My Baby Turns 1!

On December 30th, my little girl turned one!!! Can NOT believe it has been a year. We celebrated with friends and family and I think Peyton really enjoyed her cake :)


I made little piggy cupcakes because Peyton is slightly obsessed with animals.


My big girl!! Her birthday outfit from G-Mommy & G-Daddy!


Love that little nose :)


Smash cake!


Thoroughly enjoyed her cake...the icing colored her face! Oops.


She thought she looked great! HA


Happy Birthday, Peyton!

Christmas Time!

Tyler, Peyton and I celebrated 3 Christmas' this year! On Christmas Eve day we celebrated with Tyler's family. We went to our Christmas Eve service at the church that we grew up at and then came back to Tyler's parent's house to eat. We had fried shrimp, baked potatoes, salad, pie, etc. It was delicious! After supper, we opened presents with his parents and sister and brother-in-law. Tyler's family has always opened presents on Christmas Eve so it works out really well since our family has always opened presents on Christmas morning.


Peyton showing off her new hat and piano!

The next morning, Tyler and I got up and had our little family Christmas w/ Peyton. She wasn't really into opening the presents, she enjoyed just playing with a piece of wrapping paper. Next year, I'm sure that will be different. After our Christmas, we got ready and went to my parents for our 3rd Christmas. We spent the day with my family and later that evening came back to open stockings with Tyler's family and ended the night playing games with my parents and Tyler's family. It was great being able to be with both sides of the family this year.


Good morning! Merry Christmas!

The BEST Sugar Cookies

My mother-in-law and I made the most amazing sugar cookies I've ever had so I thought I would share the recipe with you guys!

1 C. of butter
1 C. of oil
1 C. of sugar
1 C. of powdered sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. of vanilla
4 C. of flour
1 tsp. of each: salt, baking soda and cream of tartar

Cream together butter, oil and sugars. Add other ingredients and mix well. Chill at least 1 hr. Drop by tsp. on greased cookie sheet. Flatten with fork. (I didn't flatten them) Bake @ 350 for 10-12 minutes. Sprinkle with sugar (I didn't sprinkle with sugar either). They melt in your mouth! Enjoy!

BFF's from College!

I got to hang out with 3 of my best friends from college. We had so much fun! Katie, has a little boy named James, who is 16 months old, and can play the drums LIKE NO OTHER!!! It's insane! Anyways, we had so much fun with our little kiddos!


Katie and I.

James and Peyton. We asked James to find Peyton's eyes.



Carrie, Me, Erin and Katie-All bridesmaids in my wedding :)

Thankfulness

Tyler and I were able to spend another Thanksgiving here in the States with our family. We thought that last year was going to be our last one, so when it worked out that we would be here for the holidays this year, we (well, I) was SO very thankful! Our families live about 10 minutes from one another so we were able to have one BIG Thanksgiving meal...there were about 15 of us. The day was filled with food, games, and of course football! Tyler and I are so very grateful for our families and for the time that we get to spend with them.





We had beautiful weather so we played outside for a while. Cole and Peyton swinging together!

Hawaii Pt. 2

Tyler's parents, sister and brother-in-law flew out w/ Peyton later that week and met us in Hawaii. We were so excited to see her :)


Tyler's headrest at the pool. The water was so cold, but Peyton jumped right in. We were all too chicken!

Peyton loved to watch the clothes go around in the washer.

There were fireworks on the beach every Friday night. I enjoyed them, Peyton obviously did not. She was shaking so badly.


Couple picture :)


Our FIRST family photo w/ everyone smiling and looking at the camera!

We rented a vehicle for 2 days and went exploring. We drove up the coast and saw some of the most beautiful scenery that I've ever scene. We stumbled upon a shrimp shack where I got the coconut shrimp....to die for!!!



We saw a hula show while we were out shopping. We took a tour of the city and went to Pearl Harbor. This was probably the best vacation I've ever been on. We did not want to come home.

Hawaii!!

On October 31st Tyler and I flew to Hawaii child-free! We spent 4 days alone. We explored the island, ate tons of yummy food and really enjoyed not having to wake up in the middle of the night :)


Here's a picture of Waikiki Beach. It was gorgeous!


We saw rainbows everyday!

Peyton's 1st Halloween

Tyler and I weren't able to be with Peyton on Halloween, but we made sure she got all dressed up!! She is obsessed with a little stuffed lamb that my mom bought so we thought that she should be a lamb this year!

A Big Girl Carseat!

I have done a TON of research on carseats. We didn't think that we were going to have to get another one since we were supposed to be leaving the states in a couple of months...now that we are staying until next June we are having to purchase a stage 2 seat. After much debate, I finally settled on one: the Graco My Ride. We didn't want to pay a ton for a new seat since we will only be using it for the next 9 months. When I saw that it went on sale at Target for $100 I went out and got it that day. So glad I did bc they only had one left in the store! I think Peyton's pretty happy with it. She sat in it for about 10 minutes and just played with her sippy cup.

The Pumpkin Patch

This past Saturday Tyler, my mom, Peyton and I headed out to the pumpkin patch. It was a gorgeous day to be outside. We all went on a hayride out to the patch to pick out pumpkins. Peyton really enjoyed just being around all of the kids. She misses Micah and Silas :)

Wordless Wednesday

My Little Lamb

Tyler's sister and mother recently went to a consignment sale and found some great toys for Peyton. As they were leaving, they found the most adorable halloween costume for her. The EXACT one that I wanted to buy online for $35....they found it for $10. My mom bought this little lamb for Peyton and she absolutely loves it so I thought that would be the perfect costume for halloween this year (not that we really celebrate it, but I have to dress her up in something, right??). Tyler and I will actually be on a plane on our way to Hawaii, but I'm counting on my family to dress Peyton up and show her off :)

Here's a picture of her trying it on:



It was kind of tight around her chunky little legs, but I think it'll do just fine!

Movin' Day!

Well, the day has finally come to pack up our stuff and move back to Richmond! We have been selling our furniture, dishes and decor over the last month and are really living with the bare essentials; I even sold our silverware last night. Selling our belongings really hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be, especially because almost everything that we have sold has gone to friends. Wake Forest has been such an awesome place to live and we are really going to miss it. Our commissioning service will be Sunday, October 23rd so we'll be back down in a few weeks to see everyone.

Play Dates

I have had the opportunity to live down the hall from April McWhite and Erin Cloer for the past 2.5 years. It has been such a great community! The friendships that I have built with these two ladies have been incredible. We have the type of friendship where we can call up one another any hour of the night. Our kids see each other every.single.day. Micah and Silas are so sweet to Peyton even though she's younger than they are. Here are some pictures of the kids playing.



There's a little Montessori school behind our apartment building that has a little playground and we were told that we could play there any time we wanted. Erin and I took the kids over to check it out.
Silas, clearly having a great time. Look at his cheeks!!!


Peyton on the either hand, enjoying herself, but not a whole lot to do for her age.

Wordless Wednesday

6 Weeks!

I've finally broken down and started a blog! After much thought, we've decided that this will be one of the best ways to keep in touch with friends and family as we take this next step! Here's an update on what has been going on over the past few months! We have been matched to a job with the IMB and should be on the field by April of next year. Tyler will be finishing up with AT&T--his last day is October 25th!!! YEA! We will be moving out of our apartment Sept. 30th and by the way, Tyler and I just realized that Sept. 30 is in SIX WEEKS! WHAT!? The three of us will be living with Dustin & KJ, friends from our small group, for the first two weeks in October and then Peyton and I will head to Richmond, leaving Tyler here to finish up work. Once we are all in Richmond, we will travel and visit with family and friends until our training in January. Peyton, Tyler and I will be at training for 2 months before we make the big move to Asia. We won't be able to take any furniture, dishes, decorations etc. with us, so we are currently in the process of selling our things (if you're interested in purchasing a TV, table, lamps, rugs, couches etc. let me know. Ha). We are very excited about this next chapter in our lives and can't believe our 3 years in Wake Forest are up.