Friday, January 30, 2015

Lovies and the like

Otherwise titled "things I hope never to forget about my kiddos in these their sweet and precious childhood days."

Is there anything more adorable than a child with his/her special lovie? Hardly. For Evan, he has always shared a special connection with his green blanket. In fact we often called him Linus to see him drag it behind him as a toddling two something. I kick myself almost daily for not buying two of them. It's well loved. Seams loosed. Color faded. Torn edges. Absolutely irreplaceable.

Remember this?
And now...
More recently this big boy has taken on a more nurturing side and come very attached to this little pup whom he named "Beckett"

Beckett hails from the land of IKEA, and Evan is crazy about this dog. In fact he says likes him much better than our own real dog Piper and well, I can't say I blame him. ;-)

Bennett was a paci lover from the get go, and so for the past 3 years I'd say his special attachment item has been his collection of pacifiers. Now that's he's almost three and we're successfully phasing them out(knock on wood), I'll say that his special lovies(which tend to change from time to time) are his blue blanket and purple care bear. As an aside, he loves his blue striped blankey but has never really been a die hard blanket boy like brother. In fact we actually lost his special baby blanket at the state fair last year(we broke our own rule of never taking it out of the house-parent fail!). Thankfully, he never really noticed. Even after we replaced it with a similar but obviously different
one from Belk on the way home, he was never really phased. I will say that's he's grown to love his own blanket now-mostly I think because he wants to be just like big brother!

Bennett has always loved stuffed animals. Exhibit A...
His current favorite is share bear, the purple care bear. Every time I hear his tiny feet pit pattering down the hall after his nap, you better believe he's got his blanket in one hand and care bear in the other.

I can hardly believe how fast the time flies. It's crazy for me to think that Bennett will be turning three in a matter of weeks, and not long after I'll have a full blown Kindergarten on my hands. So in an effort to preserve these precious moments, I thought to myself I need to blog these lovies! No doubt I'll be perusing this very blog years down the road and smile at the memory of baby blankets and purple care bears.

Yes, these are special days.

Saturday, January 17, 2015

Looking back at Christmas, and forward to the new year

Are you there blog? It's me, your writer!

Ok so I'm fully aware that I have fallen off of this whole blog wheel. But, Lord willing we have a lot of excited things slated for 2015, and I hope to jump back on the blog train to share them all. As our seasons change, I expect the taste of this blog will grow with us. Namely, one of the most exciting things I'm looking forward to in 2015 is starting Kindergarten with Evan-at home! The sail is set, adventures in HOMESCHOOLING await. If only capital letters could contain my excitement...can I get an exclamation point?! There you have it, one not so small change that will inevitably take over this blog should I be faithful to chronicle our journey-and I plan to. :-)

But before we jump into the new year, I just couldn't skip Christmas!

Without further adieu, I present the parade of Christmas 2014...
We celebrated this Christmas over several different family gatherings, and so it went on and on and on! Man, January has been a let down... :-) First we enjoyed time with Chris' family in Raleigh and then with us here in Wilson. It was a special treat to share some extended time with Grandma and Aunt Paige. We spent Christmas Eve in Raleigh with them opening presents, eating at Panera and outrunning power outages before a special church service.
On Christmas day it was just the four of us. It was the perfect cozy day, starting with cinnamon rolls and a Christmas story and ending with  a special happy birthday Jesus dinner and cake, followed by a nighttime pajama ride to check out Christmas lights.
My parents spent the week of Christmas in Florida this year, so we had our Christmas on New Years. As always we had a great time and are still enjoying our presents. I got a much needed new coat, which was absolutely perfect because, to top off our holiday celebrations, Chris' sweet aunt and uncle invited us up to Boone the following weekend for a wonderful mountain getaway.

Our Christmas on New Years in Goldsberry with Gigi and Poppy...


 
Yes, this is me hugging my new set of lamps-it's amazing how much you appreciate home decor as you get older! We hope to totally makeover our master bedroom this year, and Christmas brought us two big steps closer with a fabric headboard from Chris' mom and these beautiful lamps from Gigi.
Boone bound...
And while this is random, I couldn't help but sprinkle it in-Evan's preschool Christmas program was just too adorable not to post!