the cutest book

sweet cheeks got this book from a friend of mine for christmas. it is freckleface strawberry by julianne moore, and is the cutest little book.

i enjoyed reading it to my freckleface girl!




can you see them here? i absolutely adore all of sweet cheeks tiny freckles. they are so cute on her. so cute.

catching up to do

i have so much catching up to do here!

christmas, christmas, christmas.

and i even missed a wordless wednesday (or two).

so here is a bit of filler while i get caught up-

sweet cheeks and her american girl from santa, rebecca ruben.


love how she is already dressing like her doll.

oh oh it's magic, you know

our christmas present to sweet cheeks was a big one this year. we took her to meet mickey and minnie mouse at their place. it was amazing. all 7 days of it.

disney was even more amazing than we could have imagined. everything we did, every place we went, and everyone that worked there made our holiday vacation just so memorable! that place is magical.

i really wonder what the ratio of employees to guests is. disney employs so many people who for the most part really seemed to enjoy working there.

surprisingly enough the only complaint we had at all of the parks was the other vacationers. we were pretty disappointed in the way people pushed, shoved, stomped, and cut others to get ahead. seriously. i thought we were going out of our way to be nice to others at such a special place, but not everyone behaved that way. my only complaint. that's pretty good.

so i can't wait any longer.

i have so many great pictures to share. so many. here's a sampling...



entering the kingdom for the first time

after a visit to the bippity boppity boutique

the best view is from daddy's shoulders

a very merry christmas parade. she loved seeing all of the princesses

ahhh... tea cup induced nausea

the ever popular dumbo ride

one of sweet cheek's favorite rides at epcot

yup. another parade.

face painted at the animal kingom

seriously. look closely at the expression on sweet cheek's face as she met belle

me and my girl at epcot in front of the big ball, as sweet cheeks called it

lets go back!

coming soon...

sorry no posts recently.
we were on VACATION!!

so many amazing photos to share of our wonderful trip.

check back soon, please.

wordless wednesday

oh christmas tree!

2008
sweet cheeks and her cousin, ellis, in front of our tree.
our first real tree with sweet cheeks.


2009
sweet cheeks with a silly pose in front of our tree. real again, of course.
love the smell, hate the messy needles everywhere.
i love this tree so much more than last years.
the little one decided we needed more hot pink on our tree, so we added garland and decorations in that shade. hot pink is the new holiday red says sweet cheeks. she is always up on the latest trends that one.
we think it turned out pretty.

all by myself

sweet cheeks is growing up too fast for me. i am constantly telling her to slow it down because i miss my baby. she just laughs at me. she enjoys growing up and independence way too much. seriously. too much. like closes the door when she gets ready in the morning. like brushes her own hair, washes her face, and brushes her teeth by herself.


after school the other day, sweet cheeks hopped right into her booster seat and buckled herself up. i smiled and told her that i am sad that there isn't much left that she needs me to do for her. she does it all on her own now. she smirked proudly back at me. then at a sweet attempt to make me feel better, she said 'except for dinner.' and that isn't much because truth be told, 4 days a week the husband cooks, 2 days we eat out, and that leaves me with 1 pathetic dinner a week (usually soup, sandwiches, or pasta- how weak is that).


so what does sweet cheeks do when we get home? she ran right to the kitchen, got out a measuring cup, and asked me for flour and eggs. i asked her what she needed it for, to which she quickly responded, "to make my own dinner."


she made herself chocolate chip pancakes. it was pretty impressive. she did the measuring and the mixing. i did the actual stove part and told her she had to at least be able to reach the stove in order to use it.


so just like that, she proved to be miss independent by making her own dinner. for a second, i was a bit weepy by the fact that my little baby isn't my little baby. i got over that quickly when i saw how much she ate of her very own pancakes.



so proud


so tasty

wordless wednesday

lovely

one of my favorite websites to view for furniture and bedding is house inc.

annette tatum also shares her catalogs on her website and i have fallen in love with so many of the nurseries and bedding prints.

every one (i couldn't share all of them as there are so many) has the most beautiful colors and prints mixed so perfectly together. the only word i can use to describe them all is lovely.

these are just a few of my favorites-








i also enjoy reading her blog, the well dressed home.

a silly sundae with two nuts

saturday night sweet cheeks had a slumber party. her cousin spent the night with her and what a time they had.

my sister and i are best friends. we are so fortunate to have one another (i, mainly, am the lucky one!). the fact remains that neither of our daughters has a sister, but believe both girls are lucky to have one another. i think cailyn is going to be the closest thing sweet cheeks gets to a sister. and they do behave like sisters!

so saturday night was a great time for both.

they pulled out all the silliness possible!

it started out as a simple picture of the girls laughing during snack time....



and it turned into a photo shoot of 2 major silly gooses....





the girls ended the night by sleeping in sleeping bags on mattresses that were on the floor. it doesn't get any better than that. really. it doesn't.

i so love watching them together and imagine it is a preview into the past of what my sister and i were like.

wordless wednesday

turkey to wear, not to eat

i am so glad thanksgiving is just around the corner. i am ready for some good food.

thought this was a super cute turkey day onesie (can be on a tee as well) from olive and ollie



now i need to go find some turkey crafts for me and sweet cheeks to do together.

all the leaves are brown

sweet cheeks is loving that fall is here.

she loves the crisp air.

she loves the fallen leaves.

she loves gloves.

she loves that the mosquitoes are gone.

she loves being outside.

she loves to rake.

i do not know where she gets that from because neither the husband nor myself want anything to do with raking. so she raked... alone. and she was good at it! i admit that we were a little worried about what our neighbors were thinking but she was enjoying herself too much to make her stop.

wordless wednesday (on thursday)

fly away sweet bird of prey

i ended up finding this purple, glittery tee at old navy. maybe it is a batman tee, but i told sweet cheeks it is bat girl tee. she loves it. i mean why wouldn't she.
it SPARKLES doesn't it.



brushing her teeth before school wearing her tee-
(blurry pic taken with the husband's phone)


**

my husband, the good husband that he is, got ME a new phone. normally i take his old phones as really don't care one way or the other. but recently i have been feeling the pressure to get something new, something cool, something that isn't an old pink razor flip phone, something that i can easily text with and lets me take my own pictures! so that is what he did. he got me a phone that lets me do all of those amazing things. it's a mytouch 3g w/google. now i just have to learn how to use it. i feel like the old grandparent that was just introduced (or nicely forced) to emailing by the kids and grandkids.

isn't she pretty-


thanks husband.

wordless wednesday

beautiful bedtimes

one of my favorite shops for nursery and bedroom decor is serena & lily. i love everything about this store. the colors, prints, and simplicity are all amazing.

here are a few of my favorite collections-

kate collection (my favorite)


wren collection


isabel collection


asher collection

all in the brow

i have recently noticed that sweet cheeks is very expressive when she talks. for one, she seems to use her hands quite a bit. i think she feels her hands are her exclamation points when storytelling. for her, they really add emphasis! (note-i am aware of that fact that i overuse exclamation points when writing but still can’t control myself) i also noticed that sweet cheeks moves her eyebrows a lot when speaking. not always just for emphasis but even in her daily conversation. she is just a very expressive girl. some describe that as dramatic (i know i would on others but don’t like to say it about her- just being honest here- i prefer to call her an actress. doesn't sound as negative, right. are you with me?) it is really sweet though to stare at her beautiful, lightly freckled face and watch her brows move up and down while her eyes go from big to small, all the while she is telling me about something that happened in her day. i miss so much of her life while she is at school and i am at work, so i love that she wants nothing more than to share those moment with me.

i am beginning to wonder if i am as expressive as she is. i am pretty sure i do not use my hands excessively, since i can see those, but wonder if my brows move so much during conversation. i wouldn’t be crazy to say that sweet cheeks picks up a lot of the husband and my habits, some of which are a bit weird. we both have noticed that when we talk to sweet cheeks, she really tries to study our facial expressions to develop a better understanding of our feelings behind the words. what a smart cookie!

lately sweet cheeks will ask me, “are you worried about it” or “are you worried about me,” as if she can’t necessarily tell by what i am saying rather than how i suggestively say it.

it is a cute little phrase though and i appreciate her concern over my concern.

i picked her up from school the other day and her cheeks were pretty flushed. i was pretty sure it was just from her being out on the playground but to be safe, i put my hands on her cheeks to feel if she felt feverish. her immediate response was, “are you worried about me?”.

bodi, our dog, was coughing a few nights ago. it was a strange sounding cough, as if she were coughing something up. i went over to her to see if she was ok. sweet cheeks, not far away, just watched me as i made my way onto the floor next to bodi. she asked, again, “are you worried about her?”.


what a good reader of emotions and expressions she is. i have to say though that if it were anyone other than sweet cheeks watching me so intently, i would be a bit weirded out!

she just may be the next tim roth on ‘lie to me.’

wordless wednesday

all treats, no tricks, and some rain

my mom sent sweet cheeks a pumpkin decorating set that she had made. it turned out so, so cute!

what a cute pumpkin cat!



halloween was routine for us this year, with the addition of the rain and cold weather! nothings ruins trick or treating faster than those two things, especially when they happen together. actually, the good thing is that it really only ruins it for the parents. the kids are never bothered by anything on one of their favorite holidays. pretty sure that there is nothing that could keep them from a. dressing up and b. free candy. nothing.

sweet cheeks, the husband, and i went out to my sister's house. we joined them as well as some friends and their kids. we've all been getting together for the last 4 years (minus 1 when sweet cheeks had bronchiolitis). it is always so much fun. i really love just seeing them all grow up together.

the girls were so cute. so cute! they all had different costumes but were all witches. the 3 most adorable witches, possibly EVER.



3 witches, 1 Gangsta, and a Ghost walk into a bar.....



my witch, still dry and warm


witch hugs are the best


sweet cheeks did a great job trick or treating. once we got outside, hadn't even hit one house, she realized it was cold and put her coat on. i love my smart girl. we even used her umbrella a few houses into it. it didn't take her long to realize that her ghost was full and we could go home, get warm, and eat all the candy she possibly could while the other kids went a bit longer.

the stash! it is going to last a long, long time. i think she has only eaten maybe 3 or so pieces since. probably forgot about it and i will not remind her. i have no problem eating it all myself. isn't that my job as her mom?