I couldn't resist

Try and tell me you don't want to reach through the screen and pinch those cheeks right now?! This boy has the squishiest bum ever. And check out those saddle bags...equally squishy.

You may be wondering why the nakey bum picture. Well, buddy boy decided to do his business in the bathtub this morning. So this was while the bathtub was being cleaned out so that we could clean him for the 2nd time. Gotta love it.

and, he walks!

That's right ladies and gentlemen, our buddy boy is finally a walker! He took his "first steps" months ago, but has been so stubborn at actually making strides to "walk". I guess it had to be on his timeframe (he's 16 months!) because last week it just clicked and he's been walking more and more everyday! We're so proud :)

winter retreat

I've never really been a fan of the New Year's holiday. I'm all about a fresh start and making new goals, but the whole watching the ball drop and staying up til midnight just to say "Happy New Year" hasn't ever made much sense to me. In fact, before this year, I couldn't remember the last time I stayed up until midnight on New Year's Eve. It's ok, you can call me lame. As many of you know, there aren't many things that I'm willing to sacrifice my sleep for :)

This year's holiday was different though. Well, I still wanted to go to sleep come 10 o'clock, but I thoroughly enjoyed the holiday. Our good friends invited us up to their incredible cabin for the weekend. It was a perfect wintery retreat. The cabin was gorgeous, there was tons of snow, and being in comfy sweats all weekend put the icing on the cake.

It's hard for me to admit this, but Beck's Papa might just be his favorite person. Ever. More than me, really. It's darling though- because my dad eats. it. up.

Snowshoeing was definitely the highlight. We're talking about trudging through 2 feet of snow. Awesome workout, yes, but the scenery was literally breathtaking.

No, I didn't post this picture so you could see me in all my non-makeup, hair recycled from yesterday glory. I posted it so you could see my frozen hair. You see those greyish looking hairs? Yep, my hair is frozen solid (literally!). It was that cold.

Thanks Forbes for the awesome getaway!

just the beginning

This is what I get for encouraging the use of a spoon!

I realized today that this is the first of many times I'm going to have to let go of my need for clean and let my boy be just that- a boy. It's not going to be easy for me. When all he wants to do is play in the mud and look for bugs, I'm just going to have to sit back and watch him explore his world.

I guess letting him go crazy with some yogurt is a baby step :)

labor of love

Next time I have the brilliant idea to take on a huge project right before Christmas, someone please ask me to think twice.

It actually started a couple months ago while sitting in church (or should I say walking the halls) with a certain wiggly toddler, realizing I needed something to help entertain him or else we just might end up inactive. I had a friend that had made a really cute quiet book for church, and had seen several different patterns roaming around the internet. I found one on etsy that I loved and decided to see if I could convince my best friend to make one with me. Well she agreed (apparently she's crazy too!) and we began this project together.

There were hours upon hours spent cutting out millions of paper pattern pieces, hours upon hours cutting out the felt that went along with those pieces, and that was just the preparation! Honestly, after that it was much more enjoyable because you could actually start seeing the finished pages come together. But that didn't mean that there weren't plenty of hours spent hand embroidering words or sewing on little buttons, clouds, and zippers.

Whew. Just thinking back on it makes me tired. It was a ton of work, but guess what, Beck loves it! And it keeps him quiet on our laps for more than 5 seconds at a time, so that's all the validation I need!

Yes, it was a ton of work. But in all honesty, I had fun making it and I'm a teensy bit sad it's all done. Hmm, I think I need another project. Any ideas?

a {turner} christmas story

Just as I suspected, Christmas with a child is magical. Well, technically, I had two children this Christmas as the excited, little child comes out in my husband. It really is endearing- how excited he gets. Every day during December he either asks if he can have a present early or if he can give me one of mine early. Cute huh?

Our Christmas was just as it should be- filled with lots of family and way too much delicious food :) Also thrown into the mix last week was my little sister's wedding (Ahh!!), more on that to come. Despite the initial fearful meeting (oh, I just realized I never shared the "classic Santa picture"- imagine screams, tears, and squirms), Beck actually came around to the whole Santa concept and said the cutest "Ho, Ho" every time he saw anything that resembled a Santa Claus!

It didn't take long for him to catch onto unwrapping presents- he's no dummy!

Mmm, lucky boy got Lucky Charms in his stocking. It took him all of 2 seconds to start picking out all of the marshmellows.

Wrapping paper as a hat? Sure. This boy did that all on his own.

We should have known that the best present of all would be the $5 pack of mini nerf balls. He didnt' want anything to do with any of his other presents once he saw these, and he still only wants to play with his "fooball" and "bak a bak a ball".

We took the opportunity to take some shots of the grandkids in their Christmas best. Chance was not a fan of getting his picture taken, but I was lucky to steal this darling shot of his with his twin sis.

Twin sis was quite the opposite- talk about a ham :)

Now this was downright amazing. Definitely not perfect by any means, but I was happy just to catch something decent, considering we were dealing with 7 kiddos under the age of 5! I love each and everyone of these darling cousins!

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't sad it is all over.

Summer anyone???

puppy love

Oh, If you only knew how much this boy idolizes Cooper. After all, "Pu per" was his first word following "mama" and "dada." I hope one day the puppy can reciprocate the feelings, for now he simply tolerates moments like these.

Little B has been obsessed with the puppy's food for awhile now. We're talking b-line to the dishes as soon as he recognizes he's within crawling distance, and then squealing and picking up the pace when he realizes we're onto him. I usually keep it up on the counter when little man is awake, but the past few days he seemed to not be so interested in it, so I've been leaving it down. 1st mistake.

I went to the bathroom and left him alone playing with his toys in the family room for two seconds. 2nd mistake. From the bathroom I hear him throwing little somethings in the kitchen and walk out to see this:

Sweet boy trying to feed his puppy. My first reaction was to tell him "No! Ca Ca, we don't play with the puppy's food!" But then I recognized the adorable moment and whipped out the camera.

I should have stopped there, because then buddy boy decided he needed to try the puppy's food.

He may or may not have just shoved a piece of dog food in his mouth! I pretty much dropped the camera to barely fish it out of his mouth in time. Nasty!

I absolutely love seeing B adore his puppy. He gets so excited whenever Coop comes into the room. One of my favorite things lately is that B has started to pat for Coop to come to him- he pats the side of his crib, his chubby thigh, or my back. It's darling!