mother's day weekend!

I had a wonderful Mother's Day weekend!! We started the celebrating early on Friday night. Justin and Adeline took me to Outback for dinner and we stuffed ourselves. :)

Someone enjoyed her cheese fries and eating in a big girl booster!! ;)

We spent Saturday morning hanging as a family and took Boone to his annual check-up. Adeline LOVED going to the doctor with her best bud.

I spent the rest of the afternoon working at the store and Adeline and Daddy relaxed at home.

We grilled for the first time this season that night- we enjoyed some really yummy salmon!

I have just started a new 20s/30s small group on Sunday mornings at church- this was our second Sunday.  Well my alarm did not go off and Adeline slept until almost 10, so needless to say, we didn't make it to Sunday School on Mother's Day morning. OOPS. Good thing the rest of the group just laughed and didn't mind.  

Since there was no way we were going to make it to Sunday School, I spent some extra time rocking and snuggling Adeline on Sunday morning.  She must have known it was Mother's Day because anytime I tried to leave her room with her or do anything else, she would say "moh wok" (more rock). Who is gonna say no to that?!

We did finally get ready for church and Justin headed out to McDonald's and used a text coupon we had for a free meal for mom on Mother's Day and brought back breakfast for us to gobble down as we drove to church.

Our church service was on forgiveness and absolutely amazing.  One of those sermons that you leave NEEDING and wanting to change something.

We headed to a local homestyle southern cooking restaurant to celebrate with my mother-in-law right after church. It was a great meal complete with chocolate and coconut pie! ;)

After we ate and have "Gee" her presents, we headed home to relax for a while before round two of celebrating with family. :)

I got to open my gift from Adeline- a bird feeder and seed for us to enjoy together!! I've been wanting one and she LOVES feeding the "bir"s.

Adeline took an amazing nap- another impromptu gift ;) and Justin and I relaxed on the couch.  It all made for perfection for an afternoon.

We headed to my parents' for dinner and celebrating with my side.

It was a perfect weekend full of so much fun and relaxation!

Adeline Grace at 17 months!

I tend to run behind on Adeline's monthly updates...so she's almost 18 months...but yah know... ;)

Here's a glimpse at our sweet girl in all her "still-for-a-few-days" 17 months!

And the winner is...

 Natalie...

from Extraordinary Love!

via

Congrats, Natalie!

Take a minute to visit Natalie over at her blog...she's hosting a Q & A right now about having two kiddos...and it's always fun to look at her sweet pictures of her beautiful girls!

Thanks to all who entered the Cordial Lee giveaway! You're all winners in my eyes! ;)

Cordial Lee Giveaway!

I'm excited to announce a giveaway from a company that I love!

You have a chance to win a...

Personalized Tooth Fairy Pillow

or

$20 Gift Voucher

(your choice)

from one of my favorite Mommy-owned companies...Cordial Lee!

Cordial Lee's owner, Shelby, is a former teacher and now stay-at-home mommy of three beautiful girls that pursued her passion for monogramming and graphic design when she started staying at home.  She is such a hard-working entrepreneur, a kind person, is easy to work with and will try to meet almost any request you have for the personalization of an item.  Her online gift boutique and print studio has grown rapidly over the past few years! You can read more about her here.

Codial Lee offers items such as personalized invitations and stationary, boutique kids' apparel, appliqued, personlized clothing, personalized decor, as well as women's bags, to just name a few!  I have personally purchased many items from Shelby for my sweet Adeline and myself and am always impressed with the quality of material and items she uses, as well as the amazing attention to detail you can tell goes into her choice of fabrics and personalization of an item!

Shelby recently created a Personalized Tooth Fairy Pillow for Adeline to use in the future that I just love and Adeline was pretty excited about when she got it in the mail!

 

 

The Tooth Fairy Pillow makes a great gift and a great collectible! The fabric choices were perfect and the quality of the product is better than any of these I have seen.  Cordial Lee doesn't miss a detail...down to the adorable packaging!

The pillow has one side with a pocket, ready for the tooth and the money! It also conveniently hangs from a door or a bedpost!

 

GIVEAWAY:

The choice of one personalized Tooth Fairy Pillow (or) a $20 Cordial Lee gift voucher will be awarded to one randomly selected person.

HOW TO ENTER:

You have FIVE chances to win!

The first mandatory entry is to become a fan of Cordial Lee on Facebook, comment on Cordial Lee's page that I sent you, and then come back and comment on this post that you are a fan of Cordial Lee on Facebook!

EXTRA ENTRIES:

You can earn one extra entry for each of the following. Please leave a separate comment for each entry in order for each to be counted.  Make sure to leave your email address with at least one of your comments so that I can contact you if you win.

1. Become a public follower of this blog!

2. Visit Cordial Lee and then come back and comment on this post with the link to your favorite product!

3. Grab my button for your site and/or add me to your BlogRoll on your blog!

4. Visit my blog and comment on another post.  Let me know in the comment section of this post which post you visited!

DETAILS AND FINE PRINT:

Giveaway ends: Friday, May 3rd at midnight (eastern time)
Winner randomly selected and posted on Saturday, May 4th.

*Winner must be from the US or willing to pay the international shipping charges.
*Winner has 24 hours to respond to my email.
*Winner has 72 hours to claim their prize from Cordial Lee once the winner has been announced.


Have fun and good luck! :)

oh yeah....

We went on vacation in January...

and it was fabulous...

...but I haven't shared any details yet or documented it at all on the blog! 

We originally planned to go to Disney world in October of this past year, right before Adeline turned a year old...but she had a big ear infection/allergy to antibiotics/possible fever virus saga and was as pitiful as can be...and we didn't get to go! (Oh, and then her daddy ended up with the flu at that time too! ;)  So we rescheduled and went in January.  It was amazing!!

We went to Disney World for 4 days...

 And then to the beach for a few days!

So I've decided that there are too many details, too many tips, and way too many pictures to put into a post or two.  So once I have all the posts organized and ready to go, I've planned a vacation week here on the blog! There will be details about our trip, plus road tripping tips, Disney World tips (organized by park), and beach-going with a toddler tips!  Stay tuned, and I will post to give a heads up of when it's coming!

still

Being still...

Not something I'm good at. At all. I busy myself. I multitask while I multitask. I worry. I get anxious. I try to handle it all. Myself.

But I'm really working with God and trying to let go and let Him change this in me. He knows me. Thank goodness. And He's fighting like mad to release me of this little quirk.

He's teaching me to be still. In many ways. For many reasons.

I convinced hubby a year ago that we "needed" our living room chair we have now for moments like tonight. I fell in love with the pattern. Paisley. Blues, greens, neutral. Perfection. I knew it would allow me to be still. To just be.

Truth: I can count the number of times I've intentionally used it to be still the past year on one hand.

Tonight though...it's different. It's not often I like different. But this change God is doing in me...it's a good thing. Hubby is asleep, baby is asleep and this I-don't-want-to-hold-it-all-together-on-my-own-anymore Momma is relaxing in a quiet house after a mad dash hour cleaning session and a busy, emotional roller coaster of a week.

I'm being still, taking a deep breath and feeling blessed.

"The Lord will fight for you...you need only to be still." -Exodus 14:14

monthly pic how-to

I have had many people inquire lately how I create the monthly update pics of Adeline.  (You can find those: here, here, here, or here!)  I was so excited when I learned about this trick and found this site, that I'm excited to share!

I use the website, PicMonkey.  It's free (mainly-unless you want to get super, duper fancy)!

First, I just make sure to have a picture of Miss Adeline (that's not hard to come by ;) that has a nice foreground image of her, but also has a lot of background area so that text will fit.

Example:

 

{1}

{2}

{3}

 

{4}

Clear as mud? ;)

This has been such an easy, fun, and creative way for me to keep an update on Adeline each month after she turned 1!  I try to be good and make these as soon as she turns another month old, but that just doesn't always happen.  I can't imagine why! ;)  If I forget what she's been up to when making my photo, I just go back and look at my Instagram pictures or my Facebook pictures from that month to get ideas. 

I like to save these in a special photo "Adeline-Year 2" on Facebook and on my computer under Adeline's file of pictures, in which I have another file titled "Monthly Pictures".  I also update them to the blog each month, of course. :)

I have noticed these do not print correctly from places like Walgreens, etc.  (the text doesn't fit all within the dimensions of the photo).  I would just recommend printing them from your computer on nice stock paper if you want them printed.

Other ideas with PicMonkey:  Text art for blogs, etc, or you can even do collages and make a Facebook timeline photo.

Enjoy!