Car Seat

I'm posting today so I can win a contest. In order to get another entry for this contest, I have to blog about it, so here goes. (I don't normally do this kind of thing, but it's a GREAT prize!!)

So...I love car seats by Britax. I think it's a great, safe, reliable company and their safety ratings are always the best. They have a new car seat called the Advocate, and it looks like another top-notch product by this company. Needless to say, I want to win this car seat!!

I found out about this contest at The Mom Buzz.

My "LOVES" of the day

1. I LOVE meeting up with friends who simply bless your soul. I had the WONDERFUL occasion to get together with one of my college roomies, Jen, yesterday. She was back home visiting her family, so we chose a convenient meeting point and shared lunch, browsed a few cute shops, and played in a park. (Sophie slept the whole way there and the whole way back. The best naps she's had all week.) The weather was a bit dreary, but we made the most of it, and it was so great to see her again. Sadly, I forgot to take my camera out of my bag the whole time, but she got a few cute shots while we were at the park, so I'll link those as soon as they become available on her blog.

2. I LOVE new babies. I had the chance to swing by and see Miss McKinley Anne again today. She is just so stinking cute. Lauren and I got to sit and chat and have some heart-to-heart time, and that was much needed as well.

3. I LOVE what a friend in college wrote on his blog today about his son and the Lord's love for His children. Go there. Read it. Be blessed.

4. I LOVE my family. I love my sweet husband. I love my darling daughter. I am blessed beyond measure. And I LOVE, as Brad so eloquently stated, that we, as a family, are immersed in the depths of God’s love.

Sophie's Wishlist

Does anyone else love Wishlist.com as much as I do? I love it for several reasons.

#1. My brother and sister-in-law use it for Oskar & Poppy. They are very picky about what they allow in their home for the kids to play with, so I never have to second guess if they'll like I'm buying them for Christmas or their B-days.

#2. I use it to keep track of the things I find on-line that I like for Sophie. I find myself thinking, "Now where did I see _(fill in the blank)__?" I don't have to question that anymore, because I'll just bookmark it and the website does the rest for me. I can go back later to see if I still like it...sometimes my mood changes. :)

#3. It's SUPER easy to use once you get it set up.

#4. I'm finding that I'm becoming very picky about what toys come through our doors as well. We're not fans of cheap, plastic, "made in China" products. I don't want this to be a "be-all-end-all/you must get Sophie these toys" website, but I'm hoping it gives people an idea of the kind of things we like. (Is that wrong? Part of me feels guilty/selfish about that. It's a tricky thing, but we basically did the same thing when we registered for our wedding and baby shower, right?)

Anyway, you should go check out Wishlist.com, and if you want to see what I've got on Sophie's wishlist, click here!

McKinley Ann

My dear friend, Lauren (who was my matron of honor in my wedding), had her baby girl on Monday, June 1st. Meet McKinley Ann! She is BEAUTIFUL!

The girls!

Congratulations Lauren & KB! We are so excited for this new chapter in your life and Sophie is thrilled to have a new bff!

To check out their new blog, click HERE. They have posted some absolutely gorgeous pics!

School's out for SUMMER!!

I've been waiting 5 months for this day! SUMMER VACATION is officially HERE!!! I get to be a full-time momma for 2.5 months!!I thought it would be fun to take a snapshot of the first day of summer (these pics were taken this evening) and then compare it to a picture on the last day of summer (I'm sure we won't look quite so happy in August.) Sophie is going to grow and change a lot between now and then and I'm going to get to be there for ALL of it!! You just can't imagine how much that makes my heart happy!

We just couldn't contain our excitement!

"Hmm...should we hit the pool, the snow-cone stand, or the park first? Oh heck, let's just do it all! I think this summer is going to be pretty awesome! Mom is mine...all mine! Moohahaha!"

Extreme Makeover Back Yard Edition

Two summers ago, our back yard looked like this:

My dad and Matt got rid of that nasty tree, I pulled the vines off the fence, and we were left with this:

The other side of our back yard was bearable. It just needed a little extra grass seed to patch things up, but was kind of boring.

Last summer was kind of crazy and I was pregnant, so we didn't work too much on it.

However, this year we did a back yard overhaul of sorts. After a lot of hard work, it now looks like this:

Matt and Mike put in a patio and Erin's mom generously gave us her old patio furniture!

We also have a berm, a garden, cedar flower boxes, and flower planters for the patio. That's right...we're big time. The grass came up pretty quickly with all of the rain we've had, and the plants in our garden are growing like crazy!

These are the cedar flower boxes on the back side of the garage:



In our garden boxes we planted tomatoes, green & yellow peppers, jalapenos, eggplant, cucumber, zucchini, and yellow squash. This is our first garden, so we'll see how it goes! Everything seems to be growing and we have a few little tomatoes on two of the plants, so I'm hopeful.

Matt worked SO hard to accomplish all of this! Talk about sweat equity! Really, I didn't do too much other than make sure Sophie stayed out of the way. I'm so proud of him!! Thanks, honey!

P.S. I officially only have one more week of work and then I will get to be a full-time momma for 2.5 months!! I can hardly contain my excitement. It is going to be SO glorious and Sophie and I plan on spending some quality time in our new back yard!!

Wordless Wednesday

(Okay, I tried about 20 times to turn this photo the right way. I have NO idea why it keeps doing this. It is saved in my photo album the right way, but continues to upload like this. If someone knows why, please leave a comment. Just turn your head to reveal the extreme cute-ness of this little love of ours.)