A great weekend!

We went to this sweet girl's birthday party on Saturday and I was taking notes! Riley is the daughter of our friends Chad and Jessica. They used to be our next door neighbors in our old house. We adopted our dog, Campbell, from them when their dog, Dixie had puppies. We were sad to lose such good neighbors. Chad built our current house and we remained friends with him during the process. I think that says alot because I've heard of people having terrible experiences with building and we were blessed to have had a good experience! We love our house, thanks Chad! ;) The birthday party was great, complete with a bouncy house for the kids and good food for the adults.

I made this pillowcase dress for Riley, they are becoming my "signature" gift for 1 year old girls.

Sunday was an absolutely wonderful day! We got to go to church (I haven't been to our church in such a long time, I have either been working or out of town) and it was great! We took long naps (one of my favorite Sun. afternoon activities!), and then Sunday evening, we put Daniel down for bed and Mike and I had a date night at home. I have married quite the chef! For our 5th anniversary, we went to Charleston, S.C. We ate at Magnolia's, and we would put it in our top 5 favorite restaurants. I gave Mike the Magnolia's cookbook last year so we decided to pick a recipe from it and cook it together for our date. We chose crab cakes with tomato gravy, creamed corn, and sauteed spinach paired with Blackstone's Pinot Noir. I must say it all turned out DELICIOUS!!!

I made banana pudding and replaced the 'nilla wafers' with Nutter Butters. (My sisters made this dessert for Father's Day and they got the recipe from Southern Living). I must say, what a fabulous idea using Nutter Butters is!!!

10 Months Old

10 things I love about Daniel:
1. I love his smile and the way his eyes light up when Mike or me walk into a room
2. I love his funny crab crawl, he uses one leg and drags the other
3. I love that he is friendly and happy, he made friends with an older gentleman at Publix this week named Harry.
4. I love the feeling of his little hands on my feet and legs when he is underfoot in the kitchen
5. I love that he is still breastfeeding, and occassionally will stroke my arm with his hand while doing so.
6. I love his belly laugh
7. I love that when he gets excited, he pounds on his chest with his left hand wide open and points his toes all while making a whinneying noise (like a horse). Sometimes he flales his legs at the same time.
8. I love that he is a good eater (now eating almost everything that we eat) and a good sleeper at night (sleeps from about8pm-8am most nights)
9. I love when he layes his head on my shoulder and nuzzles up to me when he's tired
10. I love that he puts his paci in upside down

Daniel was 10months old on Aug.3, and while this post is about 11 days late, I still wanted to share it with you. I have been taking pictures of Daniel in this chair every month on or around his month old birthday. My mom made the ADORABLE blanket that is on the chair. Didn't she do an awesome job!

Daniel and Michael Paul playing in our makeshift baby pool.

Watching 'Elmo's World'

This past Monday, I watched Michael Paul for my friend Katie. She has been watching Daniel for me on the days that I work. Michael Paul is about 21 months. The boys were good and kind of entertained each other.

Mimi and Aunt Ashley come for a visit

Last week my mom came to help out with Daniel again. She is a preschool teacher and off for the summer. She graciously agreed to come three times over the summer to help with Daniel. It has been such a blessing having her come this summer! She bought Daniel this balloon and he LOVED it! It was his first balloon and he got SO excited playing with it! I worked on Tuesday and Thursday but on Wednesday, we all got to be together. We had planned to work on some sewing projects this trip, so after Daniel went down for his afternoon nap, we pulled out the sewing machines. Mom worked on some pillows for her couch and I can't say what I was working on yet. :) I'll just say I have a few projects up my sleeve and Christmas isn't that far away! ;) On Friday, Mom, Daniel & I hit Marshalls in the morning and then enjoyed lunch at Panera's before she left to go back home. We had a fun week and I think she enjoyed getting to spend time with her first and only (so far) grandson. Friday afternoon, my sister, Ashley came into town. We made homemade pizza for dinner and then after Daniel went down for the night, we snuck out to Starbucks, to catch up with an old friend, Rebecca. Ashley knows Rebecca from her college days at UF and I know Rebecca because she was my roommate post college & before I got married.

It was good to catch up with her and good to get out of the house, just the the girls! Saturday's activities included garage saling (we didn't find anything good:( ), a baby shower, a nap, and making a delicious dinner!

Ashley made this BEAUTIFUL summer fruit tart! Our cousin, Melanie, had made this for Ashley and my parents when they visited her earlier this summer.
Pomegranit Martinis, my favorite adult beverage!

So Fresh and so clean!

Working on our projects after Daniel has gone to bed. I am realizing I can get very little done now while he is awake. My friend Darby calls her little man a "rover" and I think Daniel might be taking after John Martin in his Rover like nature! ;0

So I can't figure out how to get the words under each picture so the captions don't really match up with the pictures but you hopefully get the jist of what I am talking about.