A Special Guest

We have had so many wonderful friends and family come in town over the past few weeks, but I cannot express how excited I was to have my best friend, Roxie, here with us for a few days. She and I have been friends since middle school and regardless of the fact that we are hundreds of miles away and states apart, very little has changed.

We still enjoyed late night chats, shopping trips, musical theather (Les Mis was AMAZING!) and added a new memory- playing with the babies! Yes, life has definitely changed for the both of us over the past few years, but our friendship has only gotten stronger.

R ran around with Aunt Roxie and baby girl in the backyard, even though it was FREEZING! Well freezing by Oklahoma standards anyway.

I love this picture so much! I think Aunt Roxie and Baby Girl bonded over their love of crazy hair.

One of R's most favorite things- Kisses for Baby!

If you look closely at the knot in the wood, you will see the snout of the huge dog that lives next door. I guess they were having a conversation because R would just growl back at him when he barked.

Kisses from Aunt Roxie! You can't help but kiss such a sweet face.

Group Shot!

Our little girls had a least three Christmas mornings. The third came when their Aunt Roxie arrived. But I have to say that I think this tent was by far the biggest success. R loves her turtle tent! We have filled it with books, her Dora sleeping bag and a huge pillow that her Auntie also bought her. We found her curled up in there with her pile of books reading to herself. What a special spot just for her.

My little girls are so blessed to have so many people that love them! And I am so blessed to have a friend who has been with me through pretty much everything in my life. 

I think the conversation we had before she arrived summed it all up. "Roxie, I love you so much that I didn't clean my house for you." She replies, "Awww. I love you so much, that I didn't clean my car for you!"

We can completely be ourselves around each other with no need for facades or explanations. We don't have to get cleaned up, dressed up or made up to be around each other. We have laughed, cried and  disagreed (sometimes all in the same day), but we love each other just the same. That is a true friend. I know they don't come around often, so I'm holding on tight.

Christmas & Crawfish

My beautiful mess.

This perfectly describes my house at this moment- a beautiful MESS.

Santa has come and gone, but the wrapping paper, boxes and tiny toy parts remain everywhere. And while I usually hustle to pick them all up and put them away, today I am in no hurry. I am in no rush to move out of this wonderful and chaotic holiday season.

This Christmas was our first as a family of four. We were able to celebrate with both sides of the family and to top it all off, we ate authentic Louisiana meals all the way up here in Oklahoma! Our Christmas Eve meal was one of my favorite all time dishes- crawfish étouffée. While R is still a little young to totally understand the concept of Christmas, she did enjoy the fact that every time she tore off a piece of paper from a present, everyone cheered. Baby Girl didn't stay awake long enough to make it through much of anything, but R did the honor of opening most of the gifts for her anyway. What a good big sis.

My parents were able to come in town and celebrate with us, and while I cherished every second, it never seems long enough. But we squeezed in everything we could while they were here. We went to the Christmas production at Church on the Move, ate at First Watch, cooked tons of food, celebrated my brother's birthday and visited with lots of family.

Before.

 After. DC put the sleeper hold on Baby Girl!

R decided that me being on the floor warranted a horsey ride. I love every second of it. 

We were planning for some serious snow on Christmas day, but instead it was just cold. Daddy was prepared and got this little girl a hat, gloves and boots. He put them all to good use and enjoyed some time at the park on a very cold Christmas Eve.

As I've said before, I am more Holly Hobbie than Martha Stewart and here is your proof. I made cake balls, and while they actually turned out very tasty, the presentation was sub par at best. To me that is the difference between Holly & Martha- one does enough to get the job done, while the other exceeds expectation and pays attention to quality and presentation. I'm #teamholly.
(Please note the little fingers to the left of the photo. They definitely make the picture.)

My Cajun Christmas meal. Yum.
My mom got some fun new Christmas dishes that we used for all of our holiday meals, but what did I notice in this picture? - The plastic Walmart cup... Fail.

Christmas morning in their matching pjs with R in her tutu that Santa left around her stocking.
 "No mom, she did it."

Look at our beautiful baby girl celebrating her first Christmas. The present we could have received!

This is such a typical moment in our house that I can't help but laugh when I see this picture. At this point, R was over it all and letting us know how she felt. Gotta love my drama queen! These pictures are my favorite because it's real life.

We took this photo at the end of a very long, fun, exhausting Christmas day. I love my baby girls!

What a wonderful and crazy Christmas. Who would have thought that in less than a year we would have gone from a family of 2 to a family of 4! I can only imagine what God has in store for next year.

I know life isn't always perfect, but I'm learning to love my beautiful mess.

The Art of the Find

If you know me at all, you know I am ALL about a good deal! But I am also very particular. Most of the time the two are mutually exclusive, but when I know what I want, I am usually willing to wait until I can find it for a steal. 

I am a garage sale and thrift store junky! Why pay full price for something from a store when I can find it for a fraction of the cost somewhere else? Buying things this way also means that I can also get a much better quality product then I would otherwise be able to afford. My house is full of awesome finds from here, there and everywhere and I LOVE the eclectic look. But I have to say that after having two babies so close together, this has been a lifesaver when it comes to baby clothes and toys!

The main thing I have learned with this kind of shopping is that patience is a virtue, but once you find it you'd better grab it fast! 

Here are a few of my most recent wonderful finds.

This sweater was a STEAL at a garage sale. It was Baby Gap and still had the tags on it and it only cost me a couple of dollars! I know you can't really see the golf clubs and cart in the background, but the lady was so desperate to get rid of her stuff that she just gave them to me. Daddy was very happy with that "purchase" since he is an avid golfer. These clubs are always strewn about the backyard and one of her favorite outside toys, and they were FREE!

I found this rocking horse at another garage sale- Pottery Barn Kids! It was in perfect condition and I paid next to nothing! Oh and her cute little cowgirl boots.... a consignment shop. It may sound silly, but I'm always praying for good deals on fun things.

I will say that this Little Tikes car has been one of her most favorite toys. I had wanted so badly to get one for her birthday, but it just wasn't in the budget. I had looked at this EXACT car in BuyBuyBaby a number of different times, but just couldn't do it. Well that same week I went garage saling and found this little baby for FIVE BUCKS! I'm pretty sure I teared up when I saw it. I would not let it out of my site until I paid for it and walked away.

It was God's gift to me! He loves to give good gifts to His children, just like we want to give them to ours.

She has been pushed around the neighborhood (and the backyard), more times then I can count. She just laughs and sings every time! It makes my heart so happy.

After we found out that we only had a few weeks before the arrival of our second little girl, I went on the hunt for a perfect dresser/changing table. I searched and searched and was down to the wire. I wanted to have the table before baby girl arrived. I wanted a yellow dresser. It needed to look like an antique, but be functional and it had to be the right height to work as a changing table. That was a tall order for a short timeframe! But look what showed up. This was a Craigslist find. It was perfect and the previous owner took almost half what they were asking which made it fit right within our (extremely limited) budget.

Well I could go on and on. I love the thrill of the hunt, and these are just a few of my finds. I feel like this is part of my household contribution. I don't provide a source of income, but this way I can get what I want and save us money at the same time!

A Day In The Life

I love to glance back through my iPhone photos. I will be honest, no person should take as many pictures as I do, especially with my phone. It's just so easy! Here are a few of my favorites from the past week.

I walk away for just a minute and she finds the pile of dirt that our friend the gopher/mole left us. Her face says it all.

This is one of my favorite parts of the day. Baby girl wakes up and her sister cannot wait to love on her.

I am working on trying to include myself in more photos. I am trying not to worry as much about always being perfect to be in them. I want my kids to look back at these pictures and I want to be a part of them.

This car is one of her favorite toys and daddy sure knows how to bring a smile to her face. He races her around the yard, even fully dressed from work. This was a sweet moment I caught in between their "races."

The all too familiar look! I am not sure what these tears were for, but her (first) pig tails are cute!

"Santa. I know him!" -Elf (best movie EVER!)

If you can't tell, we spend every free moment enjoying being cozy at home in our pajamas. I love these low key days.

I'm having visions of a house filled with two little dreamers who will run around playing pretend and dressed to the nines. But until she can dress herself, mama will just play dress-up with her little hipster!

I hope you are soaking in every second of this holiday season! I can't believe how fast it is flying by. 

Holly Hobbie or Martha Stewart

I love to be crafty, but loving something and being good at it are two totally different things!

I have been trying to find new stockings for all of us for over a year with no luck. Why is it so difficult to find stockings that look chic and stylish?! They ALL look the same. I see other people with cute ones, so I am obviously just not looking in the right places. I've been saying for some time now that I should just make them, then I laugh. I don't even know how to thread the beast of a sewing machine that I have. But then a sweet friend of mine offered to drive almost two hours just to help me make them, and I realized that I no longer had an excuse.
So here are the results of our efforts! Sorry I am not better at photographing the step-by-step process. I'm not sure it would have made sense anyway.

Before

After

The matching stocking are my husband and mine, while our two little girls will be able to tell theirs apart by the different cuffs. At some point, I'll get them all monogrammed. With only a few missteps along the way, I am pretty impressed with how they turned out! Thanks Alecia for all your help!

Welcome to the World

During this time of year while we are preparing to celebrate the birth of Christ, our family is celebrating the birth of my newest niece! My brother-in-law and sister-in-law had their first baby, for purposes of the blog we'll call her Sweet Pea. She has a head FULL of dark hair and long tiny little toes. She is absolutely perfect. Mama and daddy are over the moon, and this aunt can't wait for all of our girls to grow up side by side!

What a perfect Christmas gift!

They did something I am not sure I could ever have the patience to do. They did not find out the gender of the baby until SHE was born. A large group of family and friends waited anxiously in the hospital hallway for "daddy" to come tell us the good news. It seemed to take forever! In the process of waiting, there were two false fire alarms and I'm sure numerous annoyed patients and staff who could not get around our incredibly large group that crammed into the hallway. Finally the proud papa arrived and pulled out a pink onesie. The group erupted into cheers and tears as I snapped as many pictures as I could, so that later on the new mama could feel like she was a part of the special announcement. What a wonderful day. This is one blessed little girl to be born to such wonderful and loving parents.

It's Just A Matter of Perspective

While I do not have the time that I once did to follow blogs, I still enjoy peeking into the lives of others occasionally. One thing I always find amusing is the seemingly perfect images of their well put together families and magazine ready houses. As much as I'd like to think that's me, I know better. I also know enough to realize, that is probably not their real life either. It's just a matter of perspective. We see what they allow us to see. So I thought it would be entertaining from time to time to allow you to see the real story behind the pictures....

The limited perspective.

The reality.

As you can tell, R's newest fascination is with her dirty clothes hamper. All the dirty clothes come out, all of the clean clothes go in, as well as the basket of new diapers and just about anything else she can get her hands on! It's just life, and I let her do it if that means I have just a minute more to take pictures of her sister undisturbed!

Here's another set of pictures from the same day.

What I would want you to see.

The reality.

This seems to be R's way of showing her little sister affection, she sits on her. 

Look at my mild mannered, calm little girl playing sweetly on her phone.

"Mama, please just stop already!"

Yep! That's my girl!

Well I think you get the point, all of our lives are a "mess" at times. I am daily learning that all you can do is embrace the chaos, hang on and laugh as much as you can!

"A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones." - Proverbs 17:22

Bless My Mess

Growing up as a child there was a sign in that my mom made for me, it said - Bless My Mess.

She must have known even from a young age that would be the definition of my life. I mean this both literally and figuratively. After watching one too many episodes of Hoarders, I know I have not actually accumulated that much junk. However I feel that as we go through our lives, we not only accumulate things, but emotional baggage.

This is where my (never ending) journey begins.

The goal: To free myself from the burden of junk and the culture of consumerism, while creating an environment that is peaceful and inviting both in my home and in my life.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not preaching minimalism here. I can shop with the best of them and enjoy every second! What is important is that I'm trying to learn the balance of enjoying life while maintaining a sense of peace and structure.

Haha. We'll see how this goes!