Today is a lovely day for a contest, don’t you think?? 🙂

I’m SO SO SO excited for you guys to meet Annie and get reconnected with the Lauren Holbrook gang in Match Made!! THREE days until the release!! Augh!! SO exciting!! 🙂 🙂

I have some FUN things up my sleeve for this book!! So here’s our little schedule for the next couple of days:

Today, I am giving away THREE free copies of Match Made on your choice of Kindle or Nook!! Use our handy dandy Rafflecopter to find out how to enter!!

Tomorrow, I’m going to be giving away Match Made and a $10 Starbucks gift card to one lucky winner!!

Friday, I’ll be giving away the four novels in the Lauren Holbrook series (Miss Match, Rematch, Match Point and Match Made) on Kindle or Nook to one person!!!

Saturday is release day!! And from Sunday to the following Saturday (the 21st to the 27th), I will be running yet another contest! If you read the book and then leave a review on Amazon (good or bad! Just a review!) and then come back here and tell me about it, you’ll be entered to win a huge prize pack that I’ll share more details about that week.

SO FUN.

Oh I am so excited!! What a fun couple of days we have coming up!! 🙂 🙂

Good luck to you all!! And merry Christmas!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Of all of the months, I think it’s the nine month birthday that gets me the most. I don’t know if it’s because he’s now been outside of the womb for as long as he was in it or what it is, but I just go through a little mourning period at the nine month mark. 🙁

Parker is so big and sweet and loud and fun!

He has found his voice this month and baby talks all. the. time. He says “nuh-nuh” and “leetle” a lot, occasionally “mama”, “dada” and “buh-buh” (assuming “brother” since he always says it when he sees Nathan!). He squeals and yells and babbles at the top of his lungs. He waves, high-fives and is trying to clap, but we haven’t quite made contact with the two hands yet. Ha! 🙂

He’s crawling everywhere and into everything. I dig something that he isn’t supposed to be eating out of his mouth at least once a day, whether it’s paper or a toy or a ball of Kody hair or an ornament or dog food or you name it. He’s started pulling up pretty regularly on his knees and has now gotten up to his feet. He’s so big I can’t even stand it.

Parker loves to eat! He suddenly decided overnight this month that he loves different textures and will now eat bananas, sweet potatoes, blueberries, puffs, chicken, fries and LOTS of other foods just cut up on his tray. Making a big mess is his specialty. 😉 We still haven’t tried gluten again and we are holding off on dairy a little longer, but it’s been so fun to see the world of food opening up for him. And you can tell he LOVES feeling big like brother when he gets to eat the same things. It’s so cute.

This baby hates to sleep. HATES it. He goes to sleep fine but usually wakes up at least twice if not three, four or five times a night. Lavender oil worked for a little while to keep him asleep but teething threw that off and now he’s still having trouble. And he loves his dad all day long but at night, it has to be me rocking him or he will just scream bloody murder. It makes for some long nights and a very tired mama during the day, so I’ve been feeling so behind on what I needed to have done by this point for Christmas! We are now planning on sending out Martin Luther King Jr. cards instead of Christmas ones. 😉

He will give open mouth kisses on your cheek and he loves to hold your hands and walk around the room. Anything that involves Nathan or us is immediately the best thing ever. And he loves when Daddy gets home – he gets so excited to see him! He still loves to just be carried all around and he’s started really loving to go out and do errands. As soon as I open the garage door, he starts waving his arms and shouting happily.

He’s wearing mostly size 12 month clothes now. So big!! He’s got an appointment in the morning, so I’m very curious what his stats are! I’ll update on here when I know. 🙂

He got his bottom two teeth this month – the first on one day and the second the very next day! It was so funny because when they finally both popped through, he just would sit and rub his tongue over them. So cute. 

He’s loud, obnoxious, goofy, silly, super smiley and laughs all the time. He has the scrunchiest little grin and I just adore it. We are so so so blessed with this little love. I say this all the time but I just can’t believe how fast time is flying and how quickly he is turning more and more into a little boy and less and less like the tiny newborn he was just…what, like a week ago, right?

We love our Parker Bear!

These days are just filled to the brim!! 🙂

I absolutely ADORE this picture – Parker is usually up from nap before Nathan is done cleaning his room up after his rest time, so everyday Parker always crawls as fast as he can over to Nathan’s door and bangs on it while yelling “Buh-buh! Buh-buh!” So precious. He loves Brother so much!! He’s pretty consistently calling him “buh-buh” for brother. I about die from the cuteness every time. 😉 He says “dada” and lots of baby talk too! He also says Mama but only when he’s either hurt, sad, tired or hungry. Ha!

Advent has started!! We love this advent calender house! Nathan looks forward to opening the door every single night. 🙂

And Christmas is officially here because it was time to go see the Nutcracker again!! This is one of our FAVORITE things to do and this year, we invited Gammy along so the adults could be on man-to-man defense. 😉 I love this picture!

Waiting to go into the auditorium! Nathan was beside himself with excitement. 😉

Finally inside!! Both boys did fantastically – SO much better than I was anticipating!! Parker even watched most of the performance! We had the best time!!

Sweet little doll-face. He is becoming the funniest little ham – I think we are going to have two VERY big personalities on our hands with these boys. I just adore this little pacifier smile!! 🙂

Making ornaments as per the advent calender’s instruction. 😉 He was so very careful with it. It’s so amazing to me how much he’s grown up even in the last couple of months.

“Hey! Hey! I think I see Santa!” This little sugar is a little obsessed with our fireplace and the doors and the glass and the extra fun little pebbles inside it…

I let Parker have a snack of puffs with big brother while they watched a short show after nap and rest time one day. Guys, he totally thought he was the big man on campus because of it the rest of the day. It was SO funny. Ha!

The real date night for my love’s birthday! We had a wonderful, wonderful time just talking and not having any children around! Ha! 🙂

My big helper at destroying the kitchen. We made Christmas popcorn with M&Ms, pretzels and sprinkles. It was great except for the popcorn part. 😉

Teeth are so helpful when it comes to eating real food! This boy used to not like anything that even remotely had texture to it but now he is scarfing down real food like a pro. He loves sweet potatoes, loves bananas, loves blueberries and especially loves French fries. 😉

Dad’s helper with the lights. Nathan loves, loves, loves to help. He’s loved to be a helper with anything we are doing since he was tiny. Love that about him!

First sippy cup!! He did pretty good! 🙂 He wasn’t a huge fan of the ice cold water (probably should have tried room temp first – oops!) but all in all, he liked it! 🙂

Parker’s best baby friend, Junie. 🙂 These two are hilarious together. We just love these girls!

Brothers make the best pull-up bars slash snuggle buddies. 😉

Nathan wrote his first letter to Santa this last week! He was so meticulous and worked so hard on it. It was adorable. He wrote Santa’s name and his name and then drew pictures of what he wanted Santa to bring. Jon helped him write the envelope and we drove to Macy’s to mail it in the big red mailbox. 😉

He was not excited about it at all. 😉 He could barely contain his joy. Ha! After we mailed it, we went to the Disney store and Nathan picked out a buddy for Parker for his Christmas present. He hid it from Parker through the whole store and wrapped it himself the very next day. So cute. 😉

He’s been so funny about Santa this year. We don’t really talk about Santa that much except to just say that he lives at the North Pole and brings presents and likes cookies and stuff. Nathan was listening to “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” and heard the line about him seeing you while you’re sleeping and knowing when you’re awake and was just completely aghast and said, “Mom. Santa doesn’t know when I’m sleeping or when I’m awake! Santa doesn’t know that! Jesus is the only one who knows that. Michael Buble lied!” 

Speaking of Santa… 😉 This baby loves himself a bubble bath.

Look at those teeth (and ignore my messy house!)!! I cannot believe how big my baby is getting!! 🙁 And that little grin just makes me laugh!

So I am so sorry for the break in blog posts. I’ve pretty much given up sitting down these days. 😉

We are in the midst of such a FUN but incredibly busy and crazy and exhausting time of our lives!! My sweet, precious Parker Bear has pretty much decided that sleep is just not something he’s super interested in, so we don’t do too much of that around here. And he’s crawling everywhere and getting into everything now so adding him in with my crazy big boy and I spend a lot of my days feeling about eight crayons short of a box.

And today marks FIVE DAYS until Match Made releases on Kindle and Nook!! Five days!! Augh! I’m so so excited!! 🙂 I absolutely LOVED writing this one and I so hope that you guys enjoy seeing what the gang from Miss Match has been up to. 😉 (And an extra note because I’ve been getting a LOT of emails about this – yes, it will ONLY release on ebook right now. I am SO sorry for the confusion/inconvenience/frustration this has caused!! You can download a completely free Kindle app for your computer or smart phone if you don’t have an e-reader and I do completely understand and agree that a paper book is best! For right now though, this is the only way that I could make this story available to you guys. Hoping that I get to release it in paperback someday but as of right now, it’s only going to be available on ebook. Again, I’m so sorry!!)

So, with that in mind, I’ve got a fun contest coming on Wednesday!! 🙂 Keep your eyes open for it!

And here’s the next installment in our happenings lately! Maybe I’ll be caught up by the end of the year. We can hope anyway!! 🙂

Have I mentioned it’s impossible to get a picture of two boys both smiling at the same time? And Parker is not too down with anything being on his head, so this lasted all of about .008 seconds. 😉

Thanksgiving was pretty low-key this year and it was WONDERFUL. We went to Mom and Dad’s and Jon left and played football with my brother and some friends while we worked like crazy on birthday preparations and Thanksgiving dinner. Parker fell asleep on Pops while we were busy cooking and, considering this baby’s feelings toward sleep, that should have given me a clue about what was coming but I was a little preoccupied. 😉

He pretty much just changed hands throughout the day. Bless his heart. By this point I knew he wasn’t feeling very good. 🙁 So sad that his first Thanksgiving was spent feeling yucky!

All the girls!! Love this beautiful women. 🙂 We SO missed Caleb and Nicole!! I miss them all the time but it’s especially obvious on the weekends and holidays (and all throughout May… name that quote!).

Me and the biggest little brother. 🙂

Little love. He’s loud and goofy and never stops talking or singing or moving but he’s just the funniest little four year old I have ever known and he’s all mine. I adore him.

And then, the day that Nathan has been waiting for since December 26, 2013 came around and Freddy Frinkle came back to our house the day after Thanksgiving. 🙂 Nathan is still pretty obsessed with nutcrackers, so Freddy brought a package of nutcracker ornaments with him.

Such happiness has never been seen before. Ha! 😉 There was quite the celebration that morning when Nathan saw that Freddy had really come!!

Life is good. 🙂

On Friday, after months of planning, we had a surprise party for Jon and oh did we surprise him!! He was shocked. Completely, one hundred percent shocked. I had him totally convinced that I was taking him to dinner at a surprise restaurant and then I had my mom “leak” the restaurant I was surprising him with so even he didn’t even think he was getting a surprise. Then, when we were supposed to be dropping the boys off at my parents’ house, friends and family all surprised him with the party. It was so fun – such a wonderful day!!

His dad, brother and sister-in-law all got up at 2:30am Friday morning and drove the whole way to the party. We were SO glad to see them! And Jon was so so surprised and excited! So thankful for these people!

In another surprise though (and not a good one at all), Nathan, Jon and most of the family and friends at the party ended up getting either food poisoning or a stomach bug that then lasted through the rest of the weekend. Such a bummer. But I am thankful that it hit after the party! 🙁 I was basically bathing in essential oils to keep myself well and somehow I avoided it. But it was a LONG weekend and we all sort of felt like we were in some zombie movie wondering who was going to succumb to it next. Jon’s family left on Sunday and I found two teeth popping through the surface of Parker’s bottom gum on Sunday night.

So we spent the next several days really not sleeping and on a constant dose of Tylenol and ibuprofen and lavender oil. Poor baby. He had a very rough time getting those two little teeth through. The right one in particular was in and out of the gum several times – we fought hard for those teeth!

Okay. On to merrier subjects! What are you MOST looking forward to this Christmastime? 🙂

Well, after probably the longest week we’ve had in a long time, Parker is now the proud owner of two brand new bottom teeth. 😉 Life is hopefully going to be back to normal here soon!

We ended up decorating the house two weeks before Thanksgiving this year. We were in the garage getting down the boxes of Nathan’s old clothes for Parker and I was like, hey, let’s just do Christmas while we’re in the unpacking mood. Ha! 🙂 Two people were not at all upset about this plan. 😉

First time seeing the tree!! He’s actually done fairly well at leaving it alone, though there is one string of lights that he’s pretty fond of yanking.

Nathan has been dying to get his Nativity set out since we put it away last year. So, this was a major deal that he finally got to unpack it!

Hard working dad. 😉

Love this – the tree, the Christmas movie, the elf hat and especially the snuggly boys in their jammies. We heart cold, Christmas season mornings. 🙂

And Chrismas season evenings. 🙂 There is a brownie under all that whipped cream. And a blanket was on my lap and we had our favorite show on the TV. Life was good.

This little sugar desperately needs a haircut. He had on shoes for the first time and was not quite too sure about them.

We have found Nathan sleeping like this several time over the last few weeks. So funny. That kid is bouncing off the walls about Christmas!

And Parker Bear is officially out of a sleep sack and sleeping with a crocheted blanket. I can’t even believe he is old enough. 🙁

 Our house is covered in static these days. Love these static-clung baby smiles.

We ran to Hobby Lobby one day and Nathan said, “Hey Mom! There’s a giant candy cane! Quick! Take my picture with the giant candy cane!” And then he struck this pose. Ha!

I walked out one morning after brushing my teeth and found this. My house was a total, complete disaster but these two were just so sweet. Love how much they love each other!!

What are some special Christmas traditions you guys have??

Oh goodness. So much to catch up on. We have been surrounded by a stomach bug/food poisoning and Parker cut two teeth as well over the weekend and has pretty much needed me to be holding him the entire time that he’s awake. Poor guy. 🙁

So, here’s more catch up from November! 🙂

This is what I’ve been doing every chance I get to sit down without a baby – writing, writing, writing. 😉 I’m so very excited for you guys to meet Annie and to catch up with the old gang from the Miss Match series! 🙂 Match Made releases December 20th!! And for those of you who have been asking, as of right now, it will just be releasing on Kindle and Nook only. I will let you know if that changes!!

I’ve never seen a kid so excited to go to the dentist. This picture cracks me up because he was trying so hard to appear all cool and collected but he couldn’t stop grinning. What a weirdo. 😉

This has been Parker’s favorite thing to do lately. And chew on my computer cord and pull the DVD player down and generally just get into everything all the time. 😉

Santa hats were at CFA when we met friends there one day! 🙂 This was the official start to the Christmas season, I think, for Nathan. 😉

Match Made has already been ranked on Amazon lists!! You guys are amazing!! 🙂 🙂

Hot chocolate season is upon us and we are fully embracing it. 😉

Stay tuned over the next few weeks because I’ve got a fun contest coming up and a couple of sales for you guys on autographed copies!! 🙂

Merry Christmas!!

My love,

Today, you are thirty years old.

Thirty. 🙂

So
it seemed fitting that in honor of your thirtieth year on this earth, I
would list the top thirty reasons that I love you. Know that this list
is in no way exhaustive nor is it in any order. You are my dearest
friend, my favorite person and my sweetest love. There are infinite
reasons I could list. 😉 But in order to not keep you here forever, here
are some of my favorite reasons why I love you:

1. You love Jesus. Actually, there might be some order to this list since that is hands down the biggest reason I love you.

2. I love the way you look all dressed up for a date with me.

3. And I love the way you look in your comfy sweatpants when we are about to snuggle on the couch and watch a movie.

4.The expression on your face when our boys were born. I will never forget that as long as I live.

5. How much you love your boys. You love them so much and you care for them so well. And they adore you. It brings tears to my eyes to think of how you father our children.

6. You get teary when sweet things happen with our boys or while watching a movie. I love that.

7. You’re always great for a good, long hug.

8.
You work hard, long hours for the students at your school and you genuinely
care about them and their futures. I wish every child had a teacher
like you.

9. I love that when I’ve taken my ring off to bake
or put on lotion or something and you find it on the counter you
come propose to me all over again every single time. It’s my favorite.
😉

10. That you understand that we need lots of nights of no deep conversations
and just straight relaxing on the couch after I’ve had a long day with
the kids or trying to cram in a writing to meet a deadline.

11. There are no words to tell you how much I love that you take over when Nathan has a stomach bug. No words.

12. I love that you’re willing to watch my sappy chick-flicks and Christmas movies with me but you don’t suggest we watch your movies that you know will scare me.

13. I love that you are so proud of your kids. It is so sweet to hear you talking about them.

14. The mornings when I wake up after a long night with the baby and you’ve got the kitchen cleaned and dishwasher empty before you leave for work. Sometimes that almost makes me cry, I love that so much.

15. That you are more concerned that we had a fun, good day than that our house is in any order when you get home. I really appreciate that!!

16. Our inside jokes from other inside jokes that originated with TV shows or movies that we can’t even remember anymore.

17. When we all burst into the Chicken Dance in the kitchen after dinner. 🙂

18. I love standing next to you at church while you hold Parker in one arm and my hand in your other hand and you sing the songs with your eyes closed, just totally worshiping Jesus. I love those moments.

19. I love when we’re debating something and you totally know I’m right and you just resort to tackling me onto the couch rather than admit it. 😉

20. That you get just as excited about new kitchen sponges as I do which just further solidifies how pathetic our adult life is. 😉

21. I love that you love playing with the boys so much. They absolutely adore every second of it. And I love that you are totally willing to dress up in whatever ridiculous outfit Nathan wants you to wear.

22. When I’ve fallen asleep on your shoulder in the middle of one of our shows and you keep jostling me and making me wake up so I won’t miss it. I still never remember what it was about. 😉

23. That we always end up ordering the same thing at restaurants.

24. The way you get so excited over every milestone the boys cross and commiserate when I get so sad about how quickly they are growing.

25. I love the way you can always make me laugh, even on my very worst days.

26. I love that we are both late-night-snackers together. I absolutely love our sweet, boring routine every night.

27. That you do cool tricks off the diving board or dress in goofy outfits or talk in silly voices just to make Nathan laugh.

28. I love that you spent so much time getting your Masters and tried to do it without it affecting Nathan and Parker as much as possible. And I especially love that you are DONE!!

29. This crazy, loud, busy, sleepless, cozy, goofy, perfect life that we’ve created together.

30. Because you are you. I’m not going to say never change because we are constantly changing, but let’s just keep changing together and keep Jesus close to us. 🙂

I love you, Jon!! Happy 30th birthday!

I am playing catch up over these next few days!! Between the deadline, getting Christmas stuff up and ready and everything else going on, I feel like I’ve barely sat down for weeks!! And when I have sat down, I’ve been trying like crazy to write. 🙂

But the sitting is only going to get more rare because a certain little bear at my house started army crawling today… 😉

A few weekends ago, Jon got two tickets for a Lobo football game and we decided that it would be best if he took Nathan with him. And soon after that, he got an email saying that they were going to be honoring former lettermans at the same game and so Jon actually got tickets to go on the field as well! Such an amazing, amazing night for my little boy!!

My favorite two Lobos!! 🙂

Before the game, they got to eat a special tailgate dinner for the former Lobos inside the basketball stadium. The cheerleaders came and led everyone in the cheers and Nathan was a big fan of that. 😉

Howling like the lobo. 😉

I think this picture is hilarious. And I have to give credit to Jon here – I demanded requested that he take tons of pictures since I wasn’t going to be there and he did a great job documenting their entire evening. 😉

Watching the pre-game warm up. He was a little in awe, I think.

He told Jon that this was his game face. Ha!!

Here comes the band!! 🙂 They got to stand on the field as the players ran out of the tunnel and they all gave Nathan high fives. He said they hit too hard. Ha!

Sweet boys. 🙂

Cheering for the game!! It got super cold that night!!

I love this picture!!!

Jon called as he pulled into the driveway so I could come see Nathan. Someone was all tired out. 😉 Love this. He doesn’t often look little to me anymore, so this just melted my heart.

I’d say it was a successful Dad/Son date. 😉

It’s not possible.

Our sweet little guy turned eight months old yesterday! I cannot believe how quickly time is flying past now. I feel like I am on fast forward through the days.

Parker is just the sweetest little man! He’s loud, silly and super smiley. He loves his big brother, loves his mom and dad and does NOT tolerate being left somewhere outside of the vicinity of any of those three people. 😉 He loves, loves, loves to be held and I’m pretty sure he would happily spend his entire day being carried around by me.

He’s up on his hands and knees and rocks back and forth a lot (and even sometimes hops his knees forward), but he still hasn’t figured out how to get those hands to move without face-planting. so, we’ve spent a lot of time face-planting lately. So thankful we put carpet in this house!! He’s been trying so hard he’s gotten rug burn on his cheeks, but we much prefer rug burn to bonked heads on tile floors. 🙁

He’s eating like a champ. We tried green beans this last week and he liked them but his tummy did NOT and it took a few days for it to settle back down. He has a much more sensitive stomach than Nathan ever did – I feel like if I even look at a tomato, he immediately is up with a gassy stomach all night long.

He’s sleeping, for the most part, much better than he has been in the past and I think that is totally due to the essential oils I’ve been using! He usually starts nursing about 7:30 right after we get Nathan in bed and is in bed asleep by 8. He’s usually back away by 7 or so and then takes his first nap at 9 and his second nap around 12:30 or 1.

He loves to dance, loves to play, loves his pacifier, loves to roll over and pull the DVDs out and mess with the clock and open and close the fireplace and loves to smile. He is seriously the smiliest little guy!!

Some 6-9 month clothes still fit him, but they are getting quite tight! We just pulled out all the 9-12 month clothes of Nathan’s and it’s killing me that he’s already that big.

Time is just flying past and I feel like if I could just find an extra few minutes every day to stop and just fully enjoy these fleeting moments…oh, I would give so much for that. As it is, I try my best to enjoy as much as I can!!

We love our sweet Parker Bear!

Guess what is now available for pre-order on Amazon Kindle?? 🙂

Match Made, the fourth in the Lauren Holbrook series, officially releases on December 20th! I can’t wait for you guys to catch up with the old gang and meet some new friends. 🙂

Yay!!