It's hard to believe...

We are here.

Sometimes I feel like I was just planning our wedding last summer

and we will be married five years in September.

And it REALLY feels like we just gave Weston cereal for the first time, and now we are introducing it to our second sweet child.

I always love seeing little ones in the grocery store with their shoes on the wrong feet.

love it

I tend to smile at those moms, and think

"how blessed you are momma, to have such a sweet one learning their independence and doing such cute little things to make you smile like pulling their shoes on the wrong feet"

Kind of like when you see a little girl toting her mom's ginormous purse as her own

or clicking around at McDonald's in her dress up shoes

I am there. I am that blessed momma with those sweet reminders.

And it is even greater to see when it is your baby who is pulling their boots on the wrong feet.

He started doing this back around Christmas with just his boots, and now he does it with all his shoes.

Earlier this week he pulled on his play shoes all by hisself.

Tongues pushed down to the toes and criss crossed those velcro straps :)

Little things like this make me so thankful.

Thankful for the sleepless nights, the little time to myself, the "no's", the mounds of laundry, the tired back, the runny nose, the five six seven poopy diapers a day, every last little thing that I dont always see the good side of.

Because if it werent for those things there wouldnt be things like this, the shoes on the wrong feet, the smiles, the hugs, the bowed head at supper, the learning to count, the laughing out loud, the singing, the simple ways of a child that remind us what really matters.

“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.”

Robert Brault

Happy weekend friends!

xo

Lyss

A lovely closet

I love having a daughter.

Like really love.

Dont get me wrong, I LOVE having a son too, but you have read about how great that is for the past two years, this daughter thing, it is new.

It is so special to get to enjoy each one of kids in very different ways and I am very thankful for that.

I have been sewing things for both of their rooms and Saturday Ally just sat in her swing and talked my ear off while her brother napped the afternoon away. It was cute.

Yesterday the boys rode the Rhino and found a deer antler in the woods and Ally and I went shopping.

I love to shop.

Especially for my kids.

Ally was in the best mood the whole time and warmed everyone's hearts that stopped and peeked into her stroller to say hello. She would smile and even chatter to some of them.

She likes to talk.

We looked at clothes and bought her two new outfits. We didnt find anything for brother, but we did find something for a little baby due next month who's shower we are going to Saturday.

Again, I am thankful for a daughter to go to a baby shower with :)

So anyway, I thought I would show you a few things we have done in her room. It isnt finished, once we get Weston's bed we can do the final move and then hopefully both of their rooms will be completed :)

The first thing I did was her closet.

I did really plan on her having a cute closet, but I got a bit antsy wanting to make her room "hers" once she decided she needed her own room so I started cleaning out her closet one day and realized she only had enough clothes to fill one bar (poor little thing) so I whipped up some tissue poms to hang from the top bar and then just had a ball making it cute and special for her.

I put a little lamp in there to make it cozy and I love it at night when I am feeding her and putting her to bed.

I spray painted the bar white one day and added a few little things to the shelf to sweeten it up a bit.

A pretty card from her cousins Macy, Bailey and Annie.

A bucket of hairbows

I think it is so cute, especially compared to the mirrored door eye sore it was before.

Her room is doubling as our guest room when need be so I decided to do white and cream bedding because that is what we already have on our guest bed.

She has this bedding from pottery barn awaiting big brothers hand-me-down crib :)

I really like it and I cant wait to put it to good use.

The other thing I have done is paint her dresser.

You  may remember that from a few post back. I bought it from my friend, it was slate blue and I decided to paint it white, but went with darker knobs because her crib will be dark.

I picked out the white/cream bedding back in the summer and I knew I wanted to do some other pops of color with it and after we sent out her birth announcements I knew I wanted to do baby blue and rasberry red with it.

The little bowls hold "her necklace" that I wore this past summer while carrying her.

On the opposite side of the wall of the dresser Cameron hung these shelves this weekend.

via

I would really like to get some frames like these for it, but we will see!

photo via houseofsmiths.com

I still have to:

Finish her beadboard frames

Hang her curtains

make a few pillows

Make something to hang above her changing table

get some baskets for her changing table

But we are getting closer and I like how it is turning out. I am savoring this time because someday she probably will want to paint her room some color that I wont like and wont ever want to maker her bed and if it is up to her brother she will love tractors, trucks and four wheelers just like him and daddy.

And that is ok too :)

He always takes her rattles and toys from her and replaces it with something a bit more fitting.

And she never minds one bit :)

Hope everyone is having a great week and I hope you enjoyed the sneak peek!



Papa

Hey ya'all! I am so excited to be here sharing these pictures with you today. I have wanted to post them for awhile, but I have been saving them for this day, because.....

today tomorrow is a very special day.

It is my dad's 50th birthday! Happy Birthday Daddy!!

My dad is one of the neatest people I know and most people that meet him instantly love him.

He is a big ball of fun. It was him that rode the roller coasters and taught me how to dance (he is a great dancer).

He loves his family more than anything and he and my mom are the most giving people I know.

It was a childhood dream of his to have a farm in Highgate and he worked hard and made that dream come to life along with my momma's help and God's grace.

Cameron and I were married there almost five years ago.

He taught me how to work hard and how to put your family first.

I have inherited his love for pictures, country music, time with family, westerns and laughter.

I love my dad so much and as I keep thinking about his day I think about his gifts, the gifts our Heavenly Father has graced him with.

The pictures I am sharing today to celebrate him show one of his gifts so perfectly.

In the past few years I have seen first hand how God gifts people with things that fit their circumstances. My kids are very blessed to have WONDERFUL grandparents on both sides and each of them (grandparents) has a special gift that I believe was given to them for the very reason that we live away...so our children will know them and love them.

For example, my mother in law is wonderful with babies and my kids love her from the time they are tiny tiny infants and she is able to bond with them at such a young age.

My dad's would be playing.

I took these of he and Weston while we were home over Thanksgiving. I caught them playing in my childhood playhouse:)

He has the most tender, childlike heart I have ever seen. The way he plays with Weston is so neat and special and encourages me to "get down" in the floor with him more, because it doesn't come as natural to me, but I see how much he loves it! Weston loves playing with my brother's childhood tractors with dad while we are at the farm.

(Dad and Weston visiting while mom and I shop Historic St Charles last April)

He takes a genuine interest in the kiddos and plays what they want to play.

That is something he inherited from his mother, she was the same way when I was a little girl. I remember dragging every project I made in third grade out to show her one night and she was just as excited about the fifteenth as she was the first.

She would eat anything out of my easy bake oven that I concocted and never showed a disinterest at all.

He is so much like her, and I am so much like him :)

My dad has so many great qualities as man, father and now as a Papa that I wish I was closer so that I could show him just how much I love him and how special I think he is... and so I could apologize for announcing on here that he is fifty today :) (she grins)

Anyway... Dad, I just want you to know that we love you and I admire you in so many ways. You mean the world to me and my little family and we are so thankful to have you in our lives as well as our family.

You did a wonderful job being the father to a very stubborn, wreck less driving young lady and are a wonderful Papa to my sweet babies.

I am so proud to be your one and only daughter! Happy Birthday!



Love you more!

Happy Monday!!

Good Morning Everybody!

We are busy around here! I have already started cleaning the bathrooms, ran the dishwasher and did a load of laundry! Weston and I have been outside to feed the critters stale bread and he stayed out and played for a bit while mommy finished her grocery list by the window! It feels good to be ahead of the game and it is only nine!

We had the best weekend! We went to Austin to see our dear friends! Cameron and Justin went hunting...for hogs and crow and something else I think in east Texas and Charlsie and I stayed with the little ones and got her house ready for their new baby boy due in SIX WEEKS!

Saturday we were brave and took the kiddos out for a day of shopping! They all did great and I found some great little treasures for the kids and the house!

Weston loved playing with all of Jackson's fun toys. He has a slide which was a huge hit as well as a sandbox, BBQ grill and a remote control backhoe! Gave mommy lots of ideas for Easter baskets and a Valentine gift :)

Ally enjoyed sleeping and swinging in the baby's cadillac of a swing :)

She was a trooper with those silly boys and mommy's who wanted to shop!

That is about it for us! I am looking forward to a fresh new week! Not too much planned, but I started a new Bible study last week and I am looking forward to that again. I was brave and took both babies to the nursery and they did wonderful. Weston is actually starting to play with the other kids and not sitting on the ladies lap the whole time and Ally has a really sweet young girl that takes care of her. When I went to pick her up she was cuddling her and she said "I miss this stage" she has a little boy who is fifteen months in the bigger baby class :) I go and check on her periodically throughout my class "just to make sure" but I feel great about leaving her. It is my only break and the study is Apples of Gold and it is really hands on. After the study I am refreshed and ready to take care of my family even better than before so that makes leaving my sweet ones a little easier :)

Here is a few things I bought this weekend:

The dress on the left and the motorcycle shirt were on clearance at Carters and I got them for a steal! The yellow romper I thought was just too cute for Ally this sumer. The rest of the things I bought at Hobby Lobby. I really like my metal  numbers and I am excited for figure out where I want to put them! I am going to cover that A for Ally's room. I ordered some shelves last week and they should be here any day and I cant wait to put some of her sweet things on them!

I bought a glass cloche for our living room! I thought it would be cute with some special things in it, but I cant decided if I like it or not...it may be a little too fancy for us!

Weston and I are working on a special gift for someone who has a birthday this week and I am making potato soup for dinner tonight and I am pretty excited about that! We haven't had it yet this winter! Other than that we are just doing the usual, which is nice!

Hope ya'all are looking forward to another great week to!

ABC,,,easy as 123...kind of ;)

Hello everyone! Just dropping in REALLY QUICK (babies are BOTH sleeping, fingers crossed)!

Now that Weston is communicating more I want to start teaching him a few things! We have worked on counting and he loves to say TWO after I say one, but he wont say it when I ask how old he is...stinker!

Anyway I have been looking for learning ideas this afternoon and was wondering if you guys had any ideas to add? Or techniques you use for teaching your little ones, the hardest thing for Weston right now is getting him to focus :)

Here are a few ideas I pinned that I am really excited about:

This little bag of letters is not only adorable, but I think it would be fun (and quiet) in the car (especially since we are making the eight hundred mile drive in a few weeks)

mrprintables.com is a great place I found while looking

they have regular flashcards both upper and lower case letters as well as a bunch of other great cards, letter coloring sheets and someday maybe we can make these:

And eventually we can hopefully do fun things like these

Weston is crazy about anything with wheels and he even says vroom vroom in his sleep so I thought these would be fun for him :)

I love the very hungry caterpillar and Ally received the book for Christmas as well as the stuffed animal...these sheets look like a lot of fun too :)

(all the pics are embedded with the original links if you want to check them out)

And last, I hope to make something similar to this and hang it some where around the house for bubby (and sissy too someday) to help with learning numbers...and maybe we can throw it in that ABC bag too :)

Like I said I would LOVE for any tips and tricks! Weston doesnt watch TV so he isnt hearing his ABC's constantly or anything like that so me teaching him is it for right now!

And here is what I will be doing while not teaching him :) (amongst other things:)

apparently sissy had diaper rash on her head ;)

Bubby also though his boots needed to be on the boot dryer just like daddies :)

That is about it for me! It has been beautiful here so we have been outside! We have been having lunch on our deck, and today I braved taking both babies on a Rhino ride...and taking walks, much needed walks.

I rigged myself up a double stroller. We are going to buy one, but the kind I want Ally needs to bea little bigger so earlier this week I made one.

I would just like to add before you see the next few pics, I know I am just like my dad.

He is the king of rigging things up and felt JUST LIKE HIM while I bungy cording Ally's seat to the stroller :)

Hey it works and the kids loved it :) And my legs and abs have been sore for two days!

HOpefully everyone is having a great week!

Love ya,

Lyss

Catching up...

Hello there! I feel like I havent been on here in forever! It has only been a week, but I have covered some ground. I wrote Friday's post last Wednesday and scheduled it for friday and decided to take a wee break and work on a few things.

Some physical, mental and always of course things around the house.

 

I didnt want to say anything because I didnt want anyone to feel like they needed to bolt down here and save me, but the past few weeks have been HARD and I needed a break and to reorganize my time. I think Ally is finally getting a bit of a routine lined out and it only took a month and some tears of exhaustion from her momma before we got things lined out.

I remember Weston going through this stage... where everything is so exciting and they get over tired and you work so hard to get them down and then twenty minutes later they are up and mad because they are up and neither one of you can find out why they are and it just breaks both your hearts... :(

It is funny though, I have been praying Romans 8:28 over every circumstance in my life that I have been struggling with, yes, even something as small as an unhappy baby (that is a big deal when you are the momma:) and God really does work all things together for His Good. The past few weeks have been heart breaking, exhausting, and overwhelming, but by pressing on and saying "God I will praise you when we have a great evening/day and I will praise you when we have a terrible evening/day" has pulled me through and I feel stronger by His grace that was shed through that time. I can look back now and see how that time blessed me, I love my baby girl even more (didnt even know that was possible) and love being a mom even more (didnt know that was possible either:) and it is all because I went through a bump that he used to bless my heart.

So, there you have it. What I have been up to. Trying to take care of everyone in my family with all that I have and praising and seeking God when even that isnt enough.

Of course we have done other fun things too....
I have been working in their rooms and hope to show you some pics soon.
Cameron got off early yesterday and Ally and I went for a walk while they boys washed and rode the Rhino :) I am really out of shape...I realized that yesterday when my legs felt like jello after a small walk...and I realized how great of shape I was in while I was pregnant; all that walking and swimming paid off :)
Weston and I have been having lots of fun together while sister sleeps :) He likes to drag out all the pots and pans and "cook" and then make me eat it.
He calls me all the time. He will pick up the phone and talk away and everytime I ask him who he is talking to he say "Ommy". :)

Ally is officially in her 3-6 month clothing completely. This was my favorite sleeper of hers in her 0-3 month clothing. So, before church Sunday morning I took some pics of her in it.

The bee on her bottom is my fav :)

Such a sweetie :)

Well, that is all for now and I apologize if this post didnt make any sense at all. I know what my heart is trying to say and share, but sometimes it is hard to get it out on paper...or computer in this case.

And my head is a little fuzzy...I spent half the night in the rocker in Weston's room comforting a sweet boy who had a bad dream :)

I hope everyone is having a great week!

xo

Lyss

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose"

Romans 8:28