so, I am a slacker..

i know, i know... I am TOTALLY and completely 100% slacking on this blog. Here is why, we have been on a house hunt, and praise God, we found one! We move anywhere from November 23 - December 1. We will find out more tomorrow.

I am so ecstatic to be in Nixa. I never, ever in my life thought I would say that, but it's the truth. Having a baby put a whole new spin on just about absolutely everything I have ever known. I love the house we will be in, I love the neighborhood. I absolutely love everything about it. I have to admit, I am a basket case at the moment. My house is in shambles {aka BOXES!} and I am about to pull my hair out. I can not wait to be settled in the new house. My beloved Christmas decorations are begging to come out. I have waited ALL YEAR LONG for this holiday season, and dang it, I want my decorations out!

Even more than that I can not wait to get back into our routine. We are only a couple miles from James River so I can't wait to get back in to the gym in the mornings. I used the long 35 minute drive as an excuse to not go, so those days are over. Right now we are throwing whatever hodge podge meals together we can, as I don't want to go grocery shopping before the move. Plus the fact that my kitchen is 75% boxed up.

I haven't been this antsy and excited about anything since probably the week before my induction with Kinley! The anticipation is killing me! I am so thankful God has provided us with a house that we love, at a lower monthly payment, and a better location. It truly is a blessing. I am also very thankful to my husband who has made this all possible. He works very hard for everything that we have, and he really doesn't understand my gratitude. We may not always see eye to eye on everything, and having an 18 month old who hasn't been sleeping at night is certainly putting our marriage through some rough patches, but that's life and we will pull through .. let's face it, nobody is very pleasant to be around at 3 in the morning on little to no sleep.

I promise to get back into my blogging routine once we get settled into the house, until then, Happy Thanksgiving.

Enter His gates with thanks giving, and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name. -Psalm 100:4

big steps and a happy Sunday

Today was a day of big steps in our corner of the world. Kinley started going to the nursery at church. It may seem small to most people, but it was a very big step for us. I dreaded it terribly - like going to the dentist type of feeling. I was even more nervous when I glance into the classroom to see a room full of rambunctious boys. We didn't have a choice though, as usual, we made it through worship and then she was DONE. OVER IT. Squirming and kicking and wanting down. Puffs, juice and Fox and the Hound on the iPhone couldn't convince her otherwise. We were growing tired of driving to church to be there for a mere 10 minutes and have to bail because Princess Squirmpants can't sit still. I looked at Ty and said "maybe we should try the nursery".. I knew by the way he looked at me that it was time. In the past, he would say "no, she isn't ready for that", and I would agree and we'd proceed to the car, but not today. No, today was the day we made some cahnges. We dropped our little 'frog' off into her 'frog room' and found our way back to our seats in the main sanctuary, nervously looking at each other every 30 seconds. Ty would tell me "she's fine" and I'd be okay for the next 30 seconds ... just as Ty was thinking aloud how he wishes he knew how she was doing we get a text on my phone saying "Kinley is doing GREAT!!" I have no idea who it was, or how they got my phone number.. I suppose from the ladies at the front desk, but never the less, we were so relieved and thankful to be able to sit through a service and know that Kinley was enjoying herself, as well.

She was enjoying herself so much that she didn't want to leave to go home. While we were in worship, I am holding Kinley and she is raising her hands and I think my heart jumped into my throat, fell back into my chest, where it then beat a million beats per minute, and THEN melted. It was the most precious thing I have ever seen and something I will never, ever forget as a mother. It seems like such a "duh" thing to say, but it was a big old slap in the face at just exactly HOW influential I am to Kinley as her mother, and that she is LITERALLY a product of what I raise her to be. It's such a big job and responsibility and I am so proud of the big girl that she is turning out to be.

We are so happy to say Aunt Kelsie is coming to visit for a few days, we don't know what we will do, but we know we will have fun, and most likely go to Target 500 times.

You are good, You are good

when there's nothing good in me.

You are love, You are love

on display for all to see.

You are light, You are light

when the darkness closes in.

You are hope, You are hope

You have covered all my sin.

You are peace, You are peace

when my fear is crippling.

You are true, You are true

even in my wandering.

You are joy, You are joy

You're the reason that I sing.

You are life, You are life

in You, death has lost it's sting.

Oh, I'm running to Your arms.

I'm running to Your arms.

The riches of Your love,

will always be enough.

Nothing compares to Your embrace,

light of the world, forever reign.

You are more, You are more

than my words will ever say.

You are Lord, You are Lord

all creation will proclaim.

You are here, You are here

in your presence I'm made whole.

You are God, You are God

of all else, I am letting go.

Short and Sweet

Ok, I am just starting my post, at the usual time I wrap them up at. A Sunday that included daddy being gone all day AND a grouchy baby, also results in a grouchy mommy. Let's just be honest. I am usually a very positive person, but it's way past my bedtime, and my house looks like a war zone.

I needed a pick-me-up at the end of the afternoon, and no, coffee wouldn't cut it. So besides having two of the best friends a girl could ask for come over, what is a girl to do, besides start tearing into the Christmas decorations a day before Halloween? Yep, I dragged every single box from garage to kitchen and had a hay day. Kinley did too, of course. Pulling out each individual ornament and saying "ball" over and over. As I sorted through decor, and Kinley...'helped' ... Sara made puppy chow while Michael Buble serenaded "It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas" over the macbook speakers. It was splendid. And, now my kitchen looks like a bomb went off at the North Pole, but that's okay, because like I said before, once Halloween is over, it's fair game for Christmas central here.

Tomorrow, we are going to bake Halloween treats and go trick-or-treating, precious photos of my little owl to come.

A day late..

I know that I usually do my phone photos of the week on Sunday nights to kind of wrap my week up but we got caught up last night with a sick baby. I feel so bad for her, I just want her to get better. First it was a week of teething her molars. It was rough. She was always such an easy teether, and honestly, there were times where I didn't even really know that she was teething until after the teeth broke through. The molars were a totally different story though. She didn't eat anything but milk, and get this.. french fries for FIVE DAYS, five days people. Ty's logic was that she would eat the fries because they are long enough to reach her molars, and she would sit and gnaw on them and mash them up with her back teeth for quite awhile before she actually ate it. And now.. we have moved on to a cold. Your typical end of October cold. Nothing serious. Just runny eyes and nose, sneezing, and I assume a sore throat based off of her raspy little voice. Oh, the raspy little voice just breaks my heart.

We are loaded up with toddler's Honey Elixir, Tylenol (for the second week in a row, and I told you all before, I do NOT do medicine unless I have to, so I feel guilty about this..) Vapo-steamers, Vick's chest rub, you name it.. we got it.

I hope she gets better soon, obviously. No mother wants to see their baby sick. We have a lot of fun things to do this week. Halloween is coming up and I want my little owl in tip top shape for trick-or-treating. I think she will really, really love it this year.

After Halloween ends, it only means one thing. Christmas frenzy begins! I know there are many of you out there that want to complain to me that I need to "wait 'til after Thanksgiving for all the Christmas crap"... well, you can shove it. Last year, Ty was working one of his many 12 hours shifts, and as I was putting away the Halloween decor, I see a big red rubbermaid box in the back of the storage closet. And, it's taunting me. I tell it to shut up and keep packing away the Halloween decor into the orange box. But, the red box doesn't shut up. The red box is now screaming at me, so I submit and darn near hyperventilate as I am pulling out stockings, and tinsel, and ornaments, and snowglobes.. and 3 hours later our house is competing for a spot on the North Pole's HGTV and I send my husband a text that reads something like "Kinley and I got bored today..." and he asks what in the world we did, because he knows, he just KNOWS that we were up to something, and I told him he will find out soon enough, and when he walks in the door that night the first thing out of his mouth was "Brittany, it's November 3rd!" .... Yeah, and your point?

So, the running joke in this house is that we should decorate for Christmas every year on November 3rd. I don't care so much WHEN we decorate, I care most about tradition. I want to instill traditions in my family that they just know will be celebrated every year during the Holidays. And that when they are older and have their own kids, they will talk amongst their siblings and say "remember how every year mom and dad did this, and took us here, and we baked this..." that is what the holidays are really all about to me.

And as thrilled as I am that the fall season is in full swing here, I happily await the winter one, as well. Where tradition awaits us. Where baking, and crafting, and family awaits us. I am going to snuggle up next to my sick little one and patiently wait on the rainy, cold front that is just around the corner this week - looking forward to a week of cleaning, crafting, and yummy cold weather meals.

"if you think my hands are full, you should see my heart."

Fall Funday

After a restless night {and by restless, what I really mean is absolutely, utterly, completely sleepless} I was so, so sure that Kinley would just absolutely crash today. Best nap ever award was waitin' to be handed out. But.. nap time never came. Nope, not even a cat nap. So instead, we played. We basked in the cool fall weather and sucked every second out of this beautiful fall day we could.

It was raining when we awoke and there is something about rainy fall mornings that makes me feel so completely at peace. I know, most people want to crawl back in bed when they see that kind of weather, but not me. Rain inspires me. I want to write, create, clean, play when it rains. We went to the grocery store and then made a pit stop at Target {where I logically explained to myself that -- yes, it is raining. and yes, we do love rain boots. and yes, we do really, really love Hello Kitty, but spending almost $25 on a pair of rain boots that Kinley can't even fit into yet isn't exactly brilliant} Bravo, me! We made it home where I unloaded groceries and laid my sleepy eyed little girl in her bed and waited for her to doze off to dreamland. But it never came. That's funny, because you couldn't hardly keep your eyes open on the way home from the store, but now that I lay you down for nap you are dancing and bouncing and doing summersaults in your bed. Funny, Kinley. After about 30 minutes of this fight, I say fine - get up, let's play.

And play we did....

We went to the farm and played on the equipment, and ventured through the baby corn maze. It was perfectly her size.

It was actually COLD! We had to leave because I wasn't prepared for exactly HOW cold it was, Kinley's little ears were freezing. ::insert stage 10 meltdown:: I would have gotten pictures of this, but it's really not that cute. Moving on...

We came home and warmed up with some yummy fall treats. Cue Halloween Sugar Cookies, cinnamon baked pumpkin seeds, and behold, Kinley's first cup of Hot Cocoa... or, well lukewarm cocoa as Ty and I joked!

We also carved her first jack-o-lantern. She was a total girl about it as I suspected she would be, and would not touch the guts - she wanted to leave that part for Daddy. However she did absolutely love the finished, lit up product.

Oh, and please, contain your laughter at the jack-o-lantern. It was the best we could do without a fancy carving kit. I think he's cute!

We finished the night with a 'spooky castle' made out of couch cushions, sheets and her play land, also -- no pictures of this as it was stage ten meltdown time, as well. She went to bed at 7, and was up by 8 screaming so hard she was shaking. I am praying these teeth hurry up and break through so she can get some relief. Her teething was never this rough in the past. This is new for both me and her. In the meantime, lots of tylenol, popsicles and cuddle time awaits us.

Sunday Night Post

I apologize for not updating as much as normal. I am pretty positive Kinley is getting her molars in. She hasn't quite been herself for about 3 days now. Fussy and clingy which is a definite change from my independent, happy little girl. She has even been turning down ice cream FOR DINNER! I try to avoid giving her tylenol unless absolutely necessary, but I have basically been giving it to her every 8 hours like clockwork today.

Last night Ty and I went on a date to my absolute favorite restaurant, Kai. It is a sushi/bar feel and aside from my bachelorette party a few months back, I hadn't been in ages. It was so nice to be able to sit down and not feel rushed. Kinley has really gotten to the point where we can't go into a restaurant without a huge scene and Kai definitely isn't a place you see babies on the regular. We sat at the table talking for twenty minutes or so after we finished our dinner. (And I am basically texting the baby sitter every 5 minutes for a play by play of what they are doing at that exact second.) and discussing what we want to go do next. I really, really WAS enjoying dinner and having the opportunity to relax for once, but in the back of my mind all I wanted to do was go home and see Kinley. I kept quiet and threw out a couple ideas of where we could go next. I told Ty I felt awkward and out of place downtown. It's like this - if you have a carseat in the back seat of your car, you probably don't really belong downtown. I then told him I feel like I should be at Babies R Us or something instead. So his response? "Let's go." with a huge grin on his face. I jump up immediately and we are on our way. Although we didn't end up at Babies R Us, we did end up at Children's place and Build-A-Bear.. We came home before she was even in bed and surprised her with her new clothes and her bear {complete with Hello Kitty panties}. I am thinking this will be a great potty training tactic, as Santa is also bringing her some Hello Kitty panties for her stocking this year! I spent the rest of date night cuddled up in bed in Ty's thermal {which makes the best PJ's EVER!} with Kinley. It was truly the perfect date night. I am so thankful for a husband who values our relationship and takes the time out of his day to do those things for me.

It was also certainly so, so nice to be able to go on a date and know Kinley was safely at home with somebody we trust so much to totally focus all of their attention on her. Thanks, Sara!

This morning, my mom was coming home from Wal-Mart and a guy ran a red light at 60 MPH, once she realized he was coming, she accelerated in hopes of making it through the light in time. He still hit the end of her, but being that she was in an SUV and she accelerated as much as she did, she is okay. I am so thankful. Like Ty said if it was a couple seconds earlier, I could have been receiving the worst call of my life today. Thank you God for protecting my mom and Kinley's Gammy.

{date night in a nutshell}...

It's your beauty, Lord

that makes us stand in silence

Your love

Your love

is better than life.

Homebodies

Our week seemed to drag on forever, I made it a conscious effort to stay home all week. That is big for us, our whole family consists of a bunch of "go-er's" and "do-er's". We don't like to sit at home for very long. The good thing about staying home now though, that Kinley is here, is there is ALWAYS something to be done. I promise there is always a mess to be cleaned up here, and if there isn't then Kinley will make sure to destroy a room worse than an EF5 tornado in two seconds flat to take care of that little problem. I kind of like it though. No, our home may not always be completely immaculate but it's home, a home is 'lived in'. There are toys in random places. Like a pink lego in daddy's work shoe, and a teapot in the potty and to me, it's what makes our house a home.

Tonight Kinley was on an especially destructive rampage. She pooped on the floor, threw all of her bows into the bathtub, and colored on the potty all within two minutes of each other. Impressive, huh? That's talent right there.

And though my week did seem to go by slower than average, I can't say I didn't enjoy it. More time home meant a much cleaner house, and much, much more mommy and Kinley time. Ty probably liked that we stayed home more, too because it meant more home cooked meals instead of the usual frozen pizza or Wendy's drive-through. Or, maybe he just pretended to like it, because I am a bad cook like that, and well, he's just a good husband like that.

Mental to do list: learn how to cook better...

There was more story time, more let's drag out all the toys you have just so that you can play with them for five minutes time, more outdoor time, more baking time. You name it, we did it. I didn't even care when we spent an hour baking cookies, just for me to pull them out of the oven and drop them all over the floor. Because, really, it wasn't the cookies I cared about. It was the fact that Kinley got her first chance to really, really get involved in the baking process. It used to consist more of mommy cooks and baby sits in highchair maneuver, but not anymore. Sister stirred and poured and ate things she probably shouldn't have, and she loved every second of it. Who said pink plastic toy cooking supplies don't work just as good as the real thing, anyway?

Happy, happy birthday to one of my best friends, Sara. You are such a beautiful person inside and out and you deserve all of the happiness in the world. I mean seriously, this girl brought ME Starbucks on HER birthday.. who does that? Only Sara..

Our week at home, okay minus one little, itty bitty teensy Target trip..