Friends

I know I say it all.the.time but wearesoblessed! Annabel absolutely adores other kids, so I think play dates do her soul as good as they do mine. The weekend before last, Annabel got to meet Uncle Rob (Josh's best friend from college), hang out with Gam and Bup, eat lunch with Eliza- Grace and Caroline, and visit with Aunt Kelli while daddy got a haircut. Guess which mommy didn't capture a single one of those moments- this one!

We have hung out with these cuties this past week though...

Pretty park day with our play group! There were lots of big kids there too- so fun!

Just chillin' with my peeps- Ann and Porter. Could she get any cuter with her arm on Porter's shoulder?!

We love us some Preslee! Please notice her holding P's toes:).

Just a little bath time. Each kid was allowed 2 toys (to prevent one bigger kid from dominating the smaller ones. Names left out to protect the innocent:)) and it looks as though Annabel may be a rule follower or a hoarder- too soon to tell!

Love these sweet birthday buddies. Pretty sure they are going to be taking off any day now... 

Jamming out with Sheppy!

Annabel loved Brooklyn's swing. Daddy REALLY needs to hang our's up as soon as we get it from Aunt Jen:).

And because my sweet boys never get any blog time- here is a pic of little Jonah. Just relaxin' on the cool floor. He never does this, so for about 5 seconds I thought he was dead!

Mother's Day

I don't think my first official Mother's Day could have been better! It was so special getting to celebrate one of God's greatest blessings! We did miss getting to see our moms, but Annabel and I made them really cute cards (of course I forgot to take a pic before mailing them).

  Annabel and Josh let me sleep until 9:30! It would have been as amazing as it sounds if our little one had not been up all night. Don't get me wrong, 9:30 is awesome, but not as awesome when you don't get to go to sleep until 5:30:).

I slept in and woke up to a yummy latte and homemade fritta. Not to mention, my sweet card and pedicure. Josh even made me a photo calender- #1 husband material right there! We headed to church, then to Briar Rose for a yummy lunch and back home for a much needed afternoon nap! My extremely joyful daughter was wearing a smocked dress my mom made me when I was little:).

We finished the day with a trip to the grocery store and leftovers with some of our favorite people!

Haley captured this priceless moment while Stella helped me carry in groceries. She was telling me what everything was as we put it up, which was just about as cute as these two!

The daddys even finished out Mother's Day strong by taking over bath time. It was hilarious. 

So blessed to be her momma! Hard to believe last Mother's Day we were just in the second trimester- time goes fast!

6 month stats

Sweet Girl- you are AWESOME! 

We had more fun playing and laughing with you at daddy's early birthday last night and were thankful daddy got to come with us to get your shots this morning. We were a little behind scheduling your 6 month shots.

You are 17lb and 14 oz today. That puts you in the 75% for weight!

Almost 26" long which is 50% for height. Mommy was glad for this because she guessed you were 25" on your passport application:)

You head was almost 17", which put you at 50% for head circumference.

Dr. J was so impressed with how well you were sitting up and mommy and daddy could not be more thankful for a physician that prays over you! He also said you will probably be an early crawler and walker, but mommy's praying you hold off until we get back from our mission trip so you aren't crawling all over the airport:)!

You get more and more fun everyday and we absolutely adore you! 

Birthday Fail(s)

It is my wonderful husband's birthday today and lets just say I'm praying that this day does not reflect how the rest of his 29th year will go! Josh truly has been a blessing to me and I'm so thankful that God gave him to me and chose him to be Annabel's dad. It's crazy to think that we started dating at 19. It's this weird paradox where it feels like yesterday, but I feel like I've known him forever. He has taught me unconditional love, grace, humility, and to laugh at myself. Thanks for pointing me towards Jesus and leading our family! We LOVE YOU!!!! 

So back to this FAIL of a birthday. It all started last week when I called our favorite cake place to order Josh's cake. They told me they were too backed up with Mother's Day (side note: I need to meet the man that gets his wife a Mother's Day cake because I have NEVER heard of this) and graduation cakes that they would not be able to make a custom cake for me by Tuesday. I know I could have called somewhere else but it is hard to spend that kind of money on a cake anyway and when it's not your favorite and we're trying to save for a mission trip- I took that as God's way of saying, "You don't need it!":). Fail #1.

I have been looking for a bike trailer for MONTHS to give him and on Monday a "brand new, garage kept, never been used, still has hair on the tires" one popped up on Craigslist. I was beyond thrilled. Retails at $175 and I talked him down to $75. It was my lucky day! Until I went to get it. Thankfully my father in law was with me or I think I may have been murdered. There may or may not have been some fibbing going on on someone's craigslist post. It also doesn't help when the seller comes out high with a cigarette hanging out of their mouth. There was a pool of water in the seat - it had not rained in 4 days- cigarette burn on the front, stickers on it, rust in the joints. When I said this is not what I expected based on his description, he lowered the price to $65. I calmly declined and said I would have a really hard time paying $50 for it and walked away as fast as I could. Fail #2.

Since the cake thing didn't happen I had this bright idea to make my MIL's strawberry cake from scratch- Josh's FAVORITE- and surprise him with it at work today. I even used Arkansas strawberries and made this A-mazing strawberry buttercream icing with fresh Arkansas strawberries! My plan was to let it cool on the way to his office and ice it as soon as I got there so we could be back in time for Annabel's nap. I didn't zip up my pyrex carrier so it would cool faster, and apparently, when you drop pyrex it SHATTERS. Not just a little crack here and there but shards of glass EVERYWHERE including the icing:(! I seriously had to take a deep breath and talk myself into laughing because I just wanted to bawl! Fail #3.

On the up side, we did have an incredible dinner last night just the three of us. I accidently scheduled her 6 month shots today (another post and I guess you could call that Fail #4), and since I didn't know what kind of mood she would be in we decided to have an early birthday dinner. Annabel was in the best mood at dinner! We had a nice time laughing with her. I made Josh this last minute birthday present with thrift store finds. It cost me less than $3.00. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR! Praying 29 is filled with blessings. I may or may not have a bottle glass of wine before you get home!:) LOVE YOU!

Race for the Cure

Trying to get back into this "running" thing. It's so hard for me to believe I ran a half marathon 2 weeks before I got pregnant.  Here I am a year and a half later struggling to do a 5k. But we DID it!!!! Josh originally asked if I wanted to do the 10k or 5k and I literally laughed out loud. We decided to do the 5k as a family. I was so thankful to have Josh there to push the stroller! He was even sweet enough to slow down to my pace. Of course, Annabel beat both of us :).

Look who we ran into! The best babysitter (outside of family) EVER!

Annabel learned that she could pull her glasses down. Not fun for me, but at least she has some croakies:)

Daddy at the finish!

Boy do I look rough and it's naptime for sweet A.

Horrible quality family pic. We also bumped into Aunt Jen and Aunt Biz, but forgot to get a pic:(.

My coach and motivator on one of our training runs:). (Don't worry, I buckled her in before we took off).

7

7 was my book of choice this month, and I don't even know where to begin. It truly is an amazing book! My only complaint was it took a little bit of time to get used to the style and the first two months/chapters weren't near as convicting to me as the rest. It was the first book I have read that was written in what I would call "blog" style. It was very narrative. Jen Hatmaker, the author, is hilarious!!! Like, I seriously want to be her best friend (side note: she did retweet me!!:)). Anywho, she is so real, down to earth, care free and super outspoken. She doesn't fit into the "preacher's wife" mold at all.

I could say hundreds of good things about this book. It has made me a more conscious consumer and made me analyze my "needs." It is beyond easy to get caught up in the bigger, better, now mentality and this book challenges those thoughts with Biblical backing. I think we Americans tend to forget not everyone lives in the first world or has the luxury to go buy food, clothing, or "needs" whenever they feel like it. We can't only have whatever we want whenever we want it, but we have choices and can buy everything brand spanking new if we so choose.

I ranted and raved so much about this book, I even got Josh to read it. Since I could quote half of the book I'll just give you one and STRONGLY encourage you to read the whole thing yourself! I thought this was so true and such a challenge,

 "Maturity deciphers need from want, wisdom from foolishness. Growing up means curbing appetites, shifting from "me" to "we," understanding private choices have social consequences and public outcomes." 

 She gives a list of websites that help educate you on companies that treat their employees fair and don't allow human trafficking or inhumane work environments. Let's just say free2work.org rocked my world. I'm battling H.A.R.D. with what I found on this website. Let's just say my cute, cheap baby clothes did not pass the test. I've decided that no matter how bad I want to buy that cute romper for only $7 the want isn't near as strong as me desperately not wanting to contribute to child labor! So I've decided I will only buy these brands at garage sells, thrift stores or resale shops. That's right- I'm starting to attempt to shop at thrift stores for clothes (we'll see how long it lasts). When I really think about it though, with all the hand me downs we are blessed with I really should never need to buy Annabel anything anyway.

This one seriously is a life changer! Another concept that is so simple, yet so foreign is the thought of not just living within our means, but living below them. This would give a whole new dimension to "blessed to be a blessing." I can't imagine how much more we could give if we didn't require as much to survive. What a challenge!

I'll stop raving for now... just read it!

Day with Porter

Last Wednesday, Annabel and I got to watch Porter all day while Haley helped her momma. It was a great day and a little easier than I imagined, but I definitely said a prayer for moms of multiplies:).

Holding hands

Lots of playtime

Annabel face planted as she was trying to steal a toy from Porter and busted her lip. 

Poor girl got her first bloody lip and bruise on her noggin. The frozen wash cloth fixed things in no time though:).

Blood on my shirt. I just wanted to document it. Crazy mom I know:)

This is how I carried them back and forth. Annabel thought it was so funny to steal Porter's paci.

She thought it was hilarious until he couldn't take it anymore and broke down. Then Annabel started sympathy crying. I know this makes me a horrible mom/ baby sitter for taking 10 secs to record it before I started soothing them, but it was too funny. They were competing for who could be louder! And of course this happened at 5:00- just in time to make the next 30 mins seem like an eternity:).

We love you Porter man! Thanks for playing with us!