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Thursday, August 30, 2012

Baby Dedication

On a recent Sunday our son Elijah was dedicated at church!  We all had fun dressing up and celebrating our little man.  He is such a joy to have in our family and we are so thankful to have him as a son. 

Elijah did a great job up on stage!  We were a little worried that he might get fussy or start to cry when Pastor held him, but he was good!  In fact, he was quite personable and had the entire congregation laughing a few times.  He offered Pastor Percy his pacifier, tried to grab and eat the microphone during the prayer, and even tried to take Pastor Percy's glasses off.  He was very entertaining (and somewhat distracting!) and it all made for a very memorable dedication. 


Elijah and Daddy all dressed up for church!

Elijah, Daddy and Bella

Elijah and Momma

Dedication at church with Pastor Percy

Elijah trying to get the microphone during the prayer:)

Punch to Celebrate!

Lunch is served:)


God Bless You Elijah!

Chocolate Surprise Cupcakes for dessert!

What a blessing children are.  We are so thankful for both of ours!

"Jesus said, 'Let the children come to Me...For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children.'"
Matthew 19:14

Monday, August 27, 2012

Our new (but old!) kitchen table

Matt and I are both people that like to take on projects around the house.  For a while now I have wanted to get a new table for our dining room.  Don't get me wrong, I love the table that we have had for the past five years.  It is a high top square/rectangular table that can seat 6 or 8 people.  We bought it for our first house when we were newlyweds.  It is a great table and has provided many memories already.  However, because it is a high top style, it makes it difficult for small children (such as our own) to get onto the chairs without help and a further distance to fall for our adventurous tots as well.  And, as some of you may know, I am not very tall.  Okay, I'm short.  4 feet, 10 inches to be exact (Well, 4 feet, 9 1/2 inches, but as short people always do, I round up!).  Anyway, having a high top table when you are my height makes it difficult to set, clear, and clean the table, and even get up and down from the table.  So, I had decided that we needed a lower table for our dining room, and this high top table could be used as a game/rec table in our lower level. 
This is our high top table


So now, the hunt was on for a new-to-us table.  I didn't want to spend a lot of money on a table and chairs, and I love antiques, so I watched Craigslist to see if anything came up.  I wasn't seeing a lot (but you should look at some of the stuff that's for sale on there-whoa!).  Then I found out that my grandma wanted to get rid of her kitchen table and get a smaller glass top table for her kitchen.  We decided to go look at the table to see if we were interested.  SCORE!  Not only did we find a FREE, ANTIQUE round table in pretty good condition, we also now have the table that my grandma and grandpa have used for years, as well as my mom and uncle when they were growing up.  In fact, it's the table that my whole family used to sit and eat around at Christmas.  The sentimental value alone means so much to me, and I am so excited to use it for years to come and create new memories with it with our family!


Grandma and Grandpa's old table


The table before sanding/staining



When we got the table to our house we decided to sand down the top and re stain and polyurethane the table.  We did the table top and all of the leaves (5!).  I sanded for hours and hours, but it was worth it!  It turned out great and we are so happy with it!


Now there were a few chairs that came with it, but they were in pretty rough shape, so we ended up finding a set of 6 chairs at an antique/thrift shop that match pretty well.  We reupholstered the seats and they look great with the table!

Four of the six chairs (one is a captain's chair with armrests) before new seat covers.







And here is the new/old table and chairs after completion....(drum roll please).........










Ta-da!

Pretty nice, right?!

Chairs with the new fabric (much better in my opinion!)



Our new dining set!




The kids having their first snack at the table before bed :)


I am so excited to say that the project is done and we have a nice new dining set!  Thanks Grandma for your generosity.  We love our new/old table! And thank you to my wonderful husband who helped me complete this project!  Love you:)

Monday, August 13, 2012

8 Month Love

I adore watching my children grow and each stage has its own great characteristics.  With that being said, I think 8 months is one of the most fun and adorable stages of life!  Elijah is crawling all over the place, beginning to talk (Momma, Dada, Baba, Nana), has gotten three teeth, loves to play and explore, laughs, giggles, and plays games (his favorite is Peek-a-boo), climbs all over the place, is learning how to stand and walk, loves and adores his sister, plays with the dogs, watching and copies things that we do (like clapping), absolutely loves music, and loves the water.  He is just such a joy!  Elijah will be 9 months on Saturday already, so I wanted to capture some of the great things he's learning and doing right now at 8 months old. 

"I'm 8 months old today!"

Hmm...I might eat this.....

Watching the dogs outside-he just adores Cayman and Ana (our two pugs)!

Always has a smile for us!


Snuggling with momma :)


Playing with Bella

Elijah LOVES bath time, and will wait and watch Bella taking her bath until it's his turn!

Those are some chubby cheeks-so kissable!


LOVES the water! 

I thought Bella was a little water bug, then Elijah came along!  This kid just adores the water!


Our happy little man!

Swinging at the park with Daddy:)

Baby giggles are my favorite!

Bella and EJ swinging together:)

Trying out the new car at Grandma and Grandpa's house

Playing with Grandpa!

Breakfast time!

Getting ready to walk!  He's so strong, and he so badly wants to walk.  He can move when holding onto something, and I'm sure it won't be long until he's motoring around!

We love you so much Elijah!  We are so happy and thankful that God chose us to be your family!  Here's to the past 8 months and many many exciting years to come.  Hugs and Kisses!

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Look at our Garden Grow

We finally live at a house with a big back yard, which means we were able to put in a vegetable garden this year!  Thanks to my extra-crafty husband, we now have two beautiful garden beds complete with fences and gates to protect against little garden-eating critters (and our two curious pugs and one curious daughter!). 

This year we planted corn, carrots, cucumbers, lettuce, beans, potatoes, peas and tomatoes.  Not everything is doing great, but most of it is doing pretty well.  We have even had enough cherry tomatoes and cucumbers to have two garden salads with!  Yay!  Nothing quite like veggies fresh out of your own garden.  Bella also loves helping in the garden.  She helped create it, helped plant the seeds, and now loves to go and look for vegetables that are ready to pick!  What a good little helper. 

The start of our garden!



Bella helping Daddy dig!


Taking a break-digging is hard work!






Vegetables are growing!

Cherry Tomatoes growing like crazy!




It has been quite a little adventure for our family, and I'm so proud to have our own little garden to tend to!