Purple, White...Fight, Fight, Fight!

This past Saturday, ACU played football against the University of North Alabama at the Cowboy's Stadium. Bryan, being a huge ACU football fan, and as a family, being enthusiastic ACU alumni, we headed to the stadium to cheer on our Wildcats. We got there about an hour and a half early for an indoor pre-game party hosted by ACU on the very upper deck of the stadium.

 We went with our good friends, and fellow ACU die-hards, the Garretts

 We ate and talked with other friends we ran into while an earlier game was finishing

 As a non-neat-freak, I let Brylee crawl on the floor nearby, which she enjoyed much more than being held, and left both of my hands free to eat.  It is sometimes a rare occasion these days to get to eat a meal with both of my hands! Ha!

 The game started at 4, and we arrived at about 2:15, which meant Brylee was going to miss her afternoon nap all together.  I was slightly worried I was going to have a zombie-child on my hands, but to my pleasant surprise, Brylee behaved so well while in our seats, then zonked out for about a 45 minute nap on my lap! She never does this!

 Besides getting hot and sweaty, this nap absolutely saved the rest of our evening at the game!

 When she woke up, her and I found a cozy seating area of backless couches, and spent part of the 3rd quarter eating her dinner.

 We returned to the stands a happy camper, and tried our best to cheer the Wildcats on to a victory.

 I did my best to get a few pictures of her purple and white outfit, bow included...

 ...but about 10 seconds after I put the bow on her head, she takes it right off...

 ...and we're back to this! Oh, well.

 Unfortunately, ACU lost, but we had a good time and a great experience in such a big arena.

We sat with these good friends, and are thankful for such a great college experience like we had at ACU!



Lazy Saturday Morning & Feeding the Ducks

We had such a good weekend, beginning with a lazy Saturday morning.  We woke up to the 'Brylee Alarm' babbling away at about 7:45.  I made pancakes, which Brylee enjoyed for the first time (I'm pretty sure the little amount of syrup I put on top was her favorite part!)

Brylee and Bryan enjoyed a morning Baby Einstein video. 

Brylee does well for about the first 15 out of 30 minutes of the video, then she starts to get restless and bored. It was enough time to allow me to clean up the kitchen, though!

 It was a pleasant, but humid morning, so we decided to take a walk to the small lake in our neighborhood to feed the ducks.

 Brylee and I usually stop and look at the ducks every time we go for a walk, but this was the first time I actually remembered to bring some old bread to feed them. They are very tame ducks, especially since they've made their home right off the sidewalk near the neighborhood pool.  But I was still surprised at how close they came to us.

 These two geese were practically taking the bread out of my hand (although I never actually let them do that because I was afraid my fingers were going to get bit!)

 Brylee was mesmerized while I was standing up, but got a little nervous when I knelt down and she was eye level with them

After about 5-10 minutes, Brylee got bored and was more interested in trying to eat the bread out of my hand instead of watching the ducks. Obviously, we're still working on our attention span!

When the bread was all gone, Bryan let Paisley, our dog, run at the ducks.  I wish we had a picture, because it was a fun site to see about 30 ducks all take off hovering above the ground, flying into the lake. I have a feeling we will start contributing more and more to these ducks' diet as the months go by.

DIY and Home Projects

So, like many of you, I have jumped on the Pinterest bandwagon, and have gotten addicted looking at the kids section.  I don't actually do any "pinning" myself.  I just find ideas of mostly DIY projects, take note, and then try them myself.  Here are a few DIY and home projects I've been up to lately.

I've been looking for a way to record Brylee's height as she grows throughout the years, and as her first birthday approaches, I found this really cute 'ruler' idea. The reason I love it so much, is that it is portable.  I just hung it on the wall like a picture, and if we ever move, or hopefully have other kids in the futer, I can move it and add to it as I wish (vs. marking her height on the wall somewhere and then not being able to take that with me if we ever move).

 It was a pretty simple project, really.  I bought a $7 6' x 12" x 1" pine board at Lowe's. I stained it the color of my choosing one night after Brylee went to sleep.  The next day during nap time, I marked the board off in inches (with pencil first), and outlined the numbers at each 1 foot incrament, then traced over it all with a black paint pen.  You can see the full tutorial I used here.

 I also saw a cute idea for a card table play house, and remembered playing as a child under our kitchen table in a "playhouse" that my mom had. I had a bunch of fabric left over from making Brylee's bedding, so I used that to make this adorable slip cover table playhouse.

 I added a small peep-hole window to one side

 And left the back covered

Here is the one I used to play under as a little girl

   I intend for this to be a birthday or Christmas present for Brylee, but wanted to see her "test it out" first.

 I doubt she will remember she has already seen her present!

 We also have been doing some work in our living room... finally! For the longest time we had moving boxes and tv dinner tray tables holding up our cable box and dvd player.  We finally got this simple piece of furniture, and use the pull-out baskets to hide some of Brylee's toys and dvds. We also hid the wires of the tv behind the dry wall, which makes for a much more finished look.

 I covered some of our old pillows with new yellow & green fabric, and have stuck with the yellow/green/brown theme in adding some accents to our living room.

 I added an "art piece" to the back wall, which was also a DIY project I found on pinterest.

I bought a few pieces of shelving board for about $9 and had Lowe's cut them for me into 12" x 12" squares.  I covered those squares with cute, modern fabric I found at this great fabric store, City Craft, in Dallas, then hung them in the pattern I liked best to make 3 x 3 square. I added a brown wire cross to the middle left square for a little more 'artistic' feel.

 I also spruced up our mantel with some spray painted candle holders, clock on clearance at Hobby Lobby, and some picture frames we had to take up from our end tables because Brylee was pulling up and reaching for them.

 In the kitchen, I sewed some simple curtains from fabric I also bought at City Craft.

 I had found some new rugs with a modern twist on primary colors at World Market a few weeks ago, and liked the idea of adding color to the kitchen to make it young, modern, and kid friendly as we start adding children's art projects to the fridge.  I have a few more DIY projects to add to the wall in the kitchen, but haven't found exactly what I need to make them yet.  More to come...



Daily Happenings

I have definitely been slacking on both taking pictures and then posting them lately. But here are a few documenting what we have been up to the last few weeks.

We have been going to a fair share of Rangers' games lately.  Brylee has been so good at staying up late to make it through the games, but then falls asleep immediately when we get in the car.  However, it is getting more and more difficult to actually watch any of the baseball game because Brylee is getting more and more active.

 We went with some good friends, including Brylee's friend Jake.  What a handsome  boy!

We also enjoy having our friends, the Shivers, over for dinner. Dinner time is getting messier as the weeks go  by, which often requires an immediate bath. (And who doesn't love two naked babies in the bath!)

 It may be hard to tell in this picture, but Tyler was splashing the water non-stop the entire time, as Brylee calmly played with her bath toys.  Shannon and I laughed at how different boys and girls can be. 

 We've also been doing a little "baby-proofing" the house with locks on some of our cabinets, as Brylee is getting more and more mobile.

 She's getting faster and more proficient with her crawling, and it's beginning to become a really fun stage!

 "Hello, Mom!"

Brylee is wanting more and more to start feeding herself these days. I gave her spaghetti for the first time last week.

 Although skeptical at first, she warmed up to the mess and loved it.

 Bath time quickly followed!