Fourth of July Fun

Our family has always loved cookouts. I mean who wouldn't love an excuse to drink, eat grilled yumminess, and play fun yard games?! We congregated at my parent's house for this shindig and managed to capture a few (okay, okay, A LOT) of pictures of our fun!

Our first family photo in a while since Daisy has been hanging out with my parents. 

4/5 of the Wardlets with their compadres and Amelia Grace! Oh, and Trout too;-) 

Gigi and Pop Pop with the littlest princess. 

Gigi's impressive creation! 

Pop Pop's impressive creation!

We had a great time hanging out and catching up while also celebrating this great nation. An incredibly large thanks to all the servicemen and women who made this relaxing weekend possible!

Memorial Day Memories

Memorial Day weekend has always been one of my favorite times of the year. My  love may have started young when we would spend three solid days at the pool followed by evening cookouts. Or maybe it was as I got older and I began to head south to Charleston for the weekend with my bestie, Kelley, and her parents. Maybe my true love of it came when I became a teacher and it meant one last day off before the true craziness of the end of the year began?! Or, perhaps it was when I truly recognized the sacrifices that were made for me to enjoy those days in the sun and the start of a long, hot summer of rest and rejuvenation. Who knows where my love began, but that's where my heart is now.

This weekend was like most of the past filled with time spent at the pool and gorging ourselves on lots of yummy food and a few too many "pool beers". What is is about drinks at the pool that just seem to go down quicker?! ;-) It was a little different this year as we adjusted our days to a little princess we know, but it was different in the best way possible.

We kicked off the weekend with a quick visit to the pool just the three of us. . .

 

Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle John came up on Saturday! 

Pop Pop, Gigi, Auntie Abby, and Mark joined us on Sunday!

 

 

I think it's safe to say our little Yankee Doodle had a fabulous first Memorial Day weekend!

Easter Rewind

I know I'm a few days late, but I still wanted to share some of our wonderful Easter weekend with y'all!

Friday started off a little different than most Fridays in that we got to have a playdate with our baby friends! The school was on Spring Break so we were able to hang out with some sweet mommas and babes for a bit. It's so much fun to see them toddling around and really getting into things. Gone are the days of quietly meeting in a coffee shop!

They were not having it when we asked for a picture!

That evening my mom came down so David and I could go out on a date. What he didn't know was we weren't going home! While we kicked off the evening with drinks at Carolina Ale House I surprised him and told him there was a suitcase in the back of the car and we were staying the night at his parents' condo on Lake Wylie! He was so excited and we completely changed gears for the night. Instead of a quick evening out Carrabba's and Babies 'R Us (whoooooo), we headed to NoDa to hit the breweries and chow down on some delicious food. We even snuck over to the new outlet mall for a wee bit just to wander around. Gotta love when you're not tied to a baby's bedtime!

The next morning we woke up and ventured over to IHOP for breakfast. David has been talking about getting a stack of their pancakes for about a thousand years so I finally caved. After he drowned them in syrup and thoroughly enjoyed them we returned home to our babe and a busy day of visiting with my side of the family. We've recently discovered all the neat breweries that are pretty much in our backyard! Okay, so maybe they're like 10 minutes away, but that's close enough for us. My dad, brother, and sister-in-law joined us for the trip around town before we all ended up back at the house for supper and yard games. 

The next morning we awoke early and headed to church to celebrate the glorious day! Every Easter Sunday our church comes together for a delicious Easter breakfast and this year was no different. Afterwards we all roll ourselves into the auditorium and fight to stay awake with our full tummies;-) There is always an Easter egg hunt following the service and this year was no different. Amelia Grace even "found" an egg! What that really means is we sat her down next to egg and she picked it up. Hooray! Haha. 

Amelia Grace's first Easter!

After service we headed to the Mobley's for Easter lunch and visiting. We all enjoyed more delicious food and had a great time catching up. 

It was a busy weekend, but a great one as well!

Me on the left in 1989 and Amelia Grace in 2015 wearing the same dress!

Christmas Crazy 2014

I love the hub hub and crazy of the Christmas season, and this year was certainly crazy-at one point there were four dogs running around my parents' house. We felt like the Bumpus family from A Christmas Story! But I'm jumping ahead of myself. . .

We started our celebration the weekend before Christmas with the Mobley side of the family. David's parents and brother were headed to Florida for the NC State Bitcoin Bowl Game (which they won! GO PACK!) so they wouldn't be around to celebrate Christmas Day. We had a great time relaxing and enjoying each other's company while also sneaking in a few round of Mexican Train Dominoes! It was the perfect way to kick start the celebrating and fun:-)

How many adults does it take to make a baby smile?

Figuring out this Christmas thing. . .

We then hung around and spent a few days relaxing and visiting with various friends before the big day. We usually spend the days surrounding Christmas traveling in every which direction (and there was definitely some of that!), but we made a point to wake up at our house Christmas morning so we could celebrate just the three of us. I don't know if it was the excitement of the special day or the prednisone insomnia kicking in, but I woke up at 2:30am on Christmas Day and despite all my best efforts could not fall back asleep! So you better believe I was jumping out of my skin with excitement waiting for David and Amelia Grace to wake up. Ironic that the baby slept most of the night, but the momma couldn't. . .

Well, hey there!

Family selfie waiting for Christmas Eve church to start

With some of her loot!

After we exchanged presents and got oodles of pictures of the bebita we hit the road to Winston Salem to see my branch of the family tree. With five kids (three of whom are married) it was a bit of a challenge to coordinate everyone's schedules, but we managed to get seven out of eight of us together for a couple hours! My brother, TJ, had duty at Camp Lejeune, but will be joining us for New Year's! After presents and visiting we snuck in a few rounds of the favorite family game, Catch Phrase, before turning in for the night. The celebrating continued with brunch the next day with more of our wonderful extended family.

FaceTiming with TJ at Camp Lejeune!

Things got cuckoo at times, but it was cuckoo in the best kind of way! We are so blessed to have so many people come around us with love and generosity in this beautiful season. Adding Amelia Grace to the mix this year made it that much more special and we can't wait for her to get even more involved next year!

Traditions

Just about every family has some sort of tradition. Whether it's to go to this person's house on Christmas Eve or to wait until all the kids are awake to go bounding down the stairs-there is some sort of custom that is followed. As we approach our first Christmas with a wee one we are much more aware of the traditions we want to keep!

One of our favorite traditions is the three gifts. David and I have always exchanged three gifts at Christmas. This helps remind us of the three gifts that were brought to baby Jesus, as well as to not go overboard on useless things! We give a "want", a "need", and something faith-based. Some times it's bigger things like a new coat that you "need" and sometimes it's new cookie sheets. Some years you "want" something to add to the garage gym and some years it's a movie. It's fun to see how things change every year! 

This is a tradition we want to keep up with Amelia Grace. Being the first bebita on both sides has some advantages and one of them is all the goodies! With that blessing we are able to focus on specific things she may "want" (as much as a baby can want that is!), "need", and show her Jesus. Between our house and that of our family's, I have a feeling this Christmas will be very good to her ;-)

Another tradition that is important to us is waking up at our house Christmas morning. I can't remember a time not waking up at our house and racing downstairs (after everyone was awake of course!) to see what Santa brought us. In fact this year will be a bittersweet because it's the first Christmas I won't be doing it at my parent's house will all my siblings, but instead we will be doing it at our house with our baby girl! I remember how much time and work my parents putting into setting up the presents and even creating obstacle courses to block us from getting downstairs too early, and I can't wait to do that for Amelia Grace! 

Something else that we started this year with our Community Group is participating in Operation Christmas Child. This is something David always did growing up and something we want to keep up with our kiddos. We want her to know that the Christmas season is not all about the presents, music, and treats, but instead about continuing to share the good news of Jesus Christ with all and that includes giving back at every opportunity!

And a tradition that I'm not too fond of, but the hubby loves-guessing gifts! I love the surprise of opening it and not knowing, but my beloved adores guessing the gifts. Anyone else do that??

I'd love to hear some Christmas traditions that you follow, or suggestions you have to add to our list! We right at the beginning so there's room for many more;-)

via

Helloooooooo, David Mobley!

Giving Thanks

Every year we have much to be thankful for, but this year has brought extra joy by the name of Amelia Grace. 

It's hard to believe this little turkey is 4 months old now (post coming soon!) and showing off every bit of her unique personality. We are not just thankful for our precious gift, but also for the family we get to share her with! Wednesday found us visiting the Mobleys and enjoying our first delicious meal of the year. We even managed to convince David's brother, John, to hold her! 

Thursday morning we woke up and headed to Winston Salem to see my family and chow down on another delicious meal. I think someone counted and we ended up with 20 people at my grandparent's house for our very last Thanksgiving there before they sell the house and move into something smaller. 

Both meals filled our tummies and our hearts. 

Obligatory Halloween Post

Another favorite part of Fall? Halloween, of course! As a kid, there were few things more fun than wandering around the neighborhood with your friends collecting loads of free candy from the neighbors. It's just as fun on the other side of things seeing all the kiddos in their fun costumes. This year we got to dress up our little nugget!

Before we knew if she was a boy or a girl we called her "Nugget". My dad saw this costume at Costco one day and grabbed it for her. I think it's save to say we have the cutest little chicken nugget around:-)

Her face in this one cracks me up every time!

Riding the struggle bus.

Batman and his sidekick, Chicken Little

We partnered up with our neighbors and passed out glow sticks and candy around a fire pit in the driveway. It was a fun night but I can't wait until we can take her trick-or-treating next year!

Pumpkin Carving

In case I haven't mentioned it enough, I love Fall. One of the sure signs of Fall is when you start seeing pumpkins popping up all around town. Gigi and Pop Pop (my parents) got Amelia Grace a mini pumpkin at the beginning of October, but it rotted in a few weeks. Why did it rot? Because our front porch gets direct sunlight all day. No pumpkin, plant, or flower is safe! Every Spring I try to plant flowers that the lovely people at Lowes assure me cannot be killed, yet every year they are dead in weeks. Too much sun. 

This year we waited until the very last minute to get our pumpkin. We decided to buy local and head over to our a cute farm stand near our house. We experienced bit of sticker shock when we saw that the medium pumpkins were $12.99 each! Maybe I'm a little naive, but that was pricey to me. The big ones were $35.99 each! After deciding that was too much for our budget we headed to Harris Teeter and got a pumpkin the size of the $35.99 ones for $4.99. They're local too, right? ;-)

David took the initiative on the design and carved it like a champ!

You mean you don't want a pumpkin UFO in your face?

She was less than enthused by this part. 

Amelia Grace enjoyed her job as spectator too!

Hello, Goodbye [04.01]

Linking up with Allison today for "Hello, Goodbye"!

Hello July, Goodbye June!

Hello weekend full of patriotic festivities.



Hello super relaxing pedicure and fun coral-painted toesies.

Goodbye last attempt at wearing normal clothes, and hello to strictly maternity clothes.

Hello 33 weeks of pregnancy.

Hello almost done Nursery (I promise, it's coming! We ran into a few road bumps last weekend).

Goodbye all relaxation as the summer weekends pick up like crazy!

5 on Friday [02.14]

 Happy Friday, folks!

*one*
Day two and a half of Snowmageddon 2014 and I am pleased to report the sun is out! It's not melting very quickly, but it's still happening. I'm on board with Kelly and Michael's #endwinternow movement!

*two*
 Have y'all heard of The Food Babe? If not, go investigate! She is absolutely amazing in her crusade to rid this world of icky food. Her recent efforts have included: ridding Subway bread of harmful chemicals, getting Chick-fil-A chicken to serve antibiotic-free chicken, and eliminating wood pulp from Kraft mac-and-cheese.

*three*
Gillian Flynn is a rockstar writer! I downloaded Dark Places last night after loving Gone Girl so much. Note to self, don't read so close to bedtime! 

*four*
 Happy Valentine's Day! We're not big celebrators of the holiday and buy more into the concept of "everyday should be like Valentine's Day", but it's still fun to have a holiday to celebrate! Our celebration will probably include much the same as a regular Friday night, but that is perfectly fine with me!


*five*
Thank heavens for Pinterest! I have spent quite a few hours trolling these past few days and have found all sorts of suppers, snacks, and crafts to occupy my time. Well, that is if I ever manage to get up off this couch. . .;-)