School is starting!

Is the summer over already?

It went by way too fast and my little baby is growing up too quickly. I dread the day I have to send her off to school. Thankfully I have some time, which I plan to cherish every second of.

Since school is starting, I thought why not start something educational for Eden each day. I understand that she is only 16 months old, but I think she can learn a lot of skills from simple activities each day.

For example, today for our first activity, I took an old box and taped a piece of paper to it and had her put her feet in it and used that as her table to color on. She LOVES to color but it's hard because at this stage it gets everywhere if you aren't watching them every second. When it gets cooler we will do this activity again outside, but for now inside on a box works great.
I also went through each color she was using with her. The funny part is that she didn't seem too interested when I did it in English, but when I said the colors in Spanish, she got very still and wanted to learn. She actually pointed to the right colors when I said them in Spanish. Isn't that funny??



(Looking at the box she is using reminds me that we are potty training - I will post about that later.)

Yesterday we went on a walk and collected pine cones. On our walk we talked about what everything was (flower, leaf, grass, sidewalk etc.) I had her repeat everything I said and she had so much fun. This afternoon, we are going to make a bird feeder with the pine cone by spreading peanut butter on it and sprinkling it with bird seed. I anticipate Eden will most likely be eating the peanut butter, but I'm sure it will be fun. She will love watching the birds.

I am still working on what we will be doing the rest of the week for our activities and I'm seeking some suggestions.

Do you have a suggestion for an activity for us to do??

I would love help being creative and keeping a toddler busy.

Family Reunion/Vacation

Last week we got to see some of my family we hadn't seen in a while. It was so great to see them and all the new babies that have arrived.


It was so special because my Papaw (my Dad's, Dad) paid for us all to stay at these amazing houses in Wimberly, Texas. There were 3 houses and 2 pools for all of us and we enjoyed it so much. We all had such a blast and were so grateful for the opportunity to get together. Thank you Papaw!

Eden's favorite part about the whole trip were some little pony's down by one of the houses. She kept asking to go see the "hortey's!" It was really cute.

Here are some of our favorite shots from the reunion!


Mommy and Eden swimming!


Cayden and Eden: Cousins first bath together


The whole Day family


Silly Day's!


The Randy Day's


The Carrol Day's


The Collin Day's


Four generation boy shot on the Carrol side


The Vann Clan


Eden and Mommy


Cayden and Collin


My big bro. and I with our babies!


Eden checking out the "hortey's"


Sweet little girl!


She LOVED those "hortey's"


Eden liked Cayden's fuzzy hair!



Have a great weekend!

Birthday Fun!

I have been SO bad at keeping my blog updated lately. We have been extra busy this summer so I haven't really taken the time to update. I will work on getting better.

This past weekend was my 25th birthday! Wow...I can't believe I am 25.
As my brother said...I am old enough to rent a car. Hmmm....something seems strange about the fact that I have graduated college, am married, and have a kid and couldn't rent a car until now. Interesting!

Anyway, we had a fantastic weekend. Nick surprised me on Friday by taking off work to take Eden and I to lunch at the Aquarium downtown. We had so much fun and Eden had a blast. She LOVES fish tanks!!! By the way - if you live in town or near by click here to receive a coupon to buy one all day pass for $15.99 and get another one free. That pass gives you all day access to everything at the Aquarium. (A GREAT deal)

Saturday morning after we all got up and got ready, we dropped Eden off at my parent's house and Nick and I took off to get some Starbucks - mmmmmm yummy - White Chocolate Mocha!! It was so nice to just sit outside and sip my coffee next to my sweetie and enjoy the calmness. After we finished our coffee's we walked down to this amazing salon and had a couple's massage. Oh, it was so relaxing. I didn't want that hour to end.

After our massages we went to have lunch at Five Guy's burgers! Delicious!

Then we went to our hotel down in the Museum District. It was called Hotel ZaZa and it was eclectic and fun. We went out to the pool and got some drinks and relaxed for about an hour. Afterward, we went up to our room and took naps - oh naps - I love them!!

For dinner Nick took me to The Melting Pot.
The Melting Pot is a fondue place where you get a 4 course meal. The first course was a cheese fondue and the dippers were bread, vegetables, and Granny Smith apples. The second course was a gourmet salad. The third course was the main course consisting of lobster tail, chicken, pork, beef, and shrimp. They actually bring the meat out raw and you cook it in the fondue pot of broth. It was interesting, but very tasty. The last course was the best part which was a chocolate fondue. The dippers for that were brownie bites, rice Krispy squares, pound cake, strawberries, banana's and cheesecake. It was all very good and worth the money - but I think it's a one time experience. Nick and I decided we would rather have our food cooked :)

We had a nice relaxing weekend and it was just what I needed for my birthday. Eden did great at GG and Papa's house and she didn't want to leave!

Since we didn't take any pictures on our weekend get-away (oops) here are some cute pictures of Eden I promised in my last post! Enjoy! :)

Look what Eden decided to do....


Eden thinks she wants Mommy's help now...


Little sassy pants...


This is what she does when we ask her what a piggy says...


And this is what she does when she is looking for something...


Just look at those precious curls...


She is addicted at a very early age. When we get Sonic drinks she always says "Eye, eye, eye" (trying to say ice) She gets to eat the ice when we are done.


And this is where I found Eden after she disappeared this morning...she must think I needed to update my blog!

15 Months!

Wow, I can't believe it's been almost a month since my last post!
We have been having a really fun but busy summer. Eden is growing like a weed and will be 15 months tomorrow! I can't believe my sweet baby is getting so big. Her hair has finally started to get pretty long and she has these precious curls all over the back. It's adorable.

Her speech has really developed over the last few months and I expect her to start making sentences pretty soon. She basically repeats most anything you say - in her own way of course but she definitely is trying. She also is starting to understand most everything you tell her. The other day I was watching a friends baby and my phone was on the arm rest of the love seat and I was feeding the baby. I asked her if she would go to the couch and get my phone as I pointed to where it was. She thought for a second and looked around and went right over there and got it. What a smarty!

I have bittersweet feelings about this stage we are in right now. Don't get me wrong things are much better now that she has developed a little independence but she gets into EVERYTHING!!! I just thought it was bad when she was crawling - now that she is getting taller she is starting to open drawers and hang on them, or reach things she used to could not. She is very curious and is always needing some form of entertainment. This stage is difficult because I can't do much around the house without her needing me. She is pretty clingy and won't just go off and play by herself - she always needs mommy. If I try to do something while in the same room with her (read a book, fold laundry etc) it's like she knows I'm not paying FULL attention to her. Any suggestions moms out there???

I do love this stage because it is amazing to see how quickly she picks up on things and to watch her learn about the world around her.
Here are some cute things she has been doing:

-Yesterday I was sweeping the floors and she was following me around pointing to the pile of yuckies pointing at it saying "eeeewwwwwwwww"! - isn't that so cute?? I need a video of that!

-She has this stuffed bear that is really big - bigger than her - and she adores it! She always tries to feed it her snack or her drink from her sippy cup. It's like she is motherly with it and it's really cute to see her mimic me.

-She knows where the following body parts are when you ask her (she points to them): nose, eyes, ears, mouth, toes, feet, leg, arm, and head or hair.

-Whenever you start to sing a song or music is playing she immediately starts clapping her hands and dancing around. When you tell her "shake your booty" she bends her knees and sticks her tummy way out. It's precious! Her favorite song right now is "If your happy and you know it."

-She started this new thing recently where if she wants something or wants to go somewhere (like her play room or bedroom) she will grab your hand and start pulling you until you go with her.

-If she can't find something she holds her hands up with her palms in the air and says whatever it is and "eh??" Like if she can't find her puppy she says "puppy, eh???" with her hands up.


These are just a few things she is doing right now. She is a busy little girl and always on the move. We just love her so much and can't imagine life without her!!

Last year at this time she was only 3 months old (isn't that weird to think?) and was trying to roll over. Now she is running everywhere and starting to talk. It's amazing how fast they grow up!!

Stay tuned for some photos of our angel!

The Tastes of Summer....YUM!

I just love peaches in the summertime! My in-laws recently visited Fredricksburg and brought us back some deliciously juicy peaches. I decided to create a tasty dessert and man was it good.
Here is what I did...
-First, I cut the peaches in half and removed the pit
-Then, I melted some butter on my grill pan and when it was hot I laid the peaches flesh side down and grilled until the peaches were heated through and had grill marks on them. (During the grilling, I occasionally scooted them around the pan to prevent sticking.)
-I placed them in a bowl flesh side up and sprinkled with brown sugar and cinnamon.
-Then I topped with vanilla ice cream and they were absolutely delicious.
***The warm peaches melted the ice cream so it was like a kicked up version of peaches and cream...you should try it! ;)

One thing Eden is definitely enjoying this summer is popcicles! I think her favorite flavor is cherry. Here are some pics of little E chowing down on her "poh-cle" - as she says.







We also have been enjoying grilling out and our favorite thing right now is BBQ grilled chicken and corn on the cob....and we of course love watermelon! :)

What is your favorite summer time food??

Finally Done!!!

We have been in our house now for about 2 months and we are still in the process of getting settled in. We got the house organized and now it's time to make each room the exact way we want it. We decided to take one room at a time and work on it until we have got it just how we want it and then move onto the next one. I am almost done with the living room and then I think I will move on to finishing up Eden's room and then onto our bedroom and bathroom. The living room was somewhat of a challenge. When we moved in we decided we were not going to put a TV in the living room. We had several reasons for this...1.) Nick and I have really been trying to not watch as much tv and we knew that if we had a tv in the living room, it would most likely be on a lot of the time. 2.) We really wanted Eden to have an open place to play as well as have an open space for guests and friends. 3.) We didn't want the focus of the living room to be the tv.

When we moved in we placed the couch up against the back wall and the space was very open. After having it that way for about a month and a half we really found ourselves not spending a lot of time in it and weren't using it to it's full potential. It just seemed really dull. We discussed it and decided to put the tv in the living room, but we wanted the tv not to be seen. We opted to get an armoire that could house the tv. I searched and searched and became increasingly discouraged by the prices of armoires. The cheapest one I found was $600 and it wasn't even that great. I decided to look through craigslist.com to see if I could find something a little cheaper and...I did! There was a woman who lived really close to us selling her armoire for $175. When we went to get it we realized this thing was HUGE!! With the help of our good friends Hayley and Alex we were able to get this massive piece of furniture to our house. We actually ended up buying it from the lady for $120 because it definitely needed some TLC. I researched ways to re-do furniture and came up with the idea to do a faux finish on it. After FOUR coats of primer, I was finally able to put the glaze on it and make it look beautiful. It took me nearly 2 weeks to finish it up and I am VERY happy to be done. A LOT of sweat went into this thing as I was only able to work on it while Eden took her naps - (around 2 pm - which equals HOTTTTT!!!) I am so glad it is finished and I'm quite happy with the way it turned out. For Father's Day Eden and I got Nick a new tv - something he has always said he thought would be cool to get. Since we got married we have been using a hand-me-down tube television that is actually quite small, so this was a fun surprise for him and he was very excited. I was more excited about the cost than anything. We were able to get a new tv AND a new (unique) armoire for the price of the armoires I saw in the stores.

Our living room also did not have a mantel on the fireplace. When we moved in, I told Nick that was one of the first things we needed to buy for our living room. Well, I also became discouraged when we looked up prices on those things....I mean the cheapest one we found was around $1,000!!!!!! Ahhhhh....NO WAY!!! We finally saw one on Home Depot's website that was around $200 and we decided to go look at it. When we got to the store they said they don't carry mantels in the store - you have to order them online. Ugh....again discouraged because what if we ordered it and it wasn't what we wanted. A guy working at Home Depot gave us the idea to make our own. We were a little hesitant at first as we have NEVER done anything like that before, but he explained it all to us and so we did. It turned out awesome and guess how much we spent on the whole thing???? $65!!

With the money we saved on our new mantel, armoire, and tv, we were able to get the rest of the fun stuff for our living room. I still have some projects for the living room I will be working on soon and there are still a few things I want to do, but for now it actually is lookin' pretty good!!

The armoire all done!!

Side view of the armoire.

The armoire being functional!

Check out these cool lamps!

I really like my new lamps - that's a lot for me b/c I am super picky about lamps!!


Side view of the new mantel! - I love it!


The new mantel - cool huh?


The fireplace with the new mantel - I am still in search of the perfect item to hang on the fireplace above the mantel - any ideas?


Like our 80's touch with the wet bar? haha...another project is to paint the cabinets to a more updated look. And, I think I will add a table and some pictures on the wall to the left of the bar - what do you think?

View of the loveseat/into dining room and kitchen

Eden's Play Nook

In another life...

I would be a dancer!

If you have never seen So You Think You Can Dance, you really should! Last night's show was AMAZING!! My favorites were the hip hop dance with Phillip & Jeanine, the bollywood dance with Caitlyn and Jason, and Kayla and Max at the end with the ballroom dance! I wish I could dance like that! I lack in the coordination department.








This dance is mine and Nick's all time favorite dance from last season!! It is SOOOOO amazing and Katee and Joshua are so gifted!! ***Nick read my post and really wanted me to add this - which I agree...this defiantly deserves a watch!!