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!

Monkeys and melt downs

We had a good week and weekend. Busy but good. I have been helping plan the young life banquet and worked on addressing invitations this past week. Hopefully it will all come together. Guy had Saturday morning off from class so we all went to the zoo. It was so much fun. Braylen learned how to sound like a monkey. His favorite animal is definitely the duck though. He just loves to make the quack noise. So very cute. It was Hall-zoo-ween so he was able to get a few treats before we left.

Saturday night we celebrated Jon's birthday and we all went out to eat at Smokey Bones. Braylen had a melt down! We did not know what to do. I just took him out of his chair and went to the bathroom to let him chill out. He is doing this more and more. I am starting a new book on how to train your toddler and am hopeful that I will learn a few tricks. Am I going to have a "terrible two" child? Braylen has been sooooo easy going and all of these whiney melt downs have thrown us for a loop! Any suggestions?

Even though he may drive us crazy with all of his whining, we just love him so much. He brings us so much laughter and joy. What a blessing to be his mom! I just laugh at him all day long. Tonight he even cuddled with me (for like 10 seconds but it was great).

This week we are going to the Zoo again with Grammy and aunt Amy on Tuesday and on Thursday we are going to a music class at Gymboree! It's like $40 bucks a class but your first class is free (looks like it will be our last class too because I am not paying that much money). And then this weekend is cousin Sara's wedding! Braylen is the ring bearer and I am so excited to see how he reacts! Hope for a smooth walk down the aisle with zero melt downs!

Have a great weekend!

Pumpkin Patch

After Guy's Saturday morning class, we took Braylen to Kinman Farms and we were so excited to go as a family. We didn't go to a pumpkin patch last fall so we were eager to take Braylen to one this year. We went expecting to pay full price ($7 for a hayride, pumpkin, and a walk through the corn maze) but I played high school bball with the girl taking the money so she gave us a discount! yes! Before we got on the hayride, we let Braylen go through the barn to look at all of the animals. His favorite animal??? The ducks! He would point to them and say "quack quack!" He doesn't like to touch animals. He's afraid of them so he just likes to look at them and wave.

We took the hayride over to the pumpkin patch and Braylen loved it! He would grab the hay and hand me all the pieces. When we got to the patch, we let Braylen run around everywhere and play with the "ball." He's so funny. Going through the corn maze took some time. Braylen wanted to pick up everything. He even found an old piece of corn, which of course he tried to eat. sick! At least he likes his vegetables.

We found 3 perfect pumpkins for daddy, mommy and Bray. A big, medium, and small pumpkin or as Braylen refers to it: "mum-mum." He held his "mum-mum" the rest of the time and on our car ride home. So cute.

We had a great time together! We were so fortunate to have the time to go there! Things are so busy right now and Guy has so much work to do between AWE, school and Young Life. I know that we are still getting used to our new schedule but it is pretty crazy around here. We also know that "we have to walk the rocks to see the mountain view" and that one day all of Guy's work will pay off.

Mr. Independent

Bray is doing this new thing were he wants to do EVERYTHING by himself. I guess he's been doing that for a while. What's weird is that if I tried to hold his hand or try to fix something for him he makes this whiney noise and then bends over sticking his butt straight up in the air and plants his face in the ground. It's so funny! I don't let him see me laughing. It's like he thinks that's going to keep me away from him. classic.

I will post a picture of him doing it soon. ha!