Little man at 7 months

7 months came and went so fast! Having 2 kids makes everything go even faster. Luckily we don't have a 7 month check-up. I hate going to the doctor. The only fun part is seeing his height and weight. Our little fat boy is growing and soaking in so much. He still thinks Parker is the coolest person in the world and his smile will brighten anyones day. We still get that he looks just like his daddy but I think he looks just like his sister did and his ears still stick out like mommy and sisters :) Liam still doesn't roll...either way. We have gotten him to do it a few times but that's it. I think we all just gave up on it and moved on to trying to stand. He does really good, with our help of course.

At 7 months:

Sleeping +/- 13 hours at night

about 3 naps during the day

gets really cranky if he is tired (daddy all the way here)

takes 5 bottles a day with 7 ounces + oatmeal

Eats fruit & oatmeal for breakfast

Veggie + meat for lunch & dinner

Still not eating finger foods (we have tried the cookies and rice cake things for babies and he give us a heart attack evertime. He chokes and we have to pull him out of his highchair, tip him over and beat his back.,,everytime!!)

working on a sippy cup

Has waved a few times

Loves Babey Einstein movie..in particular the shapes one..he giggles everytime the lion comes on

We now let him ride in the basket at stores

loves his school & his teachers (they are amazing with him, I am going to be soooo sad to leave that place)

wearing 12-18 month clothes

Still working on teeth...I wish they would pop through so his pain will go away!

Watching Baby Einstein ;)

Parker's dance had visitors day last week. We got to see what they have learned the past 6 months. They were precious!! Of course, Parker is next to her best friend Lillie! I don't know what these 2 are going to do without eachother at school & dance :(

Ms Kelsey is the helper & they LOVE Ms. Kelsey. Taylor is their teacher and she was on the other side dancing so I didn't get her picture. Taylor is a couple years younger than me and we grew up in this studio together. Her mom is the owner. How fun is it that she is now my daughters teacher?!?!?

First position :)

Ice cream for our cute little dancer!

This past Monday I turned 29. Parker, with the help of daddy, gave me an early birthday present on Sunday. Parker picked out this super cute dress and matching necklace from Target. She did awesome! I think I am going to have my own little personal shopper. I wore it to work on Monday & Parker was excited!

Dinner for my birthday! My momma & best friend :)

Love these girls! We have been through a lot together the past year but have grown so close over it! Thankful God arranged for us to become best friends!

Making the move

Well unless we get some awesome job offers soon we will be making the move to Houston! Kinda crazy, exciting and sad all at the same time. I've only lived away for 6 months but got so home sick that I came back. This time I know it will be different because I will have Tanner, my kiddos and work friends as well as friends and family that already live there. 

There is still so much info to come out at work but right now we are guessing our move will be around July or August. We have decided to live in Katy, TX. They have great schools, homes, shopping and everyone says its a big Midland next to a really large city. Tanner and the rest of his team have a work thing in Houston the end of February so we are making it a neighborhood & daycare shopping trip. I have done so much research on Katy that I probably can tell you everything you need to know about that town. Ok, maybe not that much but I have done a ton. My cousin, Renee, and her family live in Katy so she has helped us a lot as well as some old coworkers. I think the biggest transition will be the commute to work and being away from family. Right now we can wake up at 7, get kids ready, fed, dropped off at daycare and to work by 8. Yeah, that will never happen there. I am looking at getting up at 5:30 or so. Trying to find the perfect neighborhood and then a daycare that is on the way to work is a little challenging. I am hoping by making a trip there we will able to be sure. As for family, I don't think I will ever like living away from family but it's not forever...that's what I keep telling myself. With technology these days we will be able to chat all the time and really Houston isn't too far away. A 4th bedroom in our new home is a must for guests :) My granny, aunts, uncles, cousins and their kids (my dads side) all live in Houston so I will still be close to family but nobody can replace my mom & dad :)

The neighborhoods in Katy are amazing. Almost all of them have fun pools, splash pads for kids, lakes, ponds, fun walking trails, etc. We have tried to let go and let God. It's much easier said than done but we are becoming more "ok" with His plan for us. And who knows...His plan might end up being for us to stay here in Midland. My boss is very very nice and has told us plenty of times that if we find jobs here to do what's best for our family and stay. So only time will tell but for now we are going to soak in as much family time as possible and do a lot of house searching :)

Picture overload

First time in a highchair at a restaurant

My fat boy

Partying it up for New Years Eve!

Making up our own card games

Making her doll pretty

Liam's flat head is starting to round out! yay!

Date night with my love! We really enjoyed this night!

Of course Parker needed boots on like mommy

Playing a little ball inside

Liam & Sam - 2 months apart

At cousin Kip's 2nd birthday party!

Daddy doing flips

Parker & Laney look so tiny :(

Happy 2nd Birthday Kip! We love you so much!

At Jensen & Deacon's 3rd birthday party!

Love the Children's Museum!

It was a Dinosaur party so this was appropriate ;)

Crazy dinosaurs...watch out!

ahhh....to be a kid again!



Parker Photography

leg & shoe

My legs under the table

Parkers lips

haha

Putting up laundry

Walls..

 Blue cup

Ceiling

Pink cup

haha, I love going through my phone and finding random pictures :)

Fireplace Makeover

I never realized how drab our fireplace was. I mean, I knew it wasn't the prettiest thing but didn't know it was just plain ugly. Tanner & I got this wonderful idea around Christmas time to fix up our house. We even had a contractor come out to get prices on add ons, bathroom updates, etc. In the meantime, we thought we would update the fireplace since that was simple to do.

Of course Pinterest is a big reason...I came across this picture and thought it was a lot like our fireplace. Orange/red brick with the old wood and brass fireplace trim

Our before picture

So we decided on what better day that our Anniversary to start this little project. We got all the supplies and then once the kids were asleep we got to work. First up was white washing the brick. Very easy project. You basically mix white paint with water. You take a large paint brush and put it over the brick and use a wrag to wipe off the excess paint. Once it was all on it was a little too white for us. It was still wet enough to go back over it with a wrap to wipe more off.

Once we wiped it several times we moved onto painting the brass trim. We used the heat resistant rustoleum. I wish I would have taken a picture of the cacoon we made to keep the fumes inside the small area but didn't. Tanner came out a different color ;)

We had also put one coat of paint onto the mantle. I wasn't a fan. The color came out funky and didn't quite match the fireplace trim. The brick was also still too white.

So after a few scrubs and 2 more paint coats on the mantle we are done!! I am still looking for new decor for the mantle...I have had this stuff forever.

What do you think? You like?

Change coming our way

I feel like my brain is in a nasty fog and can't seem to shake it out. This week has been overwhelming and sad and depressing. I took today off hoping I could bring my head back to normal. I couldn't be at work today, trying to work, when in reality I just wanted to cry and close my eyes and act like this is all a dream.

but...

it's not a dream...it's reality and I know I need to face it. But it was nice having today off to get a few things done that have piled up over the past few days....including laundry since our dryer quit in the midst of our crazy week.

Tanner & I had our world rocked this week. As I was  just telling Tanner how blessed we are to not have anything BIG in our lives going wrong...we were content..

Then we got news that will be a huge change for our family. I hate change...despise it. Tanner, on the other hand, loves change and enjoys it. This change is a little different and unexpected so it has  left us both with a lot of stress hanging on our shoulders and bad headaches...

Our jobs, along with the rest of the Midland COP jobs, will be relocating to Houston. I love my job and everyone that knows me knows that I LOVE my job & LOVE my boss...I tell everyone how much I have it made. Who really can say that? I know I am blessed & fortunate for that. But I also LOVE Midland and my precious family & amazing friends here in my good ol hometown. Tanner has his family here as well. Our kids love their daycare. We have a huge support system. But we also will be jobless...not just one of us...both of us.

When Tanner accepted his job at COP in 2011 we knew moving was a possibility and pretty much a must if he wanted to move up. There aren't many Finance jobs in the Midland office. We also thought we would have a choice to stay in Midland if that is what we preferred..stay put...stay content..stay with my awesome job. Relocation never occurred to us honestly. But it's here and we need to deal with it. Everyone keeps asking us..have you guys talked about it? What way are you leaning? You guys can't leave, want us to help you find another job? 

The thing is...we really haven't talked about it. My head has been in a major fog..I can't even think straight. And we just haven't had the time to really sit down and have a serious conversation with 2 little ones. When they go to bed we are so emotionally tired that we just sit, and sit, and try to sleep, and toss and turn, and kind of ignore a serious conversation about this.

How do you decide? How do I know that moving to Houston is right for us? How do I know Midland is right for us? How do I know we will find jobs here if we stay? How do we know we won't be sad and depressed if we leave our family? What if we need this time away from family to focus on "our" family? 

Everything has crossed our minds..well my mind..since I am not sure what is going through Tanner's. We do have time...not a ton of time but we have time. I have been praying so hard the past few weeks to grow closer to God. I felt like since our lives were going so good we had drifted from really focusing our hearts and minds on Jesus. Maybe this is what we needed? To reconnect to him. I need him more than anything right now and I have been listening to this song over and over again and it gives me peace. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOkImV2cJDg

Hopefully this weekend we can suck it up and have a good conversation instead of hoping it's just a dream and we will wake up soon...

Liam 6 Months

My sweet boy turned 6 months on 1/3/13. A half a year down and I have mixed feelings. I love have a baby. We have been blessed with 2 really good babies. I also love that he is learning new things and doing more! We took our little big guy to the dr yesterday for his 6 months check up. I can't tell you how thankful I am for this blog. It allows me to go back and look at things that I would have never remembered on my own. As I was laying in bed last night I looked up blogs I wrote on Parker when she was 6 months old...you can see them here and here. Wow, so many similarities yet Liam is much bigger than Parker at this age.

Liam 6 month Stats:
Weight: 20 lbs 12 oz (98%)
Height: 27 in (68%)
Head: 18 in (88%)

Liam sits very well on his own but yet he does not want to roll over. Seeing in Parkers old blogs she had the exact same problem haha!! I guess I just have chubby babies that can't get that body over ;) So I guess more crying it out on his tummy. Liam has awful cries!! He hardly ever lets it out but when he does...whew...it's horrible!!

We love his daycare & the ladies that take amazing care of him. He doesn't have seperation anxiety yet which is a blessing...that's when it gets real tough dropping them off. I feel like his flat head is progressing as well. Dr R wasn't concerned about it but did say to keep him off his head as much as possible. That really is tricky considering he sleeps ALL THE TIME and when he is awake he is sitting up. I was actually a littel concerened about how much he slept but she said as long as when he is awake he is energetic then it's good. He did get 4 shots :( One being the flu shot since he is in daycare. We will have to take hime back next month for the 2nd dose. Other than that, he is a healthy sweet boy that loves Dr Reese. That is very opposite of Parker...she would scream and cry as soon as we laid her on the table or the Dr came in haha.

~ no teeth yet..
~ sits very well on his own
~ hold his own bottle
~ can pick up objects, transfer them between hands
~ thinks his name is "Brother"...oops
~sleeps 13 hours at night
~ takes 3 naps during the day
~ 5 bottles at 7 oz
~ solids for breakfast, lunch and dinner
~loves fruit, veggies and meats
~ LOVES bath time, especially in his new infaltable duck
~ obsessed with his sister :)
~ sweetest smile in the world
~ sits in his highchair

As Liam is growing he is looking more and more like Parker. As I went through old pics of P last night I couldn't help but just smile...I love that they look so much alike.