oh wow!

Merry Christmas friends! And a Happy New Year!

We had a great Christmas this year! Thanks to all of our family and friends who made it wonderful. We started our Christmas on Dec. 17th when we had the Reynolds Family Christmas Party. We decided during Thanksgiving to not exchange gifts this year and to "adopt" a few kids to buy gifts for. It was awesome and I hope we continue to do that. We played a game-boys verses girls. Boys won! I made some chocolate chip cookies and the recipe is from my great grandma! It was so fun to make a family recipe for others to eat. My grandma really enjoyed them and she asked all of my mom's sisters if they remembered them. That was really fun for me!

On Dec. 22nd, Guy and I went on a Christmas date. We try to do that every year-we've seen Phantom of the Opera, The Christmas Carol, Benjamin Button at the De Lux theater, and this year we went to dinner at Brio and saw Disney's Christmas Carol at Newport. It was so much fun and dinner was delicious. We had a coupon and free movie tickets so the night was pretty inexpensive for us. We were also celebrating Guy completing his first semester! Yeah! I don't want to brag, but he made the dean's list! woo-hoo!

The next night, we went to Montgomery Inn Boathouse for our bible study dinner! That was awesome! All the girls dressed "fancy" and we enjoyed spending time together. That is also a tradition that we started a few years ago. We missed Ben and Maria though-but not that much because they were in Hawaii with their family! Whatever!

Then on Thursday, Christmas Eve, we spent all day with Guy's family! We played Monopoly and Guy destroyed all of us. Why can't monopoly money be real money??? We had a great time visiting, snacking, and opening gifts. Braylen's two favorite gifts of the night: a wagon and a wooden train set! He loves trains right now. He says "choo choo" and pulls his arm up and down like he's pulling the whistle. He's adorable. After the Christmas Eve service, a few people came back to our house for a Christmas Eve breakfast party! We served breakfast casserole, pastries, biscuits, juice and coffee. This is also a tradition that we've done since my high school days (yes over 10 years ago!!). We used to go to the Waffle House but we outgrew it and have been meeting in different homes ever since. So fun!

Christmas morning we woke up around 8:30am (thanks to Braylen for sleeping in!) and went right to opening gifts! We surprised Braylen with another little train set that goes around a small plastic track when you press the conductor. He loves it! Each time he opened a gift he would say "oh wow!" It was so cute. He had a great time opening gifts. We skipped one tradition: we usually eat cinnamon rolls for breakfast but since we were so full from all of the delicious food we've been eating, we opted out of breakfast. That afternoon we went to my parents house and ate some more food! Mom fixed a ton of snacks and it was awesome! Once Braylen woke up from his nap, we played Wii (yes, Braylen did too!), ate our turkey dinner, then opened more gifts. We are so blessed! Braylen got an awesome table and chairs for our house and I got a sweet Vera Bradley overnight bag. Can't wait to use it when we visit Jess and Vince in Charlotte!

The next night, we went to my grandparents house for the Hicks Family Christmas. There are now 19 of us so we no longer have sleep overs but we have such a great time getting together. Grandma fixed turkey in a box (my fav) and I made oatmeal cookies for the fam-which is my grandma's recipe. Braylen stayed up until 11pm that night! He is so flexible. He had too much sugar I think. He kept sneaking M&M's all night. oh well. It's the holidays!

Needless to say we had an awesome Christmas! We hope you all experienced the Love of Jesus this year and all year around! Thanks for reading! I'll be posting our family New Years goals soon so that everyone can hold us accountable. Here are a few pictures!

Here is Braylen playing Wii

Mom reading to Braylen at his new table

Wearing his new hat!

Sitting in his wagon!

Mind ya' bizness!

I love being a stay at home mom! What an incredible blessing!! However, it is pretty tough financially! So in order to help supplement our income, I have been trying to come up with a ton of "small business ideas" to make some extra cash on the side. You all know that Braylen takes wonderful naps everyday, so I usually have somewhere between 3-4 hours in the afternoon to be working on something. Currently I have been helping NKY YL a few hours each month. Which has been awesome! I am really excited to help grow the area and expand our donor list!

Etsy.com has really inspired me to come up with my "thing." Everyone has something that they are good at. What am I good at??? Cleaning up messes, diaper changing, peeling bananas, etc. :) I tend to be really excited about something but then it just seems to die down. For instance, last month, I learned a ton of stuff about ebay. I got all of my old-giveaway clothes into a pile so that I could take pictures of them and then I wanted to try and sell them. I uploaded one NFL football zip up jacket and had no bids. Needless to say that pile of clothes is still in the basement. ha!

Here are a few things that interest me:

-helping a family friend work on her caramel apple business (she sells over 450 every holiday season)

-learning graphic design so that I could offer personalized items (birth announcements, invitations, cards, calendars, etc) at a less expensive rate. There a people who create these items for buyers, and then they email the item to the buyer who simply prints it from their home computer.

-creating DVD/CD picture slide shows (Guy and I have created 5 slide shows for weddings and birthdays in the past year)

-creating family recipe books for people. This would work by collecting recipes that have been in the family for years and creating an actual book for them to have.

Which one is your favorite?

I don't know if any of these would work.............but I should try one of them and find out. There are so many great websites where you can advertise your "goods." Esty, ebay, craigslist, facebook.

Happy Thursday everyone!

Wild and crazy kid

I have received some really nice compliments about Braylen lately. Yesterday, a woman from the YMCA child watch told me that Braylen is into everything in the playroom! She said he is so curious about things. I said yea he is pretty crazy! And she said well maybe, but he is such a good boy! My little heart melted. I was so touched! I am so thankful that we are able to go to the y so that he can have more interactions with other young children. He really loves going there. And I am so thankful for my little wild man. He really is such a good boy.

We have our Christmas decorations out and I am so excited about it. Guy and I love having the tree up. For the most part, Braylen doesn't really touch the tree. I put a few Christmas stuffed animals and books in this little container under the tree and he loves to play with those things. We are looking forward to teaching him about Christmas. And of course taking him to see Santa will be great fun. :)

The holidays will be bittersweet this year because my sister and brother in law are moving to Charlotte, NC after Christmas. We will miss them so much! They are like our best friends and things will be different once they are gone. We are so excited for them to start a new journey and to see how the Lord shapes them into who he wants them to be. I am looking forward to visiting them many times.

Organization is the key to success

I had a middle school teacher who made us write "Organization is the key to success" on all of our folders. She was so right. :) I have found that if I do not have a list of things that I'd like to accomplish throughout the week, I completely slack off! Now that Braylen is taking 3-4 hour naps a day (I love that kid) it is really easy to be lazy during that time. There are so many things that I can do while he is napping. I found this blog by a very traditional, religious woman who had an awesome idea of how to organize your time as a stay at home mom. You can find her ideas by clicking here. I am going to start using her method and will let you know how it works!

Last night for dinner, I made Chicken Squares! I love this meal. My mom makes it a lot and I'm so glad that I have the recipe. It's so easy.

Chicken Squares

1 pound cooked chicken, shredded or cubed

3 ounces cream cheese, softened

Salt and pepper

1 can crescent rolls

3 tablespoons butter

Bread crumbs

1) Boil chicken for about 20 minutes until no longer pink. Shred or cube into bite size pieces.

2) Mix cream cheese with chicken and add salt and pepper to taste.

3) Roll out crescent rolls. Combine triangles to make a square (you will have 4 separate squares).

4) Add chicken mixture to square, roll up sides and pinch at the top to cover the chicken.

5) Melt butter, cover chicken square in butter and then roll in bread crumbs.

6) Cook at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes.

Hope everyone has a great thanksgiving day! "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. His love endures forever." Psalm 101

Family

Being that the majority of my immediate family mostly lives in the tri-state area, I have never experienced having to go out of town for the holidays. We just have always been able to get together for family gatherings. Wait....... My aunt and uncle used to live in Pennsylvania for a few years and we did travel to their house for Easter. Anyways. My point is that I am excited for Guy's family to be traveling from New Orleans to spend time with us in KY for Thanksgiving! What a fun way to kick off the holiday season. My MIL is picking them up at the airport as we speak and then Guy's cousin and her husband are driving in tomorrow morning.

Last night, my sister and brother in law came over to help watch Braylen while we had a Young Life meeting. Afterwards, they stayed and we watched FOUR episodes of Lost Season 5! (check it out on abc.com!) I just can't get enough of it. That show is so good. There is a twist after each episode and I'm always thinking "did that just really happen?" All I have to say is it's about time that someone else likes to watch the show. And by someone else I mean Guy, Jess, and Vince. I've spent the last three seasons watching it alone. :( And now I have LOST friends.

3 Years and counting

Guy and I just celebrated our 3 year anniversary a few weeks ago on 11/11! What an amazing 3 years it has been! 3 big things that has happened: 1)WE HAD A BABY!, 2) We didn't move to Charlotte, 3) Guy started school again!

Looking back I just wouldn't change a thing. Yes it wasn't what we planned, but "you have to walk the rocks to see the mountain view!" I don't think I am quite to the top of the mountain yet (we still have the terrible two's coming up and 3 more years of college to get through! ha!) but I am thankful that Lord has been with us every step of the way.

Guy surprised me with tickets to the David Crowder Band concert, which was amazing! Jess and Vince saved us some seats and we had a great time. I used to follow that band a ton back in the day and being at their concert brought me back to a great time in my life. Worship has been such a huge part of my walk with the Lord. There are certain songs that I now hear and that have meant so much to me, that I can remember where I was the first time I heard it. For instance, I remember buying the Illuminate DCB cd at Starbucks (super overpriced) and listening to it on my drive home, parking my car on the street, and just replaying "O Praise Him" over and over. What a great memory! Their words of love and mercy just had such a special place of hope in my life! That was back in 2003! I actually made it in a picture with the guitarist one year on their website! Famous!

So we had a great anniversary! I was wondering what kind of gifts you are supposed to give on your three years? It's leather.......Hi, I love you, here is some leather??? :) Here are some cute ideas for your 3 years (from etsy.com of course).

A pink leather bowl

A brown leather journal

A leather pillow

Thank you Guy for a wonderful 3 years of marriage! I love you!

22 months

I cannot believe that my baby boy is 22 months now! He is the most precious gift from God and we are so blessed to be his parents.

It has been a while since I have updated our blog. We have been running around like crazy and Braylen has been growing like a little weed. He is really trying to talk more and he yells "mommy" all the time. Awesome! Before we eat our meals, he will bow his head and hold our hands to pray. Then he says "ma-men." I really believe that God is being glorified through our little boy. Despite being unable to verbally communicate with us, he comprehends things and listens to us very well. He will grab our hand and walk us over to something he wants or he will point to it. If I say "go upstairs to get your shoes," he will do just that. It is so neat to see him understand us.

Right now we are in the process of painting our living room! Finally! It has only been almost 2 years! Bah! When you are new parents, everything else takes a back seat. I will post some pictures but the fireplace wall is a dark gray/blue color and the other walls are a light gray color. Very pretty. We are hoping to finish everything by Monday night. I am excited for the change.

I am loving this website called etsy! It is a site where you can purchase people's homemade items. It is awesome. It just makes me want to learn how to be crafty!

This is a mom contact card! so cute!

Click here to go to her Etsy store!