And it feels like home...

If you can't stand the heat...get out of the kitchen.

Tell me what you read and I'll tell you who you are.

Relaxation = Inspiration

Rub-a-Dub-Dub

One shoe can change your life. -Cinderella

Running a close race behind the kitchen and library room, one of my favorite features about our house is my "shoe-case."  Whenever I'm having a bad day I can put on a pair of cute shoes and instantly feel a little bit better! :)

The first shoes on my floor to ceiling shoe-case...My something blue for 10/10/10!

Our bedrooms, office, and man-cave are still in the early stages of decorating...which means boxes are the primary decor! Once my comforters, window treatments, and the rest of our bedroom sets come in I'll post more pictures.  Until then we are so happy with how everything turned out!  It's modern, it's industrial, and it's home.  Drew and I sat out on the back porch  listening to the night sounds of South Louisiana and at the same time let out one of those happy, content, all is right with the world sighs and laughed.  We are blessed and life is good.

Silly Bandz

Silly bandz are all the craze right now for kids...and adults who refuse to grow up.  If you don't know they're rubber band bracelets that come in a variety of different shapes.  Andrew had a few but when he saw Brady with an arm load of them he was hooked!  He gets a kick out of the trading concept.  It took Brady a few times of explaining that when you trade you don't get your band back, before Andrew caught on, but now he'll see random kids in the store with Silly Bandz on and he'll walk right up and ask them if they want to trade any of their bracelets.  It's pretty funny!  I remember collecting all kinds of things as a kid: stamps, rocks, sticks, unicorns, bones (I know that's a little morbid, but living on a farm we would happen upon all kinds of animal bones and at one point I wanted to be a paleontologist so bones fascinated me), dried flowers, baseball cards, pogs (does anyone remember those).  Even today I'm still a collector; Gail Pittman pottery, Heisey glass, and shoes!

Silly Goats

My cotton candy clowns

 Let the collecting begin!

 Sigh, my favorite face!

Before Andrew left for TN he gave me four, "but only four" of his silly bandz.  "These are for when you miss me and don't feel like playing with my toys."  He had his very own reasoning behind each band he gave me.

Shrek:  "Because you like those songs from Shrek." That would be I'm A Believer and Hallelujah.

Goat:  "This one is because you call me a silly goat."

Shark:  "I'm gonna give you the shark because it's my favorite...but I have two." He's so generous. ;)

Jessie (the cowgirl from Toy Story):  "Daddy is Woody and you're Jessie, so you can have this one too."

And I haven't taken them off yet.

Setting Up House

I'm pretty sure our moving boxes are multiplying behind my back,  I just can't seem to get them all unpacked!  It also doesn't help to have a few things at our camp, a few things at the condo, a few things here, a few thing there, a few things everywhere!...I'll stop before I start typing Old McDonald. :)  Needless to say unpacking, putting up, and decorating is taking a lot longer than I thought it would.

One thing that is done is the yard!

My amazing Mama drove 700 miles just to help me landscape our house!  Yep, she is that awesome.  I don't know how I would have done it without her.

My BF Emily!

It's a dirty job but someone's gotta do it!

River Birch

All that hard work, now it's time to love on some Andrew!

Maw T! :)

I don't think people grow up "enough" to ever stop needing their moms.  When we're little we need them to survive  When we're teenagers we think we don't need them because we already know everything and we push them away.  As an adult?  I don't know about others but I know for sure that I've never needed my mom more!  I mean it's hard work growing up!  The older I get the larger the impact my decisions have on my life and on other's...I need more support now than I ever have!  And one thing is for sure my parents have always been their for me...no matter what, when, or where.  And oddly enough they really know what their talking about...If I could only tell that to my teenage self, she would really be shocked! ;)

Thanks Mama for all your help and for bringing every lego, baseball card, McDonald's toy, love letter, yearbook, and cassette tape back to me...I just don't know what I've done without them for the last umpteen years!!  

No really thanks. ;)

See You Soon...

I have a lot of catching up to do!  Andrew's last week at home was a very busy one and I have lots of pictures to put up and stories to tell. :)  We miss him so much!  Our house is too quiet without my favorite 5 year old around to liven it up!

The weekend before Andrew went back to TN we had a small "See You Soon" get together.  It was our first gathering at our new house and I'm so thankful it was an event just for our Bud.

 Andrew and Brady: his brother from another mother. :)

Andrew was so proud of his room!  We let him put all of his stuff just where he wanted it, which means it's not very organized but he knows right where everything is.  Whenever anyone came by their first stop had to be his room. :)

Instead of a cake Andrew wanted only ice cream, so we decided to have a ice cream sundae bar!

Yummy!!

HaaHaaa! Aunt Erin's sour face!

 (She's going to kill me!)

Mine and Andrew's favorite topping?

Sour worms with chocolate syrup!!!

We also went to a Princess and Pirates party for Isabella's 4th birthday!

He worked very hard making his pirate hat.

Arrrrrg!! :0

Princess Isabella's cake was too cute!

 The Day Grin...it slays me every time. :)

Drew and I are trying to fall back into our normal routine without Andrew here, it's been a pretty tough adjustment.  We spent this past weekend with great friends at our camp for the 4th of July so that kept our minds off of the empty, Andrew size hole in our hearts.  We said too often over the weekend "Bud would love this..." or if "Bud was here..."  I can only hope that our time between visits passes quickly and that the memories we have are enough to get us through the lonely lulls. 

Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night.  I miss you like hell.  ~Edna St Vincent Millay