Five Question Friday

My hubs is working on his photo matte cutting project, I have 20 minutes before I need to leave to pick up my bridesmaid dress, and Emersyn's napping! Sounds like the PERFECT time to post a quick little blog, don't you think? :) Thanks to Mama M. for hosting this little blog hop each week!

1. If you could, would you go back to high school? Um, NO. :) I have connected with some really great friends from high school via Facebook over the last couple of years and that is great and all but as far as high school itself, not my best years! :)

2. If a genie appeared and granted you two wishes, what would they be? (And, no saying "more wishes".) I would like enough money to be able to live comfortably, bless others and stay home with my baby. Second wish: hmmm.....that is impossible to say, isn't it??!?! I mean, seriously. I SHOULD say something noble like world peace. Instead,I wish that myself and everyone I know would have the opportunity and finances to take meaningful vacations each year (not all together, lol). I think vacations to tropical places are good for the soul. I am sure I could come up with something deeper but I am a little pressed for time, hee hee.

3. What kids show do you secretly like? Ha ha, I think Sesame Street is really cute. We like all the Pixar movies too!

4. What is your beverage of choice? I love iced tea & COFFEE!!!

5. What is something that you would change about yourself (or are working to change in yourself)? Working on losing weight (down just shy of 35 pounds, whoo hoo!). Sometimes I feel that my sense of humor makes me too sarcastic sometimes which can borderline be rude. I would like to change that and be more of a gentle spirit. :)

Happy Friday!!!

Wordless Wednesday

New Blog Design!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I believe I have been blessed with *some* talents in life. Figuring out HTML and other high tech programming stuff is NOT one of them!!! Thankfully, I have wonderful friends.

My friend LeAnna redid my blog design for me, all the while chasing her toddler, growing a new babe, and posting her witty status updates on Facebook.

I want to be just like her when I grow up.

Even though she is a good 5+ years younger then me. :)

Thank you friend, I am a better looking blogger because of you!!!! Or wait, I mean my blog is better looking because of you!!! :) :)

Hanging Basket Fun!!

Last Sunday Brett and I decided to play hooky from church in the evening and head out to Al's Garden Center for their annual "plant your own hanging basket" weekend. Last year Emersyn and I planted a basket together, remember I blogged about it here?

Brett and I planted our first basket three years ago and have decided to make it an annual tradition. It is so much fun and also, much cheaper!! The pre-planted hanging baskets range from $30-$40 easily. The basket that we planted was only $15.99 and a portion of it went to charity. Sweet! You get to pick out the plants and arrangements that you want and customize it. In the picture above, you can see Emersyn and I reading over the instructions and formulating a game plan. :)

While I was picking out some plants Emersyn decided to do some exploring. Naturally she was drawn to the cleaning supplies. My daughter cracks me up.

"Mom, can we clean this place up a bit??"

Emersyn is my little neat freak, I love it. I fear that she won't cooperate as a flower girl in the upcoming weddings because the thought of scattering flower petals will surely give her nightmares, I am certain. I can imagine her scattering the petals and then dilligently picking each of them up and screaming bloody murder when we try to get her to keep walking down the aisle.

Come to think of it, will you pray for us on May 7th and July 2nd?? Ha ha.

Okay, time to put the dirt in the pot!

After planting the plants and adding fertilizer (Ems didn't help with this part, I was nervous to have her around the poisonous fertilier) here is the finished product! She looks pretty pleased, don't you think!

Such a fun evening!

HAPPY EARTH DAY!

Wordless Wednesday

Tulip Festival- Then and Now

Mimi's Visit!

Emersyn has officially started calling my mom "Mimi". It is the cutest thing EVER. She just wasn't getting "Grammy". I think the "Gra" was too challenging. So I started referring to my mom as "Gram-mi-mi" and Emersyn shortened it to "Mimi". Whenever my mom left the room, Emersyn would call out "Mimi???". I could actually hear my mother turning into a pile of goo, melting at the sound of her name being called. :)

My mom flew into town as a surprise to my brother and future sister-in-law whose bridal shower was this weekend!

I didn't get out my camera a single time this weekend, how awful am I?!?!? I did take some pics on my phone though.....we had a very fun weekend!

Emersyn and Mimi, doing what they do best: shopping. Emersyn even brought her purse too!

I love this dress. Got it for $6 at the Carter's outlet last year. SCORE. I think Emersyn looks darling in it. She loves her cowboy boots too, although I have to say, she gets a little attitude when she wears them!! :) She's sassy and she knows it!! :)

Modesty: not her thing right now. :) This was outside Auntie Jenny's shower. Emerysn needed some fresh air and a place to roam around.

"Helping" Auntie with her presents.

Emersyn and her newest toy, Dr. Seuss's "Lorax". She fell in love with this at Kohls and of course Mimi had to buy it for her even though I told her that Emersyn already had plenty of stuffed animals. She really loves this one though, carried it around all morning. Her Mimi is too good to us. She bought us groceries, Emersyn clothes, etc. I am so happy to be a recipient of my mama's love language, gifts!!!!!!!!!!!!

Emersyn and my mom were best buds this whole weekend. Emersyn definitely had her "I want my mommy" moments but she had a lot of fun playing with her Mimi who loves her soooooo much. One of my favorite moments of the entire weekend was watching my mom hold Emersyn during worship at our church, both of them with hands held high praising the Lord. I truly am so blessed.

This morning Mimi went home but it wasn't too sad of a goodbye since we will be seeing her again in just TWO short weeks, can you believe it?!?! I sent her home with two loaves of freshly baked blueberry banana bread for her and my dad to enjoy. I felt quite domestic.

This week is a busy one for me. I am co-hosting a baby shower this weekend and I'm so excited to celebrate my friend Carissa and her baby boy, who will be arriving sometime in June! We are also heading down to the Tulip Festival on Friday for our annual photo shoot and I am hoping and praying for good weather! I have about 60 cupcakes to make on Friday too for the baby shower, as well as some favors. Fun fun!

Happy Tuesday!!

Fill in the Blank Friday

Fun fun! :) Brett's been watching a lot of the Masters lately....ZZZzzzzzz......Blogging is MUCH more fun then golf!!!

1. The strangest thing I've ever eaten was ha ha, you should have been at our Easter dinner. LOL. I ate an oyster shooter once and it was SICK!!!!!! Brett sorta made me do it back before we were together and we were just friends. Clearly he loved me by torturing me and making me eat the nasty shooter. It almost didn't go all the way down!!!

2. My best friend is my husband. He is my favorite person to spend time with and makes me laugh like no one else. :)

3. If I could live in a different era it would be the olden days because I have always loved the little house on the prairie series. I love the stories of churning their own butter and having to work so hard for their food and shelter. SO fascinating to me!!

4. I like Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution show. Anyone else watching it?? It makes me feel really good about the food choices that we have made and are still making for Emersyn. I am really praying that families will watch this show and see the effects that fatty processed foods have on children and take more responsibility for their meals. Processed foods are easy to prepare, I get that. But it's not surprise that childhood obesity is SO common when all we serve our kids is junk!! Especially at their schools!! Okay, stepping off the soapbox now....... :)

5. If you only know one thing about me it should be that I am an eternal optimist because of the joy of the Lord. Life is too short to spend it worrying, judging others, and looking at the glass half empty. Negative people are really missing out on life in my opinion!

6. My favorite book of all time is oh man, how do you pick just one??? I guess if I can ONLY pick one I would pick the Bible which may sound cheesy but I believe that every word in it is for me and a promise that I can cling to.

7. The one beauty product I couldn't live without is moisturizing foundation. I feel like my complexion is dry and pretty uneven. Mascara is a close second. :)

8. Blogging is a wonderful way to document your feelings, keep track of milestones for my daughter, inspire others by sharing your experiences and a way to find a great community of women with similar goals and aspirations.

9. If I could star in a movie with any actor/actress I would want to work with Kristen Wiig from SNL. She is hysterical.

10. One of the best feelings in the world is when Emersyn lays her head on my shoulder and cuddles with me, gently patting me on the back. *sigh* Perfection. I also love the feeling of seeing weight come off each week on the Wii Fit scale....that is a close second. :)

Deferred Dreams

I had some thoughts swirling around in my head and sometimes blogging them out is the best thing to do with those kinds of thoughts. :)

As most of you know, I work away from my home part time. This is something I struggle with at times but most of the time I am fine with it. I am good at telling myself, "for such a time is this" and having a good attitude. Emersyn is a very well rounded child for the most part and I know that when I am at work, she is in very capable hands, whether with her Nana or at a playdate. On Thursdays she gets to have special afternoons with her Daddy and that makes me happy too. I don't have to work until 1pm so our mornings are very fun and often full of activities, playdates, or just some special Mommy/Emersyn time. I don't work so that we can afford a lavish lifestyle. I work so that I can help pay our bills and have affordable health insurance. People have said, "you really should look at your budget and see if you could stay home". It's not as simple as cutting out cable or not eating out as much. My husband is an amazing provider and an extremely hard worker for our family. I feel that he is undercompensated right now but his future is bright with the company he has been with for over two years now. God has really opened the right doors for him at his job and we know with all our hearts that God will bless Brett in his career.

But.

Every once in awhile I get impatient. And a little whiny. And I start feeling sorry for myself. I'm sure that never happens to any of you, right? :)

In my dreams, I never envisioned working while being a mom. Sometimes I express these concerns to the Lord, as if to show Him where He deviated from MY plans and offer Him the opportunity to fix it!

But then I read a story of a family that lost their child to cancer. I hear the Lord whisper to me, "Do you think their dreams included losing their child??".

I see my friends struggle with being single. "Do you think they dreamed of being single at this time in their lives??", He whispers.

I see different friends struggle with infertility. Again, probably not in their dreams either.

All the sudden, my deferred dreams don't seem so tragic or life alterring. (As I re-read this, I don't mean to imply that being single is tragic at ALL, I just know that many of my single friends long to find their husbands and that is a similar dream to mine, a family related dream).

I really should re-read "Anonymous", the book I read last summer. It is all about the "hidden" times in our life, when we feel like the Lord doesn't see or acknowledge how WE would do things differently.

Life is SO much bigger then what we make it sometimes and I believe that God has a purpose in everything. What if I am at my job right now JUST so that I can cultivate a friendship with someone that needs HIM in their lives? What if I am at this job just so that God can have an opportunity to prove His faithfulness and provision in my life, to use as a testimony later to bless someone else? What if, what if? He is the only one that can see ahead into our futures and knows the reason for every season in our lives. No season is more significant then another. I need to be better at trusting Him. I feel like I say that a lot. I need to put that into action though. What does trusting LOOK like for me? Something for me to ponder....

I never ached to be married with all my heart or waited a long time to have a child. Those dreams came true for me relatively easily. The dream of staying home with Emersyn and any future siblings is one that the Lord is requiring me to have some patience with. All I can do is be obedient, look at my husband and daughter and think to myself, "The Lord has been pretty stinkin' good to me so far......I think He has earned my trust".

What dreams are you waiting to see come true? What dreams have you had that you have HAD come true? I would love to hear some great testimony's ladies!!

Cute things at 19 months

Ems is always doing or saying cute things, I need to be better about writing them down so I don't forget!!! Here are some:

*Whenever we drive by a lake, Emersyn points and yells "DUCK DUCK"!!!!! Then for about 15 minutes after she sees the lake, she keeps saying duck because I guess it is a fun word to say.

*A friend of ours let us borrow their toy slide and Emersyn loved it!!!! We just took it back them last night and this morning Emersyn ran around our downstairs saying, "side side??" (slide). I told her we would go to the slide at the park when the weather is nicer but she seemed so bummed that her fun indoor slide was gone. Going to see if I can find one for cheap online.

*We dog sat a cute little dog a couple weeks ago, I will have to upload a video that Brett took of Emersyn laughing hysterically. Anyways, the dog's name is Henry and Emersyn LOVED him. He left a ball of his at our house and every day Emersyn brings me the ball and says, "aww-hee?" which is how she says Henry. So cute.

*Every time I lock the car with my keyless remote and the horn beeps, Emersyn goes "bye bye car".

*Emersyn can spot our cars now, it is cute. She will see my van out the window and go "Mama car". Last night we were following Brett in his car somewhere and Emersyn kept yelling "Dada car, Dada car" because he was in front of us.

*Every morning Emersyn goes and plays with her kitchen and gets really quiet and pretends to be watching TV but she is really pooping. I always ask her if she is pooping and she says "no" in this grunting sort of way and I let her finish her business but it cracks me up!!!

*Emersyn loves chores. She is very task oriented. I find that when she is whiny and clingy, often times she is just bored. I ask her to do things for me all the time, like pick up her toys or put a diaper on her baby. This morning she helped me make the bed and handed me all the pillows, helped me bring the clean laundry into my room and put the wet laundry into the dryer, picked up all the toys in the bathtub and put them away, and took her dirty clothes and put them in the laundry. Sure, things takes five times as long when she is helping me but it is an activity for us and I get something done, she feels proud of herself for helping mama, and we get to spend quality time together.

*Yesterday she was taking a bath and when she washed her baby's face, she whispered "gentle" just like I do when I was her face. My heart melted.

*Emersyn's word for water is "abba" and don't ask me how she does it but she rolls the "b" sound so it almost sounds like "agua". NO clue where she got this from.

*The other day Emersyn was running around saying "up high up high" and I realized that she was talking about high fives. Her Uncle Brock had been playing with her doing high fives the day before and she loved it!

*Emersyn loves saying "car seat" and "high chair". Anytime we drive by a Starbucks she says "high chair, high chair" or anytime we walk into a restauraunt. She loves to say car seat and play with hers too when I give hers to her Nana on their days together.

*Emersyn got a purse for Easter. The night before Easter, she put her purse on her arm, grabbed her keys and went and opened the front door and said go go go. I asked her where she was going and she said "be back" because I always tell her I'll be right back. And whenever she has her purse, she starts saying "keeeth, keeth" (keys). So funny.

*Ems loves to talk about pottys. She will go to my toilet and say "mama potty" and then "emmy potty" and she sits on her potty. She has yet to actually go potty on a potty but she is comfortable with them anyways. :)

*While on a walk with my friend a couple weeks ago, we stopped at a playground that had large bark chips. I let Emersyn play on the playstructure. There were bark chips on all of the stairs, probably from other kids. Emersyn proceeded to clean all the bark chips off each stair before climbing up them. My little neat freak!!

Okay, I am sure I am forgetting so many more cute moments but I will try to be better about writing them down!

Easter Weekend

We had such a wonderful Easter celebration this past weekend. Everything is so much more magical when you have a child to share it with. I'm not saying that all holidays prior to having Emersyn were meaningless, not by any means! I just am so happy to be a mommy. I told Brett the other day that sometimes I still feel like a little girl playing house. My life is such a dream come true for me.

We started our Easter festivities by having an Easter Egg dying party with Emersyn's cousins on Saturday night, along with her Uncle Brock, Nana, and Papa.

Genevieve is on the left, she is 12. Annabel is on the right. She turned 6 on Easter.

We had fun dying eggs. Emersyn wasn't too into it. I gave her an egg and she gave me a blank look and then tried to eat it, LOL! I gave her some stickers to put on her egg but to her, all stickers go on her shirt so that is where they ended up. I gave Emersyn another egg because her first one got all slobbery from her putting it in her mouth and she banged the two eggs together for fun which resulted in some cracked eggs. Good thing they were hardboiled! :)

I had SO much fun shopping for Emersyn's Easter Basket this year. Last year we didn't do one. I swear, for the first year of her life the child didn't NEED anything. But as she gets older, she is starting to need more things so the Easter Basket was a perfect opportunity for that! We are very cautious about not turning Emersyn into a spoiled child but at the same time, it is hard not to buy her things that she loves! It is all about balance. Plus, we are SO blessed to have generous neighbors' who give us their very gently used hand-me-down toys! Anyways, I digress...

Brett put Emersyn's Easter Basket downstairs by the front door for her to find in the morning. I love everything in it!! I got her three dollar books from the Target Dollar Bins; they are her favorite books I swear!! I had bought her the Abby Cadabby shapes book for Valentine's Day and then for Easter I decided to complete the collection of 4 with these other three books about colors, letters and numbers. I also got her a dress from Old Navy, Costco, her first Camelback water bottle (soooo cute!!!!), a Pixar movie (Over the Hedge), a new bib and some "big girl forks". I love her so much. I got this basket at my baby shower actually. It had a plant in it! I just washed the liner out and voila, an Easter Basket!

Emersyn woke up a little earlier then expected. We thought that we would be able to get her all ready and then feed her breakfast and have her do her Easter basket. Such was not the case. Brett ran downstairs and hid the basket while I got Emersyn up and made her some blueberry pancakes, her new favorite recipe! She likes them plain but since it was a holiday, I gave her a teeny bit of syrup. I made a bunch of extra pancakes for this week too. They re-heat great!

Brett gave Ems a bath while I got ready and then we both got her into her dress and I did her hair. She is like a real life doll that I get to dress up. SO fun.

Notice no runny nose!!! It was back today though. I think the Lord had her runny nose stop just for me, I really was hoping she wouldn't be sickly looking for her pictures in her dress!

Emersyn's Nana made this dress for her first birthday but because of our weather, she didn't get to wear it much. It still fit her but was a little short so she added a layer of white trim to the bottom and it turned out just darling.

She really really liked the forks! :)

The back of her sweet dress.

Mommy's girl. :)

After church we headed over to Brett's parents house for Easter supper and to celebrate Annabel's 6th birthday!

Easter Egg Bandit!!

Testing out Annabel's new bike!

We had such a great Easter, the only thing that would have made it more complete is time with my family as well but getting to Minnesota and back in one day would be pretty much impossible, both time wise and financially!!

I hope you all had wonderful Easter celebrations as well! Such a beautiful day to remember just exactly how much God loves us, so much in fact, that He gave His only begotten Son.....