lukewarm tap water... after she decided that she couldn't play in the water with a wet shirt on. :) 

Teeny tiny baby crack : )

Yep, she dunked her head...

My girl on mother's day. Love her to the moon....and back!!

Posing with her baby : )

Here she's saying, "daddy baby got hurt, kiss it" That face says it all actually. : )

The first day in her pool! We will be here a lot this summer! She loves it. It's the perfect size and depth for a 2 year old + mommy's feet. ; )

Thought she was blowing bubbles...then it turned into body painting with bubbles. Gotta mix it up! :)

"Hiiii Mom!!!"

35 weeks, my friends ; ) I've loved every minute!

Summer Wrap Up!

Just a last few pictures that I wanted to post to wrap up our summer. Can't believe it's over!! Another summer in the books! Bring on the fall!!!

Ready for another zoo trip! We only live 5 miles from the zoo so its nice to escape for a couple hours and hang out with the gorillas... or polar bears :)

Our girls day out this year consisted of going to the zoo and Zoombezi Bay with all the girls! Mom, sister, and the girl cousins. We had a blast!

Monkey see, monkey do!

Bri & Torie... being crazy kids!

Petting the goats...

Out to lunch with Grams...

Pappy took Ava to the school across from their house to play on the play ground... still in her pj's! :) And dont' you love the necklace Ava gave pappy to wear?

Not so sure about that slide this morning...

Swinging with Grammy...who's also still in her pj's!

Too fun!

Whoa Ava, check out that playground!! You're in heaven!

Racing daddy down the slides!

Aaaand another zoo trip... this time with her buddy Eli! :)

My girl.

To All The Fans...I'm Sorry!!!

Slap a slacker sticker across my forehead already! Daang! My last post was weeks ago...ugh...I will try to keep up now...I promise!

In my defense...ahem...this summer has been out of stinkin' control busy. If I had to give this summer a name it would be The Work Your Pants Off Summer, because that is EXACTLY what we've been doing. On one hand, it stinks...who wants to work alllllll the time? Especially in the summer?? Not me! BUT, on the other hand, we are getting in a really comfortable place financially. Have any of you heard of the financial guru Dave Ramsey?? Well, I got ahold of his book Total Money Makeover (thanks Jess! ;o), and his plan roped me in immediately. I'm always on the lookout for some financial smarts books... because honestly, where else in the world am I going to learn how to make smart financial moves? It certainly wasn't taught in high school...or college... or in our home growing up. And let's face it... your entire life revolves around these little green bills. It does... and without it, you'd be living in a little brown box. Ha! But anyway, it's basically a common sense plan of paying cash for everything and getting rid of consumer debt like car loans, credit cards, and student loans as quickly as possible, and then making your hard earned money work for you by putting it in mutual funds, kids' college funds, retirement, and of course have extra to give away (one of my favorite parts of this plan... he's not preaching greed, and I think it's awesome that he includes giving to charities in his money makover plan.:). The idea is to never have debt to pay on...because with debt comes interest and you end up paying more for everything. Pretty common sense, huh? However...Dave Ramsey's plan says to basically take 18 months or so and use every extra penny you have to pay off consumer debt...which implies that you would spend no money on vacations...or christmas presents...or birthday gifts...etc. Yea right! We are altering his plan slightly to fit our lifestyle ;o)...plus Eric and I both decided that we still want quality of life! Not sure if this plan will get me to be a stay at home momma some day, and after realizing how much money really goes into my retirement account by my employer I'm not even sure if I should strive for staying home--ha! BUT...I am thankful to have a good paying job and a husband with a good paying job and side-work up to his eyeballs. In this economy...well, I don't even have to go there...we all know the economy stinks right now!

Speaking of spending money :) :)....We are having a heck of a time trying to decide where to go on vacation in mid September. We've been thinking about it for months....go to the beach? the mountains? stay-cation? Chicago? the lake? Ahhhhh!!!!  I think we're coming to a conclusion....pack up and hit the North Carolina shore! I think we'd like to head to the Outer Banks, rent a little beach cottage, and do nothing but sit our bums on the beach for the entire week. Cook breakfast & lunch and go out for dinner....make smoothies in the evenings and go for beach walks at sunset and breathe in that salty ocean air. Okay, yep...just made up my mind! Outer Banks it is!! ;~))

These last few weeks have kicked off harvest time at the gardens! If I'm not working, I'm at mom's. It's been awesome...I love hanging out with the whole family for harvesting, canning, freezing, and cooking. It rocks. My mom rocks. She knows it all! (shhh...do not tell her I just admitted that! ;) My sister and I are a hot mess without her around to guide us through the tedious steps of preserving. Take this instance for example...
Last weekend, we were getting together at moms to can peaches. Mom had a Dr. appointment that morning, so she left Tammy and I some directions to get things started while she was gone. So Tammy and I show up at moms house, walk in the kitchen where all the equipment, towels, and recipes were all set up waiting on us. The first instruction: "put peaches in hot water on stove for 30-60 seconds and place in ice water bath; peel skins off, cut peaches in half." Tammy and I were like, "Okay...easy enough, we've got this." So we begin the process...heat the peaches, dump them in the ice water, start slicing them...and possibly by the 3rd peach that Tammy picked up, she went to cut it in half and instead sliced through her pinky finger!!!!!!!!!! My mom's knives are the SHARPEST things ever! As a matter of fact she sharpened them that morning so they'd be ready for 4 bushels of peaches. :) Immediately, my sister.... a nurse... about had a heart attack... pale as a ghost. Granted, the cut was deep...fat was busting out of it and she was convinced she could feel nerve damage kicking in. "We have to go the the ER right now!! Come on lets go...right now!" Meanwhile... I'm trying to hold in my giggles because she was completely overreacting like most nurses would. She was spouting off things like, "I'm gonna have to get a wound vac on this thing!" and "I'm diabetic Liz! Now I'm going to lose my finger!" and "It better not get infected with MRSA!!" Bless her heart... she did go to the ER and came home with 5 stitches. Proof that we can't do anything without mom's guidance. :)

So far this season we've canned green beans, hot pepper mustard, peaches, spiced peaches, pasta sauce, blueberry lime jam, strawberry jam, blackberry peach freezer jam, peach freezer jam, and froze sweet corn. We also made some butter the last day I was up at moms. She used to make it when we were little from the cream from our goats' milk. Since there wasn't a goat in the backyard these days we used heavy whipping cream. Just stick it in the blender and turn it on low. Before long (couple minutes), the whipping cream turns into a big blob of sweet cream butter. Then you drain off the buttermilk and wash the butter itself with cold tap water and work it in a bowl until the water runs clear. Easy peasy lemon squeezie! :)

I will stop boring you with reasons why I haven't been updating as frequently and just cut to some pretty cute pictures! Enjoy...

My faithful lil cheeser... :o)

Peach snatcher! She must be saving that blueberry lime jam for later. ;o)

This is what whimsical 8 year olds do to entertain themselves while the rest of the family slaves over the stove.... make flower petal paths!!

Mmmm....JAMMM!!!

Canning is a labor of love... Lesson learned: moms knives are even sharper than we thought!!

Pepper butter in the making (or mustard..whatever you wanna call it! :)

Pepper peelin' Dale!

The girls discovered the mister on the hose!

8 was a fun age! ;o)

Loooong day at Granny's... time for bed Ava!

Playground near our house...

My girl.

Love these girls!

Sometimes you just gotta... 8o)

Backyard pool time!!

Ava's new table daddy picked up in Iowa.

Hope you're enjoying your summer!! As you can tell, we are eating ours up!!! Leave some love--I'd love to hear how everyone's summer is going! I know you've got some Outer Banks info up your sleeve, too...we've never been there so I need some pointers! ;o) xoxo

Summertime Pics!

We are really soaking up our summer around here!! I'm super excited that the weather is finally "August-like" again. I love hot, hazy, sticky, thick summer air!! And then I love the transition to cool, crisp, chilly sweater weather of the fall!! Football season is just around the corner--wooohoooo!!

We are staying busy that's for sure. Eric has been working his tail off at work and also trying to finish some home improvement projects that have been on hold for awhile ... and may continue that way for a little longer. :)

I have been busy trying to find time to help with our garden ... that I live an hour and fifteen minutes away from ... it's been interesting. :) My sister and I have learned a lot from our first gardening experience!! That thing has vegetables growing uncontrollably!! Peas, green beans, squash, carrots ... oh, everything is coming on!! We're still waiting on our tomatoes--my absolute favorite. :) We froze corn last week--a good and long 12 hours or so hours of shucking, washing, blanching, cutting, and bagging 500 ears of corn. WOW.

And Ava has also been growing uncontrollably lately! Somebody sprinkled some fertilizer on that girl!!! She is really taking off--crawling all over the place, getting into everything her little fingers can get ahold of--including Portia's food & water bowls... sooo gross. She pulls herself up on the stairs, my lap, the coffee table, the baby gates, in her crib--everywhere. We've seriously baby proofed this place!! She's saying kitty & dog--not incredibly understandable, but we know that's what she means. "Kitty" sounds more like "keey" and "dog" is more like "doe"--but we get the idea. :) I'll save the rest for her 10 month update coming soon!

Here are some random pictures--Enjoy!!

Ah yes, exploring the vacuum!

She finds all those places I forget to look while going around the house putting things like these out of baby's reach ... thanks for reminding me about these picture frames Ava! hee hee.

She LOVED eating the corn on the cob!! I could barely keep these out of her mouth!! Pretty cute!

There she goes--digging through the cobs--about to find a good one and chew on it!

Yay!!! New carseat!! Finally!! I think she likes it :)

Couldn't resist getting a shot of these rosey baby feet!! Soon enough she won't have these sweet little baby feet anymore!

This picture cracks us up!! Ava's grandma face. :)

She's not extremely happy in this picture, but it showcases her two cute little teeth! :)

My sweet sunshine!!

Our little family--who do you think Ava gets her baby blues from? Not me for sure! :)