Wednesday, July 6, 2011

3rd Birthday! (Only 2 months late in posting!)

HAPPY 3RD BIRTHDAY MONKEY!!!

I cannot (I repeat) CANNOT believe our sweet boy is a whole 3 years old!  Everyday is so much fun with him and it's really hit us over the last couple months how grown up he has become!!!  On top of truly (not just saying this because I'm his Mom) being a really smart kid...he's hysterical and keeps us laughing constantly! 

As I said in my last post, the last few months have brought a LOT of changes!  On May 14th (Thomas' birthday) - we celebrated Malachi's birthday!  No invitations...mostly family and a few friends...ALL fun!  The reason we didn't go all out?  Our entire household was packed in boxes because on May 16th (Malachi's actual birthday) we closed on our new home!  So, as you'll see from the upcoming pictures, we had a "leftover" party!  My mother is known for going out and getting plates/cups/bowls for all our celebrations.  Inevitably there are 6 or 7 bowls and 3 or 4 plates left over from each party!  And, besides using those when we're out of our "fine" paper goods (ha!) we still have a stash of mis-matched stuff!  Thus - the "leftover" party!  I love it because it was easy...no one cared (least of all Malachi) and we didn't have to spend much money at all!  Which, as you all know, is optimum when planning a party and a large move at the same time!!!  (See all the different patterns?  Christmas, Graduation, Halloween and even Baby Shower!)











We LOVE our new home and soon I'll put pictures of Malachi's new room up! It's the first we've tackled and I love it - though it's DEFINITELY a work in progress! We've also gotten a new puppy, Raider! He's a morkie (maltese/yorkie) and is a DOLL! He's perfect for us and Malachi ADORES him! We're still waiting on some unanswered prayers but continue to trust (I'll be honest...sometimes it's a struggle) the Lord that His timing is always perfect!!


Our New Puppy, Raider!!! 

Raider and his brother, my Mom's new puppy, Magnum!



Alright folks - I've got a TON of posts planned over the next week or so so HOPEFULLY this will catch us up!  Oh, and have y'all heard of the "dropbox" app?  My bestie introduced me to it and, seriously, NOW I feel like blogging again since I can share all of my pictures easily that I take on my phone!

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

HEY!

We're here...we're alive!  But, in the last month we've moved, had a garage sale, gotten a puppy and been dealing with a 3 year old who hasn't been sleeping all that well!!!  And, to top it off...my brother is going to Bible College (SURPRISE!) in the Fall, my cousin is getting married, we've joined the choir at our church and, as of yesterday, my Dad has a COOL new bionic knee!!  We'll be back soon!

**Edited to Add...

Amy - I've been trying to get ahold of you through your blog, but it won't let me comment anymore!  Colton is absolutely beautiful!

MageeMommy - I've missed you friend!  I'm sorry I haven't gotten back, but as you can see, we've been CRAZY busy!! 

Friday, April 29, 2011

Easter Sunday!

Our Easter Sunday was much like most others we've had - Church - Lolli's house for lunch/eggs - playtime - chocolate bunny - CRASH!!!

Yep, that about gets it in a nutshell! After church we all headed to my Mom and Dad's house for an Easter lunch of ham, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, rolls, green been casserole, homemade red-eye gravy, deviled eggs, corn and desserts!!! (Oh my...the desserts!) It was perhaps the most beautiful day we've had all year with very little wind, beautiful temperatures and a bright sun!!! Seriously gorgeous! We even took our festivities outside and ate and played in the back yard for most of the afternoon!!!

And, in other news...WE SOLD OUR HOUSE!!!  We found a house that we really thought we might like about 3 weeks ago and decided to go look at it.  Turned out, it was perfect for us!  So, we made an offer contingent on our house selling.  The sellers agreed to a 30 day contingency so we ramped up to get our house sold...we had TONS of showings in the first 2 weeks and then found out that the sellers had a non-contingent offer (we think) on the table so they told us we had until Wednesday, April 27 to get ours sold.  Prior to that we had a buyer who then had a family emergency and couldn't buy ours.  So, on Monday the 25th...we thought all was lost.  Turns out, God had other plans...as of Wednesday around 5:00 p.m. was accepted an offer and now, we have 2 weeks to pack and move into our new home!!  I'm SO stinkin' excited!!!  I'll be sure to post pictures when we move in and get everything set up!!!

Oh, and yes, I uploaded over 20 pictures to one blog post.  It's getting to the point that if I don't blog it immediately, it doesn't get blogged!!!  haha 






 Scroll through these next pictures and see who the most difficult child to photograph of the 3 of them is right now...




 Looking for eggs!









 Double fistin' the Chocolate Bunny and Ring Pop!  (YUCK!)

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Where has the time gone?

I used to be SO much better at this whole blogging thing than I am now!  I used to have fun topics and creative titles.  Now, I struggle just to blog more than once a month!  This was such a great tool for us the first two years of Malachi's life and now I'm completely letting it go to the wayside...which I'm VERY sad about.  This is basically Malachi's baby book, because I just haven't been so great at keeping his up so I really need to get back with it to record some of the hysterical things he says and does on an (almost) daily basis!!!

As you can see with the last two videos I posted, he really is a ham!  As has always been, he's obsessed with music still and LOVES to dance and sing!  He's also been doing really well memorizing his memory verses for his new Sunday School class and got his first prize last Sunday for saying Colossians 3:20 all by himself!  They do the verses every month I think so in between, I think we're going to try to memorize some of our own.  Any suggestions on the next one we should work on???? 

As I mentioned (briefly) in my last post, we transitioned him to a big boy bed and he's done absolutely fantastic with it!!! He's only gotten out of bed once or twice after we've put him in...although for a couple weeks we dealt with constant yells of "MOMMY" or "DADDY" from his bed for a while after we put him down.  He figured it out pretty quickly that we weren't playing and he's done SO great since then! 


 




Although, it must be said, he doesn't always sleep the way I would!!! 


He's also a major blanket hound...the more blankets, the better!  haha

We also had a birthday party for my grandmother in January at my Aunt's house and then another, SURPRISE party for her in February so my aunt from Dallas could come!  For 70 years old, I think she looks fantastic and I'm glad that I have good genes to look forward to when I'm her age!!!





We've spent a few days at the park feeding the ducks and enjoying our time there and we've created a new tradition...Donut Stop - every Saturday morning!!!


 And yes, those are cheetos!  It's tradition in my family - Ducks LOVE cheetos!!!
 
Here's Malachi and Kadi Jo at the park with Lolli one pretty (albeit windy) day!

 

We've enjoyed beautiful days at the playground waiting for Daddy to get off of work...
  We've gotten our first baseball cap... 
 We've participated in Crazy Clothes Day at Daycare...

 We've helped Lolli and Pops at Sams... 
 And yes, we've had our first ankle sprain...which led to our first trip to the doctor for a possible broken bone and an X-Ray! 

Finally, we got our family pictures made for our church directory and LOVE them!!! Here's a sneak peek...we didn't want to pay an extra $20 just to have the CD so here's a picture of our family picture...you get the idea though!!! 


We did meet our goal of getting completely out of consumer debt by March 15th (I need to update that) and March 15-19 were some of the BEST days for us!!  However, on March 19, my car died, as in the transmission completely went out!  So, we made the painful decision to get a VERY affordable used car which still required us to use credit.  We bought a 2006 Stratus with 70K miles for about $8,000 so hopefully we'll be able to have that paid off within the next few months.  However, we're going to split half our extra income to go to the car and the other half to go to savings to build our savings account up!  Of course, if the Lord chooses to bless us sooner rather than later with another pregnancy, we'll put that debt on hold until we get our fully funded emergency fund.  (So, if you want to pray specifically for that, I wouldn't mind!) 

We are constantly amazed at our sweet son and his heart!  He never fails to say "bless you", "please" and "thank you" and reminds us constantly to do the same.  His new thing is saying "May I..." instead of "Can I" or answering us, "Yes you MAY."  He has a very proper teacher who is teaching him SUCH great things!!!  Although he's a typical (almost) 3 year old in most ways...we haven't really had too much of an issue with behavior.  Of course, that doesn't mean he's perfect - in fact, the other day, he hit three times at daycare and the consequences were dire for him!  I showed up and he told me what he did at Lolli's prompting, so I took his favorite stuffed monkey away (Frosty the Snow Monkey...can you guess when he got that?) and put it on top of Lolli's filing cabinet.  I told him Frosty would have to spend the night at daycare all by himself - and, though that bothered him, it didn't seem to affect him as much as I was looking for.  So, I threw it away in her trash can.  Of course, THAT got his attention, but that's exactly what I was going for.  I felt like I had to make an impression on him and the next morning, he woke up saying he wanted Frosty back and he wouldn't hit anymore (without our prompting, I might add) so it did the trick.  (Of course...5 seconds after we left, Frosty was taken OUT of the trash can...I may be tough, but I'm not MEAN!)  Well...that was last week and two nights ago, Thomas heard him in his bed talking to Frosty saying "It okay Frosty, I not hit, you not go to dumpster okay?"  I guess it worked...and though it broke my heart to hear that, I'm glad that we can get his attention that easily!  Other than that, he's a VERY sweet, VERY happy, VERY handsome little boy and I feel SO blessed to be his mommy!!!!

Friday, April 1, 2011

Another Cute Video! (I'm much more proud of this one!)

So we've moved from John 3:16 to Colossians 3:20. 

"Children, obey your parents in all things for this is well pleasing unto the Lord."

Thursday, March 31, 2011

The Artist Formerly Known as Our Handsome Little "Prince"

Our boy - so talented - so comical - such a ham!

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Since the last time

This is what we've been up to...

1.  Not blogging (but that's obvious, right?)

2 - Eating chocolate pudding while mom tries not to be OCD and wipe my mouth after every bite!

3.  Setting up and sleeping in our big boy bed!

4.  Eating lunch with Pops wearing matching shirts!

5.  Digging out from the snow...La Nina Who?

What number am I on?  Oh yeah...6.  Spending an hour making my sweetheart a fruit bouquet!

7.  Taking pictures of aforementioned sweetheart EATING his fruit bouquet...in 10 minutes!

8.  Making Valentine's for Malachi's Class!

As you can see...we've really done some fun things together since Christmas came and went!  Thomas is doing ABSOLUTELY fantastic on his diet and has lost 20 pounds in the last 6 weeks!!!  He feels great, looks even better and has more energy than he has in a VERY long time!!  I, on the other hand, have TOTALLY fallen off the wagon!  I certainly haven't gained anything, but I'm just not losing anything either.  Honestly, I gained about 30 pounds after high school (I was a TOOTHPICK) and have stayed the same weight for the last 9 or so years (except for about an 18 month period during and after baby!)  I'm pretty okay with where I'm at!!

We're also celebrating the fact that Tuesday marked the end of our "3 month post-miscarriage wait" and now have the full blessing of our doctor to hurry up and get pregnant again!!  I will be saving the news this time for a while, but I covet everyones' prayers for the health of our next pregnancy...and that it will happen SOON!!  We're so ready to have a second little Allen running around!!!  Everyone was right...the 3 months went by SO quickly!  

I got the unique opportunity of meeting a sweet new life last Saturday as a former high school classmate welcomed her new baby girl Riley into she and her husband's life!  She was so sweet at the shower and I was blessed to have her handed off to me so I could cuddle her!  Congratulations Lindsey and Josh - the Lord has been good to you both!!! 

We've had a little sickness here and there, but we've been blessed to stay relatively healthy through this winter!  Getting out of consumer debt is so close we can SMELL it and we can't wait to get our income tax back and hopefully spurn us into financial freedom!!  (Well...except for our house and student loans!)

I keep saying that one of these days I'll upload Christmas pictures and here it is February 10th!  Oh well...life happens!  Now we're planning for Malachi's 3rd birthday (I can't believe it) and I'm thinking we'll go with a Veggie Tales theme...He's stuck on Veggie Tales and the Pirates Who Don't Do Anything right now so hopefully I can come up with something creative for that!! 

Other than that, life has continued to be good to us and we continue to feel God's presence in our life together! 

And, just in case I haven't mentioned it in a while...I sure do love my husband!  He is an incredible father, and incredible husband and an incredible man!  He sets the bar in my book!!!