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Colorful Joy Christmas Card

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i heart faces: raise your hands

boys will be boys.  and this boy was making mudpies for his mommy.  :) they were delicious! ha.  head on over to i heart faces and check out the other entries.

insta.fun

feeling a little uninspired with my camera lately, but i seem to always have my phone.  i love my iPhone.  i will never go back to any other kind of phone after having this one for 2 years now.  part of the fun is all of the cool apps.  if you were to look on my phone, the camera apps would far outnumber the others.  that being said, one of my favorites is instagram.  it's just a fun app where you can take photos, add a filter to them if you like, and then share them to your personal feed, facebook, twitter, etc.  i'm always looking for new fun photo apps.  what are some of your favorites? along with instagram i've got best camera, camera+, shake it photo, hipstamatic, cross process, shutterfly, and photoshop.  here are some of my instagram snapshots. :)

i heart faces: soft & sweet

this week's theme is soft and sweet.  i decided that sweet little Aiden playing quietly with his trains at our last family reunion would be my entry.  his beautiful eyes are so soft and innocent and he looks (and is) so sweet.  be sure to head over to i heart faces to check out the other entries. :)

big boy

from this: (taken on 3/16)

to this:

how did this haircut age my son to look like such a big boy??  learned my lesson about the haircut, yes i did.  never walk away from the supposed "trained stylist" that is cutting off all but the military length of your son's hair.  because apparently that's what saying "just clean it up a little around the edges and leave it longer on the top" will get you.  i've gotten used to it and still think my kingston is the cutest little guy around, but i just wasn't ready to see him looking like a 4 year old.  he's 2!
speaking of big boys--our big boy learned how to climb out of his crib.  so, we were forced to begin the toddler bed stage.  and needless to say, it isn't going so well.  those of you that know us know that kingston has never been a stellar sleeper.  we've had some mirage-like glimpses of a full night's sleep here and there but we travelled a whole lot last year with it being our first year back in texas (there was a lot of friends and family to see!), and so perhaps kingston never got truly "used to" his own room.  with the travelling we started some bad habits and now here we are, with our big boy 2 year old that would rather sleep with us than in his own room.  don't get me wrong, i love to snuggle, but for us, i think it's important that kingston sleeps in his own bed.  so, we are in the process of sleep training all over again.  and it's been rough.  tips, hints, pointers and empathy all gladly accepted. :)

far behind

soooo it's been a few weeks since i've posted.  oops.  we have been busy settling in to our new home in austin, tx!  trying to get everything "just so" and yard work, ooooh the yard work.  the yard has definitely kept me busy.  i think we've got a handle on it now so that is good news.  let's just say that the yard was not a priority of the last tenants.  the yard, IS, however a priority for us. :)

kingston has been such a good helper. he loves to dig in the dirt and water the flowers.  as for me, i have never done so much yard work IN MY LIFE.  exhausting but hopefully very rewarding as we watch the grass grow in and make our yards a place to enjoy.  

i heart faces: shadows

this week's theme is shadows and this is my son kingston creating a watercolor masterpiece.  :)  be sure to head over to i heart faces to check out the other entries.

i heart faces: a slice of life :)

this is my favorite type of photo!! i mean, everyone likes a good portrait, but i absolutely LOVE a photo that just looks like a beautiful snippet from someone's daily life.  unposed, candid, life.

i took this photo last weekend at the arboretum. sweet baby carson was hungry and we just couldn't get his bottle fast enough!  i love that he looked right at me with the little tears in his eyes. click on over to i heart faces and check out the other entries!

spring forward

the days are longer, and there is a feeling of rebirth, regrowth and renewal.  yes, spring is here.  i absolutely love this time of year, although in texas it seems to be somewhat fleeting.
we got to spend some time at one of our favorite places in dallas (Dallas Arboretum) with some of our favorite people this last weekend.  We had such a great time for our last weekend in living here dallas.  hearing the boys laugh and play together warmed my heart to no end.  i love that kingston has a cousin his same age and I just know that they will be close friends.

kingston and aiden

love those eyes

simple

carson

lincoln jet

6 days old

my new nephew, lincoln jet reyes entered the world on 3.7.11.  i just had to drive to houston to see him last weekend while he was still so new.   and oh, he is just beautiful.  head full of hair and pouty lips and almond eyes.  ahhh, and his smell!  i love that baby smell.  i seriously could just sit and smell his head for hours.  yes, i am totally smitten with my little lincoln jet.  his parents let me snap a few to remember these precious days.

so alert

perfection

  and one more...

lucky

blake and i went to austin this past weekend to scope some things out and left kingston at home with his marme. we got up "before the chickens" at 5 am on saturday to start our trip.  we looked at homes all morning long, lunched at torchy's tacos, and went back to look at more homes.  then we went to dinner at imperia in the warehouse district and met an old friend at annie's west.  i absolutely loved this time with blake.  of course a lot of the topics of conversation were about kingston and how awesome he is, but we also just got to talk. about nothing and about everything.  you see, we get into the daily grind and we get up, get ready, get king ready and fed, go to work...etc.   we come home and it's all about dinner and we get busy being busy and i'll be honest, i get lazy and maybe do not take the time to appreciate my husband as i should and vice versa.  and we don't get many date nights because we don't have family here close by and i don't have a babysitter, so we do everything as a family and we are fine with it.  we love our son more than words can say.  but, blake and i need to take more time for each other to reconnect sometimes.  and that's just what we did this weekend.  on the car ride home and after a very emotional realization that i had about something else, i just sat there with the biggest smile on my face thinking, how did i get so lucky?  i married an incredible man that happens to be my very best friend.  and he's amazing.  and handsome.  and a great father.  i am so lucky and very blessed. :)

different views

the challenge at i heart faces this week is "anything but a face."  and while i was too busy and forgot to enter,  i did try over the weekend to capture a photo for the challenge.  :) it wasn't as easy as i thought it might be.

the big 2

my sweet kingston thomas turned 2 on february 20.  we celebrated with friends and family at children's museum at the dallas museum of nature and science and had a BLAST! we had a great turnout of kingston's classmates, friends, cousins and family.  it's hard to believe that my little lovebug is 2...i can still remember so vividly the days leading up to his birth.  the excitement, the consuming of an ENTIRE bag of reese's peanut butter cups the night before, the gentle contractions that woke me up that turned into waves of pain in a few short hours, our parents coming into town from Texas to be there with us, and the fear when Kingston was not given to me to hold after he was born.  Afterward that was a scary week for us, but it all worked out and we have a beautiful, loving, smart and funny 2 year old today. :)
thanks to one of my best friends alecia for taking some pictures for me!

the BIG 2 year old

jackson

tate

anna & kane

king & his auntie lesha

riding through the "farm"

Add caption

getting after the cake

overwhelmed

my mind is constantly racing with the to-do's, the need to do's and the long overdue's.  it seems this past 2 weeks, i am a mess.  a real bonafide mess!
that is all. :)

just a quick smile

i heart faces: hearts

this weeks i heart faces theme is hearts!
we were trying to get a cute picture for a valentine's day card for all the grandparents and i may or may not have bribed my son with a lollipop...  lollipops carry a lot of power in our house because we hardly ever have them. :) very handy.
head on over to i heart faces and check out the other sweet entries!

homebound

texas weather is as unpredictable as it gets. this past weekend we were at the park both saturday and sunday under sunny skies and near 70 degree temps. monday was a little more winter-like and the temperatures dropped some, but tuesday, we awoke to a layer of ice on everything. schools closed all over the dfw metroplex. and kingston's montessori school closes with richardson isd so, we stayed home. it was a fun day...we colored, painted with watercolors, read books, watched "finding nemo" and cleaned up around the house. it was a nice surprise to have the day off. then, at 4:30 we check the risd website and lo and behold, schools are closed again since the temperatures never broke 18 degrees thus not melting the ice. ok...another day off. well, sort of. my boss asked me to come in if i felt comfortable to make a deposit and try and reschedule some patients. so wednesday morning king and i packed up and headed to the office (which is about 9 miles away) and it took almost an hour to get there. in hindsight, i shouldn't have gone. schools were closed for a reason. but, we made it and i worked for a couple hours while kingston colored and watched "cars" on the laptop. we stopped by the grocery store since we were out, we came home, kingston took a nap, he got up, we played and then checked the risd website again at around 4:30 and no way- no school again thursday! whoa. at this point i needed to get a game plan for the next day. thank goodness i had gone to get more food options (& wine!)  the day before because i was not interested in driving (sliding) again. thursday i woke up and kept us busy pretty much all day. we colored, did macaroni art, played trains, made and decorated sugar cookies and watched "madagascar" aka "animals" as kingston calls it. i felt good. I wore that kid out and we had fun doing it. it was starting to feel like last february when we had the big snowstorm. i wasn't working then and i started to reminisce about staying home with kingston for those 7 months. again, around 4:30 i checked the risd website- and no update. i thought- well maybe we go back to school/work on friday. no big deal. but, then, i checked the weather... 70% chance of snow overnight. eek. at 6 pm, they called school off again on friday. wow!!! nuts. so.............. we awoke this morning to a beautiful 5 inches of snow on the ground. and, it snowed for most of the day. in fact, while kingston napped, for about 30 minutes, i just sat and watched as what looked like big pieces of lace drifted from the sky. here are some pictures from our days at home...

the dinosaur collection gets a lot of love

reading together

books we read in 1 hour...have i mentioned kingston LOVES books?

watching the snow fall

time to check it out

children's museum

kingston and i decided we would take daddy to the children's museum at the museum of nature & science and show him the fun we had while he was out of town a couple of months ago.  (we also wanted to scout it out for birthday purposes.) we started with the dinosaurs, again, one of our current obsessions.  though kingston likes the exhibit, it is a bit "realistic" so he likes to be held while we are walking through.  his favorite dinosaur is "rex"aka tyrannosaurus rex and a close second is "tops" aka triceratops.  we finished up at the children's museum that is a fun-filled area with so much to do for a small fry.  he never wants to leave!

They call him the fireman

REX

Digging up bones

i heart faces: innocent wonder

for me, there is just something dreamy and wonderous about this photo of my son, kingston.  he had just finished running all over the back yard with this windmill.  I love the way the sun is shining through it, and how peaceful he looks.  be sure to check out all of the other great and inspiring entries at www.iheartfaces.com!

puzzles...

kingston loves his puzzles.  he especially loves this one because it's dinosaurs- a current obsession! I love just tuning out of everything else, sitting on the floor with my little man and working on his puzzles.  and if i might say so, he is REALLY good at them, even the more difficult ones!!

i heart faces: winter wonderland challenge

this picture was taken last february right after we moved to dallas, tx.  kingston and i went outside to check out the snow and he wasn't sure what to think about it. i love his eyes in this image...
head on over to www.iheartfaces.com to check out the other entries!