Baby Boy Printable

This verse will always hold a special place in my heart.  I found it before my son was born, and since he has a nervous Momma, I decided this would be my prayer (one of many) for Little Man.  Feel free to download and enjoy.

Download Here

White Chicken Chili

It has been feeling A LOT like fall around here, and not only do we love the weather, we love the food that has now become acceptable.  Soup, chili, and roast are all "my kind of food," and I would eat them everyday, but I know not everyone wants to come home to a piping hot bowl of chili after working outside in 95 degree weather all day long.  So when the end of September rolls around I start looking to add new recipes to my fall menu.

I pinned THIS and found that the directions on the bottom of the pin (that are not complete) are not the directions on the link.  

So I crossed my fingers and decided to use a little of both recipes and create my own masterpiece.  Luckily, it worked and when testing my new favorite chili, the word BOMB was used.

  DISCLAIMER: This recipe is not for someone who has to have exact measurements while cooking.

Ingredients:

1-2 lbs chicken breast

1 small yellow onion

1 green pepper

1 packet ranch seasioning

1 tbsp chili powder

1 tbsp cumin

2-3 shakes onion powder

2-3 shakes oregano

1 can rotel

1 can sweet white corn

2 cans great white northern beans

1 block cream cheese (8oz)

Chicken broth

Jalapenos (optional)

Stove Directions:

Trim chicken breast and boil.  When fully cooked, shred.  Put chicken, sliced onion and green pepper in the pot and heat to soften onion and pepper.  Add in ranch seasoning, chili powder, cumin, onion powder and oregano.  Continue to cook and stir.  Add rotel (drained), corn (drained) and beans (undrained).  Stir in chicken broth (amount depends on how much liquid needed).  I added about 1/4 of the box.  You can add more later as need.  I added a heaping spoonful of diced jalapenos to add heat. Let simmer for 20-30 minutes.  Cut cream cheese in small blocks and add to the pot.  Continue to stir as the cheese melts.  Let simmer until ready to eat.  The longer it simmers the better, but it is ready to eat after this.

Add some tortilla chips and/or cornbread and ENJOY!

8 Month Photos

Little Man celebrated his 8 Month Birthday on 8-6-13.

I wanted to celebrate with a few pictures.  He is getting so big, and I want to remember every stage.  The only issue is, we don't have enough wall space for all of the precious pictures I print.

As earlier mentioned, I take a TON of pictures of this guy.  Candid, posed, everything, but I have quickly learned, he has a lot of stuff, and so do we.  If I don't clear the area first,  I have a bunch of pictures with a MESS in the background.  I borrowed my Dad's "good camera," and we headed outside on a cloudy afternoon.  It had to be overcast, because he and I both have "I can't smile with my eyes open when the sun is in my face" in an awful way.  We took a few things to distract him, a book, and hat.

I LOVE the way they turned out.

This one is already printed, in a frame and waiting for a spot on the wall.

So is this one.

We went outside and found a hill so the background would be only grass.  We did have a minor bug problem, but I think they were bothering us more than him.  I think he could stay outside all day.  We might have a problem when winter rolls around.  He doesn't seem to mind having his picture taken either, which is great news for this girl.  I have learned a lot of baby picture taking tricks so beware future King babies.

Kentucky Visit

We went to visit Grammie and Papa, Stephen's Parents, a few weeks ago.  His Dad is a preacher, and they moved to Kentucky about 6 months ago.  They have been here to visit several times, and this makes the second trip we have made to Kentucky.  There is just no good way to get there. Just isn't.  Griffin doesn't hate the car, but if he isn't sleepy, he's not in a great mood.  Right now, we travel with our two dogs, Griffin, Mommy and Daddy in my Accord.  Not the best situation.  Our Dear Luna gets carsick and freaks out in the car so she gets to sit up front and relax while I am in the backseat smashed between the car seat and the door with my feet in the seat because we have stuff piled EVERYWHERE.

The good news is I get to take sweet pictures like this:

SO in Love with those lashes.

His parents live in a fun, small town in Kentucky so we decided to go exploring on Saturday.  I wanted to walk around the downtown area and eat something "good" for lunch while sitting outside.  We took forever to get ready and get out the door.  At this point lunch was going to be at 2 pm.  We finally got in the car and rode for three minutes, and Griffin had a projectile incident, soaking himself, his car seat, and the backseat of my car.  Poor Grammie and Papa.  We turned around and decided that was his way of telling us he wanted to hang out at home.

Sunday, we went to church to hear Papa Preach, and he stayed in the service the whole time. Such a good boy.

Well, Grammie was ready for this picture, but no one told Griffin and Papa.

SO cute in his Polo.

We have a Crawler!

Sort of...

Our little guy has been rolling and scooting to get where he wants to go for a while now.  This past weekend, he went for it!  It is more like an Army Crawl, but he is on the move!

We have to convince him to crawl by moving all of his toys over to one corner of his quilt in the floor.  He is also obsessed with standing up.  He can do it alone if he is leaning on something steady.  His favorite toy to stand up and play with slides though, and he thinks he can stand up on his own so I sit in the floor 30 minutes at a time keeping this little dude up on his feet.  Whatever makes him happy, and builds those baby leg muscles.  He can sit up perfectly, but he has trouble getting up on his own, but we are thiiiiss close.  I will be stalking him with my phone to catch that on video too! 

These are a Few of our Favorite Things

I am loving Griffin's age right now.  He is slightly mobile, but he isn't totally into everything just yet.  He can army crawl and roll to get where he needs to go.  He is loves to laugh and play with his toys all day.  I can tell he definitely needs brothers and sisters because this kid does not like to be left alone to play.  I will happily leave the dishes and laundry for later to play with this sweet guy anytime.

This picture completely sums up his first summer.  We got this new stroller, and we are all obsessed.

In this picture, we are up by the pooling grilling, which is our FAVORITE things to do these days.  He loves bubbles, and lots of them, so he fell in love with his Hippo bubble blower from Grammie.  We have to take it with us when we hang out for entertainment.

He also has, and has had for quite sometime, an obssession with Mickey Mouse.  He loves watching Mickey Mouse Club House.  So much so that we have over 70 episodes saved on the DVR.  Though, that is mostly for my sanity because I'm pretty certain he could watch the same episode everyday and be perfectly happy.  If I really want to see the little guy excited, I put him in his bouncy seat and put on Mickey.  He smiles and jumps up and down when he hears "He-ey Everybody, It's ME, Mickey Mouse!"  Cutest ever!

We have also started playing in the floor a lot more lately.  We don't have that much extra floor space yet, but we are working on it.  For now, I lay a quilt down on the floor and about 10 toys, and we go to town.  He thinks it is so fun to grab my fingers and pull him self up.  I can leave him down there and watch him play for a little bit while I multi-task, but he quickly finds himself off the quilt and over in a corner.

   

He also has a strange obssession with EVERYTHING he is not allowed to have.  He loves my cell phone charger, my phone, the remote, all water bottles, my food, shoes, my toes, hair, and necklace, paper, and last but not least, Wiley.  We have two dogs, Wiley and Luna, and he and Luna love each other.  Wiley is warming up to the idea of him, but he has longer hair, which is perfect for pulling.  We may have to shave him.  Seriously. 

I have heards lots of Moms say each new age will be your favorite, and so far they are correct.  

Love you, Little Guy!

8 Months with Griffin

Our Sweet boy is eight months old today.  The time has flown by, and we cannot believe how big he has gotten.  We went to the doctor yesterday, and he weighs 17 lbs even.  He is looking tall and skinny like Daddy these days.  At eight months, he can sit up on his own, scoot, but not quit crawl, and stand up while holding onto hands.  He has four teeth and will bite anything near his mouth including fingers and toes.  He LOVES to bounce and play.

His legs are ALWAYS crossed like this.

Such a cutie.

We love you Little Guy!

Pinterest Gone Right

Father's Day Gift

My Hubby loves some presents.  I knew he was looking forward to his first Father's Day, and I also knew his gift had to be off the charts.  I went back and forth many, MANY times and naturally consulted my go-to blogs and Pinterest.

I knew I wanted to get him a photo calendar for work, and Walgreens had some crazy good deals.  Since I basically force my son to take part in an all day baby photo shoot, this was easy.  I signed him up for a membership with Dollar Shave Club (awesome and a story for another day).  I also knew I wanted to get him something with scripture so I found an empty photo cube, added some favorite pictures, and a verse on top.  I went with this one:

"The Father of a righteous child has great joy;

a man who fathers a wise son rejoices in him."

Proverbs 23:24

Then, I spent days on Pinterest thinking of the perfect "sentimental" gift to make his first Father's Day special.  I had purchased a three picture frame from Target earlier in the week and was going to put the Bible verse in the center, but then, I found this, and I had to do it.

The extra photos from this little session are hilarious.  He had the letter in his mouth 95% of the time so I had to take it from him, hand it back, and snap the picture quickly to get a smile.  I ended up with several good choices, but I wanted each picture to look different and his head to be somewhat even so I went with these three.  LOVE them!

I used white sheets for a back drop and put one over his boppy.  I got the letters from A.C. Moore.  I first thought they were too big, but they turned out perfect.  I saw this idea on Pinterest and went for it.  I love Pinterest projects that don't require too much shopping or time.

He said this is the best present he has ever gotten.  Of course we added to it by putting "Reasons Why I Love Daddy" on the back.

Father's Day 2013=Success

New Baby Obsession

Two Piece PJS

We are lucky enough to have friends with little boys a bit older than Griffin.  We get lots of hand me down clothes.  I love when we get new boxes to go through.  Up to this point, he has really only had the button or zipper jams with and without feet.  We love pjs and keep them on to play for a while in the morning.  In the 6-12 month boxes of clothes, we got several pair of two piece pajamas, and I couldn't wait to get our little cutie in them.

He sits straight up in the mornings and gives me this look.

Love it!

We play a lot in our pjs in the morning.  He's sleeps late for a baby, but when he wakes up, he's a happy kid.

I'm obsessed with baby pajamas, and he's obsessed with Mickey Mouse.  If he's happy, I'm happy.

Current Favorite iphone Photos

I am a picture-taking lunatic.  I love sharing the cuteness I see all day long.  My boy's sweet face can make any day better.  I have gotten some seriously good ones lately with my iphone.

This picture will be on a wall some where.  That's Uncle in the background.

I imagine him in these pants with no shirt sitting in the sand... For now he can look adorable in them at church.

This is a new face, and I'm loving it.  He snorts and waves his arms.  I tried for days to get a non-blurry picture, and I finally got one after lunch today.

He is a boy of many, many faces, and if I have to take 25 pictures a day to get them all, I'm up for it!

Phillipians 4:6

I have always been a worrier.  I can remember being a child and worrying about things for hours that  should have never even crossed my mind.

My sweet husband and I have been married for two years, and his mom, grandmother and I should all be members of Worry Warts Anonymous.  He told me he has seen his dad calm his mom down often over the years.  He does the same for me.  I am one lucky girl.

He keeps me laughing and on my toes.  I spend way more time enjoying the moment instead of worrying about the next because of this funny guy.

When our Little Guy was born, my worrying flew to a new level.  I won't go into the LONG list of worries that reside in the mind and heart of a new Mother, but I was THAT girl the first few months of his life.  Seasoned moms watched me with a smirk, and I can only imagine what was going through their minds.

In a totally off topic conversation with my Mother-in-law, she was discussing the various obstacles she ran into while raising my husband and his older brother, and she mentioned a few of the verses that helped to get her through.

I found a verse and sent it to my husband, and told him this will help me when my tendancies get the best of me.

"Don't worry about anything; 

instead, pray about everything.  

Tell God what you need, 

and thank him for all he has done."

Phillipians 4:6

I am so glad I shared this with him.  When I say something a little crazy, he sweetly replies, "Go read your verse, Babe."

Inspiration

In April of 2012, my husband and I received a big surprise.  Baby King #1 due in December.

I have always wanted children.  I knew wanted them, lots of them, and I knew I would love being a mom.  On December 6th, 2012, we met our son, Griffin.  I felt how I thought I would feel, times 100.  I had no idea this tiny person would become my entire world.  I am so very thankful God chose us to be his parents.  We thank him daily.

"Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.  Before you were born, I set you apart."
Jeremiah 1:5