Hat!

As we were driving back from Oklahoma this weekend, Brayden had been taking a nap. We didn't know he woke up, but then we heard, "Daddy...HAT!" We looked back at him, and this is what we saw...

He had wrapped his blanket up on his head

to be a pretty stylish hat, I must say!

Our Little Christmas Tree

Our Christmas tree is up! Brayden loved the lights so much that he wanted to act like the Christmas tree as well, all wrapped up in lights. Hopefully we'll be able to finish off the tree with all the decorations tonight. While we were taking out all the Christmas decor last night, I did something to my back, so I am currently flat on my back. I hope this doesn't last long! For now though, we are entering into the Christmas season with anticipation to experience the Lord in a new and fresh way. Come, Lord Jesus, come!

Bring on the Christmas Season!

This morning is the infamous Black Friday sales. I love this day. It is like hitting up a good garage sale, and I just get so excited to get a good deal. We'll see how it goes this year. It is WAY too cold where we are for me to be doing this, but nonetheless it's somewhat of a tradition with my family. Memories will be made, I am sure.

In other news, here's our Elf Yourself video of the year...

So Thankful

I am so thankful for my family. I am so thankful for the love that I have experienced in life with my amazing husband and the blessing and joy I have with my son. I am so thankful for my dear friends and the church that God has given us to serve Him. It's hard to put into words how amazingly blessed I feel.

But the one thing I am most grateful for is this: What great love the Father has lavished on me, that I am called a child of God. 1 John 3:1

May you too experience this great love and grace that only comes through Him. "For God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16

My Fav Cooking Blog

I am the type of person that when cooking, I tend to stick to a few favorite recipes. However, our routine was getting a little blah, so I really wanted to try some good new recipes. One of my friends from college has this AMAZING cooking blog, and so I decided to give several of her recipes a try. They were a HIT! I've made them for our family and for friends, and everyone is a fan! I especially love the ones that are done in a crock pot...makes life so much easier! Here are some of our crock pot favs... Black Bean Chicken, White Chicken Chili, Pulled Pork Tacos (who would've thought that cocoa powder and pork went together! Yum!)

Black Bean Chicken

On the sweet side, these were so good: Nutella Hot Chocolate and Pumpkin & Butterscotch Mini Muffins

Check out Ang's blog. She is so talented - not only in the kitchen, but as a wife and mom of 2 wonderful kids. Now, I just wish she lived a little closer. :)

First Fort

We all know the loud noise of the chairs scooting across the kitchen floor. Not the most pleasant sound. At first, I was like, "Seriously, stop scooting the chairs!" Then I thought that Brayden's interest in scooting all the chairs to one side of the kitchen would be the perfect opportunity to introduce him to fort building. There's nothing like a good old fort built with almost every chair, cushion, couch, and blanket in the house. We started small with a couple blankets and the 4 kitchen chairs. He thought it was pretty cool. Next time we'll have to go a little bigger!

Daddy-Son Donut Day

He loved it. He keeps talking about his chocolate donut

every time we pass by the donut place. It was

definitely some good quality Daddy-Son time!

Bobbing for...

...ICE!

It's amazing what can occupy a 2-year-old. He stood her for a good 30 minutes digging in this big bucket for ice. He found the occasional can of Coke to transfer from bucket to bucket. Me and the mom of the other boy kept thinking they were going to tip head first into the buckets of ice, because they just couldn't get far enough into them. It was hilarious, and for a few 2-year-olds, this was an super fun source of entertainment!

* Brayden is the kid on the right. Just in case you couldn't tell.

I Love You, Lord!

Jonathan sings this song with Brayden every night before bed, and tonight I was lucky enough to catch it on camera. There is NO video...it's just black. But you can hear audio of him singing the song "I love You, Lord." It's one of my all-time favorite moments.

* Sorry for my singing, but his is worth it all!

Happy Birthday Julie!

Last night, I got to celebrate my good friend Julie Kruger's 30th birthday with a great group of friends. We all met up at La Madeleine for a girls' night and dinner together, and it was such a good time!

Candace, Kasey, and Traci

Bekah, Julie, and me

Happy 30th birthday, Julie!

So Thankful

This past Saturday, I had a fun Girls Night with my sophomore group of girls. This group - all sophomore girls from Kingwood Park HS - meets each Wednesday night to study the Bible. It's been so cool to see each of them grow in their faith as they seek God more and more. I'm so thankful for these girls, and I can't wait to see how God continues to grow them closer to Him!

Christmas is in the Air!

It's hard for me to believe that Christmas is a little over a month away! The stores are beginning to be stocked full of Christmas goodies, and the streets are already getting Christmas decor. It's the beginning of the holiday season, and I must say I love it! I can't wait to begin playing Christmas music and put lights on the house...but don't worry, I won't until after Thanksgiving!

This weekend was so great! I got to officially begin the Christmas season by heading to The Nutcracker Market with some of my good friends. Whitney, Donna, and I headed down to Reliant for an amazing day of Christmas fun filled with browsing thru hundreds of incredible booths, tasting yummy goodies, and a little shopping fit into it all. Lots of fun! I'm so thankful for good friends and good times together!

Laughter...

We laugh a lot in our house. If I'm not in the mood to laugh, I am typically forced to laugh by some of the stuff Brayden does. Today, I went into his room during his naptime (because he was supposed to be napping, but wasn't!), only to find him sitting there in the middle of his bed with his blanket over his head. Just sitting there. For awhile. After about a minute, I think he sensed that I was there, and took his blanket off his head and started cracking up! Like hilarious cracking up...gut splitting laughing...I practically fell on the ground with him laughing, because I couldn't quite figure out why he had been sitting there for so long with his blanket over his head. He thought it was pretty funny too.

Anyway, I love it that when I take life too seriously and aren't enjoying every moment, my 2-year-old, with wisdom beyond his years, brings laughter and joy back into our home.

Happy Fall - Easy Craft for the Kids

Here's a super easy craft for kids to make. Brayden loved getting to pull out the glue...He had to learn that a glue stick does not equal Chapstick. Um...yeah.

We made a tree with lots of falling leaves. It's super simple. We pulled out construction paper, tissue paper, and glue (Elmer's works best). We traced his hand all the way down to his elbow onto brown construction paper and cut out the shape. We glued that down onto the orange construction paper sheet. The brown hand became the "tree."

I cut out lots of 1" squares of tissue paper in varying colors. Brayden loved crumpling them up. Once they're crumpled, simply glue each one onto the paper. Some are still on the "tree" and some are falling down to the ground. It was a great way to teach him how the leaves fall off of the trees in the Fall.

Happy Fall everyone!

I Wanna Be Like My Daddy...

He went into our closet and found several of Daddy's shoes. I walked in to the bathroom with him trying them all on. Guess he wants to be like his Daddy, and I must say that is a GREAT thing!

DIY Handprint Frame

I saw this great idea recently...I can't remember where...and I just had to recreate it with my little guy's handprint. Brayden is 2-years-old now. I traced his handprint onto patterned paper. I went back and found his handprint from the hospital (birth) and traced it onto a different patterned paper. I also traced a handprint from when he was one-year-old onto a different color paper. I cut out each of his handprints and then stacked them, with the oldest handprint in the back.

I mounted the handprints onto paper with a glue stick and put it into a frame. I wrapped the frame's basic white matting with some light brown burlap...It was a little thick...but it went with my decor. You could just put this in a regular frame or one with a plain mat.

It's so fun to look and see how my little guy has grown so much...from his handprints from birth, 1 year, and now 2 years. I plan to add on handprints each year, so I can see how much he is growing.

Our entryway area with the Paperbook Wreath,

my new table, picture frames awaiting the

perfect 2 pictures, and some other fun decor.

Putnam's Pumpkin Party

I have not carved a pumpkin since college. It's been a long time. I don't know why we don't carve them each year, but they usually just sit on our porch for a week or so. I was so excited when I found out that our good friends - the Putnams - were having a Pumpkin Carving Party.

After picking out pumpkins at our Pumpkin Patch, we were ready for some good ole carving. It was such a great party, and Whitney did an AMAZING job with the decorations and the fun food. It was quite impressive!

Jonathan pulled out all the guts, and I carved the pumpkin. I carved a pretty basic face, but I was so impressed with a lot of other people's carving skills...a spiderweb, fall leaves and acorns, a Rockets logo, and much more. I'm gonna have to up my game next year...ha!

What a great night...thanks Putnams!

Jonathan was excited about carving

the top of the pumpkin to clean it out...

...until he saw the guts inside. Bahahahahahahaha

The whole group in front of our carved pumpkins

Whitney & Michael Putnam

Gina, Whitney, and I

The fam with our punkin' and pumpkin :)

Pumpkin Patch 2010

Every year, we head over to a local pumpkin patch to pick out some pumpkins. We knew we wanted to get one to carve (pictures to come) and one for Brayden. Here's some pictures from our time there...

Picking out the PERFECT pumpkin

They have this bench that we've gotten a picture of Brayden on each year. It is so fun to see how he has grown. It's kind of freaking me out how grown up he is getting!

3 months old (2008 post)

15 months old (last year's post)

2 years...WOW!

Super Hero Night

Our church had Super Hero Night for the kids this year. It was a night filled with the Super Heroes from our summer Vacation Bible School, fun music, a great message, and lots of fun for the kids. We headed down to the Woodway campus with some of our friends - the Mathews and Krugers. The kids put on their costumes and had a blast.

Dancing away

Brayden and Priya

The boys with the kids

Julie, Kasey, and I with the 3 kids

Trick-or-Treat

SPIDERMAN!!!

This year, Brayden dressed up as Spiderman for Halloween. He LOVED his muscles and that he was SO strong. We went from house to house in our neighborhood to trick-or-treat...or to "Choo Choo Treat" as Brayden called it. He was so cute running up to each house, ringing the doorbell, and saying "choo choo treat."

We ended up sitting out in our driveway all night in lawn chairs to hand out candy. We saw a lot of our neighbors doing that, so we thought it was a great idea. It was such a nice night out, and it was a great way to meet a lot of the people and kids in our neighborhood.

Sitting out in our driveway handing out candy

YUM...candy!

Sleeping Away

I rarely, if ever, get pictures of Brayden sleeping during his afternoon nap. I would love to - the natural light is so great during the afternoon - but he sleeps pretty lightly during this time. However, I found out if I go in when it is about time for him to wake up, I can snap a few. I opened his blinds to let in the light, turned off the sound on my camera, and it turns out that some pretty precious shots of my little guy came out.

DIY Paper Book Wreath

I just got finished re-doing my entryway wall, and I knew when I started that I wanted something unique to go in the space. I was super excited when I saw this idea from Living with Lindsay, because I loved the idea of a non-traditional wreath made from the pages of a book. It's something that adds dimension to the space, and it is super inexpensive...only a few dollars for supplies.

Here's what you need for the project:

10" foam wreath

Paper back book - around 200 pages should be enough

Hot glue gun & glue sticks

Brown & Gray craft paint

A couple paper towels

Small piece of ribbon - around 4-5 inches long

Unsharpened pencil (for pushing down hot glued pages)

Start out with your book of choice that will become the wreath. I wanted to do something that I wouldn't mind seeing the text of every so often, that's why I didn't want to get a random romance novel from a garage sale...you never know what you'll find written on the pages! I like a classic book, so I found The Canterbury Tales at a thrift shop for a mere $1! Score! You could do pages from any book you want - a favorite classic book or even an old Bible...I think it would be an okay thing for the pages of Scripture to be used artfully on your wall.

Next, take the brown paint and put a little onto the paper towel, and smear it onto the sides of the book. Then take a little gray paint and smear it onto the pages as well. This will make the pages look aged, if you don't already have an aged book. Set your book on a paper towel to dry for 5-10 minutes. (If you gently flip through the book after painting, it will make sure your pages don't stick together. When you're ready to rip pages out, flip through it again, and they should pop apart.)

Next, go ahead and rip the pages out of the book to begin the process of making the wreath.

You'll roll the pages of the book individually and glue them to the wreath. You can roll it in any way you want, but make sure not to crease the pages or fold them. Check here for a video tutorial on how to roll pages from Living with Lindsay's blog post.

After rolling your page, put a little glue on the end and stick it to the wreath. Make sure your painted edges are facing out.

Make a layer all around the wreath of rolled pages...

When you've completed one layer around the wreath, flip it over. This will become the bottom of the wreath. You can set something heavy on it for a few minutes to make sure it lays a little flatter.

Now you'll begin filling in your wreath with pages. You can see on the right side of the picture below, I began to make layers. You'll do this by taking the rolled pages and folding a little tab onto the end and glueing the tab down. Use an unsharpened pencil to push down the paper rolls onto your wreath...This will help you avoid a LOT of glue burns! Continue glueing the pages all around the wreath, finishing one layer before moving to the next.

Once you're getting closer to the center, you can roll the inside layer of the wreath. You'll do this similar to the bottom/first layer. You don't need to fold a tab, just roll and glue it to the inside of the wreath.

Continue until the inside ring is done. Then, you can work your way up to meet with the other rolled pages.When you get done, you'll have some gaps in the wreath (You can see spaces of white in the picture below). Simply roll up pages and stick them down into the wreath without a tab. They don't even have to stick to the foam wreath itself, but they'll stick to the other pages and fill in the gaps. It's okay if they're not exactly the same height, as this will add height and dimension to your wreath.

Once you complete your wreath, take your piece of ribbon and attach it to the back of your wreath with glue. This will be your hanger for the wreath. You can put in a couple straight pins to secure it, or if you use enough glue, it should be just fine!

You're done! Now find the perfect place to hang your wreath! I put mine in my entry way, and just love seeing it every time I come in my house!