Flashback Friday: Vacations!

This week's Flashback Friday is vacations! Who doesn't love a vacation? We were in the Smoky Mountains this time last year and I would love to be there right now. You can click here, here, here and here to read about that trip. Wow, I did a lot of blog posts from that one trip. Now, I'm going to try to put pictures from several of our other vacations all in one post, so join me as I flashback to some favorite vacation memories. I'm just going to show one or two pictures from each trip or this post will be extremely long.

On our honeymoon in December of 2003, Brian & I went on a Caribbean cruise to Labadee, Haiti; Ochos Rios, Jamaica; and Cozumel, Mexico. We were also scheduled to stop in the Cayman Islands, but our ship had to dodge a storm at sea so we missed that port of call. It was fun going to different places in the Caribbean and we loved exploring the cruise ship on our days at sea.

Labadee, Haiti (December 2003):

In November of 2004, Brian & I went to Orlando and went to Universal Studios, Islands of Adventures and Sea World. We had a blast and enjoyed riding all the roller coasters. We LOVE roller coasters. It was a great time of year to go because the weather was great and it wasn't very crowded.

Universal Studios (2004):

In January 2005, I went with my sister, Lalonie, to NYC with several girls that work for her. I was thrilled when she invited me to go because it was a place that I had always wanted to see. It was a wonderful trip and NYC is a great place to visit. There is so much to see and do. I've been twice now, and would love to go again one day.

Central Park (2005):

NYC (2005):

In May 2005, Brian & I went on a cruise with his family. We all had fun going together and we cruised to Grand Cayman; Costa Maya, Mexico; Belize City, Belize and Mexico. One of my favorite memories from that trip was exploring the Mayan ruins in Tulum.

Tulum, Mexico (2005):

In May 2006, Brian & I went to on another cruise in the Pacific. We left out of Los Angeles, CA and cruised to Catalina Island, San Diego and Ensenada, Mexico. We also stayed in Long Beach for a few nights and got to to see a lot of L.A. and southern California.

San Diego, CA (2006)

Catalina Island, CA (2006) This is one of the most beautiful places that I've ever been:

We brought back a special souvenir from that trip to the west coast who was born exactly 9 months later! We've been on a few small trips since Addie has been born, but it has definitely slowed down our traveling. That is fine with me because she brings me more joy than any vacation ever has. We love to travel and there are so many places that I hope to see one day including Hawaii and Europe. We are hoping that our next trip will be to Disney. We are planning to take Addie there next spring.

Link below if you want to share some of your favorite vacation moments from the past. I would love to see some of the places that you've been.

I'm going to take a break from Flashback Friday next week, but I will start back the next week with something Christmas so stay tuned!

Addie

Here are a few pictures that I took of Addie last weekend. These were taken the same day that I took our Christmas card pictures, but I didn't use the drastic measures that I revealed in my Not Me! Monday post. Seriously, I didn't.

We were playing in the hayfield next to Brian's parents house and Addie was having a blast. I just let her do her thing while I snapped away. Impromptu photo shoots like these always result in the best pictures.

P.S. I got some layout tips that I used above from MckMama. Go check out her wonderful blog and tutorial!

Not Me! Monday...Christmas Card Pictures!

I've wanted to participate in one of MckMama's Not Me! Monday for a while, but haven't because I'm not usually one to admit my imperfections.

In my last post, I posted some fun pictures of Addie laughing; we went to a neighbor's cotton field to take pictures to use for our Christmas cards this year.

I've already been asked how I got her to laugh and smile so much for those pictures. Well, it's getting harder and harder for me to get a genuine smile out of her and I have to get more and more creative with each photo shoot. If I ask her to smile, she gives me a big cheesy fake smile.

Okay, so here is the not me part... I most certainly did not go to extreme measures to get a real smile out of her. I would never do that. Those extreme measures did not include me encouraging her to break wind and then laugh about it. Addie & I would never laugh about something like that. Then, in the middle of our photo shoot in our neighbors field, she did not squat down and tell me that she had to go poo... Not my little princess.

Go check out MckMama's blog for more Not Me! Monday posts...you're sure to get a good laugh!

Laugh...

A

day

without

laughter

is

a
day
wasted!

(quote by Charlie Chaplin)

Orlando

Brian & I went with four others to Orlando this week for some bank related training. We flew out of Dothan last Sunday and returned home late on Thursday night. We didn't have much free time, but we did get to go out for dinner and shopping in the evenings. We went to Downtown Disney one night and to CityWalk at Universal on another night. I was dying to go to one of the Disney parks, especially when I found out that I could have got in free on my birthday! I haven't been to Disney since I worked there in the summer of 2001.

Addie stayed with Brian's parents while we were gone and we talked to her a few times each day. She had fun with Nammie & Pa-paw and all she wanted to know when we talked to her was if we got her a surprise. Nammie kept her on her schedule and took her to church, school and gymnastics class. They also went to the circus one night! I missed her terribly, but Brian & I did enjoy getting to spend some time together in the evenings. At home, we are busy taking care of Addie and everything else when we get home from work every day. We are so exhausted by the time we get to sit down that we usually don't get to spend a lot of quality time together during the week.

We had fun taking these pictures in a photo booth at City Walk. We were acting a little silly in there and didn't know it was being played on the screen outside.

Nammie said Addie did great while we were gone, but started asking some questions by Wednesday. This was the longest that we have been away from her and she was starting to wonder where we were. Nammie brought her to our house on Thursday night and they were up waiting on us when we got home. I was soooo happy to her! I slept with Addie that night and I took Friday off work to spend with her. I didn't do anything except focus on her all day. She was clinging to me like a little baby monkey and wouldn't let me out of her sight. It was so sweet and I could tell that she missed us. I didn't take any pictures of her on Friday, but I had a fun photo shoot with her today so stay tuned! I got some great ones and I am working on editing them right now!

Here is a sneak peek of my little angel:

Flashback Friday: Birthdays!

I am late on posting this week's Flashback Friday because I've been out of town all week and I've been spending the day with my little girl. Since it's the week of my birthday, I thought Birthdays would be a fun theme for this week. My birthday was Tuesday, but we are celebrating today since Brian & I were out of town and I didn't want to celebrate without Addie.

Also, I have a winner from the birthday giveaway. I choose the winner from Random.org and since there were 6 comments, I used the dice roller to choose the winner. It rolled a number a number 4 and comment #4 was Tammy! Congrats Tammy, I will send you the code!

I don't really have birthday parties anymore, so I'm posting pictures from Addie's birthday parties! Her parties are more fun anyway and I love planning her party each year. We had a princess themed birthday party for her 1st birthday.

The princess's royal throne:

The cake:

Eating some cake:

Addie loves bugs, so we had a ladybug themed party for her 2nd birthday party and it was so much fun. You can click here to see more, but here are a couple of pictures of Addie and her cake.





Thanks for joining me in Flashback Friday! I loved looking back at Addie's birthday pictures and seeing how much she has grown. I'm already planning her 3rd birthday party which is less than 3 months away!

If you want to join me in Flashback Friday, post your link below.

Next week theme is going to be Vacations!

Birthday GIVEAWAY!

How about a giveaway in honor of my birthday this week?!?!

My sister, Carrye, has a very successful online business, The Invitation Monkey, and she has agreed to do a giveaway for my blog this week! She has some really neat products so please go check out her website by clicking on the monkey below.

All of the designs are painted by her and she has numerous products including note cards, birth announcements, invitations, address labels, names cards, sticky tags, posters, and even Monkeyroo tees!

These are just a few things that she has made for us that we love:

From the Mommy of Cards...I love having these to send notes to Addie's teachers at her preschool:

Notecards:

Birthday Invitations:

Name Cards for all occasions:

Some of my other favorite products are the laminated bag tags and the waterproof vinyl labels that we use on everything. She also turns her designs into repositionable wall murals that are wonderful. We just ordered some for the education wing at our church and everyone loves them!

She is giving away a $10 gift certificate to one lucky blog reader this week!

You may enter the giveaway by:

1. Go to the website and look around. Then, leave me a comment letting me know what you like. You may enter one comment per day until 12:00 p.m CDT this Friday. (Up to 4 entries!)

2. Also, get an extra entry by becoming a follower of my blog by clicking the follow button the right sidebar and then leaving me a comment letting me know that you are now a follower. If you are already a follower, just leave me a comment letting me know that. You must leave a comment because the winner will be chosen randomly from the comments. (1 entry)

3. You may also get another entry by becoming a fan of the Invitation Monkey on Facebook by clicking here and then leaving me a comment letting me know that you have become a fan. Again, please remember to leave a comment because the winner will be chosen randomly from the comments.

*Please make sure that your e-mail address is included in your comment so that I can send you the code if you win!

Again, go check out her website and let me know what you would like to win. You will love her products! I will be announcing the winner on Friday!

Flashback Friday: Before & After (& Now)

I thought a Before & After theme would be fun for Flashback Friday this week. It's a broad topic and could include just about anything. So, join me in posting about something before & after and post your link at the bottom of this post to share with others.

This week, I'm posting some before & after pictures of our house. We live in an old house that is nearly 100 years old. It belonged to Brian's maternal grandparent's and is where his mom and aunt grew up. We have enjoyed turning this old house into our home. We had it completely remodeled while we were engaged in 2003 and it took about 7 months to complete. These before pictures were actually taken after we had started working on the house, but you will still be able to see how much work was put into the house. We had dry wall hung, new floor covering put down through the entire house, new cabinets, central heating & cooling installed, and had a bathroom and laundry room built on. We loved turning this old house into our home and we are very happy and content with it. I'm not sure if we will ever move from here.

As I was going through our before & after pictures, I realized that so much more has changed in the five years since the after pictures were taken. I took some updated pictures this week so these will include before, after & now pictures. These are just the main rooms in our house. I didn't have any good before/after pictures of our bedrooms & bathrooms, but you can click here to see where we turned our guest bedroom into Addie's big girl room.

The Kitchen

Before:

After:

Now:

The Dining Room

Before:

After:

Now:

The Family Room

Before:

After:

And Now:

The Hall

Before:

After:

Now:

My birthday is next week so next week's theme will be birthdays! I also have a giveaway planned for next week. Hint: It has to do with that little monkey over there on my sidebar!

Use this form below to enter the name and link directly to your post:

Blogger Award!

Yay... I received a Kreativ Blogger award from Short Southern Momma! She has a great blog so go check it out!

I don't really think of myself as a creative blogger but I do appreciate her sending this to me. Most of my posts are about our everyday life which is the reason I started this blog in the first place. Like I said in my very first blog post ever, I started this blog as a memory keeper of sorts. I love to scrapbook, but it doesn't really capture everyday life for us. Most of my scrapbooks are of big events in our life, like traveling, holidays, birthdays, our wedding, and baby's first year. My plan for this blog, is to post updates from our everyday life to keep friends and family updated, while also creating a keepsake for myself.

I've been blogging for over a year now and I have enjoyed it. I've meet some new friends through the blog world just like the one who nominated me for this, and I have found lots of blogs that I enjoy reading. I've been trying to get a little more creative recently with Flashback Friday and some other ideas and I also have my very first giveaway next week so stay tuned!

Anyway, here are the Rules for this award:

1. Thank the person who nominated you for this award.

2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.

3. Link to the person who nominated you for this award.

4. Name 7 things about yourself that people may not know.

5. Nominate 7 Kreativ Bloggers.

6. Post links to the 7 blogs you nominate.

7. Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know they've been nominated.

Okay, here goes...

7 things about me that you may or may not know:

1. I worked at Disney World during summer 2001.

2. I have naturally curly hair and I straighten it everyday.

3. I love Chocolate! Love it! Love it! Love it!

4. I love photography and wish I was better at it.

5. I have a red sink in my kitchen. I love the color red.

6. I knew I was going to marry my husband on our first date.

7. Our house is almost 100 years old!

Finally, I would like to pass this award on to these bloggers. I love reading these blogs and they are each creative in their own way. Since Short Southern Momma awarded me with this, I've decided to pass this on to some Southern Momma's that I love reading about! Click on the links below to read more:

Kelly's Korner

The Other Mama

West Side Stories

Sprinkles of Scarlett

Addie Marie

The Kilpatricks

Baby V. Makes Three

Time Change

I don't know about you, but I'm not crazy about this time change. Like many of you, it will now be dark when we get home from work everyday. For us, that means that we won't be able to go outside and play with Addie in the evenings and I won't be able to run like I usually do. I don't like to run after dark, so I guess I'm going to have to get up and go early in the mornings.

This time change also has Addie a little off her schedule, and she has been getting up about an hour early the past few mornings. Yesterday, she woke up early and came and got in the bed with me which was a first. She laid there as quiet as can be while Daddy finished his shower and just looked around the room. After a few minutes, I heard her say in a sweet, but kind of sad voice "Momma, Where's Addie?" I had my eyes closed but for some reason, I knew exactly what she meant. I asked anyway "What are you talking about sweetie?" She pointed to our wedding portrait which hangs above the fireplace in our bedroom and asked again "Where's Addie?"

I tried to explain the best I could to my 2 year old that the picture was when Mommy & Daddy got married and it was before she was born and before she was a baby. All she said was "Oh." I'm not really sure what was going through her little mind, but I just thought it was so sweet that she wondered why she wasn't in the picture with Mommy & Daddy. She doesn't understand yet that there was life before she was born, and honestly, it is hard to remember what life was like before her. Her question helped remind me that Brian & I were husband and wife before we were Mommy & Daddy. It is so important to not lose sight of that fact and not let time change our relationship with each other.