Nameless Flower

This flower is growing on a tree in our backyard and it is so cheerful! It doesn't have much of a smell, but it more than makes up for that in the looks department.

Does anyone know what kind of flower this is?
I haven't a clue!

One Smart Cookie

We were leaving our friends house and Judah didn't want to leave and was being a bit fussy.
I said "Judah baby, you can either walk to the car or I will carry you to the car. What would you like?"

Without missing a beat he said "A cookie."

Welcome Home

Yesterday was a yucky, rainy day.
And our moving day.
We were thankful for friends that helped us move to our new house across town.
And thankful that, although a bit damp, nothing got ruined by the rain.
And we got to see this beautiful rainbow from our back door at the end of the day.
We are so excited to be in our new place at last! Last night was our first night sleeping in the house... and we slept on the floor because the mattresses were damp :)

Wezzy - 9 months

My baby is growing so fast! He very clearly says "Mamamama" - and has for a couple of months! He says it when he is hungry or when he wants to be held by me. He is a momma's boy through and through. And I kinda like it.
He's a rough and tumbling little guy too. He won't sleep unless he is swaddled up tightly, and yet when he is swaddled he goes through great efforts to become un-swaddled. A couple of times last week I put him in the middle of our bed, tightly swaddled and surrounded by pillows, for his nap.
When I peeked into the room I found him underneath our bed, sound asleep.
Scared me to death. But he was quite content.
He's got five teeth now, and loves to show them off to anyone that sticks their fingers in his mouth.
He adores Judah, and gives Judah his best belly laughs.

They are sleeping together in the same room now for naps and through the night, and they chatter and giggle to each other. Little ones giggling is the sweetest sound.

What I Am Eating Now

I'm about to share a big secret with y'all - I eat brown sugar straight from the bag. And not just little amounts of it. I eat spoonfuls of it. I love.love.love brown sugar.
When I saw this ice cream at the store today I decided to buy it for myself. Paul is out of town til tomorrow night so I don't even need to share it.

Does that make me selfish that I buy special ice cream when he's not here just so I don't need to share?!

This ice cream is amazing. Really truly amazing. If you enjoy eating brown sugar from the bag (because other people do that too, RIGHT?!) then I highly recommend you go out and buy yourself this ice cream! It is so worth the $3.50 and the 10lbs you'll put on from eating it. And I don't say that lightly. I'm generally quite stingy... I mean frugal... with our grocery money, and I am working hard at the gym to loose the baby weight.
But this ice cream is definitely worth making it's way into your shopping cart.

Birthday Plate

Before Judah was born I saw the idea of having a special plate that is pulled out to honor your child on their birthday or other special occasions. I loved the idea, and for the past two years have been on the look out for *the* plate.

This week I found it! I bought the matching bowl too. I thought I'd leave the option open for me to serve cold cereal and milk for their birthday meals... I kid. Sort of.

Anyways, I just LOVE the plate and bowl. I first spotted it from across the store, and it just screamed "this is the special plate you've been looking for for two plus years." How could I argue with a plate that screamed at me?!
I found it at Tuesday Morning. If you've never been to the store you should go! If you were there once and didn't find anything, go back again! They always have different things in there. There's been one near us in all three states we've lived in and I just adore the store.

Rock It

The Littles came along for Caleb's photoshoot, and when we got to this rock I remembered that when Judah was 9 months old he'd come along for a photoshoot and I had stopped and taken his picture right at this very rock.
Wezzy is practically 9 months old, so I thought I would get a picture of him at the same rock.
The bottom center picture is the one of Judah at 9 months.
It made me laugh when I saw these three pictures (Wezzy now, Judah as a baby and then Judah now) - all three shots the boys are looking down at the ground! Totally did not plan that.
There must be some cool dirt there!

Photoshoot with Caleb

This is Why I'm Hot

Judah's got a thing for underwear.
He loves wearing it on his head.
He loves carrying a couple other pairs with him.
He wears it on his head to the grocery store.
He waves it at strangers.
I assure them it is clean.

And our first day hanging out in the front yard of our new house he brought me a pair and asked me to put it on my head.
Hello new neighbors!
I promise, we aren't as strange as we look.

Play Dough

We were stuck inside due to rain a lot late last week, so one of the evenings I decided to make some play dough for Judah... it wasn't quite as marvelous an experience as I'd hoped!

I'm not sure if it was the play dough recipe or what, but it was a bit crumbly. And while Judah enjoyed himself, it really wasn't a true play dough experience!

Have you made play dough? Do you have a tried and true recipe for it? I'd love to have one and maybe try making it again.

This was on my friend Crystal's blog and I thought it was fascinating. Enjoy!

It's Ours!

We got the house! After a last minute glitch on Friday the closing date got changed to Monday, so late Monday afternoon Paul and I sat in the lawyers office and officially became homeowners!

My brother, who is here visiting for two weeks, and I went over to the house yesterday and started tearing up carpet and taking down wall paper.

I think I'm a bit over ambitious.
It is exhausting work, and we're only working in the Dining Room!

We won't be moving in until late next week due to Paul's work schedule - at first I thought it would be a great opportunity to get most of the painting done in the house, but now I'm not so sure how much will get done before we move in :)

And I still don't know how I want to paint any of the other rooms of the house!
I could spend hours looking at colors and styles for rooms, but when it comes down to deciding what I want for our home, I'm not really sure!

Both the boys adore their Uncle Caleb - his name comes out something like "M-Caya" from Judah.

What Daddy Says

I love these moments, and wish I could capture them forever.

Paul doesn't pull out his guitar nearly enough, but when he does he always has a funny or goofy or sweet song he's made up for me and/or the boys. And he always manages to get Judah involved in the singing too, getting him to chant something silly and encouraging him to strum along on the guitar.
It is so sweet.
Judah adores his daddy and I love that.

I had the following conversation with Judah this past week:

Me - "What does a dog say?"
Judah - "Woof, woof!"
Me - "What does a bird say?"
Judah - "Tweet, tweet."
Me - "What does daddy say?"
Judah - "Obey!"

Something New

I'm not sure what made me do it, but I saw some Mussels at the grocery store and decided to buy them. They looked so cute in their colorful shells, and they smelled amazing while cooking in the special marinade I'd made.

I was so excited to try them.

But the excitement quickly dwindled. They weren't so good. And I was quite disappointed.

And I will never do that again.

My New Hairstylist....

Things You Don't Want to Hear Your Hair Dresser Say:

- Uh oh!!

- Wheeeeeeeeee!

- Where it go?

- Momma? Where is it?

- Cut cut cut!

- Hahahahhahahahahahaha

- Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.


I tried to give him tips that all of the above statements were not helpful in making the client (which was me) relax. I think he got it. He's now ready for his next client. Any volunteers?

So Close!

We close on Friday!!

4:30pm Paul signs the enormous stack of papers and we become homeowners.
Woohoo!!
Even Paul is beginning to show signs of excitement now.


I am keeping a notebook of ideas for each room, and I think the first room I am going to tackle when we move is the Dining Room (which you can see below).
My idea is to paint the wall with the mural black (or dark gray, haven't decided) and then below the chair rail and all the other walls a light gray.
All of the trim will remain white.

The furniture/wall hangings in the room will be either black, white or gray and we'll bring in color with a tablecloth, center piece and a few other decorative pieces.

We are going to ask the homeowner if he knows if there is hardwood underneath the carpet - we are hoping there is! Wouldn't that be amazing?!
If there isn't we will still redo the floor - carpet under a table makes no sense to me!

Here are a few home decorating/remodeling blogs I have been enjoying lately - so many great ideas on them!! Hope you enjoy them as much as I have!

Remodeling Guy
The Nesting Place
The Inspired Room

Games!

Lest you think we are total Video Game junkies I thought I'd share one of our current favorite non-video-game games, Skip-Bo!

It is a really fun card game, sort of similar to Dutch Blitz and yet totally not like Dutch Blitz. It's like the calm version of Dutch Blitz.

I have such good memories of this game - growing up I played it a lot with my family and then when I was in Nigeria living with my grandparents we played it every single night. Every night. I was there for like ten months. That's a lot of Skip-Bo. And yet I still love the game, which has gotta tell you how great of a game it is, right?!

I bought the game for Paul and myself ages ago but I don't think we ever played it together. And then Judah somehow got a hold of the box and we were randomly finding Skip-Bo cards around the house, so that ruined that game!

But then a couple weeks ago I found the box on clearance at our local grocery store and bought it for us again and we've been having so much fun with it! We play a couple evenings a week and (please don't tell my Grandma) it makes me feel old. But it's fun and bonding and I usually win. :)
So what's not to love about that?! Even if it does make me feel old.

Buying Bananas For Less

Sorry if kids with messy hands and faces gross you out.
They gross me out.

I'm not really sure why I am even posting this picture for the entire world to see when it makes me shiver with disgust to look at the messiness all over him.

I took this picture the other night when he ate three bananas and six hard boiled eggs in a row. And he was still asking for more. He's his fathers son!

He's developed a true addiction to bananas. I buy 12lbs every 4-5 days, and they generally only last 3-4 days. And that one day that we're without bananas is horrible. It's like he's going through banana withdrawal. He's so weird. Definitely his fathers son. :)

Our grocery store sells "red band" bananas for .30 cents less per lb. than regular bananas. The red band bananas are suppose to be all of the bananas that are going bad, you know, the ones that in one day would make perfect banana bread?
But the produce guy always puts all of single bananas (that have fallen off other bunches) into the red bands too, so while Judah isn't picky about how ripe or (over ripe!) his bananas are, it is nice to get "just right bananas" for .30 cents less per lb.

I have seen a few other stores doing the "red band" thing on their bananas, but I don't know if they do it with all their single bananas, or just with the overly ripe ones.
The overly ripe ones do make for great banana bread. I have made a lot of that lately too. I make them into muffins and they freeze so nicely. It makes an easy breakfast or a quick snack! Just a matter of seconds in the microwave to thaw out!

Going Green

I have been thinking about making Green Smoothies for us for a little while, and then all of a sudden it seemed like everyone else in bloggy world was doing it too!!
THIS POST is the one that truly encouraged and pushed me over the edge from good intentions to actually doing it.

I made our first Green Smoothie last night using Spinach.
The one I have planned for today will use Spinach and celery.
And if that goes over well then tomorrow I'll add a cucumber.

Paul was a bit skeptical about the idea. There isn't much he thinks sounds weird, so I was a bit surprised that he didn't really want to try this. However in the end he did agree that I could make it to go along with our supper last night and he really enjoyed it, as did Judah and myself.

I added raspberries, bananas and blueberries to the Spinach, which is what gave it the funky, murky color!

Anything I could possibly tell you about Green Smoothies has been so well articulated in the above linked to post that I won't even bother repeating the information :)
Head over to Lindsay's blog and check out what she has to say about Green Smoothies (and then look around the rest of her blog, I quite enjoyed it!)

If you do try this yourself let me know what you add!

He likes to lick his lips. If mine looked that delicious I think I'd lick 'em too!