Thankful.

We had a good thanksgiving weekend.  One day I will actually get to cook on the biggest cooking day of the year.  For now, it's too much travel and we can never get there in time for me to help cook,  but Wednesday I tried out new cranberry-blackberry-jalapeno relish to take with us.  It was a Bobby Flay throwdown recipe and it turned out pretty yummy... cranberries, onion, jalapenos, sugar

orange, fresh ginger, blackberries, honey

 viola!

 We headed out Thanksgiving morning and made it nice and quickly to Grammy's for our first lunch.

Love this picture so much.

 Grammy helping Paisley dig in.

 Check out that plate!

 Paisley & Aunt Sarah

 Pumpkin Pie - he was excited.

 Time for some rest.  (yeah right)

family pic. 

 Over the sidewalk and down the street - to Grandma's house we go...

 Ryder & Aunt Renita the Great.

 We had a good Thanksgiving day. Good to be with family and so thankful for them all.

Friday morning I decided to embark upon the Black Friday madness.  So my sweet Daddy got up at 6am with me!  No, we did not get up at 3am and stand outside, but we did hit up Target & Toys r Us first thing and got some good deals out of it.  Then we headed over to Northpark where we stood in line at the Gap for 1 hr 40 mins!!!  All for 50% off everything.  We got some deals.  Is my dad a champ or what?!?  During that my mom & Daniel brought the kids out to take them to the Train exhibit.  

 Little Miss Conductor.

Poppy & Pay-Pay

 Look at the excitement on Ryder's face!  (He'd just gone in the Disney store!)

 watching the water...

Saturday night Daniel and I got to go to dinner with Bridgette (& boyfriend!) who were in town for the holiday.  We headed back Saturday and got a Christmas tree... more on that to come...

Holiday Season is UNDERWAY!  yay!

Michelle's baby shower!

The kiddos & I headed up to Dallas over the weekend so that I could be there to help throw a baby shower for my dear friend Michelle who's anticipating the arrival of sweet baby Hudson in just a few short weeks!  The Momma... 

Cupcakes!  (Made by Katey - toppers by me - oh Perfectly Paisley that is! ;)

And the decked out diaper cake!  

 Presents!

 Paisley making the rounds and entertaining.

 Blanket- made by Daniel's mom!  sooo cute.

 Paisley & Rachel - seeing who has the biggest mouth!

Her Baby Wreath!  So this is my newest creation.  The thought here is hang it on the door to the shower to welcome your guests, THEN take it to the hospital door when the baby is born and fill in your info there to greet your baby's guests, then hang it on our door at home or the nursery door!  This is the first one, more to come.  For custom orders contact me or my ETSY page!  :)

 Mimi & Paisley!

 Hostesses and the Mommy-of-Honor!

 Mommy & Big Brother Hayden!

Can't wait to meet you baby Hudson, you are SO loved!!!

14 months, 2 and a BIG 1/2

Paisley Rose is 14 months old today!  

She's still our little itty-bitty, but has turned into a little firecracker.  The girl can hold her own.  She's learned to stand up to brother- he is actually the one usually taking it from her right now.  She's got some major vocal cords and can scream like nobody's business!  She is still only 16 pounds, but moving up (slowly) on the growth chart.  Into everything, running everywhere, the girl is a climber!  People always stop and tell us she looks like a little doll.  We love you so much, little doll.

Ryder was 2 and a half last month and he is changing into this sweet, curious little BOY.  He is OFFICIALLY potty trained!  yayayayayay!!!  If you've had 2 in diapers for any amount of time you understand the joy (and money) this brings!  Once I actually took the plunge (pun intended) and just put him in underwear it happened pretty quickly and naturally.  He made it to and from Dallas dry this weekend, to church and school in underwear, so I think it done!  He even made it through naps AND night-time dry 2 days in a row!  SO proud of my boy.

Yesterday he had a little Thanksgiving lunch at his school.  When I picked him up he was so excited to tell me, "Happy Thanksgiving!" and that he and his friends LOVED the pie I sent {proud mommy moment} !!!  Modeling his hat he made for his lunch.

Afraid of the dark

Who hasn't been afraid of the dark?
Well, until now my darling, precious, innocent little boy.
Tonight was the first night that Ryder cried that he was "Scared!"  I don't really even know that he knows what that means - considering last night he referred to Daniel's outfit as scary.  Don't know where he would come up with that! ;)  But when I went back in (after multiple times leaving) to ask him what was going on and WHY he was, "scared," he said, "the dark."  We pulled out a night light, talked about the dark - how like his book says, "the night is just a blanket that helps the earth to sleep," we prayed (again), and then Daniel took a little nap in there with him until he went to sleep.  
As I left the room and went to the kitchen to make his pumpkin pie to take to his big boy thanksgiving lunch at school tomorrow I had a brief moment of, "mommy wants to melt down."  I have such a natural maternal need to protect him.  I mean, I want to let him grow and am anxious to see what he will do and what he will become {especially on days like today when he - at 2 yrs old -tells me he lives in America and reads his daddy's "musicians friend" at leisure} yet something in me wants to just push pause, wrap him up in some sort of magic bubble wrap and send him on his way through life protected and shielded.  
So tonight my prayer was God, help my sweet boy know that you love him and hold him when Mommy can't.  And just as you care for the smallest birdie show him how much more you will you care for him.  
And my prayer for myself was the same... help Mommy to believe that too.

BIG announcement...

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT... 

meet PERFECTLY PAISLEY

I've been thinking on this for a while and I'm FINALLY doing it!  In the past few months I've gotten really into creating again.  I've always loved doing stuff like this but recently I've had a few more occasions to create for.  Some people asked and suggested I start selling my stuff and after looking into things on Etsy I decided it's time!  Perfectly Paisley is on ETSY!  

http://www.etsy.com/people/PerfectlyPaisleyShop

For now I will be focusing on party stuff:  pinwheel wreaths (Christmas and baby), cupcake toppers, pinwheels, banners, favor tags, etc.  I will do diaper cakes & cupcakes if desired for local orders as well.  I will also do packages (Baby shower sets, B-day packages, etc).  Please contact me if you have any needs, I'd love to help!  And PASS my name along.  That's how this works! :)

My little philosophy is:

 I love creating things to help people celebrate the ones they love.    

Perfectly Paisley has blog site in the works AND a Facebook page - so go "like" me. 

Little Monster & Little Fairy

 We had a super fun day on Sunday.  Sunday morning we had our final week of our You Have A Part to Play series at church {more on that in a soon coming more serious blog}.  ;)  It was a great morning with our church family and we ended it Sunday night with a Harvest Festival.  Ryder was Brobee from Yo Gabba Gabba, one of his favorite shows.  And I don't really know what Paisley was - except ADORABLE!  :)  She was some sort of butterfly fairy and she loved it.  She literally pranced around all night!  Here we are in our annual halloween picture spot...

 Me & my itty bitty crazies!

Daddy taking them in.

 And he's OFF...

 Me & my little monster cupcakes!  There was a contest - but I was 3rd.  Boo.  They were delish though!  They were Martha's one bowl chocolate recipe with a Nutella filling I added! mmm.

 Daddy & his girl

 She was reunited with Rocky (we doggy sat him in the summer).  She was following him around squealing!

 Paisley & London - aka Fairy & Bumblebee

 Ryder playing the soccer game with Jamie.

 Just taking it all in...

 All he wanted to do was BOUNCE!

 Ava - I LOVED this costume.

 Kisses!

 Ryder & Addie waiting in the costume contest.

 Ryder, WHO are you??

 Ok, so Ryder didn't win the contest, no biggie, apparently he thought he was in line for a race!  When it was over he kept saying, "I NEED to RACE."  So we had one... he won...

 Me & my girl.

 He did however win in the cupcake walk...

 And she's getting loopy...

 happy little monster

 So much FUN!

 We went home and Ryder got to decorate a few more cupcakes.

 And why not?  Let's round the weekend out with a little. bit. more.

 And sister shoving hers in before I change my mind! 

 And here's the shot we waited for all day.  Both children looking in the direction of the camera with all articles of costumes on and even slight smiles.  (Thanks to that snickers bar he's holdng!)

  

Happy Fall Y'all! :)