Kellan 10 Months

Our little man is just two months shy of his FIRST birthday! I cannot believe that!  I can still remember how warm he was when they put him on my chest for the first time.  I say this all the time but goodness does the time fly. 

Every month he changes a little bit more. He has been such a different baby than Aidan, it's like learning to parent a baby from the very beginning.  

He sleeps 7:30-7:30ish,gets up just to drink a bottle and goes right back down until 9:30 or 10.  Which is wonderful because it gives everyone else time to get their day going around here.  If we are headed out early on the weekends, he takes this nap in the car.  He also takes an afternoon nap if we are home.  He may snooze in the car if we miss it but if not he's OK.  If he misses that morning nap, he's off all day.  He's primarily sleeping on his belly now! 

This month he has four teeth!  He still struggling with choking but it's getting better everyday.  I have to give a lot of credit to Adam because he will feed him and help him when he chokes.   He's still primarily eating baby food out of the squeeze packs.  He loves anything having to do with fruit.   He wants nothing to do with a sippy cup.  We have tried to introduce it numerous times only to be met with a screeching baby.  

He weighs 23lbs according to my parents scale.  He is wearing 12-18 month clothing.  They were a little big on him but we didn't have anything left in 9-12 that was warm enough for the cooler weather.   Wearing a size 4 diaper. 

I thought he would be walking by now but he seems to love crawling.  And he is so fast.  He's a speed crawler for sure.  He pulls up on everything and loves to yank stuff off of tables, Aidan's desk...basically whatever he can get those little mitts on.   He stands alone without meaning to and once he notices sits down immediately.

He is still obsessed with his brother.  Everything Aidan does is hilarious.   We are so lucky Aidan has been so patient with him.  I can count on one hand how many times Aidan has been frustrated with him in the past 10 months.  They mostly just love the heck out of each other which we think is wonderful.

Kellan and Aidan stayed with my parents over night together for the first time since he was born.  It was our first night away from him.  I'm just realizing this as I am typing it! What a milestone!  And I can't believe it took us almost ten months! We went to my girlfriend Amie's wedding in town and my parents basically kidnapped them for the night.  My mom said he was perfect.  

Have I mentioned before he is not a real fan of the car.  No road trips in our near future.  He can handle an hour or so but after that its scream city.

We took the boys camping on our friends property in Waxhaw.  We had promised Aidan we would let he and his BFF camp.  I didn't realize we would all end up in the tent (I was planning on sleeping indoors) but that's not how things worked out and before I knew it,  Kellan and I were wide awake all night while the boys all sawed logs around us.  It was miserable for us both and we slept all day the next day.  

He loves people.  Everywhere we go people stop to talk to him because he is so smiley.  It's pretty cute! 

I'm hoping time slows down a little bit.   I'm trying to soak in all the baby-ness he has to offer but I have to admit its a lot harder slowing down with two kiddos.  Especially with Aidan being so active.  But I try!  I've started planning his birthday party and as badly as I would like for him to not reach that milestone, it's gonna happen.  Sooner than later.

We love you so much Kellan! 

Cute, right? 

Happy Anniversary Sweetheart

Adam,

Another anniversary post. 

We made it another year. 

Barely, but we made it baby.  : )

I thought the end of last year was a hard year for us but 2013 decided to take the cake.

This year we really had to live up to the vows we took 6 years ago. 

I can't tell you how many times I repeated "for better or worse" over and over in my head. 

And I'm sorry if there were times I let you down or didn't focus enough on us. 

We've both made mistakes and this marriage is not perfect.  

But I learned so much this year. 

Forgiveness is a wonderful thing. 

Your happiness and our family is my top priority. 

We are a team. 

We hurt together, laugh together, love together. 

And together is the only place I've ever wanted to be. 

Thanks for sticking it out everyday with me.

This is going to be one hell of  a love story.

I love you so much.

April

 



Decorating for Fall- Wreath Tutorial-Sort Of

Every Fall I try to make a wreath.  I don't always aim to keep it inexpensive and relatively simple but this year I felt a little out of practice.  So this way if I hated it, I didn't break the bank and it was good practice for better wreaths in the future.  

I had seen some tutorials on burlap ribbon wreaths on Pinterest that seemed easy enough. 

I took the boys to Hobby Lobby to get supplies.  I let Aidan pick out the ribbon colors.  He picked Panther colors so it had doubled as a Fall and Panthers wreath.  I've been looking for a Carolina Panthers "broach" of sorts to add to it for next season.  

This is what you need:

A wire wreath form

Floral wire

Burlap ribbon in your color of choice

A contrasting burlap ribbon for your bow if you want one

And a wood initial if you want to add one 

This is how easy this was.  All you have to do is loop the burlap ribbon loosely around the wreath form while creating billowy loops and secure them with floral wire every 3 inches or so. 

Tie a bow with your contrasting fabric and secure it with the floral wire. 

If you are adding a monogram letter, to make it look like it's floating I used white sewing thread and tied it on. 

Voila...Fall Wreath.  Less than $15.  

 

Now that I know I still have it in me, things may get a crazier at Christmas time.

image via

 

 

 

 

If you make one, post a link in my comments...would love to see it! 

A Little De-Cluttering

The thing about living in such a tiny house is, any bit of clutter is too much.

Our kitchen was an area of our house we felt was over flowing with JUNK!  I was honestly dreading having to get on a stool and clean out our cabinets but it had to be done!  

Well I lucked out and Adam (this is not the lucky part) had an asthma attack one night and couldn't sleep so he knocked the project out for me! I woke up the next day and was thrilled!  And Adam was so proud of himself! 

I didn't take before photos but trust, this was a project.  We are talking 7 years of too many baby items, random water bottles, expired baking supplies etc.  

This 31 days is turning in to a family affair and I kinda love it. 

The County Fair

Nothing kicks off the cool weather season like a trip to the County Fair.  We don't actually have a fair in our county BUT we travel a short distance to Cleveland County every year to visit their fair. It's become a tradition and we love it. 

It was so much fun seeing Kellan get to experience it for the first time.  He was so in to all the lights and loved watching his big brother ride everything.  He even took his first fair ride with Adam and Aidan on a mini helicopter that I could walk faster than.  Regardless, they all got the biggest kick out of it! 

 

We really did have so much fun!  We got to see some of Adam's old friends from high school and their families and eat lots of fair food!  I'm already looking forward to next year! 

Bathroom Make Over

This was our bathroom after we had been here a few years and I had painted it no less than half a dozen times, and tried to update it on the smallest budget you can ever imagine.  I didn't love it but we lived with it.

 

Then we finished some other projects that were higher on the list and we remodeled the bathroom. FINALLY. Well really what happened was...Adam was in Lowe's and got a killer deal on that vanity and the next thing I knew, our entire bathroom was remodeled in a week.  I didn't complain.  But we hate that vanity. 

 

This is our bathroom now:

Much better, right?  We still did it on budget but it look a thousand times better.

 

 

 It needed a little accessory face lift.  I budgeted myself $100 and here is the inspiration board I pulled together for myself so I could stay in budget.  P.S. Who doesn't love shopping at Target?

Total before tax: $95.93
Not too shabby!

Pictures of our bathroom newly accessorized coming soon!

Decorating for Fall-Indoors

We are on Day 6 of The Nester's 31 Day Challenge.  I'm still motivated!

It's been forever and a year since I've been able to decorate for a season around here.  I promised myself if we made the final decision to take the house off the market (would you think we were nuts if I told you we had full price offers) and stay put that I would get back in the groove of things and bring this place back to life season to season.  

 

Adam spent some time organizing the attic recently and I made sure he moved all of our Fall/Halloween stuff to the front so it would be easily accessible for me when the time came.

 

Part of the excitement in decorating our house for me comes from the children.  Adam and I have a saying "it's for the kids".  I have convinced myself that decorating our home for the seasons with be a sweet memory our children cherish as the grow up.   Aidan loves to help out.  I think he loves it anyways.  He could be indulging me because he knows how much I love it.

 

After I lugged our Rubbermaid's down from the attic I made the realization that this year "less is more" would be a good theme for us because Kellan is in to everything.  I skipped decorating the dining room table, the mantle and putting anything in our bedrooms because we spend so much time in them.  I was having  visions of the baby pulling my runner off the table and everything crashing to the floor. 

 

So I put a few artificial pumpkins out here and there and put a Fall quote on our chalkboard and honestly, I'm loving it.  We all love it.  It's just enough for this year and it has definitely brought back the excitement about us being here in this house.

Next up is outdoors!

(Back of the toilet in our bathroom.  Missing our pumpkin candle.  Guess who grabbed that?)

Apple Orchard

I get so much inspiration for my home during this season from the outdoors.  And I feel like I appreciate my home more by getting out of it with my boys on a regular basis.  I'm constantly excited to come home.  I think that says a lot about this house of ours.  The last weekend in September we headed up to the mountains to engage in a family tradition of ours....apple picking.  It's been unseasonably hot here in the Carolina's the past few weeks but we lucked out and caught a cool day and really enjoyed our afternoon.  Last year when we were there I was pregnant and this year we had Kellan.  What a difference a year makes and how happy we are to be a family of four!