Almost 2! {B-day gift from Mama & Dada}

Jonah will be 2 on Saturday, July 21st!!! That is just crazy to me that he is getting so big! I will do a post on what all he is into at this age but I just wanted to share his early birthday present from us.

We got him this really cool climbing fort with a slide. It has a sterring wheel and little table and bridge. It is not brand new but a very nice find. Lets just say they are $600 new and we did not spend half that. We have been needing something for him to play with outside that was not under the carport or in the front yard. Our house sits close to the road, even though it is a very quiet street, and we have wanted something to put in our backyard for him.

This fits the bill perfectly. So far he loves it!

He loves the steering wheel!

Took off down the slide without any hesitation.

My silly boy! Gosh he has stolen my heart!

July Happenings

Whew it has been a busy week so far and going to be a busy weekend as well. We are finally getting a little relief from the heat and drought. It has rained a lot this week. My grass says "thank you."

We had VBS this past Sunday through last night. We went every night and I stayed in Jonah's class (the nursery). We had 1 3 years old, 1 2 years old and 2 almost 2 year olds. It was crazy even with that few kids but it was so fun too! Our VBS theme was Searching for Gems in Proverbs. Most of the material was over their heads but they enjoyed doing the crafts and singing songs. I forgot to take my camera every night but I did get a couple of pics of Jonah in his "wisdom" priate hat and his horn (from the Battle of Jericho story).

Here are some pictures I took this week of Jonah trying corn-on-the-cob for the first time. He did pretty good! He also had his first taste of a Subway sandwich this week (Dada's) and loved it. I think it's finally time we can try out a McDonald burger. He still has 2 more bottom teeth to cut but he does really good with chewing stuff now.

In other news, my hubby, his brother and his Dad have been hard at work on weeknights and weekends this month trying to get his new (old) boat in shape for the water. Michael bought this old Glastron (spelling?) boat a while back with plans to eventually paint it back to it's original color scheme and redo the interior. He already had a motor and trailer so he just needed to put the time and money into the body of the boat. Well we finally decided to go for it this summer! I am excited about seeing it all done (it already looks better inside than in these pictures) but at the same time it's hard to committ to putting money into something just for fun. But as he reminds me, I have the pool so this is his thing. Although, we plan for this boat to be our family boat that we just go out on and have fun and tube or swim out of it.

This is after the paint was done by his brother. A major transformation from before! (sorry no before pics)

Just needs a little washing from all the taping and scuffing.

P.S. for background information...and since I didn't really know this until my hubby told me....this boat is like one of the ones on the old James Bond movies. It doesn't have very much room in the cab but it is really pretty in the water.



Some upcoming and exciting events are Jonah's birthday party next week and a bridal shower for my brother and Mandy! July is shaping up to be our busiest month so far this year!

Our 1st Family Vacation {Gulf Shores, AL}

On Friday, June 16th we embarked on our first vacation and road trip since having Jonah. The van was loaded down with a weeks worth of clothes and survival gear (for Jonah) and my sister rode with us (thank goodness). We drove to Birmingham the first night and got a hotel. We made the rest of the 10 hour drive on Saturday to get to the Gulf coast. It had been 8 years (our honeymoon) since I had seen the ocean and it was a beautiful sight!

There was actually a big group of us all staying in a condo together. It was our family of 3 and my parents, my sister, my Granny and my Uncle Bobo. We actually had plenty of space and the condo was really nice, except for the mattresses. We were across the highway and a short drive to the beach but it worked out well.  The place we stayed was a collection of small duplexes that all shared a great pool. We got a lot of use out of it when Jonah didn't care for the beach.

We had a lot of relaxing time (as much as you can with a toddler) and some fun too. We were there for 7 days so we really got settled in and felt like locals.

We went to some great seafood restaurants too: The Original Oyster House, Mikee's, Ribs and Reds, and Tacky Jacks. I love eating out for seafood because I rarely if ever cook it at home.

I will fill you in on the rest through the pictures.

This is the main room of our condo. 

 



Our bedroom



Eating at Tacky Jacks at the marina



Our cool dude at the pool! He loved running in and out.



First visit to the beach. It was so windy we did not stay long.



We visited the Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo and it was awesome!
The zoo was small but it had a ton of neat animals and bunch
that you could see up close and pet.



Bengal Tigers



Between Dad, Bobo and I, there were lots of cameras and Jonah wanted to take pictures LOL

 Our best of the beach family pics.

 Jonah was not a fan of the beach at all except for this one evening that we all went to take pics. He loved it and
ran in and out of the water and didn't care if the sand got on him. The next morning we tried it again and he was back to hating it.

 Jonah and Dada having a big time!!

 Look at Jonah's funny face!

 Here I go again!

 Sweet boy!!

 It's a big world out there....

 that was fun Mama!


We had a great trip overall and made a lot of fun memories that will last a lifetime. :)

Beach Vacation Book

We were at the beach all last week!! We had a great and relaxing time with family and got some great pictures too. I will do another post about the whole vacation but first I just wanted to share the Shutterfly book I made of our trip with my favorite pictures.

I hope you enjoy and stay tuned for more information on our trip.

Click here to view this photo book larger

Shutterfly photo books offer a wide range of artful designs and embellishments to choose from.

Jonah Second Year Book

Excuse me while I pat myself on the back......LOL

I am pretty proud of myself for finishing up Jonah's second year book before his second birthday!! I wanted to be able to go ahead and order it and have it at his party this year for everyone to look through. I had it done through Shutterfly (my eternal love) and I can't wait till it arrives in the mail! Until then here is the electronic version you can check out. I made some of the pages using PS elements and free templates I found online. The other pages were done in Shutterfly. They have a full custom way to do the books now where you can switch between the different themes and embellishments to get the look you want.

I am also very proud of the amazing deal I got on this book. I pulled the trigger and bought it while they had all their photo books 50% off and I had just got a free shipping code in email because I shared a free photo book with 5 friends. I just love their promotions!!

Hope you enjoy!

Click here to view this photo book larger

Shutterfly offers exclusive photobook layouts so you can make your book just the way you want.

Crazy Summer....Here We Come!

Well this summer is shaping up to be our busiest ever. I cannot ever remember a time when we had so much planned and going on and a long list of to-dos. I am not complaining at all, it's just unusual for us to be so busy. So I wanted to jot down the many things and events coming up.

1. Vacation to Gulf Shores, AL - we leave a week from today!!! Yay! So excited to get away for a few days and just have some fun. The down-side is packing for us and a busy toddler and prepping for the trip. I have been pinning several ideas for the long car-trip down. I just want to be as prepared as we can for any bumps along the way. We plan to leave Friday evening and drive until about 10 and then get a hotel room. Then get up and make the rest of the trip on Saturday.

I need this!!

2. Our 8 year anniversary is June 12th...next week! We are planning to celebrate formally while we are in Gulf Shores. We don't do gifts for anniversaries and especially not this year with the vacation. We will probably just go out to eat that night and take Jonah with us. Hard to believe it's been 8 years that we've been married and over 10 years since we met. I will do another post on that day.

One of my favorite marriage quotes, Via Pinterest

3. In July we have the holiday, then I'm hosting a lingerie shower for my future sister-in-law, Mandy. Then we have VBS starting that weekend. I am sure I will be helping teach the nursery class for that too.

4. Then on July 21st it's time to celebrate Jonah turning 2!!! I still have nothing bought for this. Ugh! I'm starting to stress about that!! This birthday party may or may not come together.

Love this cake idea.

5. The following Sunday (the 22nd) is our big wedding shower for Kyle and Mandy at our church. I've got lots of gifts to buy in the next months. The budget is screaming.

6. Then we will all go into wedding mode to get to the finish line of August 11th when my little brother will marry one of my bestest friends!! I am so excited and I am a bridesmaid as well. The jury is still out on whether Jonah will be in the wedding party. Oh and also they want Michael to perform their wedding ceremony! He's never done it and he's not ordained.....minor details. LOL


Whew! I'm tired already just thinking about all this but i makes me feel better to get it in writing. There are some other exciting details thrown in the mix of all this but they cannot be revealed at this time. :)

Do you have a busy summer too?

Memorial Day Weekend

Sakes alive it was hot this weekend!! It felt more like the 4th of July than Memorial Day but we still had a fun and productive weekend. By productive I mean we finally got our swamp of a pool (long story) cleaned out and filled (I'm betting it will be a $400 water bill) and our new pump installed. The hubs did 99% of the work and I played with Jonah. I don't know what I would do without my hard-working hubby to get the yucky and hard jobs done around here.

We also did a lot of this.....

Needless to say the sprinkler was a big hit!



I can't wait till we can get in the pool too! Hopefully this weekend!!

We also went to our local town's Eagle Fest. It is basically a small carnival in town based around our town's civil war park, Ft. Donelson and the Eagles that have nests there. Jonah could only ride the carousel and he wasn't too excited about it. We finished off the evening with homemade lemonaide and a funnel cake. Yum!!

I hope everyone had a great weekend too!!