Blog Party Wednesday

I'm linking up with Jamie again for her blog party! Click the picture above to see what others are loving today.

I'm LOVING that yesterday was my birthday!

I'm LOVING that we are going to our beach house this weekend and will start remodeling Parker's bedroom!

I'm LOVING that my husband bought me a hammock for my birthday! I can't wait to lounge on it and read a good book while sipping on some sweet tea and listening to Parker play with his toys in the yard.

I'm LOVING that I had a new feather added to my hair today.

I'm LOVING my awesome hubby and sweet baby boy!

I'm LOVING pinterest (still) so I'm linking up for this fun party as well!



Here are my pinterest pins of the week:

Using PVC to organize straighteners and curling irons on a cabinet door. Genius!


I'm not such a crafty gal that I have tons of ribbon laying around, but for the few bolts that I do have, this is a much nicer way to keep them organized rather than floating around in my sewing machine cabinet drawer.


Baked mozzarella cheese sticks. Yummy!


A cute and nice smelling way to store my make up brushes.


The inspiration for our kitchen cabinets at our beach house. We are staining them grey and I'm sooooo excited about it!


Just because I love blown glass.





Happy Wednesday, y'all!

I'm joining the club!

The thirty club that is! That's right! Today's my birthday and I'm THIRTY!!!


Yes, believe it or not, unlike most women, I'm actually excited and happy to be thirty. I read on a website that women have two different outlooks on turning thirty. One being that a woman is excited and happy to continue living her life as a responsible adult. The other is that a woman is sad to see her youth end and questions her decisions as a young adult. If it's not obvious from the statement at the beginning of this post, I'm in the group that is happy to be turning thirty. And why wouldn't I? I have some great thirty year old role models!


Natalie Portman I was so happy to watch Natalie win an Oscar at this years Academy Awards. She is always a delight to watch on screen and although I haven't had the opportunity to watch Black Swan, I have no doubt that she deserved the award. Not only is she a new mom, she's also intelligent, poised, and beautiful. A perfect thirty year old role model!








Misty
She is one of my best friends (and I creepily stole one of her facebook pictures. Ha, ha, it's ok because I doubt she'll even read this!). I'm so happy that we met in college and have continued to maintain such a great friendship. Not only is she a fierce independent woman, she is also a homeowner, she is not afraid to speak her mind and stand up for what she believes in, she would pull over on the side of a road to help a turtle cross the street, she works full time as a social worker and sees things that I can't even begin to imagine, and for the past year she has selflessly devoted her time and energy in being a foster mom to a cute baby girl. I should probably mention that she's single...which is inspiring to me because I know for a fact if I were a single woman I would not be able to do what Misty does. Isn't she beautiful (both inside and out)? A perfect thirty year old role model!



Alicia Keys Ever since I first heard Alicia Keys belting out "Fallen" on the radio I have been a fan. I think her voice and piano skills are amazing. Although she came onto the scene at a younger age, I always appreciated the fact that I never saw her in any tabloid magazines acting like an idiot. She's talented, inspiring, beautiful, and is also a mother. A perfect thirty year old role model!

Now you can see why I'm so excited to become a part of the Thirty Club!

Despite turning thirty, when it comes right down to it, I'm still one of these at heart.


Which means I still love getting these.


I'm always excited to see what my husband will give me for my birthday (because as much as I love getting presents, he is the only person I actually expect a present from). He told me that he ordered my gift online a couple of weeks ago. He was pretty disappointed to find out that what he ordered is actually on back order. (Which in my mind means it must be pretty awesome, right?)

My hubby is never the greatest at keeping secrets so he began asking me if I wanted any hints. At first I said no, but as my big day approached I started to get giddy with anticipation and I finally broke down and asked for a hint. I'll share them with you so maybe y'all can help me guess what my present is!

Let me start by telling you that I told him on more than one occasion that a "perfect" birthday present would be one of the following:

1. Britney Spears concert tickets
2. Invisalign
3. A fork ring

He promptly told me that my present was none of the above. :)

Here are the two hints he gave me:

1. I can't take it with me to the bathroom (random)
2. It's not white

Yup. That really narrows it down. Hmmm....

I'll be honest, at first I was thinking he was probably going to buy me a kindle or a nook or one of those e-reader type things because he hates all the books I have. However, I'm pretty sure if I really wanted to I could take that with me into the bathroom. I'm stumped! Oh well!

Now, for those of you who are approaching thirty and you are not too excited about it, maybe you can look at it this way: thirty is just a fancy way of saying you're EIGHTEEN plus twelve years experience!

16 months old!

Little Parker is 16 months old today! And my oh my is he ever an active toddler!! Just ten minutes ago he figured out how to pull himself up on top of the coffee table. (Yikes!) Two days before he learned how to pull up into the rocking chair. Luckily he can get down from the chair easily but I'm afraid he'll just crawl right off of the coffee table and hurt himself.

I mentioned in my last "month old" post that he was still in 12 month old clothes. About four days later I had to eat my words and he began wearing his 18 month wardrobe. Now that he's becoming such a big boy I'm finding myself wishing I would have held him more as an infant. I know people kept telling me to enjoy him as a baby and to not worry so much about other things. I think I used his swing way too much and am now wishing I could turn back time. But, I digress....

Parker's vocabulary expanded quite a bit this past month. He knows several words, although he may not say the entire word. So, as of now, here are all the words Parker says (if he doesn't say the word right I'll write next to it how he pronounces it).

1. DaDa
2. MaMa
3. Uh-Oh
4. All Done
5. Dog (daa)
6. Ball (Baa)
7. Baby
8. C'Mon (mon...complete with the finger motion!)
9. Outside (ahh saa)
10. Book (buh)
11. No
12. Pretty (preh)
13. Nose (No)
14. Eye
15. Belly button (ba ba)
16. Cheerios (O) (And his mouth forms the cutest little "O" you've ever seen!)
17. Hi
18. Bye
19. Bug (buh)
20. Bubble (bub bub)

He has not learned any new signs but I'm still doing a few different words with hopes that he'll catch on.

I wrote above that he is saying nose, eye, and belly button. We have been teaching him body parts. What's amazing is he knows where they are, both on him, or on Greg or myself. If you ask where his belly button is, he'll lift his shirt and point at his belly button. If you ask where his nose is, he sticks his finger up his nose and says nose. Ha, ha! He knows what ears are as well but he doesn't say it. One day he had a bug bite on his knee and I pointed at it and said, "Boo-boo." He found that super hilarious and laughed and pointed at his knee and repeated the word, "boo-boo". I continued to do it a couple more times, but figured I'd better stop because I didn't want him referring to knees as "boo-boo's".

He has taken a great interest in learning how to use a spoon or fork (or my favorite, a spork!) to feed himself. I hate to admit it, but this is something that drives me crazy! Although I know he needs to learn how to use those utensils, it tends to slow down the eating process and now he wants to eat only if he's holding on to his silverware and half the time he wants mine, too. I'm sure this is common but normally when he's feeding himself he turns the spoon or spork over before it makes it into his mouth. As long as he's eating yogurt or applesauce it tends to stay on the spoon until he puts it in his mouth. I've also begun using plastic plates with him and he does a pretty good job about not picking the plate up and tossing it to the ground or dumping his food. His favorite foods include: cheerios, fruit, goldfish, yogurt, vanilla wafers, cheetos, macaroni and cheese, meatloaf (a man after my own heart!), corn, and peas.

Parker's favorite things are:

* playing outside
* watching Baby Einstein ( I only let him watch about 2 episodes a week )
* being chased around the living room furniture
* taking a bath
* dogs
* He loves it when I sit on the floor and he runs in circles around me
* When I make the bed. He thinks it's a game.
* dancing
* bubbles

This is proof that he is a growing boy! He surprised me by being able to reach this off of the bathroom sink.


He can also open drawers and pull things out, and he's bugun reaching onto tables and pulling things off. Another favorite activity is to dig in the trash. Which means the trash cans are placed on top of tables (haven't you heard, that's the new "in" centerpiece), and tables and countertops are either empty or everything is pushed to the center so he can't reach it.

Shhh....


I've reduced Parker down to one nap a day and it's after lunch. When I was giving him two naps a day he was always cranky after his second nap (which usually only lasted 30 mintues) so I decided to eliminate it. Now he typically wakes up happy and stays that way for the remainder of the day.

He was so focused on his Baby Einstein video it surprised me when he looked up and gave me this adorable grin.


He loves being outside!


I am 16 months old! When mommy weighed me last weekend I was 24 pounds and was 25 inches long!

Our First Date

of 2011. Seriously folks! The weekend before last the hubby and I got to go on a date! And since our lives have been so hectic, it was our first date since October. Do the math. That's ten months! I could have grown an entire human being in my belly since the last time Greg and I were able to leave Parker with someone we trust so we could enjoy a date night! Or, in this case, a date morning. What did we do?

Drum roll please....

We went on a Poker Run!

What's a poker run you may ask? Well, let me try to explain. Poker Runs are public events that are usually used to earn money for a charity. They can be done in cars, boats, or in this case, by motorcycle! Basically each contestant pays the entry fee. Then you are given a map of different places to "draw a card" kind of like playing a game of poker. I've only been on two poker runs. The first everyone left as a big group to the next place. This particular poker run was a little different in that everyone left at different times. While there were about thirty bikes in this poker run, we arrived with our "group" of six and they are who we rode with the entire time.

We had five stops and at each stop we drew a card (Or in this case we drew poker chips with numbers written on them). At the end of the poker run they added up the numbers we drew from each stop. Then, the person with the highest and lowest hand won some money. Now that I have thoroughly confused you (and myself) I'll move on. Sadly, we didn't win any money. But, the poker run was to raise money for two of the local schools. And although we didn't win money, both winners actually turned their money back over and donated it to the school as well which was really awesome of them to do.

However, we did win a trophy. Why? Well, the organizers of the poker run were giving away two trophies. One went to the best bike and the other went to the best bike group. Both trophies were dedicated to two men in the community who had passed away but who were both bikers. One of those said bikers was my father in law (I would like to note that neither men had deaths that were caused by being on their motorcycle). There were several people down in the neighborhood that our lake house is at and they were the group of six that we rode around on. We were voted the "Best Group" and that happened to be the trophy with my father in laws name on it. I think the voting was a little rigged, but needless to say our group won and they gave the trophy to Greg.

After the poker run our little group wanted to go to a bar and have a drink in my father in laws memory. We stayed there about an hour and enjoyed some cool beverages before heading back to the house.

I have to give a huge shout out to my mom for driving down to the lake house the night before to spend the night with us so she could watch Parker since we left at the crack of dawn. I know she was more than happy to spend the morning with him and I was more than happy to have a small break.

Since I've obviously slacked off when it comes to blogging, y'all should not be surprised when I say I forgot to take my camera on the poker run. Luckily I asked my mom to take a quick snap shot of us before we left!



Although I'm not going to hold my breath, I hope I'll be able to blog about another date with my hubby pretty soon!

Blog Party Wednesday!

I'm linking up with Jamie again for her blog party. Click here to see what others are loving this Wednesday!

Here's what I'm loving today:



Chocolate peanut butter? Yes, please! (It tastes great on vanilla wafers!)



I have never been a beer drinker. I just can't seem to acquire the taste for it. However, I sampled this this past weekend and oh my word! I think I can probably drink an entire bottle!

One of my favorite bands is Augustana. Thanks to my Augustana station on Pandora I've discovered this beautiful song. I can't get enough of it!



I've mentioned a few times how addicted I am to Pinterest. So I'm pretty excited to join a new blog party. So, without further ado I'm now linking up for:



Here are some of my favorite pins from this week:



These rolls of wrapping paper are hanging up in the ceiling of a closet. Which is usually wasted space. Genius! Now I can clear them out from under my bed!



I've become a little obsessed with driftwood lately. I think this is beautiful, simple, and it makes me want to drift away to sleep!



Marbleized finger nail polish! I'm excited and a little daunted to try this!



I love these magnets! We made them one time at a MOPS meeting and I decided then and there that I would make some with alphabet letters because I think they look classier than the cheap plastic alphabet letters that I always see kids playing with. This way my son can be learning his letters in style!



Isn't this adorable? I'm thinking it's a must for our lake house!



In case you haven't heard the news, drop side cribs are now banned. Meaning stores are no longer allowed to sell them and people are not supposed to re-sell the ones they currently have. Rather than just throwing your drop side crib in the trash, refurbish it into an adorable bench!

If you'd like to join pinterest comment me your email address and I'd be happy to invite you to join! And, I love all my pinterest followers!

*I have no idea how to make these pictures actually link back to the boards I have them on at Pinterest. Help!*

Happy Wednesday, Y'all!

What I'm Loving Wednesday

I'm loving that after a 3 month hiatus, I'm finally linking up with Jamie again for her WILW blog party!

I'm loving that this past weekend the hubby and I got to go on a much needed date!

I'm loving that we got about 20 minutes of rain at our lake house last weekend.

I'm loving that I'm going to refurbish a rocking chair this weekend. It used to be my husbands when he was a little boy and I'm excited to bring it new life for our little boy to use and enjoy! Stay tuned for before and after pics.

I'm loving watching my friend Kelli on this season of HGTV's Design Star!

I'm loving that I've been loosing myself in a good book: The Choice by Nicholas Sparks.

I'm loving that the country station I'm creating for myself on Pandora played a song by Aerosmith the other day! (I don't like most country artists so a lot of the "big" country artists have been banned from my station!)

And, I'm loving these things as well





Happy Wednesday Ya'll!