My boy...my sweet little boy. He was the third boy to steal my heart and continues to melt me from head to toe. He squeezes the hardest, and loves long. He is passionate about what he wants and is so willing to help others. Many times I have heard him trying to break up fights between others. He adores Logan and is such a silly boy with him. He loves his Momma and wants to be just like Daddy. This week he turned 3 years old. This will be a fun year of seeing his personality shoot out even more, growing taller, and becoming even more independent than he is. So blessed to have this little man in my life and as one of my sons.

We decided to have a Top Chef Birthday party

Played "Pin the wooden spoon on the Chef". Blind-folding a bunch of toddlers is hilarious!!

Plates all ready for the decorated cupcakes

Balloon city!!! 

Austin was in awe of the transformation of the house

Cupcakes ready to be played with and decorated by the mini-chefs

Chef-hat cupcakes for the adults...yum yum!!

The chef hats that were created....nice culinary academy huh?

Austin was a bit overwhelmed in the beginning with all the people and the cupcakes out in the open. At least Logan was smiling well!

Austin's masterpiece:-)

Gotta have some good grub for the adults!

Mini-wraps and fruit kabobs for the kiddos

"Happy Birthday to you....Happy Birthday dear Austin!!!"

What a fun day he had! After it was all done and everyone had gone home, I asked him what was his favorite  part of the party. He seriously looked at me with no hesitation and said "All my friends". Awwweee! What a sweet man...thanks so much for those who celebrated with us!!!

TV Wall remodel!

A little after the new year, Mike and I were discussing this TV wall. We were sitting on the couch, having good conversation and lightly talked about filling in this wall. Before I knew it, Mike was ripping out the fireplace and setting up his last free week for the year (yes the whole 2012 year) to remodel this wall. It was actually quite a smart move for us. The fireplace, that was electric, wasn't working right any more and to be honest the alcove wasn't that ascetically pleasing. In thoughts of one day selling the house, we thought that by mounting the TV it would give more people a choice with what TV size they wanted. 

So here we went! As you can see, he had already started ripping the fireplace out before I got our "before shot"

Here it is...all taken out!

We thought about putting in a recessed desk, but with the time frame we had to get it done, and having no where else to put a TV cable, filling it in was the way to go

A church friend of ours came over and helped much the second day. They framed it out and started getting the wires all sorted out.

Had to leave our mark. Who knows if some day someone might see that again!

Starting to fill it in. I believe that was the third night. You can see PVC piping to carry the wires from a TV stand up to the TV so they wouldn't show.

I helped mike cut out the dry wall. We were so excited to get it up, that after we drilled it in a few places we realized we left our flash light in there! Oh well we thought, but then saw there were some must needed tools in there too. Nice one hun!

All filled in! Now we had to pay someone to come mud it and texture it. We have a very strange textured wall and didn't feel comfortable doing it ourselves. 

All done and textured! Now to just paint it...

THERE IS THE FINISHED PRODUCT!! We are so stoked about it! It makes the room look so much bigger and more open! I started this huge paint job, not expecting mike to help, but he ended up taking charge and we finished it in 2 days. Poor kids were neglected some and Everett had enough of the exersaucer...but we got it done!!

Just a little side note...I made these "taco cupcakes" the other night by following a recipe HERE

They were SO easy and SO good to eat! Definitely make these more often!

Merry Merry December

Oofta! What a month so far! The testosterone led family is doing great...and the trying very hard to be feminine lady here is doing might fine too:-) I have started to try and take a new approach on things lately and bought myself a handy dandy personal calendar. I am tired of forgetting (still do) and procrastinating (working on that also) and want to cross things off a list (so accomplishing). It is hard to adapt something like that into my daily life because I am always on the go and don't have a set "station" or desk that I can leave the calendar. It is working for the most part though.

Other updates:

Logan just had his Christmas Program...which I had to miss because Austin was strangely sick just for that morning. Mike was able to go and video taped it. Logan and I watched it later together and he sang me every song:-) He was so proud! I had told Logan that I was sad I wasn't able to go and to prepare him for the worst told him gently that neither Mike or I would be able to go. I hoped that Mike would be able to and like I said he did. Mike caught Logan's reaction to seeing his Dad on the video and it was priceless. Soooo glad Mike went.

Austin is doing well...his old self. Still quite the funny guy with such an independent persona. He is enjoying Everett more and more and I think they will be good buds. Austin loves to pretend play and recently pretended to be a doctor "Mom...are you a boy or girl (girwal-is how he says it)" and then writes it down on a pretend clipboard. Love him!

Everett is cutting the top four teeth right now...seems like it has been over a month since this started and I can't WAIT for them to come through! He is crawling all around the house, and I am really enjoying this curious stage. He doesn't really crawl full force, just kind of meanders around putting random things in his mouth...like dog hair. He has pulled himself up several times, but it still isn't consistent. He still nurses, but is very active so it can be hard to get him to any where else besides his quiet room. I am struggling with if he is getting enough from my milk OR if it is just his teething...we are gonna give it some time and do some experimenting with other foods to find out. Other than that...he is still the happiest baby!

My photography sessions have slowed down, which is nice for the holidays, but I am so pumped for this next spring and summer...got some awesome new places to take people and new ideas! Somehow I do still have time to do some home-made crafts. This fall wreath (yes I know it is winter now) took me about a month, but I got it done in time for Sept! No one ever told me how much burlap sheds...it is awful...it turned into an outside project. One of my favorites though!

And since I didn't have much time to make a Christmas wreath...I just tweaked the fall one with some Christmas tree branches and ornaments and wwwhhalllah!

Funny story...I missed watering the tree one day and after that noticed that it stopped soaking up water. So, in my craziness I asked my incredible husband to help me cut some more off the bottom of the tree in case some sap covered the bottom preventing water being drunk by the tree. In his awesomeness...he did it with help from a friend. That was much more of a project than we expected. The tree is now about 4 inches shorter and lost all the bottom branches. It looks cleaner and healthier though! Oh well!
Hope you all are having a good December and have a Merry Christmas thus far! Miss you family and friends!

PS...oh I will have a good story for you guys next time hopefully...seriously...God is really wanting us to trust Him lately in the most crazy circumstances!! All Glory to Him!

Dreaming of our Deck!

Mike and I have recently been dreaming of re-doing our deck. This is after we have had several branches fall on a section of it, breaking the railing. We had decided to tear down more than half of it and leave a section of it by our back door, while gardening and sodding the area that we are taking off. So...the part that we are keeping we are trying to decided what to do with it!

We could either stain it or paint it and even though we LOVE the stained look, because the wood isn't the best and is fairly worn, we will be painting it! But not just any old paint decor:-) We were thinking of painting it some brown/orange/red tones that will match the brick from the front yard and the brick that we are also bringing in the back yard when we garden the new area. We want to chose about two or three colors and paint the planks shown similar to the photo below. I have fallen in love with the painted look and all the great designs we can do! These are a few photos that I have enjoyed looking at:-)

We are also thinking of painting a "rug" of some sorts! Probably a deep red and yellow stripped or square design with perhaps some antique stenciling that I have! So excited!

Perhaps in our new corner without the deck and our large tree we can hook up a hammock! Doesn't that look cozy to you?!

This is something I would also like to do; set up a bird-house collage on our fence. I have seen many different beautiful birds and we can create as a family some beautiful birdhouses! Either bright colors like this or maybe some white-washed distressed bird-houses?

What does your dream deck look like?

Unveiling a secret Blog:-)

Many of my close friends and family know that I have fallen in love with taking pictures, using a camera to capture moments in life that people can look at and feel like they are right there right then. I have slowly but surely learned my camera and have gotten better, but am in no way a professional, I am still an amateur. I like to draw attention to creative angles and creative shots to perhaps capture something someone didn't see at that moment or realize about that person or landscape. So without further ado- I would like to share a blog that I started almost a year ago (yes I haven't had the confidence to share it yet).

http://tryingtopic.blogspot.com

I am currently NOT charging anyone as the people I shoot are mainly friends and family. I am doing this so I can build a portfolio, learn how to photograph with my camera, edit with my programs and create products people enjoy while having my "touch" show through. I just recently did my first Cake Smash and had such a fun time with it. So glad I was able to do that with a good friend and her adorable daughter!

So why am I sharing this? So YOU ALL, you all wonderful photographers out there that I LOVE stalking your photos and interpretations of life, can please critique and help me along! I love getting advice in this area of life because it is something where I can take the advice and try it out for myself and if it works, it stays and if not, then it wasn't for me! Anyways, please be brutally honest and have fun seeing the photos! Thanks for all of you who have let me take your photos and practice on you!!

Crafting is my Therapy

I really don't know what I would if I didn't have a project or something to accomplish every week (besides the normal household chores which I end up doing over and over again:-). I got a headwarmer for Christmas and thought I could make up my own pattern to create some for friends. It wasn't too hard to do and I enjoyed seeing the outcome, especially the flowers -those I did follow patterns for. Where do I find the time to do this you ask? Well, each headwarmer took me about 3-4 days to finish. In reality if I was able to do is all at once would take me 2 hoursish, but I took my time and did it while I relaxed and settled down at night. Definitely my therapy!

The felt flower wreath was kinda two ideas into one. I saw the felt flowers in a magazine but they put it into garland, and I wanted something that I could put outside for a spring wreath. So here ya go! This also took several weeks to finish. Felt is very cheap and this was pretty simple! Just cut out circles and sew them together in the middle and waalahh! I would say this decoration cost me about 10 dollars or less. One of my favorites!