Wordless | Turtle Farm Sneak Peak


More on the Turtle Farm tomorrow! :o)

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Toddle Along Tuesday—Nurseries

This weeks Toddle Along Tuesday is all about nurseries.

When Hannah was born we were still building our current house. We were living in Nick's grandma's house (who was in Florida for the winter), so when Hannah was born she did not have her own room. She slept in the cradle in our room.

So once our house was far enough to start decorating, Hannah's room was one of the first that I wanted to tackle.

Here are some photos from before we moved in.
I loved the muted colors of her bedding and based the feature wall off of those colors.
still in need of closet doors.
We found these adorable wall butterflies for her room and I love them.
Not pictured is her bookshelf, all of her hair bows hanging from a letter 'H', and her cubicle furniture piece filled with toys. I am really lacking in the detailed picture department. :o(

3 years later and her room is mostly the same...her crib has just been converted to a day bed and add tons more toys. :oP

I am currently in the process of designing her 'big girl' room though and I am excited to start working on it.


With Colson's room we had to convert our office/spare bedroom. Here is what it looked right before we moved in. Any photos from later on are all too embarrassingly messy to show you! :oP
Here is his room after I repainted the walls. I am in love with this brown wall color. If I wasn't too lazy I would go find the name of it, but alas, I remain in my seat and the paint color remains nameless. Sorry!
This photo was taken before I managed to put the shelf above his changing table. But now there is a shelf with some photos and stuffed animals.

The colored rectangles on the wall are just fabric covered pieces of foam core. Super easy and I love how it turned out.
Not pictured is his dresser with 'COLSON' spelled out above it in wooden plaque letters.

We have since moved the glider into the living room to act as an actual piece of furniture. Sadly, I don't use it much anymore to rock him so we figured it would be used more if it was in the living room.

He also got 2 of these for his birthday and they flank either side of his crib. They house his toys and books.

So there you have it! Our kiddos nurseries. :o)

Link up with Toddle Along Tuesday over at Growing Up Geeky!

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1st Family Vacation—Part 1

Last week, we were no where close to home.

We had ventured out on our 1st family vacation. Yes, you read that right... FAMILY vacation...with a 1 and 3 year old. Are we crazy? Slightly! But we had a blast! We left on my husband's 30th birthday! :o)

Where did we go, you ask?

To the beautiful island of Grand Cayman.

Although, I told my in-laws (who were also on vacation with us) that I was going to tell everyone who asked me that question, that I went on vacation to every bathroom from here to Grand Cayman. I swear, Hannah had to pee in every bathroom we came across...three times alone in the bathroom on the flight down to Miami. Ugh. (YAY family vacation!)

Anyways....so while you where seeing a few random blog posts by me... I was actually no where near my computer, but rather, I was enjoying the sun and the sand. A far cry from the dreary cold weather back here in the midwest and a very welcomed change!


I figured it might be best to break up my posts about our vacation and have a few short ones instead of a super long post.

So we'll start off with our first few days.

To say I was stressing about the plane ride, would be an understatement. I had no idea how they would act.
Luckily, they were pretty perfect.
Hannah eventually fell asleep and when she wasn't sleeping she was coloring or playing on her Leap Pad.
And Colson just hung out...like he always does.
Neither one of them had problems with their ears...at least on the flights there. One the flight home, Hannah had a bit of trouble but nothing too crazy. You could just tell she was uncomfortable.
We got into Grand Cayman in the late afternoon. The first thing we did was change out of our 'cold weather clothes' and into our shorts. Ahhhh, it was great! I had never been on a vacation where I left one season and ended up in another. It was so nice to not have to wear a coat! And my feet were loving the flip flops! :o)

We headed to the beach by our hotel (The Grand Caymanian, for those who are wondering). It was beautiful.
That is our hotel behind me and Colson.

To celebrate Nick's 30th birthday, we went out to dinner that night.
This is what I got. Can we say, YUM!?
 The following morning, we headed to the beach.
Colson was investigating the sand. It took him a while to get used to it. At first he wasn't too sure he wanted to stand in it, let alone play in it.
 Hannah couldn't get to the sand fast enough!
Then we got our swim gear on and headed for the pool.

Colson was not a fan of his swim hats, at first.

Hannah is a fish. She loved everything about swimming. I feel bad that she now has to wait another 4 months before she can go swimming again. :o(
Monday morning we headed to the Turtle Farm. It was pretty cool and deserves its own blog post! :o) So I will post photos from that soon!

Later that day, since there were no cruise boats on the island, we decided to do a little shopping in George Town.


Now, I don't want you to think that our kids never took a nap. They needed to take a nap. It wasn't even an option to let them go without a true nap. So everyday we came back up into the room and put them down for about a 2 hour nap. Colson slept in a pack n play in the living room while Hannah slept in the bedroom. Not once did we have a problem. Colson did pretty well adjusting from his normal 2 nap a day schedule to just one nap. I think they were both just exhausted from swimming and playing each morning that they went down with no problem!

As for me and Nick during those two hours??? We had some friendly games of Yahtzee out on our balcony.

I mean this was our view. Can you think of a better view while playing Yahtzee? I can't! :o)
And we would enjoy these. Conch Fritters! OMG! So good!

Okay, vacation—part 2 post coming soon! :o)

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Wordless Wednesday

Rocking an after bath mohawk!!!



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Miss Pinky Whiskers

For Hannah's birthday, her Auntie Mandi and Uncle Travis (aka Dawesome) got her a Build a Bear gift card. The other week they were finally able to take Hannah out to the mall so she could create her new friend.

Meet Miss Pinky Whiskers. :o)
 How stinkin' cute is it that their outfits match!? :oP


According to auntie and uncle, Hannah had a blast! And from the photos above, I think you can tell that she loves her new friend very much! :o)

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Happiest Birthday, My Love!

Today my wonderful husband turns the big 3-0.

We have now known each other and been together for half of our lives.

What an accomplishment!

What a journey!

We have loved and lost. Laughed and cried. We have grown so much together--from teenagers who couldn't drive to husband and wife. We have shared many fun adventures together--we have traveled together and we have built our own family.

Happiest birthday, my love! May it be your best birthday yet!

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Friday Phone Dump









I am really loving some of my instagram photos. I think a purchase from StickyGram is in my near future! :o)

Toddle Along Tuesday—Parties

I love planning a good party.

I love being crafty. I love planning out a menu. I love watching people have a good time. I take full advantage of all of those things when it comes to planning my kiddo's birthday parties.

Sometimes I think that maybe I go over the top. My husband KNOWS I go over the top, but I enjoy it! And so does everyone who comes to the party! The countless hours of making decorations and cooking food is worth it to me (and fun for me)!

For Toddle Along Tuesday with Growing Up Geeky, this week, I thought I would post a few photos from each birthday party that I have planned...instead of linking to just one party.

Hannah's 1st Birthday:
Hannah's 1st birthday had a butterfly theme.
I made tons of little paper butterflies and hung them all over the place.
I made popcorn cones and tissue paper flower favors with chocolate covered pretzels inside.
We had beautiful chocolate butterflies on cupcakes and her smash cake.

Hannah's 2nd Birthday:
We went with bumble bees for Hannah's 2nd birthday.
I made little bees and had them buzzing over the food.


Hannah's 3rd Birthday:
Hannah's 3rd birthday is, by far, my favorite party that I have planned so far.
It was a tea party theme.
I made tons of little finger foods: tea sandwiches and different types of skewered foods.
We had a drink station where people could make their own tea.


Colson's 1st Birthday:
Colson's 1st birthday party was all about dots. I loved how everything came together!
I made chocolate covered oreos, rainbow jello and red velvet cupcakes with suckers.
We had a pasta bar. People could add in their own mix-ins to their pasta.
I hung tons of balloons from the ceiling.
Even his smash cake matched the dot theme--a great find from Target!

To say that I LOVE Pinterest, would be an understatement! It played a big roll in planning Hannah's 3rd birthday and Colson's 1st birthday.

Be sure to click the links to the blog posts for each individual party. There are more photos and details in those posts!

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