Picture Practice- Independence Day!

So do you guys remember that one time I posted all those adorable July 4th pictures of Clay? And the time I realized on Sunday night that I had not one super amazing Independence Day picture to share the next day?

 

Yeah. About that.

 

All of the pictures from my camera were blurry. Because when you're having fun and surrounded by friends, taking amazing pictures and making sure your lens is free of Clay fingerprints is pretty low on the list of stuff to do.

 

I did, however, have some pictures from the holiday I loved on my phone so I'll just share them!

 

 

 

This picture just looks like July 4th to me. Post pool, ketchup everywhere, hot dogs. Just livin the life.

 

 

 

And this picture is the result of me baking bread at midnight. Then deciding I needed to stage a picture with my Uncle Sam nutcracker and Trader Joe's flowers in the background. Who needs sleep anyway? Hahahaha.

 

 

 

So this picture is blurry but I'm in love with it. I took it when we were walking back from an impromptu trip to TCBY that pushed bedtime back an hour and gave me mom of the year status.

 

I can't wait to see everybody else's pictures!

 

 

 

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Happy 4th of July!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, I'm back to blogging. A holiday is the right day to come back, no? Haha, anyway, see you on Monday! I have a couple of fun announcements coming :)

 

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Confessions

Everybody needs to have a good confession every now and then, right? Right.

Here are mine:

• My two biggest pet peeves in the world are when people smoke around children and let their kids get (obesely) fat by feeding them mass amounts of junk. It just makes me want to call child protective services.
• I hate having to deal with the last of the peanut butter in the jar but I refuse to throw away good peanut butter. Until last week I had 6 almost empty jars in the cabinet. I finally got out the spatula and cleared out the cabinet.
• I cheated a couple of times on "No Sweets May." Overall I cut my sugar intake by 90% (I was eating a lot of sweets), so I'm not too unhappy.
• I hit "mark as read" on more blogs than I wanted to the past few weeks. I love reading other blogs but life just got crazy (and I chose to live in the real world more) there for a few weeks.
• July the 4th is my second favorite holiday and I'm not sure why. Regardless, it will look like red, white, and blue threw up at our place for the next month or so.
• Plans for Clay's 2nd birthday are in the works. Yes, three months ahead.
• I hate handwashing dishes so much that I let a pan set beside the sink for almost two weeks. It was rinsed out, so try not to judge me too much.
• Mike kept Clay overnight on Sunday so Monday when I woke up I made coffee...and got back in bed. And rewatched the latest season of Scandal for the 3rd (okay, maybe 4th) time.

 

 

Okay, that's enough for this week! What's your big confession of the week?

 

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Finally...Easter Part Three

I know. I know. It's been a ridiculous amount of time since Easter but some of these pics were just too good not to share! Since I'm about to picture vomit, I'll keep my words short and sweet with a quick rundown of our day:

• My mom delivered Clay's Easter basket from her to bed that morning. While I was still half asleep. And took pictures. Not sharing those.
• Church, lunch, Easter egg hunt with my mom's side of the family.
• Second lunch with my dad's side.
• Visiting my dad and stepmom's farm, or as I like to call it, the zoo.

 

 

 

 

 

Phew! And that's a wrap :) See, I told you I would finish posting about our Easter by July 4th! High five, Jess!

 

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Besties

Before I get to today's post, don't forget to go check out my post for the #boymoms series at Chasin' Mason on the advantages to being a boy mom!

Now on to it! Today I'm linking up with Kelli for Picture Practice.

Today's prompt was "black and white." While I'm all about vibrant color pictures, there is something to be said for a good black and white picture. And like Kelli said today, it can completely change a crap picture to a winner.

I took this picture of these sweet boys a few weeks ago and I liked it in color, but when I changed it to black and white I fell in love! It's definitely going in a frame!
This is sweet Carter Lewis (he and Clay are both C.L.s!), the son of one of my besties, Liz. He and Clay are almost exactly 16 months apart but Carter is already catching up to Clay in the size department. He's wearing clothes Clay wore a few months ago!
Anyway, when I found out Liz was having a boy (I was the first to find out- I did the reveal cupcakes. Eek!), I was so excited! My dream for these two is that they will share the kind of friendship his mom and I do. I can't wait to see these two BFFs grow up together!
Hop on over to Kelli's site to see the rest of the black and whites!

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The Easter Bunny & Farm Life... Easter Part Two

Please, don't die of shock that I actually got this post up when promised. It was a complete fluke of nature :)

 

After sleeping in til 10 (ten!) on Saturday, we had big important plans. First up, Walmart. Yes, Walmart. On a Saturday. On the Saturday before Easter. I'm just going to say that I would almost rather give birth again than go to Walmart on any Saturday.

 

 

 

But... something good did come from this trip to Walmart. You see, a couple of weeks before, I had just decided not to take Clay to see the Easter bunny. I figured he would cry and it would be a waste of money. So there we are, walking along, just trying to get what we needed and get out, and there's the Easter bunny! Walmart was taking Easter bunny pictures. For free. Now, they aren't the greatest quality (plus what you see here is a picture of a picture), but seriously? He was all about the Easter bunny.

 

 

 

This next part I don't expect you to be excited about unless you've been to one, but Clay experienced his first taste of Pal's (a.k.a. the home of frenchie fries and peachie teas).

 

 

 

After lunch we headed out to the barn for a visit with Pappaw and a ride on a tractor.

 

That is a makeup-less Jessica. Apparently when pollen gets on your eyeball and your actual eyeball swells, mascara is discouraged (you're welcome for not sharing the up close picture of that).

 

 

 

Of course, Clay had to get a selfie in while we were at the barn.

 

 

 

 

Clay didn't love riding on the tractor so we'll skip the pictures of him crying. He did however love riding on the lawn mower. I'll take it.

 

And that was the end of Saturday. Only two more posts to go til I'm done recapping the longest Easter weekend ever. Whew.

 

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We're going on an egg hunt... Easter Part One

I just knew you all were going to be sick of all the Easter recaps. That's why I waited two weeks to recap our Easter weekend. Right. It had nothing at all to do with the 9pm bedtimes and stack of books I just got from the library. Not a thing.

 

Right. So here we go...

 

Our Easter weekend started on Good Friday morning with Clay's Easter egg hunt at daycare. The night before I seriously held an Easter egg hunt practice in the dining room. Coach Aunt Amy, Coach Uncle Troy, and I ran drills with Clay until he was delirious (it had nothing to do with the fact that it was way past his bedtime). By the time his head hit the pillow, Clay knew that eggs could be in shoes and had perfected shooting the egg like a basketball into his basket.

 

We were ready.

 

 

The teachers had the baskets hanging from the ceiling for two weeks leading up to Easter. Clay just wanted his to be hanging again.

 

Unfortunately, no matter how much you practice, trucks trump Easter eggs anyday. Who thought it would be a good idea to have the egg hunt on the playground with all of the toys???

 

Luckily, we convinced Clay that he could hold the truck and still score some candy.

 

 

But he insisted on opening each egg as he found it.

 

 

Then he just gave up all together and took to climbing up the slide...because going down the slide is so 2013 apparently.

 

 

And of course we had to get some swinging time in. Am I the only person who never realized two kids can swing at once on that type of swing??

 

 

After that we just had to make a stop at Target and we were on the road to Tennessee.

 

Clay might have gotten mad at me on the way because I wouldn't let him pick my nose. It must be hard to be a toddler.

 

 

Clay clearly lives the life at Mammaw's house and gets to walk around eating peanut butter by the spoonful.

 

 

 

And gets his picture taken approximately 50 more times a day than he does at home.

 

 

Also, at Mammaw's, we stay up way too late... but then we sleep til 10 the next morning so I'm okay with that.

 

 

 

Whew. I'm tired just from recapping all of that. Part 2 coming... Well, let's tentatively say Monday, but if you don't see it then, definitely by July 4th :)

 

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