33!

Yesterday I turned 33! We had no extravagant plans, just a regular ole Sunday with my people & a little bit of birthday fun mixed in--it was perfect.

The girls surprised me with donuts for breakfast in the morning (with help from Daddy!) followed by handmade cards & goodies they picked out especially for me. After church & lunch, the girls baked me a cake with Derek while Brady napped. The weather was suddenly very spring-like yesterday, so we enjoyed some time outside riding scooters. Then we enjoyed Panera for dinner followed by Cold Stone for dessert courtesy of gift cards. :)  One of my favorite parts of the whole day was when Hadley walked in our bedroom yesterday morning & said "Good Morning, Birthday Girl!"

{my birthday card from Hadley}



{Shelby showing off the pop-up birthday card she made for me!}

So thankful for another year with my precious family. Looking forward to all that 33 will bring!

Top Five Friday

Happy Friday to you, friends!!! Here's five things that have been making me happy lately!

5. {THIS} clock

We ordered {this} clock for Hadley off of Amazon right before Christmas, and it was seriously was one of the best purchases we have ever made!! We never needed anything like this for Shelby, but it's been life-saving for us with Hadley! Since Shelby started Kindergarten, we usually have the girls up and moving before the sun comes up on weekdays. As a result, Hadley was so confused on when it was "morning." {Prior to Shelby starting Kindergarten, our days never started before the sun was up!} She started rolling over in the middle of the night and coming out of her room to ask us if it was morning. If I wasn't already losing sleep due to middle of the night feedings for Brady, that probably wouldn't have been such a big deal. But I needed my sleep!!!! We decided to give this clock a try, and it works like a charm!!! The clock has a soft light yellow glow to it all night, and then it turns green in the morning when it's time to wake up. We have hers set to turn green at 6:30 and stay green for an hour, but you can customize it however you want. Hadley absolutely loves her clock, and it gives her such a sense of autonomy. Now when we tuck her in, we always say "See you when your light turns green!" I never realized how confusing saying "See you in the morning" could be for a toddler or preschooler when they don't know when "morning" is. Can't say enough good things about this clock!

4. The library
I was reading a blog that I really enjoy the other day, and I was seriously shocked when the author mentioned off-hand in a post that she doesn't ever go to the library b/c that's just one more "errand" to run with her kids. What?! You don't go to the library with your kids?! I was seriously baffled. The library is one of our family's most frequented destinations! We go at least once if not twice each and every week. When we were looking at houses online gearing up for our house-hunting trip last Spring, one of the things that we checked for was how close each house was to the library! That may sound silly, but libraries are important to our family! We had an amazing library in SA, but it was a good 15-20 minute drive from our house. Our library now is only about 3 minutes away, and it's seriously been life-changing!! So many libraries have play areas for small children now and multiple storytimes (and other activities!) offered throughout the week geared at varying age groups. For instance, our library has a specific storytime for babies, young toddlers, older toddlers, preschoolers, school-age kids, and family storytimes! There's something for everyone! Most libraries have a 50 book limit on check-outs, and our family typically reaches the limit each & every week despite the fact that we have hundreds of children's books that we already own. ;)  I also love being able to check out E-books or put books on hold ahead of time so they're ready for me at check-out. We seriously love the library!

3. My new necklace!

I've been a fan of Kendra Scott jewelry since living in San Antonio b/c they had a store at La Cantera that I would frequently peruse, but I've never purchased a piece before. I tend to avoid anything new and/or trendy. I can vividly recall not wanting to buy ballet flats after they first became a "thing" b/c I thought they were too trendy for me. ;)  I waited until they were around for a couple years before buying my first pair. Same thing with riding boots--I finally bought my first pair last year. Anyhow, most of the Kendra Scott pieces seem too trendy for me...so while I love the jewelry on others, it's not really "me." I finally found a KS necklace that seemed pretty classic, and I was so excited b/c they let me take advantage of their 50% off birthday sale over the phone since there isn't a store location in Las Vegas yet. I was blown away by their customer service!! I feel like customer service has really fallen to the wayside with a lot of companies, but KS went above & beyond! They granted me the sale price, shipping was free, and they packaged the necklace beautifully along with a hand-written note!!!

2. {THIS} Dustbuster

I know I've mentioned this before, but it bears repeating--I loathe our dark floors. Derek & I always say by the time our military journey is over, we will know exactly what we want & don't want in our forever house. And dark floors is something we definitely do NOT want!! Ugh, they show every little thing. Shortly after we moved in, we bought {THESE} mini dust pans & brooms for the girls to sweep the floor under their chairs after meals. Those are still working great, but I needed something else to help with the floor maintenance as well as with cleaning the crumbs out of Brady's chair at the kitchen table. We just got the dustbuster yesterday, and I'm so excited to start using it!!

1. Talent Show
I took the girls & Brady to the talent show at Shelby's school yesterday evening. A little girl in Shelby's class was performing, so they were excited to watch & cheer her on. The girls are already talking about how they want to perform next year! On our walk home from the talent show, I was telling them how I performed in the talent show at Bennett with my teacher friends before they were born. I pulled up the video from YouTube when we got home, and they both got such a kick out of watching it!!

What's Up Wednesday!

This is my first time linking up with What's Up Wednesday since we moved to Las Vegas! Seems crazy! Anyhow, I'm linking up with The Larson Lingo, Mix & Match Mama, & Sheaffer Told Me To today to let you know what's up with us! :)

What we're eating this week...

The theme of our meals since adding a third baby into the mix continues to be EASY!!! Monday was poppyseed chicken casserole with rice & veggies, Tuesday was leftover pizza from the weekend, tonight is taco soup, Thursday is leftovers from Monday, & Friday is leftovers from Wednesday. We're all about the leftovers in this season of life!!

What I'm reminiscing about...





I've been reminiscing a lot about our days in Biloxi & San Antonio lately. The past couple of months, we've found our groove in our new city and found our new rhythm with 3 kids and I wasn't missing our friends/old life as much as I was when we'd first moved here. But my friend Angela's birthday was earlier this month, and darn Timehop & Facebook Memories were trying their best to make me cry. Seeing pictures from past birthdays spent together was a stark reminder we weren't spending this birthday together, and ugh..it was just too much for me. The hardest part about this military life is being away from family, but the Goins were friends who became family. We miss them terribly.

{Angela's Birthday in 2016} 

{Angela's Birthday in 2014}

What I'm loving....
 

Hadley loves nothing more than to climb in Brady's crib when he wakes up from his nap and read books to him. It's the sweetest! It's so crazy to think that a year ago, Hadley was still sleeping in that very same crib & Shelby was wanting to climb in with her! What a difference a year makes!

What we've been up to....

Aside from Kindergarten, preschool, and laundry we haven't been up to much else lately. We did make our first trip to the Clark County Wetlands Park this past weekend, which was fun.

What I'm dreading...

Before I tell you what I'm dreading, you need to know what I'm excited about first--we're going home to GA for a couple weeks this summer and going to the beach with my family! SO, SO EXCITED!!! But I'm totally dreading the 4 hour flight + 3 hour time difference with an 11 month old. Not exactly my idea of fun. ;)

What I'm working on...

Derek's mom likes doing puzzles, and we got her one last month for Christmas. After we gave her the puzzle, Derek made the comment that he thought we should try a puzzle together sometime soon. So I decided to surprise him with a puzzle of the Neuschwanstein castle that we visited when we were in Europe a few years ago. We currently have the puzzle spread out over our dining room table, and Derek works on it a little bit at a time after the girls go to bed or when he's watching a football game, etc. He has really enjoyed it! Me on the other hand? This was the first non-kid puzzle I have ever done in my life. When I was ordering this puzzle on Amazon, somehow 1500 pieces didn't seem that daunting. WHAT WAS I THINKING?!? I am totally not a puzzle person. ;)  I help Derek here & there with the puzzle, but I mostly read while he puzzles. ;)

What I'm excited about...

OUR SUMMER PLANS!

What I'm watching/reading....

I've never been a huge TV person, but I watch even less since we moved here & cut cable. The only thing I miss since getting rid of cable is Nashville b/c we don't have access to it. But I don't miss it as much as I thought I would. The only shows we regularly watch now are This Is Us and sometimes Shark Tank on Friday nights.

This past Saturday we had all 3 kids in bed before 7pm, so we decided to watch a movie. I can't even remember the last non-kid movie we saw!!! Anyhow, we randomly settled on Bad Moms. It was waaaay more vulgar than we were anticipating, but we laughed a lot! And we couldn't get over how the movie was like a grown-up mom version of Mean Girls!! {THIS} article summed up the striking similarities perfectly!!

I've been reading a lot lately! I just finished two good books--Cancel the Wedding & It Ends with Us.

What I'm listening to...

I'm currently listening to the sound of Derek on the treadmill :)  As far as music goes, we always listen to the Veggietales station on Pandora when we're in the car these days.

What I'm wearing...

I wake up earlier now than I ever did when I was working, and I still don't have enough time to get everything done in the mornings. Add that to the fact that my days are spent shuttling the girls to and from school & getting spit up on in between, and there's just not a whole lot of effort going on in the clothes department for me. ;)  My yoga pants are in constant rotation these days!

But my sister introduced me to the Bobeau brand recently, and I snagged this Bobeau top on sale from Nordstrom..I love it! It's super soft! 

{found HERE}

What I'm doing this weekend...

Not sure yet, but my birthday is Sunday! :)

What I'm looking forward to next month...

MY SISTER IS COMING TO VISIT!!!

What else is new...

Not much else is new! 

Life Lately

Here's a few snapshots of our life lately!

This girl LOVES to bake!

We sent this picture to Derek one afternoon while we were waiting on him to come home :)

 

Finally got our new door hangers up!! This was a project that got moved to the back burner when we moved in, and it felt so good to finally get it knocked out! Since we have two front doors for the first time, none of our old wreaths from previous houses would work here b/c there's only one of each of them. Anyhow, we decided to try door hangers as opposed to wreaths this time around & I like how they turned out! And they were much cheaper than wreaths..win-win!

Shelby randomly decided to write a note to Beverly Clearly after reading one of her books. ;)  I love that she wanted to write a thank you note to an author--only Shelby!!And after a quick Google search, we discovered that Beverly Clearly is still alive & turning 100 this April!!

Brady likes to nestle into the corners of his crib with the bumper pads just like Hadley used to!!

Big Sister Shelby reading to both of her siblings :)

The girls hard at work making an Oreo crust for our pie

This picture kills me! I had just laid him down on his back and one minute later looked back to see this face sitting up looking at me like it's no big deal. How is he big enough to do this?!?!

The girls' first attempt at playing Go Fish together without me or Derek playing with them

Brady's first time eating in a high chair at a restaurant--he was a fan of Panera! :)

We were playing doctor yesterday, and this was the "prescription" Shelby wrote for me. ;)

 

Happy Wednesday, Friends!! Hope you're having a great short week!

Brady: Six Months Old!

Brady is six months old--that's HALF A YEAR OLD, people!! How is that possible?! In so many ways, I feel like we JUST brought him home from the hospital. But in other ways, it feels like he was born a lifetime ago. Because I was just plain exhausted from moving and unpacking at ten months pregnant + crazy hormonal, my memories of Brady's first weeks are so fuzzy in my memory making it feel like it happened a million years ago as opposed to just six short months ago. The passing of time is so funny that way. Regardless, we have a six month old in our house! Brady is a baby on the move and just as sweet as can be. He is without a doubt the most content baby of our three kiddos and he is just so, so loved by all four of us. The girls usually go to bed around 6:45-7 every night, but Brady doesn't go to bed until 7:30-8ish--so Derek and I get some special Brady time every night, and I love every minute of it. Derek & I can talk uninterrupted for a few minutes about our day while we dote on Brady. We usually let him crawl around our bedroom, and we both gush about how unbelievably cute & sweet he is. There was a time we weren't sure if we were cut out for three kids, but good grief...we are so immensely thankful for this sweet boy. I can't imagine our family without him! Being his mama is such a blessing.

At six months old, we're deep into baby-led weaning. There's not a whole lot of eating going on just yet, but there's plenty of exploration of tastes & flavors! Whenever we're eating a meal or the girls are having a snack, Brady's in his chair "eating" whatever we're eating!

First strawberry

First taste of Daddy's French Toast

Brady's first taste of pancakes

Brady continues to be a great nurser and a good sleeper. He still usually gets up once a night to nurse, but he goes right back to sleep on his own after he eats. He still puts himself to sleep for bedtime/naps (!!!!) and takes three good naps a day--unless his big sisters' schedules get in the way of his sleep schedule. ;)  Sometimes we jokingly say it's a rough life being the third kid b/c Brady's schedule is dictated by his siblings, but in other ways it's so much better being the third! With Shelby, we worried and obsessed over every single detail of her little life b/c she was the guinea pig for us in this whole parenting gig. But with Brady, we're so much more laid back and we can enjoy him more b/c we're not worrying!

Brady's not full-on crawling yet, but he can get around pretty good!! He's also sitting up now for brief periods & can get from the crawling position to sitting up on his own. Because the girls hit their gross motor milestones so late, Brady's mobility never ceases to amaze us.

As you can see in some of these pictures, Brady has bandaids on his chubby little thighs. We had his six month check-up this past week, and he took his shots like a champ!! He weighed in at 18 pounds & 6 ounces (61st percentile--we've never been so low on the growth chart!) and measured 27.56 inches (81st percentile).

We love you more than we ever thought possible, Brady!!!

Lessons Learned in Las Vegas

So, we've lived here for almost 7 months. Just typing that out seems absolutely crazy. We just got here, how could it possibly have been seven months?! We've slowly been finding our way here and learning a thing or two along the way. I wrote {THIS} post about things we learned in SA, so I thought it was time I did another post for Las Vegas!

Las Vegas people are dog people. I've never seen anything like it. It's such a sharp contrast from what we experienced in San Antonio. In SA, the vast majority of our neighbors had dogs & all of these dogs were kept outside in fenced in yards 24/7. I kid you not--it would be freezing or thundering or a million degrees out, and those poor dogs were just sitting in their backyards. In the two years we lived in SA, I literally only saw one of our neighbors walk his dog. I could never understand why any of our other neighbors had dogs if all they did was leave them in their backyards?! We spent many a nights after first moving to SA lying awake b/c dogs were incessantly barking. That NEVER happens here!! Dogs are treated like royalty in Summerlin. The sidewalks & parks are covered every morning and evening with people out walking their dogs before the heat of the day. Before Las Vegas, I'd never seen dog strollers before...but that is totally a thing here!!! It is totally normal to see people shopping with their dog in tow in Target or the grocery store. We even saw a little doggie in Cold Stone the last time we had ice cream!

We miss humidity. I can't believe I just said that, but it's true!!! We always knew that Las Vegas was known for its "dry heat." We were very much looking forward to the lack of humidity in Vegas after living in Georgia, Biloxi, & San Antonio! And I'll admit, we really love the climate here!!! Without humidity, even the crazy hot days really aren't that bad at all! But our skin misses the humidity something fierce. We are buying Aquaphor in bulk now for crying out loud!!!

"In home preschools" are a big deal here. Before moving to Las Vegas, I'd never even heard of this! It seems so strange to us!

Las Vegas has a huge retiree population. There are sooooo many elderly people in Las Vegas. Before moving here, we never knew there was a huge population of people who move here for retirement. Every time I go out for the lunch with the girls to McDonald's or Panera, we always run into a different group of elderly men or ladies out for a monthly luncheon. It's so funny!

Believe it or not, but Las Vegas is family-friendly! Parks are AMAZING here! All of the parks in Summerlin are maintained really nicely, and they almost all have a security guard type person patrolling the parks during park hours. While Las Vegas may be known as Sin City, it is waaaaay more family-friendly than we ever could have hoped for!

Earthquakes! We experienced our first earthquake here!!! A couple of weeks ago, we had a little earthquake (2.8)in the middle of the night. It woke Derek up, and he immediately knew it was an earthquake. He said it caused me to stir a bit, but I have no recollection of it happening. ;)  So weird to think we live in a place that has earthquakes!

Las Vegas people are not bow people. I know I've mentioned this before at least once on the blog, but people do not do hair bows out here. ;)  Before moving here, we constantly had people commenting on the color of the girls' hair. But now we get comments on their bows more frequently than we do the color of their hair.

Family Photos, Fall 2016