Avery’s Dedication

ICYMI I’ve been a bad blogger & I’m determined to get caught to have our family memories “journal-ed” on our blog!

We know that Avery is a gift from God, with that we wanted to dedicate him to the Lord. We did the same thing with Adelyn when she was about the same age! On Sunday June 30th, surrounded by our families we dedicated our sweet baby boy to the Lord.

A big part of baby dedication is in our purpose as parents, to accept the challenge of raising Avery in the love of God and in the ways of God! During the service Pastor had a few things for us to commit to. We recognize Avery as a gift from God and give heartfelt thanks for God’s blessing.

Now the things we committed to were the very same things we did 2 years ago with Adelyn, but to do it all over again for another sweet child we’ve been entrusted with was like we were doing it for the first time.

We pledged as parents, in the sight of God and witnesses, to bring up Avery in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

We promised to Adelyn every possible benefit of home, school, and church. (notice my Mom’s face behind me…pretty sure she had tears rolling the whole time!)

And the final part of the covenant was asking God’s blessing upon Avery’s life, to guide, guard, and direct through all of his years.

Pastor Janis took Avery and prayed over him. The whole time he was checking out Pastor & Janis and…

…even showed a bit of his personality! Silly boy!

Then Pastor & Janis prayed over us! We know Avery is blessing from God and we are excited to raise him to know Him!

After service we all came back to our place to have brunch. It was such a special day and we felt so blessed to have the support of our families there with us.

1 Samuel 1:27-28 For this child I have prayed; and the Lord has granted me my petition which I asked of Him. Therefore I also have lent him to the Lord; as long as he lived he shall be lent to the Lord.

Adelyn’s Birthday

ICYMI I’ve been a bad blogger & I’m determined to get caught to have our family memories “journal-ed” on our blog!

I know I blogged about Adelyn’s party, but I didn’t get a chance to post about her actual birthday (her party was a week after her birthday). The night before her birthday we made a quick birthday cake together. She LOVES to be Mommy’s helper (and taste tester) in the kitchen!

I got a little emotional before we put her to bed…it was the last night with our 1 year old! Time needs to slow down!!

The morning of her birthday the ambulance was at our neighbor’s house. She thought the fire trucks came for her birthday, sweet girl! She still talks about it: “firemens come to my house on my bert-day”! Notice her shirt, she wore her special SheShe Made birthday ice cream shirt to daycare on her birthday!

One of my staff members at the office has a tradition with her kids to do a donut with a candle for birthdays. I thought it was a fun idea, so last minute Daddy ran to the store to get one. Needless to say, Adelyn loved it!

For daycare birthday treats I stuck with the ice cream theme (her party theme was ice cream!) and we made rice krispie treat “ice cream” pops! Adelyn helped dip & sprinkle them!

After Adelyn’s nap I picked her up from daycare. On her birthday last year I had the whole day off and we had some special Mommy/Adelyn time. I think this is another tradition I want to do with our kids!

We met up with my friend Sarah and her daughter Tricia at the splash pad (happened to go to the splash pad on her 1st birthday too!). Unfortunately it was a little overcast, but the girls still had fun together!

After splash pad & playground fun we went to Tropical Smoothie. It was national flip flop day and they were giving away free smoothies. We also happened to run into some more friends, Melissa, Melora, & Melena, who were enjoying free smoothies as well!

We picked up take-n-bake pizza and headed home. Both sets of grandparents came over for supper. After pizza Adelyn opened her gifts. I wrapped just a couple small things, so she would have a few things to open. Her big gift wasn’t the most compatible with wrapping paper, so we improvised!

An “Iowa Hawk mobile”! Can ya tell she liked it? You can see more about it here.

After gifts we had some cake! I’m not a baker, nor a decorator, but I messed around with Adelyn’s cake and used M&Ms (her fav!) to make a “2” and a few ice cream cones! She loves M&Ms, so it was a hit! She was showing us how old she is…2 fingers!

So thankful for our sweet girl! Loved celebrating her big day!

Iowa Hawkeye Cozy Coupe Makeover

I wanted to do something special for Adelyn’s birthday (and inexpensive ). I’ve seen the super hero, minnie mouse, fire trucks, etc cozy coupe makeovers all over pinterest and that got my wheels a-turning! How about an Iowa Hawkeye one?!? It was perfect ‘cause it wouldn’t be girlie and lil bro could play w/it when she was too big for it. Perfect!

I found a used cozy coupe on craigslist for $10 and my wonderful sister & BIL picked it up for me. Note: I forgot to take a before picture, so mine is borrowed!

I took ALL the pieces apart (except I forgot the key) and sprayed painted them with Krylon’s paid for plastics. You can see in my photos, it took quite a few coats. I wanted a nice, even, sharp coat of black, so it took quite a few coats. I think I used 3 cans of black spray paint. Don’t forget to do an undercoat (can you see the red in the picture on the right?)!

I taped off the wheels and painted everything except the steering wheel black. The steering wheel is more of a rubbery material, but it took the yellow spray paint, no problem!

I let the pieces dry for quite a few days, then I taped off the roof for an “I”. Hindsight I would have done this first and then the black because I had some yellow overspray on the black that I thought I was done with! Ya live & ya learn, right?

I purchased a few decals online and slapped them on once everything was good & dry and viola! Now I probably ended up spending more in paint & decals, but my kiddos now have a one of a kind cozy coupe and will be the talk of the tailgate!

Father’s Day 2013

ICYMI I’ve been a bad blogger & I’m determined to get caught to have our family memories “journal-ed” on our blog!

We had a nice, simple Father’s Day for Kyle, his first as a Daddy of TWO!!

No Father’s Day should be complete without grilling! We had pork chops and brats, yum!

Daddy got a few gifts and some help opening them!

And we spent the warm afternoon in pool! This was Avery’s first time in the pool and he loved it!

So thankful for Kyle and the wonderful Daddy he is to our two sweet babies!

June Randomness

ICYMI I’ve been a bad blogger & I’m determined to get caught to have our family memories “journal-ed” on our blog!

One afternoon after work I caught this sweet moment with my babies! Big sissy loves books and was reading Veggie Tales to her baby brother! (clue exploding heart!)6.5.13

I wanted to get a picture of my sweet kiddos all squeaky clean in their PJs and this is how it turns out! Read: real life! 6.9.13

Just when I think Avery is getting so big, I’m quickly reminded he’s still my baby boy (AKA baby burrito!) I get to swaddle each night. 6.13.13

This was Avery’s first time in the bouncer (we were at church) and he really seemed to enjoy it. (and it made him seem WAY too big, so I took him out immediately…j/k) 6.23.13

This was a text I got from one of Adelyn’s wonderful teachers at daycare. This girl loves dress up! 6.24.13

My BIL, Preston, is the worship leader at their church, so I thought this onesie was quite fitting! Well I sent the picture on the left to Uncle Preston when Avery wore it (it was almost too small!). Auntie M saw it and said “who’s that fat baby?!?” lol Obviously angle is everything! I didn’t send the one on the right ‘cause you couldn’t see the saying on his shirt very well. Although he is quite squishy!

Visiting Aunt Stef

ICYMI I’ve been a bad blogger & I’m determined to get caught to have our family memories “journal-ed” on our blog!

May 15th (I was still on maternity leave) I packed up half the house & both kids and hit the road to see my sister in the Omaha area. I wanted to take advantage of my time off to spend some time with family. Stef is a SAHM so it was perfect to go in the middle of week!

The kids TOTALLY surprised me and were perfect little road trip-ers! Proud mama!

On our 3 hour trip we only had to stop one, Avery was hungry! And we were SO close too, but I wasn’t going to make the poor boy wait another 20 minutes.

We spent a lot of our time just hanging out with Stef & the kids at their place. Lily is so sweet with Avery! She’ll make a sweet big sister someday!

Adelyn had so much fun with her cousins! Sure wish they were 3 hours away!

Thursday we went to the Zoo. Stef has a family pass so we didn’t have to pay a dime to get in…score!

This was Adelyn’s first trip to the zoo (and of course, Avery’s too!). Hayden & Lily get to go all the time, lucky little ducks!

 

It was a warm May day so we started with the jungle because it was nice & cool!

It sure does warm my heart to see the cousins being so sweet! They had a blast together!

This was a fun little swing inside the jungle area…the kids had a hard time taking turns!

 

Aunt Stef packed a great lunch for us and the kiddos ate it right up!

“Mom get me out of here, this girl’s a crazy driver!” - Lily

I was determined to get a picture of all 4 cousins and this was about the best one, check out the attitude of the girl in the pink…lol! She gets it from her Dad! Avery wasn’t even 3 months old here!

Like always, we had a great time at Aunt Stef’s and can’t wait to go back again!