These two. 🙂

So, note to self, it is basically impossible to get a picture of two VERY active boys under the age of five both smiling and looking at the camera at the same time.

Just you know, in case I was ever wondering why most (read 99.8%) of my pictures look like this:

Sigh.

Anyway.

Here’s what we have been up to:

As I have mentioned on here before, Jon has been going to school to get his masters degree for the past two and a half years and as of a couple of weeks ago, he turned in his final project. He has one more two hour class to attend next week and then he is DONE.

I could not be more proud of that man. He has worked so hard through some of the longest, most sleep-deprived years of our lives and we are so thankful for him! The boys are totally, completely, one million percent loving having their daddy free on the nights and weekends now (as am I!!!!). We all are so happy in this no-more-homework stage we are in!

This is my little buddy most BSF mornings. Nathan goes to his class, I go to my class, Parker goes to his class and then I pick him up on my way back into the big group lesson to nurse him and he usually falls asleep and I take notes on the app in my phone. 😉 I am soaking in these moments with everything I have because I just can’t believe how fast time is passing!

He is everywhere and he is great at making huge messes and he talks a lot and laughs a lot and I just love him.

These two are just the sweetest friends. We love this family!

One year ago yesterday, we found out that the fourth person joining our family was going to be our sweet baby BOY. And I cannot imagine anyone else filling this role in our family!! He is the sweetest little brother with the cutest chubby-cheeked baby smile. This little Parker Bear is dearly, dearly loved. 🙂

And finally, I absolutely LOVED doing our book club!! I have a couple of ideas for November’s book – but do you guys have any suggestions of books you would like to all read together?? Also, today is the last day to enter the contest for the sequel to Let Them Eat Cake, so hurry over to the post and leave your thoughts on the book! 🙂

Have a great Thursday!

We had a great Halloween with these two littles!! Nathan FINALLY (after much waffling and debating for months) decided he wanted to be a knight in shining armor and so the hunt was on for a cute dragon costume for Parker. I found it about two o’clock Halloween afternoon. 😉

And I have to share our big project the day before: Nathan’s first pumpkin carving! He drew what he wanted carved on the pumpkin and we cut it out for him. 😉 I think he did a great job!! I mean, not every little kid can draw Mickey Mouse like that. 😉 😉

I’m busy working, working, working on making my deadline so I will write more soon!! What did you all do for Halloween??

Have a wonderful afternoon!!

Yay!! Our very first Book Club!

 Today I’m going to be live commenting on here this afternoon, so if you have something to discuss about the book, please leave a comment and we can all reply back and forth! 🙂

I LOVE this book – what did you guys think?? I love how much Lexi develops as a character through this novel. What was your favorite aspect of the book?

We also have a VERY special treat today! Sandra Byrd answered a few questions I had for her about the novel AND she’s been so very generous and is going to give one of you a free copy of the sequel to Let Them Eat Cake!

Oh goodness. We have not stopped recently. A little of what we have been up to:

Soccer!! Nathan played his last game for the semester last Saturday and did FANTASTIC. So proud of that boy. He definitely bloomed athletically over the last couple of months!

We had a little swimming and dinner thing at my parents’ house and the three big kids got in their jammies afterward, sat on a mat and watched Disney Channel. Very surreal moment realizing how old they are…

A little Sunday afternoon family football watching time. 🙂

This kid just makes me laugh.

One of the reasons I haven’t written as much on here lately is because every spare second I get, I’m working like crazy on my deadline. Jon has been AMAZING and sent me to go write several times over the last few weeks when he’s gotten off work. Love that man. Love my job!

We had a coupon and I couldn’t pass up this Jack-O-Lantern pizza. Hilarious. Nathan did not see that it was a pumpkin at all. He kept saying, “Well, they messed the crust up.” Ha!

Seriously. He loves to hang things out of his mouth. Pacifier clips, spit up rags, toys, you name it. We just laugh all day long.

One of the very few quizzes I’ve taken during nursing breaks that actually got it right! I mean write. I mean… 😉

I heart this boy. 🙂

Don’t forget!!  Our book club is going to be THIS THURSDAY!! Can’t wait to discuss Sandra’s book with you all!! 🙂

Hi friends!!

A few things on this lovely Wednesday morning… 

* First up, remember that we moved our book club meeting to Thursday October 30th so we could take advantage of Let Them Eat Cake being free on Kindle this coming week!! 🙂

* In order to not clog this blog with my new love of essential oils (I ran out of lavender and Parker stopped sleeping – got more in, rubbed it on his feet last night and the child slept 12 hours again… I love this stuff!), I’m going to only be talking about it on my new essential oil blog. I’d love to have you stop by as I learn more about them!!

* For my writerly friends, I discussed a few pointers about plots on Monday over at Scribble Chicks – I would love to hear YOUR tips!!

* Christmas is coming up!! I’m going to be running some sales on my autographed novels, so stay tuned!!

* And last but definitely not least, today is my beautiful mama’s birthday. So blessed to have her both as my mother and my friend. She is a great role model of what being a Godly mother looks like and I’m so thankful for her! I’m off to go celebrate with her. Love you Mom!

Have a fantastic day!

We absolutely LOVE our little pumpkin patch here in town!! We’ve been coming here every year since Nathan was three months old – it’s one of my favorite fall traditions. 🙂

My sweet family!! Last year, Parker was just a little bump at the patch. It was hard to not get teary over my precious family of four this year. 🙂

Gammy and Pops came with us – we just love them. 🙂

Nathan is in a weird smile phase so of the 315 (not even exaggerating) pictures I took at the pumpkin patch, only a few actually had decent smiles in them. Ha! Oh that boy… Love these brothers.

My big boy!!

My sweet baby love.

He has smiles for DAYS. And those blue eyes just kill me.

Goofy boys. 😉

Love these shots!! He’s such a little man now. And his little scrunchy look is one of my absolute favorites – he does that to us all day long.

Fun at the patch!! They added miniature golf this year and Nathan loved it. And Parker thought he was big stuff on the tractor.

I just love these silly heads. 😉

Quick update about the book club!! I talked with Sandra Byrd, the author of Let Them Eat Cake today and the novel is actually going to be FREE on Amazon Kindle this coming Monday through Friday. SO – we will actually be moving our book club day to Thursday October 30th so that more of you who may not have been able to buy the book can now participate as well!! Mark your calendars! I’m so excited to do this!!

For the last weekend of the Balloon Fiesta, Jon’s parents and grandparents came to visit and we had the best time!!

They spoiled us completely completely rotten. We ate out, we went shopping, the boys had constant people to hold them and play with them and Nathan pretty much was in absolute heaven with the amount of people he had to entertain. 😉

It was SO much fun. 🙂 🙂

We were all very sad and teary when they left on Monday. Already counting down the days until we see them again!!

Happy Friday!! So excited for a fun weekend of pretty much nothing
other than a fun dinner with the family planned. Hoping for lots of time
just relaxing after a crazy couple of weeks!!

Top five for this week…

1. Dandelions

Nathan loves loves loves
to pick dandelions for me. Anytime he sees one, he’s immediately
picking it and handing it to me. It’s one of my very favorite things
that he does. At his game last weekend, he found a dandelion in the
field and he picked it while playing and then held it until a water
break and came running across the field to give it to me. So sweet. I
just love him.


2. Our new Book Club!

Quick reminder that next Friday we will be discussing Sandra Byrd’s Let Them Eat Cake! Can’t wait to hear what you thought of the book!! For more info, here’s the post I wrote on it.

3. Dental dreams and pumpkins

Uncle
Caleb gave Nathan this little play dough dentist set and it is one of
his most beloved possessions. He plays with it all the time and gets so
serious to get things exactly right. It’s hilarious.

We
were coming out of Trader Joe’s the other day and he said, “Oh hey,
Mom, here’s some pumpkins. Quick. Take a picture of me with the
pumpkins. Cheese!”

4. Essential oils

Okay.
Y’all. I have always thought people who got into essential oils were a
little on the weird side. But I have two very dear friends who I love
greatly who are both pretty sane and who both love essential oils and so
I decided to try some. I got them right as Parker got sick with a cold
about a week and a half ago and since he didn’t sleep to begin with, I
just knew we were going to be up every hour until he got over this cold.

Guys.
I put some in a diffuser and diluted some and rubbed him down and HE
SLEPT ALL NIGHT. So I did the same thing the next night and he did it
again. And it’s been almost every night since!! We’ve had only two
nights in the past week and a half that he’s gotten up and even then,
it’s only been once at night when we were previously doing two and often
three times.

I promise I will not become the lady who
is all “your leg fell off? Quick – rub some essential oils on the stump
and your leg will grow back!” but I am so so happy (and rested! ha!)
that I had to share. I know there are a LOT of ways to use them so I’m
still definitely in the process of learning but I’m seriously in love
with these things. And bonus – they totally help my house not smell like
little boy stink. 😉 I’m sure you will hear more about the oils from me
in the future.

5. Every day life

Our glamorous last Tuesday night – sitting on a
washer that was trying to spin out if control as it washed cloth diapers
with a baby who was screaming when he wasn’t being held and a four year
old who found my nursing bra inserts on the dryer and was using them on
his head as the gongs as he pretended to be Cogsworth. 😉 All I could do was laugh.

Have a great weekend!!

I seriously JUST wrote his six month post. I told someone in a grocery store that he was six months old this last week and they remarked on how big he was and I remembered, wow…he’s really almost seven.

It’s just not possible.

Time is FLYING past. I’m soaking up every single second of this precious time!!

Parker is just the sweetest, smiley-est, most content little guy – especially if he’s being held by his mama. 😉 I remember thinking Nathan was a Mama’s Boy but my little Parker Bear is taking the cake for that.

He will get on his hands and knees and rock back and forth or turn in circles but we’ve had no crawling yet. THANKFULLY. After experiencing the “joy” that is a crawling baby, I’m in no rush to have him start yet!! Especially since we now have the added bonus of tiny toys like Spider-Man action figures all over the floor. 😉

He loves to dig through his toy box and throw them all on the floor, loves to bang toys and pacifier on tables, loves to be tickled, loves to be loud, loves to dance, loves to be kissed (if you stop, he’ll ram his head back into your face), and LOVES to eat, whether that’s nursing or food.

He is a super picky eater though – he does not like homemade baby food and he can’t stand avocados, bananas or peas. I can’t really blame him for the peas and the bananas. We were iffy about carrots but I guess they have passed the test. 😉

Parker is my little warm-natured baby. He loves to be in a diaper and nothing else. It’s starting to get cold here though so to his frustration, I make him wear clothes. 😉 His little hands get too cold otherwise!!

Parker is finally on a great nap schedule. He will sleep for about 45 minutes in the morning and then sleep another 2-ish hours in the afternoon. Then he usually goes to bed about 7:30. He is still nursing about six times a day and he also eats about 3 ounces of baby food at lunch and dinner. So far his favorites are pears and applesauce but he also loves sweet potatoes and squash. 🙂

He loves his brother with all his heart, loves to be in the same room as all of us, puts up a big fuss if he is feeling left out, he adores when Daddy gets home, loves his pacifier, loves to talk and yell, loves to laugh, loves to be snuggled and is the most content when he is just being carried around everywhere.

We love our sweet Parker Bear!!

This last week, Jon had Thursday and Friday off for Fall Break. When we woke up on Friday, the balloons were all up in the air, so we hurried and got dressed, made our coffee and hot chocolate and chased the balloons down. It’s one of my favorite, favorite, favorite fall traditions we have!!

I looked back and saw this as we were driving. Um, when did he turn sixteen??

The sight as we drove. So much fun!

We found a little street that led along some little league fields and there were seriously TONS of balloons landing there! It was SO fun! The boys were on their way to check out Smokey the Bear.

Smokey’s Chase Crew is so so sweet and they use an old firetruck as their chase truck. SO awesome. They let the boys sit in the truck and Nathan even got to ring the alarm. He thought he was about the coolest thing ever.

I love these boys. 🙂

Then we turned around and saw….

ELVIS.

None of my boys were super impressed with my renditions of “Hound Dog” as we walked over to see him a little closer. 😉

Nathan asked one lady if he could help put away the dragon balloon and she took off her gloves and gave them to Nathan so he could help. So cute. He absolutely loves helping the crews!!

And then Friday night, Jon’s parents and grandparents came in town!! We had the best time and they spoiled us completely rotten. But that’s another post. 😉 Love these people so much!