Happy Memorial Day!

thinking of all the brave Americans who have lost their lives while preserving our freedom! may God be with the families of the fallen today and every day!

my love affair with a hydrangea

i see some little pink flowers


oh, you are a sight to behold

hydrangeas are definitely one of my favorite flowers, along with sunflowers. as you can see i am slightly proud of my bushes. they have really taken off this year. i can't wait for them to be full of pink flowers.


this is our garden for summer vegetables. aaron cleaned it out on saturday, so hopefully we can plant our veggies soon!

another day spent at the pool

life doesn't get much better...

makes me sing, nothing's sweeter than summertime and american honey

sweet girl in a sweet romper

thought these pictures were too sweet not to share!

fashion friday without any fitness

there will be no talk of anything fitness today. we have had a bit of a rough week. elle louise has been teething like crazy...which makes for long nights and not much sleep for either of us. bless her little baby heart. i'm so ready for the teeth to pop out! and, on top of that, i came down with a mild case of mastitis on wednesday, which in turn caused me to be completely worthless all day. felt much better yesterday and am feeling 100% today! praying that i never have mastitis again!

but, i do want to talk fashion...

i got a sweet surprise yesterday. my new urban outfitters, pins and needles, retro-style bathing suit was delivered yesterday! woo hoo! and...i LOVE it! which made the surprise all the sweeter!


it really is super flattering. all the ruching on the sides camouflages my pooch! i'm excited to sport it at the beach! which is only 5 weeks away!!!!

and, of course here are the latest blackberry pics of elle louise...



hope everyone has a fun and safe memorial day weekend!!!!! we'll be at the pool!

the first of many summer days spent at the pool

this past sunday we spent the first of many afternoons at my parents' pool. it really was such a beautiful day.


beautiful babies


an itty bitty teeny weeny bikini never looked so good!


sweet ak, such a sweet little mommy to baby elle louise.

i have a feeling we will be spending lots of time at the pool this summer. elle louise absolutely loves being outside. hopefully she loves the pool water too. it was a little cold on sunday, hopefully it warms up enough for her to get it!

strawberries. maybe my favorite fruit.

aaron's parents have the most beautiful garden in the world! this year, papa wray planted 3 rows of strawberries. they've been so generous and given us tons of strawberries. last saturday we picked and i had every intention of making some strawberry jam, but half of the strawberries were rotten due to all the rain we've been getting. so, i was able to make one strawberry pie, slice up some with sugar to eat with cool whip, and then we froze some for later on.


here is my first attempt at strawberry pie. it was very runny, but it still tasted good.






seriously. so many strawberries.

my nephew's big #2 birthday

a week and half ago we celebrated my nephew, parker's, 2nd birthday! it was small with just family (which is perfect because our family is huge) and it was a blast. p got a new playground from his mommy and daddy and he, along with his cousins, had a ball testing it out! it was a beautiful evening to sit around and enjoy the little ones.


happy birthday to you. happy birthday to you. happy birthday sweet parker. happy birthday to you! he looooooooved his cake this year.


playing on his new "paygound". i love the picture of him climbing the rock wall! definitely a little ham!


sweet nieces, regan and riley, testing out the swings and slide!


breaking open the pinata! woo hoo! go aunt dee dee...way to make it happen!


and, of course, some sweet shots of elle. and finally a picture of me with my sweet girl!

i heart hanging with mom

fitness friday with a little fashion

i am going to be completely honest, i have not been on top of my losing-the-baby-pounds game lately. dairy has been completely cut from my diet for about 2 straight weeks now and i've managed to shed 5 pounds easy, but i also credit that weight loss to my sweet baby nursing every 2 hours at night. i've started a very bad habit of just nursing her when she stirs at night because i am just so tired i just want her to go back to sleep. i keep telling myself that this time too shall pass. ideally, elle louise would be in her bed sleeping seven hours at night, but that is just not realistic for our family right now.

i have been still eating well. lots of grilled chicken, fish and veggies and i usually eat a frozen lean cuisine, kashi, or amy's meal for lunch most days. so the eating is going good (except for the pounds of strawberries i've been eating with cake and cool whip). i just cannot get motivated to exercise. i don't have an excuse at all, except for laziness on my part. we bought a jogging stroller a couple weeks ago and i've strolled elle in it a couple times around the park and our neighborhood. she seems to enjoy it and it gets us out of the house without spending any money. but, i don't really feel like i'm exercising.

i have two goals for next week. one, i want to start a food jornal on monday so i really know how many calories i'm consuming and two, i want to start some sort of workout regimen. whether that be free yoga on exercise tv or my borrowed 30-day shred dvd, or maybe both! i'll let you know how that goes!

on another note, i did buy a new bathing suit with my birthday money. its pretty on the hanger and very flattering on my post-baby body.


old navy halter swimsuit in aspargus

since all my pre-baby bathing suits are itty-bitty-polka-dot bikinis i have to have at least one more modest suits, mainly because my chest is so much larger than before since i'm still nursing and my tummy is way more flabby than before. i have one j.crew one-piece that still fits and then a pretty cute bikini that has a lot of coveraage that i can wear this summer.

here are some that i've bookmarked, i just can't decide which one to get:


1. pins and needles polka dot shirred bikini in black and white
2. mossimo black shirred one piece in purple
3. kimichi blue striped sailor one piece in red
4. merona bandeau shirred one piece in purple
5. delias solid boy short one piece in multi
6. mossimo black mosaic 2 piece in green/purple

any thoughts? i think my favorites at this point are all of them, i just can't decide!

last but not least, here are the latest blackberry pictures of my sweetie:


she is getting so big and so funny! her little personality is really starting to show. time is just flying by for us. i love her more and more everday! she is just a sweet little baby girl.

hope everyone has a good weekend. it is going to be GORGEOUS in northwest arkansas. i hope to get our garden and some flowers planted! other than that, very few plans. love free weekends!

hydrangeas

so excited to see that my hydrangeas are starting to flower! these are going to make for some pretty pictures with my little miss! can't wait!

backyard makeover

Yes, the above picture is our backyard! I am SO ashamed. When I brought Peggy and Peaches home 4 years ago they were puppies and lived outside during the day. During that time, they decided to turn the backyard into a mine field. As you can CLEARLY see, our backyard is in dire need of some serious help. SO....please help us win the KNWA Backyard Makeover II, by going to the below link and voting!

http://knwa.upickem.net/engine/Details.aspx?contestid=16716&pagetype=VOTING&SubmissionID=3725514

Thank you so much!

mother's day weekend

we started our mother's day weekend early by going to my sister in law's (aunt dee dee) graduation from the elementary she was interning at this year. i am not kidding you...she was definitely the favored intern among the students. every single student cheered as loud as they could (and it was loud in the small cafeteria we were in) when aunt dee dee was introduced! it was a fun time.


pretty girl. we love her so much and are so proud of her!


receiving her official whistle from one of her students. precious moment!


yummy cake!

saturday we celebrated mother's day with my family. my parents got me the sweetest waxing poetic charms. one is a girl and one is an "e". i love them so much! of course i have zero pictures of this event! ha! i really wish i would have gotten a picture of me, my mom, and my baby at some point this weekend but i never did.

sunday i woke up to a beautiful bouquet of flowers from my hubby and baby girl. it was a very special first mother's day for me. elle louise was dedicated to the Lord at our church. it was amazing to feel the love and prayers of everyone in the room as our pastor prayed over all the new families and babies.


sweet baby before we walked across the front of the church. she was so tired and was such a trooper. she waited to cry until we left the worship center!


our family!


receiving our gift from the church...a little bible with elle louise's name engraved on it.

after church we went to aaron's parents to celebrate mother's day and birthdays. we celebrated my 27th, aaron's 29th, and my sister in law, holly's 26th. it was a fun day and aaron and i both got lots of good stuff! we are blessed.




aaron's mom bought the kids matching outfits back in january and we finally got them all together and had their pictures taken. elle's outfit is size 6 months and it fit her so well. my baby girl is growing so much, so fast!


all looking at the camera at the same time!

this mother's day was so special. i love my baby girl so much and am so blessed to be her momma. even though she couldn't tell me how much she loves me and is thankful for me i know she is by the way she needs me. i am also very thankful that the Lord blessed me with motherhood. it is such a miracle and such a blessing. i will never take being elle louise's mommy for granted! this mother's day also brought to light a different perspective of my mom. i love her so much and am so very thankful for her. as well as my mother-in-law. i'm blessed to have such a sweet and loving mil.

we definitely are still playing catch up from our busy weekend. yesterday i ran several errands and decided to leave the baby with my cousin. she needed rest and i desperately needed to grocery shop. we haven't left the house today...i'm a little stir crazy. hopefully tomorrow we can do some running around. i've got gift cards to spend!!!