Finley selfies

Finley enjoys seeing herself in the front camera of our phones.  And I personally think it’s super cute!



Love this girl!

Birthday Par-tay!

Today we had Brody’s birthday PARTY!  We swung, we swam, we hung out and we played a wiffle ball game.  FUN times!!



The sweet little birthday boy!


Brothers!


And the sweet little brother, Max…


Such a fun day!

Food for home and Food Trucks

I had to run to work for a couple of hours this morning to do some tests and a meeting.  After that, Dave and the girls met me at Trader Joes to get some groceries.    We are going to do a trial run of *mostly* gluten free, for a week, to see if we notice any changes.  Anyone ever do this? What changes did/do you see?

Thank you, Trader Joes, for Mia’s (and mine) new found obsession.  Cookie butter.



Next up, Whole Foods and Toys R Us.  I finally caved and bought Finley “Sophie the Giraffe” TWENTY DOLLAR teether.  I know, it’s like a glorified pet toy. Squeaker and all.  But?  She loves it.  It’s easy to hold and it reaches all those back gums.  Now she can use that instead of putting her whole fist in her mouth!  HA!

We came home, Daddy and the girls napped and I went to Wal Mart with Poppy and Ben to get a few other items.  Dave was in rare form today.  Very quiet and not smiling very much.  UNLIKE my husband. I guess the two hours of sleep he got had him feeling, ahem, a little less than energized.  So he got a pass on the Wal Mart and took a nap instead!

He woke up in a better mood and then we headed downtown to a local Food Truck event.  Five of the local Food Trucks were going to be at one location for you to try out all of their food!  It was a lot of fun!





We started off with noodle bowls, then wings, Ben had ravioli, some kind of Indian vegetables and lastly a burger!  That sounds like a lot of food, but we split everything between ALL of us!  It was fun!

The noodle bowls…

Let’s starts SOLIDS!

OK, so, Finley is a little over 5 months old, and I have not given her any thing other than breast milk.  Either directly from the source or from a bottle.  I was planning on doing exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months, but apparently, I got a wild hair and decided to just try it and see what she does.

I bought one package of Gerber’s Organic apples, mixed it with some rice and tried it out.  Just for kicks and giggles. Have I told you how much more laid back I am, this time around?!  ;)

Ignore my painting in the background, I haven’t hung it up yet.  Lets focus on the cute baby, k?




HAHAHA!!  That face!!  I’m not thinking she is a fan!  Not sure if it’s a taste thing, pretty sure it’s just the new texture!  HAHA


We will try again later.  No big deal.  ::Insert ultimate relaxed momma, second go ‘round!::

I mean, if I would have blogged when Mia was this age, you would have seen my crazy.  I started her at 4 mos. (per Dr. request) and she wasn’t ready.  However, I forced it on her every.single.day.  And she hated it (wasn’t ready) until 6 months.  I would get SO upset and think she would never eat and may even need a G-tube.  (I told you I was cray cray!)  You would never know it now, because girlfriend is a little piggy and is NOT picky, AT ALL!!

Let’s go painting!

Last night, my mom, Tina and I all got to go out and use our Mother’s Day presents!  Gift cards to a local paint spot!  It was SO much fun!!
Uptown Art is a place you go to paint, have a snack and a glass of wine and just have a good time! 

My little snack plate, a glass of moscato and my paint pallet.


Our instructor was from Australia and had a fabulous accent!  She was hilarious and I loved listening to her!

Our painting was called “Rainy night” which was exceptionally appropriate considering it was a very rainy night!!

My painting…


All three of us and our paintings…

Tina’s, moms and mine.

Me and my momma



Such an awesome girls night!  We will definitely be going back.  Maybe next time with the boys :)

HUGE thank you to Uncle B and my dad for taking AMAZING care of my girls while I was out having some fun!! They took awesome care of my girls and the house was even spotless when I got home!!!!!!!  I am so thankful for those men!!!  LOVE YOU BOTH, and I am so grateful!!!!

Family walk and bowling with friends

We started our day off with a nice long walk, this time hoping to wear the dog out, not the children!  HA!

She thought we were going for a ride!  Not exactly, sister.


All ready to go!   And yes, Mia insisted on going for a walk in a dress.  She is a MAJOR clothes diva already. Changing constantly.  Loves dresses and play heels.  God, help me!


Mia wanted to walk Sam, and surprisingly, Sam didn’t pull her at all.  She was actually so good, there was slack in the leash and it kept getting wrapped up in her legs!


Dave tried to walk Sam up in the big field, but all she could do is keep looking back to make sure the girls and I were still there :)  Protective girl!


After our walk, the girls and I headed to the Bowling Alley with my friend Katie and her boys Alex and Max and the little princess Jenna!  Mia just LOVES Alex!

Mia’s very first time bowling…


Max, Alex and Mia




She got so excited to knock down some pins!  HAHA


Sweet matching little sister!


We then went to Jason’s Deli for lunch and Gigi’s for cupcakes.  Unfortunately, Mia didn’t get a cupcake due to behavior and not listening to her momma.  As much as it broke my heart and I wanted to cave in and get her one, I had to stick to my word, so that she knows I am serious. But, I REALLY wanted to cave.

On the way home, we stopped by Poppy’s house because Grand Poppy was over visiting.  He just got back from Paris and brought the girls back some cute shirts! 

We came home. Mia had meltdown of epic proportions. Stayed in her room for an hour. Multiple spankings. Momma in tears.  Story for whole different post.

Brody’s birthday

Mia’s little Partner-In-Crime Brody, had his actual 6th birthday.  The party is this weekend, but we went  to spend some time with them this afternoon.

We first had Charlie’s baseball game…

I just love these two goofballs!




After the game, we all headed to Mr.Gatti’s for pizza and games!
Random Mia and Uncle B picture.

I can’t believe I didn’t get any other pictures.

Happy Birthday to our sweet little ladies man!  We love you oh so much!! 

Can you say “Conviction”???

This morning we started off a little slow.   Pictures and swimming will wear some people out! HA!

Apparently someone woke up in the middle of the night, and daddy can’t resist cuddling with his girls :)  So I woke up to these twinkies…


Momma and these two played until the sleepy heads woke up!


Then we headed to church.  The message was amazing and extremely convicting.  Not that I like to feel convicted.  I’m not a fan of squirming in my seat because I think the pastor has some direct link to God and knows all of my shortcomings, and then decides to call me out in front of the whole congregation.  OK. He may not have done that, but it certainly felt like it.

One of his opening questions/points of the sermon was this?

“If you were to pull one of your children aside, and ask them who/what mommy and daddy loved the most, what would they say?”
Let that marinate in your brain for a minute.

Like, WHOA.  I immediately started scrambling through all of the things Mia may say, and God wasn’t on the top of the list.  Mom.FAIL.  WOW.

Reality check.

How am I supposed to get her to love God above all else, if she doesn’t see her daddy and I doing that?  So I asked Dave what he thought her answer may be and he said “She’s gonna say her.”

When we picked her up from her class, I asked her.  “Mia, what does mommy and daddy love the MOST?” She replied “ME!”
I am certainly comforted to know that she is secure in our love for her, but I little disappointed in myself for not showing her who we should really love the MOST.
I can’t sit here and lie and say “Oh, I love God way more than my kids” because that would just not be accurate.  This is a hard hard pill to swallow.  It is so hard because my kids are here.  I see them and love on them every day.  Physically.  And although I know, deep down that they are not MINE, He gave them to me to bring up to know and love Him, it is still SO hard to put anything above them.  It has to be a constant desire.  I can not just simmer, as a Christian.  I need to be ACTIVELY searching Him and loving Him.  The One who gave me these beautiful gifts.  And it is HARD.

God never said it would be easy, I understand that.  But we humans, Christians, tend to seek the easy road, the comfortable journey.  Forget about Him when the road is easy and then seek Him out when the going gets tough.  I am talking to myself.

Does anyone else struggle with this?  Does your faith go through peaks and valleys?

Such a great, eye-opening Sunday.

He had many other, gut wrenching points, but I’ll just leave you with that question.

“If you pulled one of your children aside, asked them who/what mommy and daddy loved the most, what would they say?”

If you would like to see the rest of the sermon, you can view it here

Let the swimming days begin

This morning we had our outdoor family pictures.  It. Was. HOT.  We were all miserable and sweaty, so even though it was a bit late, we decided to go swimming!
We had our first official swimming day today.  The kind that actually requires swimmies and floats and momma and daddy can get in past their shins!  It was also Finley’s very first time in a pool!!

Miss Hair didn’t even hesitate and jumped right in!  Went straight under the water and LOVED it!!  That’s my girl!


And this one? Didn’t mind a bit!  She actually was smiling and laughing and loving it!




Uncle B even joined us!!
**I just have to add that while we were having our pics taken, Ben stayed at our house and cleaned it for us!!!  What an amazing brother I have, y'all!"**


Mommy and baby relaxin’.  And?  Matching RED toes :)


Did I ever mention that I LOVE summer time?!