Nailed it! (Cute Adorable Photo Alert!!)

Sometimes I wonder if I will ever be creative enough to invent my own, personal idea in a pin on pinterest. Until then, I continue to search for endless hours for cute things I can recreate and make our own. One particular Christmas image stuck with me for Corbin. When the time came, I knew we HAD to do it! I think it turned out pretty much just as we planned. Unfortunately, I think we sealed our fate and 2-1 outnumbered Travis on ever being able to have a real tree in our home...Corbin & I are very allergic **Ahhh Chooo!!** is what you hear when Corbin & I are near this thing! So for us, it'll be artificial trees! Enjoy the photo's from our outing today! 

I do believe we "nailed" this pin!

Of course it's not all smiles & games...this is his "are you kidding me?!" Pose!

We attempted photos at our house prior to going to the park, we realized it was a nice day, Corbin was in a good mood and we needed to make a trip to Hobby Lobby & drop some things off with my in laws anyways, so might as well just swing by the park for some better photos...glad we did, we completed our Christmas cards with one of these photos! 

And then there are times when you know you have a toddler on your hands and the photo shoot just kind of "flows" with whatever the child wants to do! Made for some cute pictures though! This is one of the few pins we've 'pinned & nailed it', most things unfortunately aren't quite picture worthy at completion :) 

Hope everyone enjoyed, and have fun preparing for Christmas, Jesus is the reason for the season! 

Until next time...

November Memories

November is one of my favorite months. I love fall in general, but something about November...when Halloween has past, and you're beginning Christmas prepping but still waiting on that Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. We decorated for fall a little early, well, September, so needless to say, I am always eager to put it away this time of year! And like every year in the past...our tree is up...not fully decorated yet, but it's up...and Christmas decor is out! Travis put the lights on the tree, we're waiting for a certain little boy to be awake and help us out tomorrow with hanging ornaments.

So, November. We always do "Thankful 30" right? Well. I'm not doing that this year. I'm thankful for everything just as years past. But recently it was brought to my attention that I am a caring person. I've always known this, but I guess I just really "realize" this now. A few Thanksgivings ago, it was before we were married, so 09 or 10', Travis & I were driving from Port Lavaca to Victoria to his grandparents house. On hwy 87 2 dogs running, dodging cars...one big, one little. Well, my soft big heart saved those two pups. Travis & I hauled them back to Port Lavaca, got them all situated and set up, and proceeded to Victoria for Thanksgiving. My mom & I posted ad's EVERYWHERE and we were beginning to feel hopeless that these 2 dogs would have to go to the pound if their owners wouldn't come forth. What do you know!? The owners saw our ad on channel five advertising and they went back home with their owners!! :D Good deed done! So then fast forward a few years...to last year at this time when I was on maternity leave. A friend of mine posted a pup she saw get dumped. She was a cutie. She took her to the vet but the vet could only keep the pup so long. So I loaded up Corbin & to Port Lavaca we went, we got "Bailey" and brought her back to Victoria, set her up in our garage, and I began searching for her a forever home! A young lady came by and took Bailey, I knew she'd be in great hands...the girl named her Bailey & she is spoiled rotten! Now, this year. Same month...I was taking Corbin to daycare one morning, and there was a small dog dodging 4 lanes of traffic. I stopped, flashers on, pup came right to me. I was relieved at first, fewf, a collar AND a tag! Easy fix, right!? Nope. I dropped Corbin off at daycare, and went to the vets office. Only thing on her tag, was her name. No owner info, no microchip. :( As in previous blog, ya'll know we are a 1 dog family now. So we thought, is this God's way of telling us we need her!? Well, we've decided no. We're not ready, and she's SO hyper! Cute little thing. Anyways, so ad's are posted, and haven't heard a word. We are taking her to the local adopt a pet on Monday if no one claims her. I will miss having her here, but we just can not take on another pet right now, especially with us wanting to expand our human family in the near future.

Speaking of human family...I felt crafty and have been on pinterest WAY too much lately searching for neat Christmas ideas, I made this little charm for Corbin to play with in **hopes** that he keeps his toddler paws off our Christmas tree & my snow village...anyone making wagers on how many broken ornaments or snow village pieces yet!?

I got the idea as said off of pinterest, it's just felt and little charms from the artsy craftsy stuff for Christmas make up ornaments that I slapped some "rough" velro to for them to stick easier.
The felt I got for $3 for a yard, it only took 1/2 yard, and the ornaments were $1.99 ea for 3 packs. The scrap fabric and paper I had already. Simple, and lets home entertaining!

Other than that, not much has been going on. Just trying to complete Christmas shopping and prepare for Thanksgiving! :D We took some pictures last Saturday, mainly for Christmas but to also capture Mr. 1 year old at his best. Here's a sneak peak that our photographer Crystal sent to us! 

Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving week! I've been working quite a bit lately, looking forward to a 4 day weekend with my little guy & family! Gobble till ya'll Wobble.. until next time...

What have we been up to?

As mentioned in the previous blog, we went on a little family vacation after Corbin's birthday party in Oct. We stayed in Leauge City at a very nice hotel (thank you Hotwire!) and we explored the surrounding areas. We went to Kemah Boardwalk and we had so much fun at the Aquarium restraunt, then played a few carnival type games! 

The next day we ventured downtown to the Houston Zoo! We took a train ride around the park and had a blast at the Zoo, even got to ride the carousel, pet a goat and feed Giraffes! 

Later that day we went to Galveston and had dinner at "the spot", after we had some beach time! Speaking of the Spot...we saw a man walking his dog along the beach as we ate, a familiar looking dog. Big lab, short legs. He was black, where as our Pudge was yellow. We had another opportunity to see him as we were leaving the restraunt and spoke to his owner. Sure enough, Bassett lab. We told him about our Pudge, and how we had to put him down in October, the 1st. We miss Pudge. I know I haven't blogged about him yet, and I don't know if I can without crying. He was like a child to us. He hurt, bad. His back, his legs. He couldn't go as he wished he could anymore, hurt miserably after just walking to the mailbox. And he was aggressive. He had bitten and snapped before, and he went after Corbin a second time and it could have been way worse than it was. We had to make a difficult decision, and took him to the vet and had him put down.

We couldn't risk him hurting someone else, and making him go live his life with anyone else would have made him depressed. We know we gave him a great life, he did a lot in the years we had him. So here's my tribute to Pudge. "Play on in heaven with the other pets we've lost over the years, kiss Nana a big one for us, and chase many squirrels...till we meet again..."

Corbin enjoyed the beach, hated the waves! 

View from the room!

And then Halloween was upon us! We had the day off, so travis and I went furniture shopping and then to Corbin's party at daycare! Once we got home we had fun carving pumpkins before we handed out candy, daddy and Corbin dressed up! We had quite a few trick or treaters this year! It was awesome! 

Speaking of furniture shopping... We finally committed to a new bed. We had been looking for almost a year, but the cost was a detourant since we're trying to pay all extra to student loans. We finally saved though and purchased a King bed! It's a sterns and foster, and it keeps you cool. It's very nice and we haven't had any back aches or restless nights since. We had been on a queen that I purchased before we got married when Trav moved to Amarillo. It was a cheap mattress and it was time for a new one. We didn't want to pay $$$$ for a bedding set. We have my old wooden dresser from eons ago, and a night stand from Travis, then my vanity that I redid from my grandma. So, we went to Pinterest and Lowes, and yet again my handy husband amazed me. I think it looks awesome! We haven't finished buying pillows yet need 2 Euros and 1 King still! We will probably stain the dresser and night stand at some point,

But I haven't even finished painting the dresser I'm re doing for Corbin yet! 

Life has been busy. We have been making more time as a family lately and it's been great. We have made a huge dent in our Christmas shopping thanks to this little helper...

Travis and I are hosting thanksgiving again this year since my Mom is going to be having foot surgery 2 days before thanksgiving. Then quickly approaches our 4th wedding Anniversary. Looking back on the last 4 yrs makes me smile, because since day one (may 30, 2005) we've had goals and a plan... And to watch them all unfold and see Gods plan for us... Amazing! Looking forward to forever more with my amazing husband, loving son, and our wonderful families and friends. Until next time... :-)

We have a ONE year old!

 For starters, I am so upset with myself right now. I had spent a good couple of hours blogging about the updates to the house with a ton of pictures early in Oct...and what did I just do?! Deleted it! Arghhh... Oh well. It's just a blog.

On to important things, we have a ONE year old!? When did this happen! He's such a handsome, smart, and outgoing little man! I would make this post totally picture heavy, but I've been having difficulty with that as well...sigh...

So we had a wonderful birthday party for Mr. Corbin on the 18th of Oct. It was a Safari Zoo theme. I was so consumed with making sure we had enough food, enough seating, enough cupcakes (I made over 5 dozen and had just a handful left) it ended up being more stressful than I was anticipating! I was planning far in advance, ordering things, figuring out what would go where...but it came down to the wire the day of when I was prepping the veggie tray and a knock came on our door...Aunt Sue!? All the way from Gonzales Louisiana to surprise us for Corbin's big First Birthday party! (I must admit, my parents managed to pull it off, the secret of her being here, being as they realllllly almost blew it on multiple occasions (including my mom the morning of the party: "It was a heck of a night, Aunt Sue flipped off the Futon bed"...I say, "Aunt Sue's down!?" And she quickly tries to change the subject saying it was my niece who flipped off the bed...I was just in a hurry to get off the phone to get the house clean I wasn't going to push the subject! So they dropped her off a street away, so they arrived and then 10 mins later she came on in. Great surprise indeed!))

We had a house full. There weren't enough chairs, and the White House wouldn't have been big enough I don't believe! Corbin was blessed to have 2 of his Aunt's (my sisters, Tab & Amy), several of his great Aunt's & Uncles, cousins & friends. He received more than plenty of gifts, to the point we actually contemplated the whole "lets hide this and re-wrap for Christmas!" But we didnt. We just wanted to play with, I mean...him to play with, all his new toys :)

Corbin  is an amazing little boy. He learned to walk just days before he turned 1, and now he's full-fledged toddler mode. He says mama, dada, ki-ki (For kitty), ball, "Doh" for dog, and a bunch of other gibberish we hope to understand one day!

After his party we took off on Sunday for a family vacation. We went to the Kemah boardwalk, Houston Zoo, & Galveston. He really enjoyed the train at Hermann park & feeding Giraffes at the zoo!


Other than that, we've had a lot going on in our busy little lives lately. I just am thankful that I had 5 minutes to jot down these fond memories after filling in his premade baby book, while procrastinating the scrapbook part! This time change is for the birds :)

Until next time...