20 months 4 days

We have been a family for a 20 months and 4 days and you know what, it has been by far the hardest most rewarding 20 months 4 days of my life. When we started talking about having kids we found out real quick how extremely unprepared we were and had no clue what we had in store for us. Lincoln is a ball full of personality and quite frankly sometimes a little hard to handle. If he is not tossing the ball around, he is throwing rocks, collecting sticks and playing in the dirt. We spend every waking minute outdoors. Outside is the one request he can verbally communicate with us. (Well that and cookies. You know the important things.) I'm hoping all this outside play will lead to an amazing imagination and one day an amazing human being.  

 Slowly but surely we are figuring things out. I think... Most days we are flying by the seat of our pants. I'm not sure if we are always right, but I know everything we do is out of love and that's what counts. 

In the short time we have all been together, we really have not taken any family pictures. (I would much rather be behind the camera, than in front of it.) So spontaneously I decided come hell or high water we were going to take some. Well, it was a crap shut the minute out the door. I really picked a bad time, Lincoln had gotten sick at lunch and we were both on edge from that, but we trudged on. During the shoot Linc started throwing a colossal fit and got sick again all over his Easter cloths. All I could think was GREAT JUST GREAT, ALL I WANTED WAS A FEW STINKIN' PICTURES!! In the end we did get a few beautiful ones, puke and all. 

It's all about the memories we make, and this one will stay with me forever. I am so in love with this sweet little family it takes my breath away. 

Even with all the tears he is still pretty stickin' cute in that bow tie.  

Muffin Monday Maddness

Sometimes the food we pick tells a lot about our personality. This weeks pick was from my dear friend, Rachel. I've known her her whole life, and there has yet to be a dull moment. Just this Sunday she payed me a great complement she told me that I taught her it was ok to act goofy. I thought that was so sweet, and if I was able to get through to her I can teach my son the same thing. Don't live life to seriously you don't get out alive...  I was so happy she thought of this silly little blog and sent me a muffin pin on Pinterest, and true to Kristin fashion I tweaked the receipt to make it my own. Speaking of personalities this one screams rachel. Fresh and sweet of the orange and then that bite of the raspberry. A lot like her, fresh and sweet and snappy when she needs to be.   I liked the Blood Orange Raspberry muffin so much that I am going to add it to my normal muffin rotation. Hope you give it a try and enjoy. 

Blood Orange Raspberry Muffin

Prep time is about 10 min.

Makes 12 muffins

1 3/4  cup all-puprose flour

1/3 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 beaten egg

3/4 cup milk

1/4 cup cooking oil

1 tablespoon vanilla

Zest of one blood orange

2/3 cup of frozen or fresh raspberries (I used frozen. In a bag I beat them until they were broken up into small pieces. I thought it made it easier to spread them throughout the batter.)

Turbinado sugar (sprinkle over the top of uncooked muffin, gives it a nice crunch)

1. Preheat oven to 400

2. Grease or line a 12 cup baking dish

3. In a small bowl beat egg, then add vanilla, oil, milk, and zest. mix well

4. In a large bowl combine flour, salt, baking powder. mix well

5. Add the wet ingredients to the flour mixture. stir until just combined. DO NOT OVER MIX!!!

6. Fold in raspberries. 

7. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups. Filling each 2/3 full. sprikle with turbinado
8. Bake at 400 for 18 min or until the tooth pick test comes out clean.
9. Let cool on a wire rack for 5 min. Best served warm, but just as good cold :)

Oh man look at that sugar!!! am I the only one that thinks this is beautiful :)

My little helper. Hopefully someday all this "helping" will come in handy.

They still do :)

This wonderfully sweet couple is Danny and Laura Goolsby. They are celebrating their 10 year anniversary with a full on vow renewal wedding ceremony. I love everything about it. Celebrating marriage is amazing in my book. They are obviously very much in love and I was able to feel their connection through my computer screen. 

Danny and Laura, Thank you guys for giving me a chance to be small part of your story. Congratulations on 10 years of love and I pray for many many more. 

I love this one. It was the shot of the day :)

Muffin Monday Madness

I am so tired of not knowing what to do for breakfast. Sometimes it is harder for me than coming up with something to do for dinner. I was talking to my mom the other day and Muffin Monday Madness was born. I am going to try a new muffin recipe every monday. My first muffin actually turned out really great. I mixed a few recipes from Pinterest and my trusty better homes and garden cookbook. I hope you enjoy and try my apple cranberry vanilla muffins. 

The highlight of my morning was Lincoln playing with the oven mitt and his easter basket. He is totally obsessed with gloves and bags here lately. He is turning into his father :) 

Apple Cranberry Vanilla Muffins

prep time about 10-15 minutes. 

makes 12 muffins

preheat oven to 400

bake about 18-20 min. depending on your oven. It took closer to 20 minutes in mine. 

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour

1/3 cup vanilla sugar ( see not at the bottom on how to make vanilla sugar)

2 teaspoons baking powder 

1/4 teaspoon salt 

1 beaten egg

3/4 cup milk

1/4 cup cooking oil

1 teaspoon vanilla 

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon 

1 small apple (peeled and chopped) * I chopped up 2 this morning and it was way to much.*

1/3 cup dried cranberries (at least I think it was 1/3, I just stuck my hand in the bag and pulled out a handful)

turbinado sugar (sprinkle on the top. gives it a nice crunch)

1. In a small bowl put your apple, cranberries, cinnamon and brown sugar. Mix together and set aside.

2. Grease or line with paper bake cups a 2 1/2-inch muffin pan. set aside

3. In a medium bowl combine flour, vanilla sugar, baking powder, and salt. Make a well in the center of flour mixture: set aside

4. In another bowl combine egg, milk, oil and vanilla. 

5. Add the egg mix to the flour mix. It is very important not to over mix. The batter should still be a little lumpy. (An over-mixed muffin is a bad muffin)

6. Fold in the apple and cranberries.

7. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups, filling each about 2/3 full. I used a ice cream scope and they came out perfect. This is an easy way to make them all the same size. 

8. Bake at 400 for 18-20 min. pull them out when your house smells heavenly and they are golden brown. To be safe stick them with a tooth pick and if it comes out clean they are done. I get them out of the pan as soon as they come out because in my mind they continue to cook in the pan. So I go ahead and flop them out onto a wire rack and let cool for a few minutes. They are best served warm. 

**Vanilla sugar is so easy to make at home and is way to much of a spurge to buy from the store. All it takes is per 1 cup of regular sugar you add a vanilla bean. Scrap the paste out of the bean and drop it in the sugar. I always add the bean pod itself, it gives it a nice flavor. Shake it every few days and it is ready to use in 2 weeks. store in an air tight container and enjoy. **

cousins

On this day 13 years ago the world was forever changed. My family suffered a tremendous heartbreaking loss. We lost a wonderful, sweet, funny, athletic (the list could go on forever) kid. Having Austin taken from us way too early has taught me so much about life and how every moment should be enjoyed, because we never know when our time will be up. In a split second lives are changed. There are no do overs.. I've learned to say I love you, not just with my words but with my actions.  I pray that Austin knew we loved him and still love him. We (the cousins) were raised very close. Every Sunday we would get together at my Grandma's house for lunch and spend all day together. During the summers we were constantly at each others houses, having sleep overs and  making wonderful silly memories. Looking back we were more like a big group of siblings then we were "just" cousins. We are even "aunt" and "uncle" to each others kids now. I hate that we are so spread apart and can't get together as often as we would all like. I would give anything to have one Sunday dinner with the six of us back, sitting in grandma's back room drinking sweet tea and writing Jonathan Brandis love notes, (Lindy will get that one :) )  but that's never going to happen. Like I said there are no do-overs, we can only go forward. I pray that Lincoln gets the chance to be as close with his cousins as I have. I pray he has the opportunity to be called Uncle by Rhyann and Blayne's kids. Family is important. It makes us who we are and who we want our kids to be. It all starts with six silly kids playing at grandma's house to really change your life for the better.  So to all of you ( you know who you all are) I love you even when it's not said. You guys have made my life wonderful and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I wish I had more pictures of the six of us to put on here, but I don't. So enjoy the one that I had handy. :)  

With speaking of cousins also enjoy these two sweet cousins. 

I

A small tribute to best friends

My mothers best friend passed away when I was in the 5th grade. It was the first real loss I ever experienced and really remember. Trish was the type of person that "you" as a whole were better just by knowing her. My mother must have been someone really great to get the chance to called the best friend of somebody so wonderful. I hate that she had to leave us so soon and my mom lost her partner in crime before they really got to the good stuff. You know the grandchildren part. Anytime we were sick she would bring us little treats to make us feel better, and always played funny little tricks on us. Well they were funny to her. This would always send her into a laughing fit, then she would reassure us when the "trick" would upset us. I remember one scary evening on a VERY dark road when the headlights just happened to go out and we could not see where we were going. I really thought we were going to die. She laughed and then hugged. All in all she has really taught me how to be a friend, and how to treat the kids in your life like real people that deserved to be loved. She really made me feel like someone important. So even if I did not get a chance to know her as an adult she is still teaching us things and comes up in conversation quite a bit. So in a way she is still right here with us everyday.

I am happy to say that her daughter Amanda has stayed in our lives. I thank God everyday for our friendship. Now my children will know what it is like to be loved by their mom's friend. Amanda is equally full of love as her mother was. ( Amanda if you are reading this, there is so much more I would like to say about you I just think I have enough room. :) I think you are pretty amazing) I pray that we continue the traditions of our mothers and stay friends. Hopefully our kids will learn a little something from us and stay close throughout their lives, and the circle will keep going for generations.

Now staying home does not always mean that I have a lot of time to do things I really love like randomly take pictures in the park. This day was perfect, the kids were smiley and playing really great together. So I thought I would get out my camera and shoot a few. Hope you enjoy.

 I love these two and I know Trish would be head over heels for them too.