I can’t believe a year has flown by so fast and yet so slow at the same time!  Heidi…my sweet angel girl you turned ONE on July 1st and of course Mama is behind on everything these days.  This has been the craziest year, so we weren’t able to throw you and big party like your brother’s HERE.  Poor baby you kind of got the second child shaft….not to mention the dang Covid!

So it was just me, your Daddy, Connor, and Auntie Ellen.  We sure did celebrate you though and you enjoyed your cake unlike Connor who screamed and wouldn’t touch it.  Ha ha!

You are my little ray of sunshine.  My rainbow baby after a heartbreaking loss.  I love you more than you’ll ever know!

Some things you love:

• Baby Shark
• Dancing to any kind of upbeat music
• crawling and climbing on ANYTHING!
• You can say “Mama” and “Dada”
• You love your bottle and are little Miss Independent
• Yogi Melts are your favorite
• You are pretty much eating table food, but love noodles and pasta
• You have two teeth, but are cutting so many others right now.  They need to come in already!!!
• You are sleeping in your crib through the night and doing a great job!
• Your curly hair and raised eyebrow are my favorite things
• You LOVE to cuddle and give hugs

Here are some pictures of our little celebration.  I know this year hasn’t been the best, but you are certainly a blessing and a gift from God.  I thank God every day for you and your precious life.  I never dreamed I’d have another baby, let alone a sweet precious girl.  I love you my forever best friend.

Happy Birthday “Heidi Bug” you are the sweetest girl ever.

Well, geesh could this year get any more CRAY CRAY!!!???

I’m so ready for life to get back to normal and no matter what it has to because we can’t stay locked up forever and live off the government.  The economy is already in the toilet and I don’t know how much further we can fall?  There has been so much division and animosity with everything going on in the world.  All I can do is pray.  Pray that God will watch over all of us…no matter what your view on things is or what color your skin is.  I pray for the world and the people in it.  For peace, agreement, friendship, and love.

I turned 39 a couple of weekends ago.  I shall now forever more be 39 because I’m never turning 40.

I refuse.

I had a great day celebrating with my family and celebrating another year of life.  I’m so incredibly blessed by all my family and friends.  This has probably been the hardest year I’ve ever had emotionally and mentally.  I’m thankful for the continued prayers and love from family and friends.  I always have the best intentions of blogging about everything, but then I get overwhelmed and it seems much easier to post on Instagram these days.  Bless Heidi’s heart.  With Connor I documented EVERY.SINGLE.THING.  Ha ha!

We’ve been watching a lot of TV.  Like everyone else waiting for new shows to hit each week to fill our time.  I found a fun new site called WikiBuy and they have a great deal on HULU right now if you want to check it out.  It’s great for saving money on a lot of items right now too.  Just click and earn credit for your purchases on popular sites like Walmart or eBay. Then use your Wikibuy credit to buy gift cards or make future purchases with Wikibuy.  Get paid to shop for things I already need is A+ for me!

All I wanted for my birthday was a family photo with the 4 of us because we haven’t gotten one since Heidi was born in the hospital.  AND- I’m a photographer….what in the world???  Love this little family of mine so much!  God has blessed my life indeed.

My Mom finally retired this year after over 30 years of teaching and she’s been a sewing “machine” basically and sewing outfits for Heidi and my niece Ella.  We now call her “Nana Boutique” and we’ll cherish the outfits she makes for the girls forever.  This little dress is so cute and it has buttons on the back from my Great Grandmother’s button stash.

We’ve been spending our evenings grilling and swimming in the pool.  I’ve never been so thankful for a swimming pool.  We never wanted one, but when we found this house it came with it.  It’s a nice escape after a long day and a good way to spend time together.

I think Heidi really enjoys the water 🙂

I can’t believe my baby girl will be ONE in less than 2 weeks.  This year has gone by so slow, yet so fast.  I know time goes fast in hindsight.  I love her so much….and Connor James will be a 5th grader next year.  It’s crazy!  He’s not so much into taking photos anymore unless he has something silly to show off…but I’m thankful I took so many when he was a baby because I look back at them fondly.

How are you spending your quarantine time?  I’m pretty much back to work now.  Heidi is still in daycare.  Connor started summer camp.  It feels pretty normal again.  I like normal.  I like routine.  We will overcome all of this…because that’s what you do in life.  You wake up and make a choice on how to face each day.  And I choose to live and not be fearful of tomorrow.  God will provide (we never went without toilet paper!).  God always does.

This post is brought to you by our sponsor, “Always Eat After 7 PM”. The opinions expressed below are my own.

Okay, so now that I have the knowledge about how to implement all the ideas in Always Eat After 7PM…how am I going to keep these up?  A lot of it is self talk and self discipline.  I’ll continue to utilize healthy eating and a lot of the recipes provided.  I’ll be more aware of the healthy fats and carbohydrates that I put in my body.  I know now that dieting isn’t how much less you can eat, it’s the quality of food and time you eat. You can also check out posts ONE, TWO, & THREE for more information and my thoughts on this program.

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“This has been the longest summer ever!!!”  Said every parent in the world.  That’s because our summer unintentionally started after spring break in March this year.  Dear God I sure do hope school resumes in the fall because this season of life has been all kinds of chaos.  I miss walking around the mall and let’s face it…buying mostly snacks and food.  I miss seeing my friends and family without feeling like I am going to infect them with something.  I miss normal schedules and daily routines.  Movie theaters, restaurants, birthday parties, sports, and so much more!

That’s the thing about change, no matter what you just keep on going.  So that’s what we’ve been doing and I know I haven’t been great at blogging…but here’s a little recap on our lives lately in this strange and crazy time.  I’m still working and trying to home-school (sort of) and maintain everything else that goes on in our lives.

Heidi turned 10 months old and is crawling and pulling up on everything.  She does the cutest little noises and rolls her tongue.  I’ve never seen a baby do that and it’s hilarious!

The ice cream truck visits our neighborhood once a week and it’s the highlight of Connor’s day.  The second that music is heard through his window he comes shooting out the door. “Mom the ice cream truck is here!”  My best friend Ellen and I had an idea to start a coffee truck.  We’d roll it around town and make lattes and have every suburban mother chasing after us in pajamas without a bra on.  People…especially hot mess Moms are that desperate.  So I know this is a genius idea.  Ed Sheeran on the loud speaker and coffee will have them runnnnnning!!! Ha ha ha!!!

Terence turned 39.  I know he’ll thoroughly enjoy the last year of his 30’s and if he’s not fully gray headed by the end of this year I’ll call it a win!  Hey at least he still has a good head of hair right?  I think working from home and having a baby in the house along with a tweenager who thinks he knows more than you do adds to the chaos.  But I love our life and our craziness too. Happy Birthday Ter-Bear!

Speaking of working at home.  Here is Heidi helping Dad work 🙂

Thankfully we’ve had the pool to jump into for an escape.  Heidi loves watching her brother play in the pool.  Everything he does is hilarious to her.

We made a trip home to Arkansas a couple weekends ago and had a wonderful time seeing Nana and Poppy.  We even made a trip to the farm to see Nannie Sue and it was so fun!  We stayed with my sister and her family and all the kids had a great time seeing each other.  Connor and Jarrett love each other and fight a bunch over games and the girls are BFFs and don’t know it yet.  Ella is so cute with Heidi and rubs her head and said “baby”!

Our sweet Nannie Sue

Me and Bon Bon The best food EVER! The boys eating their Nannie’s goodness And this is how we feel about our LAST ortho appointment for Heidi’s ankle.  Everything looks really good and is healing perfect!  Summer 2020 here we come like it or not!  

9 Months old baby girl.  I can’t believe in a couple of months you’ll be a year old!  I can tell you are going to be a feisty one…once you get your mind set on something you will do anything to get it down.  That includes sounds, crawling, and climbing onto anything.  You scare the crud out of me most of the time because you are constantly getting into everything.  When I yell “No” you just turn and giggle and continue getting into stuff.

You are doing the funniest little noises right now and have found your voice.  You are LOUD.  You keep us on our toes and are the sweetest, happiest, most delightful little angel.

 

I love you Heidi Lynnea

Bluebonnet pictures 2020.  Heidi you think the WORLD of your big brother and he does you!  I love seeing how much you both love each other….and annoy each other…but that’s what siblings do I guess.  My beautiful babies.

Hey Y’all!  This sure is a crazy time we are living in isn’t it?  I meeeeaaan????!!!!

Anyway, before all this corona madness happened we had a pretty chill spring break and enjoyed being outside in the beautiful weather.  Connor has actually jumped in the pool a couple of times.  We are working on cleaning up our back yard and getting it summer ready.  We put a new fence in after a storm knocked it down last summer…so bye bye tax return!  We’ve all been stuck inside and I am so ready to see PEOPLE again.  I don’t do well locked in the house, I’m definitely a people person.  The best thing that has come out of all this Corona crap is the hilarious memes.  What would we do without memes ya’ll?

We’ve been living in lounge wear and comfy clothing.  Thanks to TVStoreonline.com for sending Connor this Fornite dance shirt.  He loves it!  Also, just because school’s out doesn’t mean he can Fornite FOREVER unfortunately.  But this kiddo does have some awesome moves.

Homeschooling the dude above has been a challenge.  I’m not the best teacher, I will say that.  I’m questioning my long division skills right about now. It’s so sad because so many businesses have had to close.  My job (I work at a dental office outside the home most days) has had to shut down as well and it really sucks.  I can’t imagine families where both incomes were effected.  Thankfully Terence has been able to work remotely from home.

Lunch date with my kiddos at Shake Shack.  They have a malted milk ball shake right now that is TO.DIE.FOR. ( You remember back when we could go places?)

TVStoreonline.com also sent me a t-shirt to lounge in with one of my all time favorite TV shows….The OFFICE!  I love it!

Heidi bug turned 9 months old and she’s just about to turn 10 months soon.  Before you know it she’ll be a year and I can’t stand it…time goes by so fast.

I never regret taking photos of my kids.  I know one day these pictures will be my greatest treasure when I’m old and gray.  

Here is Heidi in a dress on Easter that used to belong to me when I was a baby.  She is now crawling everywhere and she’s super fast!  She’s also pulling up and standing on everything too.  Her favorite foods are spinach, pears, peas, guacamole, oats, banana, and yogurt puffs.

We’ve really enjoyed our local ice cream truck too.  Being stuck inside is no fun, but when we hear the music from the ice cream truck we go a running!

Heidi loves to watch her big bro in the pool.  Connor is full of flips, flops, and tricks in the pool these days.  I know everything runs together right now…but I’m trying to focus on this time with family.  Building memories and getting a few things done I wouldn’t have otherwise.  I know with all my heart God is in control of everything and as long as we have faith and trust in HIM everything is going to be alright 🙂  xo Becky