5 Years!

It's my husband's and I's anniversary today! 5 years...sounds kind of crazy, doesn't it? In a lot of ways things have stayed the same- same house (which we are still trying to finish, just 5 short years after we started) and same jobs. But now our family is much larger and much louder and it fills our beautiful home with so much fun and love. I can hardly even believe that it used to just be Scott and I. What was that like?



And I guess we are still driving the same cars. Are we boring or what?



We went out to a nice dinner without kids last night, thanks to Scott's boss's family who took them for the night. I think all the kids had a blast! We had a great time out in our old neighborhood where we lived when we were first married-we ate at Mojo's and got ice cream at Van Dees. At dinner we said we should have written down where we thought we'd be in 5 years and see if it matched up. You know, like you do when you are a senior in high school?

We talked about where we wanted to be in another 5 years, but it is hard to imagine life that far in the future. In 5 years, Michael will almost be 6 and Trace will be 4. Crazy. In 5 years we will hopefully be thinking about baby #3, will definitely have the house finished finished, and will enjoy having children that are out of diapers (hopefully-ha). We also think it would be a great time for our big family trip to DisneyWorld...we better start saving now!







It's been real fun, honey. I love you!

Here's a link to last year's post!, and here is a link to our 3 years post!

We're lovin' it

I finally visited the High Trestle Trail this weekend! It is just a few miles north of our house and it is beautiful. We went on Sunday and the weather was nice and it was so fun to see lots of people out enjoying the morning also. Everyone would say hello or good morning as they passed and eventually Michael caught on and would say hi to people as well.



Scott rode his bike and I walked from the trail head in Madrid. I didn't realize how far it was to the bridge, but it's like 3 miles! The bridge itself is 1/2 a mile long and then when you add in the distance back (luckily Scott met me on a gravel road and picked us up), it was like 5 miles of walking. I was tired!



Michael surprises me every day with the new things that he says. We were out in the yard and I was doing some weeding and he was beside me playing. He saw what I was doing and he goes "I help...weeds". It was so cute. I've been trying to get him to ask for help when he needs it because like all men, he already has a problem with that one. :o) It is so cute to hear him put a few words together to make little sentences.

Dad and Denise were here for an overnight and Michael had so much fun. Michael held Denise's hand and walked around the house and kept saying, "Bye, mom!" to me....I think he really wanted to go home with them.

They were playing ring around the rosie and then Michael started playing it with just his bear except the only word he would say was "down!".

Nutella on a graham cracker is so delicious. I made Michael some nutella pancakes and now thankfully all of it is gone- that stuff is too good.

Have you been enjoying the fresh fruit this summer? I am so happy that the prices are reasonable that we have been gobbling it up. Michael loves his berries!

DIY Shelf

For those of you who have known me before I had kids-I used to have lots more time to dedicate to DIY and home decor. These days, most of my time is spent just trying to rein in my little toddler tornado from too much destruction.

However, I did get the spark to whip up a cool ledge shelf that I kept seeing numerous times on pinterest.

Specifically, it was this image caught my attention:



I have a ton of beautiful prints in nice frames that I wanted to showcase somehow in our dining room. I didn't want to put a lot of holes in the walls because those of you who have been in my dining room know there are already lots of holes in the walls from failed previous attempts to hang something. I also wanted something that would be a more flexible gallery than just frames on a wall.

So I headed over to anawhite.com and checked out the plan. It seemed easy enough, and plus we have loads of extra wood in our basement. I initially started the project with some leftover maple trim that we had leftover and was already stained. The only problem was that maple is hard to work with and we broke several screws trying to get the pieces together! So we scrapped my free version of the project and headed to Menards where we bought some really nice pine boards to use. These shelves are called "$10 Ledges" because that is how much one 8 foot long shelf is supposed to cost BUT we spent about $10 on each board so our shelf was much more. The reason why our boards cost more is because they were already sanded and were just a lot better looking than the $3 boards so we just went with it. Anyway, working with the pine was much easier and long story short, here is the finished product:







I really love how it turned out and the way it showcases our large prints. The only problem is what do we do when we have another photo session and more prints to hang? Scott and I already brainstorming where we can install more shelves in our house because after it was all said and done, it wasn't too bad of a project to tackle.

Trace's Two Month Stats

Before I forget (which seems to be the norm around here lately), I will update you with Trace's 2 month appointment height and weight. And the drum roll please...



Weight: 12 lb, 12 oz
Height: 23 1/2 inches
Head: 15 1/2 inches

He is really growing and getting very chubby! However, he is still the little brother weighing in less than his big brother who was 14 lbs, 4 oz at two months. Trace is just 1/4 inch behind Michael on height and head though so hopefully he will be just as tall and just as smart. :o)

(here is the link to Michael's two month post if you are interested!)

Trace took his shots like a champ and slept away the rest of the day and night. Michael was a good helper in the office and we all survived the outing for the day.

In other Trace news...we are trying to start him on bottles to help with the transition to daycare in a few short weeks (eek!). So far it's not going well, but I'm sure it will improve! After Scott tried to give him a little bottle today it took me about 30 minutes to try and calm him down. :o( Poor guy!

Hot Fun in the Summertime

It's hot outside!

Every day, the sun is so hot...there's not even clouds in the sky to help to block it. Ugh. We have major cabin fever here. We've still been getting outside a little bit but it is pretty miserable.

Michael and his bananas. He loves them! For a while he was calling pictures of monkeys "nanas" because I would always say, "there's a monkey, he likes to eat bananas." Or in some books, the monkey is actually holding a banana so we have to point that out too. I can see how the kid gets confused.

We are also having major summer hair issues. Both of us. Hopefully one of ours will be resolved before school begins.

My poor baby chipped his front tooth at daycare. We took him to the dentist to have it looked at and that was an equally upsetting experience....I think we will be exploring the world of pediatric dentistry from now on. Our dentist thinks it will be fine, we just have to watch it and make sure it doesn't get infected or do anything weird. Until then, he'll have hockey teeth until whenever it falls out.

In other happenings...



Yay for friends! (Hi, Kelly!)



Yay for rainbow fruit (and for pinterest for making my previous fruit arranging skills feel inadequate).



And yay for sleeping babies (even though I think he is trying to sneak a peek out of one eye).

Pretty Pots

My two front step pots have been looking just gorgeous lately, so I thought I would share them with you!

I am so afraid they are going to die in this insane heat- it's been 110+ degree heat indexes for a few days and I've been watering all my pots two times a day in hopes of keeping them alive and well. My other plants around the yard are loving the warm, humid weather and are growing like weeds. Unfortunately my weeds are also loving it and are growing well, like weeds.

I love the coleus and it might be a regular around here in future summers. My trailing plants have also covered up my ugly pots...yay!

And because I am lazy- I'm going to make you do the clicking work if you want to see more:

Here is what they looked like in May.
Here, here and here are some of my pots in years past.

Trace is two months old!

Trace is two months old! Wow...how time flies. It's crazy, really. Day by day, Trace just seems to becoming more of a normal member of our family and things seem to be getting easier. He really is a good baby and I think he is going to have lots of fun with his big brother growing up. My brother and I are close in age also and all my memories from growing up are of me and him...we sure got into a lot of trouble. He was always the mastermind and I was his minion. Hopefully that won't be the case with Trace and Michael, but I'm sure they will get into lots of trouble also!

Anyway, Trace is growing and growing. He is a great eater and his sleeping is really improving. Lately he's been doing lots of 4-5 hour stretches and I really enjoy it! I feel like if I can just get a big chunk of sleep in at the beginning of the night then it's not so bad. He is also getting very strong and can keep his head steady, prop himself up during tummy time, and can bear weight on his legs when being held.



Trace has started smiling at us and he likes to talk with little coos and noises. It is so, so sweet. He likes to look at his toys and really likes to watch his big brother.

He is wearing mostly 0-3 month clothing and wears size 1 diapers. His two month well baby check is on Friday so we'll have the official height and weight stats then.

(and just because I love this photo so much, here it is again in black and white. I think he looks like a little baby doll. Also new discovery: our house has excellent natural light at 6 a.m....oy!)

Comparisons

Michael and Trace: some days I think they look like twins and other days I think they look totally different...but you can definitely see similarities!

Trace has a different smile for sure; Michael has always had a goofy little smile! They both have beautiful blue eyes and a cute little mouth. Trace's ears stick out a little bit but I think Michael's are bigger.

I am so excited to watch both of my boys change and grow through the years. There is no doubt that they are brothers!

Trace's Newborn Portraits

Trace got his newborn portraits done right away, when he was just 5 days old. We were on the fence about getting them done but now that we've gotten the portraits back, I am SO glad we did them. They are beautiful and I'm so excited to share them with you!

We bought a large print of the first image and it is beautiful. I have a special project I am working on that hopefully I can share with you soon to showcase my portraits - but like all DIY projects I attempt, it is taking about 20 times as long as it should. We also have a smaller portrait of the second image, to match a similar one we have when Michael was a newborn.

And to give credit where it is very deservedly due...check out His & Hers photography for more beautiful portraits!