Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Nursery Inspiration

 I have dreamed about a baby girls nursery for a looooong time.  And I have ohed and ahed over little girl clothes and accessories for ages.  

I have been camping out on pinterest and etsy since we found out that we are expecting a baby girl.  Every time I look at girl nurseries I'm always drawn to ones with blue in them.  I blame it on being a boy mom for six years.  I knew when I started looking I wanted something pink and aqua/teal.  

I love this bedding and almost positive this is the bedding I want for sweet baby Sydney.  I love that it not only had pink and aqua but also green.  I don't know if we will paint her room or not but I love the aqua.  I love the paint colors in our home and don't even want hang anything because I have to put a hole in the wall.  I will get over it eventually, ha!

I love love love this monogram over the crib.  

I love a hand painted canvas.  The boys each have one and I love them so much.  


Friday, November 21, 2014

5 on Friday

So I'm linking up for Five on Friday today!

1.  Thanksgiving Feast Day 1

It's been a festive week around here.  Both boys had their Thanksgiving Feasts at school.  Yesterday was Colton's big day.  His class dressed up as Pilgrims.  
James Alden enjoying his turkey dinner.  

Colton with his sweet little classmates.  He loves his teachers Miss Beth and Miss Gay.  
Sadly he didn't eat much food.  He's had a runny nose the last couple days and tonight I could tell he just didn't feel well.  Bless him!  Hope he wakes up feeling much better in the morning.  


2. Thanksgiving Feast day 2
Today was Ryan's Turkey day feast with his class.  He's been talking about it all week.  His class dressed as Native American.  His Indian name was Runs Fast!  Perfect for that boy.  He never slows down.  

Ryan with all of his class and teachers.  He has the best class this year and awesome teachers.  There are nine boys and only two girls - Elsa and Anna, isn't that ironic, ha!

I was privileged to get to go to both events this week and spend time with my little pilgrim and indian.  


3.  Turkey Day Cookies
I made these cookies this week in preparation of Thanksgiving next week!  I love these adorable pumpkin pies and this is my favorite turkey!


4.  Thankful for great friends
This is Ryan and his friend Nikell from school.  Ryan talks about his school buddies all the time.  His teacher told me recently that you would never know that Ryan is a new student in their school this year.  That made my heart so happy to hear that.  He is adjusting well and loves, loves school, his teachers and especially his new friends.  


5.  It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year
I am looking forward to a relaxing weekend with my people.  We don't have much on the agenda and planing to hang out in pi's tomorrow, make pancakes in the morning, finish decorating the Christmas tree and organize the bonus room.   I love this time of year and spending quality time with the people that I love the very most.  

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

22 Weeks and a baby name

So it's been a while since I've done a pregnancy update.  It's funny how things change when it's your 3rd baby.  We are thrilled and so excited for this baby but pregnancy the third time around definitely takes a back burner.  I'm a little busy taking care of two little boys, a husband and two weenie dogs.  

I'm 22 weeks and my belly and our sweet baby girl are growing rapidly.  This pregnancy is moving along.  I am feeling pretty good.  Still doing my group fitness classes at the gym but by 2 o'clock when we get home, I am exhausted and ready to sit down and rest.  

I'm sleeping pretty well.  Baby girl seems to wake every morning when I do.  I'm feeling her movement more and more each day.  I feel her mostly when I sit down.  

I don't have any specific food cravings.  Honestly nothing really sounds good most of the time.  The only thing I can't get enough of are these watermelon flavored sour gummies I found at Kroger.  I've been taking prilosec daily so thankfully I don't have any heartburn.  

Ryan and Colton are incredibly excited and talk about the baby all the time.  They love to put their ear to my belly to see if they can hear the baby.  Colton says he can hear the baby crying.  Ryan loves to tell me how he's going to be a big helper when she comes.  

Baby girl officially has a name.  We've had a girl since before Ryan was born.  

Sydney Deborah 

Her name is Sydney Deborah and we will call her Sydney.  We both fell in love with the name before we even had Ryan.  We've been holding on to it for a long time.  Deborah is after Matt's mom who passed when he was thirteen.  

I ordered these two pretties on etsy a few weeks ago and they came in the mail today. I was soooo excited when I saw them.  They are SO pretty.  The pink one is a long sleeve gown with bow headband and the other is a short sleeve onesie.  I'm obsessed and in big trouble.  Rather Matt is in big trouble.  


We are pretty excited about our sweet baby girl Sydney.  Now we are ready to start counting down til when we meet her.  

Monday, November 17, 2014

Five on Monday

So I had every intention of doing Five on Friday but the day just got away from me and by the time I sat down on Friday night I was exhausted!  So today I'm gonna do a Five on Monday!


1.  Turning the big 3-5
My birthday was on Thursday and I turned 35.  It was a great day.  The boys had school so Matt took me to lunch!  It was great spending time with my honey.  I enjoyed all the sweet phone calls, text and Facebook messages from such sweet friends wishing me a happy birthday.  

I ordered a birthday cake from Puffy Muffin.  I have heard they have the most amazing cakes in Nashville!  I just got a small cake since it was just for me and my people.  I just told them to do a white cake with fall colored flowers.  I was stunned when I saw the cake.  I think it's the most beautiful cake I've ever had.  My only regret is I didn't order a bigger cake, ha!  It was as delicious as it looks!


2.  Go Fish
 Last week I took the boys shopping for our operation shoeboxes.  It's one of my favorite things to do with the boys this time of year.  We discussed how this shoebox was going to a little boy and a little girl who doesn't have a lot of toys and that this shoebox may be the only thing he/she will get for Christmas.  The boys had a great time picking out things for their shoebox.

While we were at Wal-Mart I picked up a Go Fish card game for Ryan.  He loves games and I thought he would love it.  Well I was right and he is completely obsessed with the game.  He begs to play all the time.  I've enjoyed playing with him in the afternoon while Colton naps.  Best $2 i've spent in a while.  


3.  Baby it's cold outside!
It has gotten super cold here so we busted out the flannel pajamas.  (Thankfully no snow like the 5 inches Cincinnati got overnight!)  The boys look adorable in matching pajamas.  


4.  Birthday Dinner
To celebrate my birthday we took the boys to dinner Saturday night.  We went to The Pharmacy in East Nashville.  I have heard they have the best burger in town and a pretty trendy place here in Nashville.  It was really yummy and the best part was the chocolate milkshakes after our meal.  As you can see the boys agreed!


5.  It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.
And this happened when we got home after dinner.  Our previous Christmas tree decided to bite the dust last year when over half the lights burned out so we got a new tree this year.  I am VERY happy with our new tree and cannot wait to decorate the rest of it.  It looks so beautiful!  Ryan has asked every day when are we going to put the ornaments on.  


So that was the end of our week and our weekend!  
 

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Apple Pie

Ryan and Colton love the book Amelia Bedelia's Apple Pie.  We always read it this time of year and they always laugh and enjoy the book.  At the end of the book there is an Apple Pie recipe.  

I LOVE apple pie and decided we needed to make one, this week!  Ryan helped me make it on Monday and let me tell you!  It was one very delicious apple pie!  Probably the best apple pie I've ever made myself.  I think we will have to bring apple pie to Thanksgiving in a couple weeks!  Here is the recipe is your want to try it.  (I did not use this crust recipe as I just bought already made Pillsbury dough from Kroger)


 Amelia Bedelia's Apple Pie

Crust
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp  cinnamon
2 sticks cold unsalted butter cut unto small pieces
1/2 cup very cold water 
1 T white vinegar

Combine the first four ingredients in a bowl.  Add the butter and cut into the flour thoroughly until the mixture resembles course crumbs, using two blunt dinner knives or a pastry blender.  Sprinkle the mixture with very cold water and vinegar.  Mix this until the dough comes together and shape into two flat circular disks, wrap each disk separately in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour.  

Filling:
8 cups peeled and thinly sliced apples (any variety except Delicious)
1/2 cup flour
2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 T unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 lemon

Putting it pie together:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. 

Remove the dough from the refrigerator and allow it to rest at room temperature for about 5 minutes. Put the dough disks between two pieces of plastic wrap, and roll them out into two circles, each about 10 inches in diameter.  Peel the plastic wrap off the top of the first circle of dough.  Turn the dough, top side down, into a 9-inch pie pan, and peel the remaining plastic wrap off the dough in the pie pan.  Add the apple mixture to the pie pan and dot the top with butter.  Squeeze the juice of the lemon half over the mixture. 

Peel one piece of plastic wrap off of the second dough circle and place it, top side down, over the apple mixture.  Peel one piece of plastic wrap off of the second dough circle and plat it, top side down, over the apple mixture.  Peel the remaining plastic wrap off of the pie dough.  Pinch the top and bottom crusts together at the edge of the pan, and form a stand-up edge on the rim of the pie pan.  

Cut 4-6 vent holes in the top of the crust (each vent should be about 1 inch long). Bake the pie in the center of the oven at 400 degrees for an hour, or until the pie is golden and the juices are thick and bubbly.  Cool completely before serving.  

Monday, November 10, 2014

Our Weekend

 I am still in shock over our exciting news that we are having a baby GIRL!!!!  Someone pinch me!  



We had a somewhat busy weekend.  Saturday morning Ryan had a birthday party for a friend from school.  He was so excited to see and play with all his school friends.  They had the best time running around the park "playing" football!  Ryan has 9 boys and only 2 girls in his class.  The girls are Elsa and Anna - how ironic right, haha!  Ryan loves his friends at school and talks about them constantly.  I am SO thankful for a wonderful preschool and a great school year.  

After the birthday party we headed to Ryan's last soccer game of the season. He did awesome!  I think it was the best I have seen his team play all season.  Ryan had a blast.  



The rest of the afternoon the boys rested while I went shopping.  I seriously couldn't help myself - I have been waiting SO long to go shopping for a little girl.  I was in heaven and totally fell in love his every appliquéd and smocked dress I saw!  And yes, yes I did buy sweet baby girl her first smocked dress!  It's beautiful and it might just be her coming-home-from-the-hospital outfit.  


I also bought these two super soft kissy kissy sleepers.  

And I have a little confession...I bought these adorable outfits this summer in the shear hopes and prayers that we would be having a little girl who would one day wear them.  I got them on a super discount and figured I would just give them as gifts if we were to have another boy.  Oh I was so tickled and excited to pull these out of my closet.  



Daddy's latest saying is "Mt. Bicepious" and then showing your bicep muscles.  The boys thought it was so funny and started copying daddy the other night.  I had to get a picture of them.  So cute.  They are too much!


Thursday, November 6, 2014

It's a.....

I don't even know what to say...  I am still in such a shock.  

 
Yesterday was my 20 week ultrasound and we found out that we will be welcoming a sweet baby GIRL to our wild bunch come March!!!  

Matt and I both came in saying it was another boy.  That's all we've ever known.  I had prepared myself that we would have three adorable wild boys and that would be great.  It would be crazy but the boys would love having another brother and we know boys!  The life of cars, trains and trucks is our norm and I LOVE it.  

So baby #3...we've been wanting another baby for over a year now and we really wanted and prayed for a girl because that was both of our hearts' desire but ultimately we prayed God would bless our family with another sweet bundle of love.  We have had so much change this year!  It's kinda hard to wrap my head around it. 

We have been so excited about this new little bundle.  I've been praying for a healthy and thriving baby all along.  Going in to our appointment yesterday I just wanted to hear that our baby was healthy and perfect.  

The technician quickly called us back and it was showtime!  She asked us immediately if we wanted to know the gender and we both said "YES!!!"  Matt was saying "it's probably a boy, that's what we know, that's what we do".  

As soon as she put the probe to my belly you could instantly see our baby bouncing and moving around.  What a praise to God!!!  We saw the baby's profile then she moved down to the legs and bottom.  She said "I can tell what it is, can you tell".  Immediately I saw the "girl parts" and started saying "is it a girl, oh my word is it a girl???"  Indeed our sweet little baby is a GIRL!!!! I put my hands to my mouth and about fell off the table!  I had tears of joy!  We couldn't believe it!  I remember just looking back at Matt to see his expression.  He is thrilled and has wanted a little daddy's girl for a while.  

The boys are so cute and very excited about having a little sister.  Ryan has been convinced since day one that she was a girl.  I cannot wait to see them as big brothers and see what they do with a girl.  I know they will love her so much and she will have two big brothers to watch out for her.  

Now it's time to start shopping!!!  This mommy has waited a loooong time to shop for a sweet baby girl!  I love shopping and dressing the boys but i've been told it's a whole new wonderful thing to shop for a girl!  Matt doesn't know what is going to hit him.  The amount of pink, ribbons, and bows will be enough to drive him crazy, ha!  I told my penny-pinching-accounting-hubs that we need to revise the budget pronto!  

Monday, November 3, 2014

Weekend Wrap-up

 
We had a quiet weekend around here.  I have been debating whether I wanted to send out "we've moved" postcards to our friends and family or just send our Christmas cards early.  We had our family pictures taken a few weeks ago so I could send some cards out pretty quick.  Once I realized it would take over a week I decided we would just do early Christmas cards. 

I've been battling this sinus junk over the weekend.  The boys both had runny noses last week but it didn't turn in to anything else.  Sadly I've had a sore throat and nasty congestion.  I spent lots of time relaxing this weekend and catching up on more Scandal episodes.