Lately...

Once or twice a week you can find the girls and me and my parents house. Last Monday we came a little earlier than planned and so Grandpa took on both girls until Grandma came home. It was such a cute picture I couldn't resist pulling the iphone out and taking this picture. 

This is a frequent sight, lately... Lillias in her princess dress watching a princess movie and Addy drinking her bottle.

One more kinda random thing, but really cool if your a mall loving mom like me....

Horrible picture, but it has everything a mom could need... diapers, wipes, bottles, binkies, etc. Placed strategically by the play-place. Genius! 

Good Intentions

I have heard all my life that everyone has some talent, it may be playing basketball or painting or singing, etc. I always left these discussions feeling bad because I have no obvious talents. Over the years however, I found that I could be placed with pretty much any personality and get along with them. So I chalked this up to being my "talent." I'm the "yes" girl, the one who takes almost anything on, or agrees even if I don't agree, because why hurt someone's feelings over nothing...  I lately, however, have been feeling like even at this, I have been failing. I remember once raising my hand in my 7th grade class thinking that I had the PERFECT answer  only to open my mouth and not be able to express my thoughts in a way that made the perfect sense it did in my head. {kinda like that sentence, haha} I have left a lot of conversations lately feeling like I had the best of intentions and my words came out all wrong. I honestly try REALLY hard to make people feel good about themselves and to be uplifted. Not sure if any of this makes any sense, but I guess my overall point to this post, is to just admit that I have short comings and that I want my friends and family to know that I really do have the best of intentions... I am SO grateful to have such good people in my life and appreciate you all and your patience with me!

**Picture taken from an etsy listing**

Christmas 2010 Part 2

Christmas morning we hosted a brunch with both Shawn's parents and mine. I really enjoyed staying home but still having family there to participate in the morning events! 

Shawn doesn't see me in the kitchen like this much so I guess he wanted to document it! HA!

Lillias woke up at 2 a.m. and then again at 3 a.m. and then for good at 6:45 a.m. So she played with her Santa gifts until Addy woke up at 9:00 {my kinda sleeper!} Addy got lots of practical things for Christmas, baby food, baby tooth brush, and a few little toys mixed in like this H&M  kello kitty doll. She likes it a lot I think because of the tag on the back.

Opening her mountain of gifts!

Addy on her belly as usual, on her princess blanket from the Texas Cochran's!

Later Christmas day we headed over to Grammy and Papa's house for more present and food action!

Kristian, Amy, Dylanie and Lucus joined us for dinner. It was so fun to have them share the day with us, they really are like family!

Grammy got Lillias lots of new books for Christmas. Right before we left that evening Lillias climbed up in Grammy's lap and asked her to read one of the books, such a sweet picture!

We really missed some of the family we normally share the holiday with, but overall it was a really great Christmas!!

Kitchen Re-Do

Well, this project started with me just wanting to redo the flooring on the 1st floor with dark wood... and turned into new flooring, trim, door trim, window trim, redoing the fireplace surround, new kitchen backsplash, counter tops, painting the cabinets and painting the kitchen walls. My husband and his friend Kristian did all of the work in record time and I painted the cabinets. 

This is a picture of the poor kitchen when we moved in:

And after:

A HUGE thanks to Kristian {and his family who let us borrow him} who did the counter tops and backsplash! I am SO in love with this kitchen, it almost inspires me to cook ;o)

I was talking to Kristian and his wife Amy about it, and the only problem with the redo is that Shawn and I would love to move into a larger home in the next couple years, and this kitchen is the kitchen I'd want in the house we live in forever! Oh well, I'll enjoy as long as I live here!

iPhone Cases

On January 20th I can upgrade to the iPhone 4... I am SO excited!

I have been looking around at some potential cases and can't decide...

How cool is this one, I am constantly running into stores with just my phone and wallet.. this would make that a little easier! It's a case-mate with an original price $34.99 but today on ideei.com it's $27.

Like the one above, this would be nice because it is a 2 for 1, and oh so stylish. Michael Kors designed this and you can get it on apple.com for $79.95.

This is probably my favorite, can't go wrong with classic Kate Spade. This is the polka dot version on apple.com and on the Kate Spade website they have this same case but opposite colors with white background and black dots. This one goes for $39.95.

This is the incase, case I have now on my iPhone 3Gs only I have it in white. It fit's it perfectly and is really functional but functional is no fun, right!? Priced pretty good at $34.95 also on apple.com

Decisions, Decisions...

Christmas 2010 Part 1

One of my favorite things about Christmas is the cards!!  I always leave the mail for Shawn to get, but not this time of year, I actually enjoy going to the mailbox. Lillias loved them too, if you don't see yours in the picture below it's because Lillias took a particular liking to it! ;o)

This year I designed our Christmas card using my sweet CS5 desgin skills {written with a sarcastic smirk} I still have A LOT to learn, but this is the first project where I felt like I was beginning to know what I'm doing!
I used photoshop to edit the picture just so I could add a b&w action, then I created the card using indesign. I called the printer and when he "talked shop" I actually knew what he was talking about!

Here is the front:

and, the back:

A fun labor of love!

Happy New Years 2011

2010 brought many changes, the biggest and best was the addition of Adelaide Ann. She has made the past 6 months fly by. Of course she made the first 6 months of the year drag on forever {pregnancy woes} but all the heartburn, throwing up, no energy, sleepless nights, and all over body aches was SO worth it! Thank you Addy Ann for coming into my life and making my 2010 happy and memorable!

I love the potential of New Years and the opportunity it is to reflect back on the good and bad of the previous year and make goals to improve coming into the new year. 

We celebrated New Years Eve with some good friends, funny games and some {a lot} of yummy food!

The above mentioned yummy food!!

Goo Goo and her buddy Dylanie

Mommy and goo goo

Daddy and goo goo {have you caught on that Addy has turned into goo goo ;)}

The girls

Shawn trying to look up the definition of "a loaded question" his definition was different than everyone else, so of course the thing to do it look it up... haha!

Watching the Ball Drop... Happy New Year 2011!


Lillias kept Grandma and Grandpa Adams company for the evening, G + G said she she celebrated until the late hour of 9p.m. and then crashed like it was 2010 :o)

Christmas Eve 2010

Like most years we spent our Christmas Eve at my parent's house. Since we wouldn't be back over Christmas day, we opened our gifts that night. This did not disappoint Lillias, she was more than ready for a little present opening action! Addy was surprisingly good a present opening too, the girl loves paper!! Grandma and Grandpa did not disappoint getting Lillias a princess castle tent, it was the year of princess EVERYTHING!

Later that night before bed we put out a cookie, milk and a note to santa to say thanks!

A very good start to Celebrating CHRISTmas!

iphone magazine idea pictures

One of my presents this Christmas was a Charles Penzone Spa gift card. So last night as I sat there enjoying my pedicure, I looked through Lucky magazine. I hate it when I see ripped out pages, there have been times where I see something I want to remember but out of respect for the next reader I don't tear anything out. So yesterday as I sat there with my iphone next to me the thought occurred to me that I should just take a picture! I'm probably the last person to think of this, but just incase you get bummed every time you see something in a magazine that you want to remember, this one is for you! ;o)

Here are some random things I wanted to check out...

I need these Band-Aid's, Lillias has her princess and Hello Kitty Band-Aid's... the sequin bling Band-Aid's are right up my ally!

Wouldn't mind this candle making my room smell wonderful! Plus in the back of the magazine they had a coupon code, can't pass that up!

I'm not a huge make-up person, but I would love to get really dressed up and "make-up-uped" and go somewhere fun... until that happens I'll take iphone photos just incase! 

Addy's Adventure

Well, I didn't make my goal of posting everyday...  Oh well, next month ;o)

Last Thursday we took Addy to Sweet n' Sassy to get her ears pierced! They require babies to be at least 6 months {we snuck her in 2 days early} 

Poor baby was so happy and smiley before and then mean mommy and daddy let these strangers poke something through her ears. She let out one really hard/loud cry, which made me cry and lets just say that she quit crying before I did! 

She has been the best baby and the only time I have ever heard her cry that loud was for shots and this :( 

They are so stinkin cute though! I love my little {chubby} baby with little pearl earrings!!

At home, still with the black dot from the marker they used.

Have I mentioned how much I LOVE this child??!!

Blessings and Challenges of being a MOM...

Today I was sitting on the couch holding Adelaide with Lillias next to me and I just felt so blessed that I had the honor of raising these two little girls! Lillias is going through a rough stage right now, and most days I feel like such a failure and a mean mom lacking the patience that she deserves. As I sat there today, however, watching my girls smile and interact with each other so lovingly I had thought that everything is going to be ok, Lillias and Adelaide will turn out ok, despite Lilli's current behavior trend she will grow out of it.. {hopefully ;o)}

Cookies!

I used my kitchen for the first time since I painted the cabinets and boy did I make a mess!

The cookies were super simple and yummy but I can make a mess making anything.

I got the recipe HERE.

{cookie image taken from the recipe blog, mine did not look so perfect, haha}

Got to love a season that encourages lots of treat making and consumption! ;o)

H&M Kids Rocks!

I have found my new favorite place to buy Lillias' clothing... H&M! One opened by me late fall, and I just made it there for the first time tonight... LOVE! Cheap to make the hubby happy and rocker chic to make me happy ;)

They even have an app, yes I am convinced that they have an app for EVERYTHING!

Christmas Sunday

I found matching dresses for the girls this year to wear to church today, kinda cheesy but I think they look cute dressed the same!

We are getting pretty excited for Christmas here at our house!