Kinley's Room

     I have finally completed decorating Kinley's room, it's full of yellow, gray, white, and purple.  When we found out we were expecting a little girl, I immediately started brainstorming on different colors and designs trying to get ideas for the nursery.  I found the Sweet Sunshine bedding by MiGi that I loved and knew it would look beautiful with pops of purple.  I found some cute yellow lanterns and made some silver/gray and purple pom poms I hung from the ceiling.  I also made some framed letters to spell out her name with some craft supplies I found at Hobby Lobby.  The flower topiaries and pinwheels are some of the decorations from my baby shower, that my besties Kristi and Tori from Lil' Mrs. Tori made for me.   I ordered custom made wall decals from Stixdesign.com on Etsy to decorate the walls along with my maternity pictures that were taken by my awesome friend Sam from Samantha Lovett Photography.  Red foxes are really special to our family due to my late Grandma Hazel, so I just had to incorporate those in her room too.  The white framed fox pictures were actually made by my sister and they match perfectly!  And the painted picture is a one of a kind by my friend Kristi from The Tipsi Artist.

I simply LOVE her room and can't wait to bring Kinley home to it.

Shutterfly Photobooks

     So,  recently I have been getting all creative putting together some Shutterfly photo books.  I love photo books, they are so easy to make and are a great way to display all those wonderful memories.  I usually do a yearly one for Liam, it's a great way to capture all those great moments. And WAY cheaper then making a real scrapbook.  Sometimes it's hard to decide what photos to put in it since I take soooo many.  This past summer, we participated in the Little Wonders' Days Bucket List.  I took pictures of all the activities we did over the summer and thought what better way to remember the fun we had then to put them together in a photo book.  So that's what I did!!  I also, put together a photo book of my baby shower and my maternity pictures (taken by Samantha Lovett Photography).  I posted the links to the books below.  Take a look!  I had so much fun! There are so many options from backgrounds to layouts to different pictures frames and if you sign up with them via email then they will send you their special deals.  I recently received a code for a FREE 8x8 photo book worth $29.99!  That's awesome!  I've also taken advantage of a FREE 100 4x6 photos special they sent me (just have to pay tax & shipping).  So if you have tons of pictures, like I do, and want to put them together in some sort of photo book/scrapbook, Shutterfly is perfect for you!!

Family of Four Photobook

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Photo books are the perfect gift for any occasion.

Kinley Baby Shower Photobook

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Start your own Shutterfly Photo Book today.

Liam's Bucket List Photobook

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Shutterfly photo books offer a variety of layouts and cover options to choose from.

Liam's New Pet

     The hubby has always wanted a lizard....so him and Liam convinced me to add a new member to our family.  First, we got a reptile terrarium and set it all up.

Then we headed to PetsMart and Liam picked out his special Bearded Dragon, 

which he named Bobby.

The hubby signed the papers and Bobby was officially adopted.

We took him home and he loved hanging out with Liam.

Welcome to the family Bobby!

     At first, I wasn't sure about this little lizard.  But, he's really nice and loves to petted like a dog.  Bobby even drinks water out of a straw.  I have been named the "Cricket Master", since I am the one who feeds him every morning and make the trips back to PetsMart to buy the crickets.  The sales associates, pretty much know me now.  Recently, we started feeding him cockroaches...I know, I know...EWWWWW right?!  Well, I can handle the crickets, but I think I'm going to have to name the hubby the "Roach Master" because I'm not messing with those roaches.  But other than that, I am happy Liam is enjoying his new pet and learning the responsibility of taking care of a pet.  Looking forward to seeing how big he will grow.

Moving In...Finally

     When the day finally arrived I think we were all shocked when the moving truck actually pulled up to our driveway.  It was really happening! We were going to get our stuff! YAY! After waiting and waiting, the time had finally come.  It was pretty smooth, they would bring in some boxes and I would check the inventory sheets and mark them off.  Took all day, but I was happy when it was complete.  Now we just have all the boxes to deal with.

     Usually, when we move I would have all the boxes unpacked, things organized and put away, and boxes ready to be picked up in like two days.  But, being preggers has definitely slowed me down, especially combined with the heat.  So, this round I have been taking my time and trying not to over work myself.  As of right now, we have about five more boxes to go through and a garage to organize so we can get the cars back in there and out of the sun.

     With all the boxes around, Liam discovered the little inventory stickers and decided to stick them all over himself.  It was really cute, such a silly little man!

     So far, the house is coming together quite nicely.  I've got Liam's room organized and decorated all in Transformers, of course.  Kinley's nursery is all decorated in gray, yellow, white, and purples.  So girly, I love it!  I'll have to post some pictures of their rooms.  As for our room, well, it is lacking in the decorations, but we do have curtains up.  Guess I need to work on that one, same with the guest room.  The computer and office stuff is still in boxes and scattered in the corner.  But the rest of the house is looking great.  I even got all our family photos hung up, making the house more of a home.  We have some more to go, but it's getting there.

Drama, Drama, Moving Drama

     So...we arrived in Las Cruces on July 12th and the movers were SUPPOSE to deliver our stuff on July 18th...but, that is not what happened.  We've had so many problems with this moving company.  I'll just say we didn't get our stuff till July 27th, 9 days late!  Anyways......While we were waiting, and waiting, and waiting for our goods to be delivered we stayed in 4 different hotels and made the best of it.
     The first hotel we stayed at was the Army Hotels on White Sands Army Base, but with it being sooo far from town, we decided to pack up our stuff and move in town to Comfort Suites.  It was pretty nice, Liam had his own bed which was great.  They even had a pool which we definitely took advantage of.  We stayed only a couple of days...then decided to find a hotel closer to the house, so wouldn't have to drive as much.

     The third hotel we stayed at was the Hilton Suites, a little closer to the house.  So everyday we would get up, get dressed, grab some breakfast, then head over to the house to check up on Sparky, since we would leave him there instead of keeping him in the hotel.  Many times we would find him hiding in one of the lower cabinets in the kitchen or bathroom.  Liam had a lot of fun trying to find him.  In the meantime, the hubby and I found odd jobs around the house to keep us busy while Liam played with his toys, watch a movie on my laptop, or we would draw on the Kindle Fire.  Let's just say many trips to Lowe's were had and continue to be had.  Seems like we were there everyday finding something else to improve our new home.  I think the employees started to recognize us.   My project: to line all the kitchen and bathroom cabinets and drawers, the hubby's: to replace all the ceiling lightbulbs with eco friendly florescent ones.  When we would take our break, we would set up a picnic on the floor to have some lunch together.  We were so excited when we found out the movers would be coming within the next two days....so after those two days, we headed back to the house to wait, but of course they didn't come.

Liam's skeleton drawing...

My Monster Truck drawing.

     When we weren't at the house making improvements, we kept busy doing fun stuff around the our new city.  We checked out some furniture at Ashley Furniture, which was right down the street from our house.  Before we even went inside, Liam had dropped his brand new Ninjago Lego piece in one of the cracks in the car.  So of course, it turned into a big deal.  After about 30 minutes of searching they finally retrieved the lost piece and Liam was happy again.  I just had to take some pictures...it was too funny watching the guys squeeze themselves in the tiny space.

     After two days staying in the Hilton Suites, we got word again that our shipment would be arriving.  So we checked out of the hotel and headed to the house to wait on the movers....only to be let down AGAIN!  They didn't show up, so we wind up checking into our fourth hotel, this time the Days Inn.  This was the best hotel out of all them.  The beds were comfy, great location, big fridge and microwave, the pool was warm, and it was the cheapest.  One of our favorite things to do was check out all the new restaurants we now have available to us.  We tried out Dion's Pizza which was very tasty.  Liam drew a lovely picture of our family.  That one is a keeper!! 

     We also tried out the High Desert Brewing Company which had some yummy Mozzarella sticks.  While we were there, a HUGE, and mean HUGE bug was flying around me.  I thought it was a bumble bee, but it turned out to be big beetle.  We gave him a piece of onion and he went to town!

     Not only did we check out the local eateries, we took Liam to a few fun places like Peter Piper Pizza...

a bouncy house place in the mall....

and even the Las Cruces Museum of Natural History.

     I'll just say, this move has definitely been interesting to say the least.  It's had it's ups, being able to experience Las Cruces and having the hubby off work for awhile, and it's downs, the miscommunication from the moving company.  But even though it was a rough move, we have a lot to be thankful for....we are all healthy, we found a great school for Liam, the hubby has a great new job, we have a new home, and we are going to be blessed with a little girl soon....and of course, the movers finally came!

Hola... New Mexico

     Well, we arrived in New Mexico, the Land of Enchantment on July 12th!  A few things I noticed was all the puffy clouds, the bluest sky, the mountains, and all the cacti.  They were all so beautiful to look at.

We stopped at a little store full of locally grown nuts and yummy beef jerky.

Liam was such a good traveler.  He kept busy playing with his 

toys and finding shapes in the clouds.

We were definitely on our way to the desert!  Our home for the next four years.

White Sands Army Base

     After picking up the hubby's car from the shipping company, we headed to Chili's for some lunch before we finished our trip to White Sands Missile Range, where we planned on staying at the IHG Army Hotel for the next few days till we closed on our new house and the movers to deliver our stuff.

The base is a pretty long drive back into town, so we made the best of staying on base.  

There was an awesome park that we took Liam to.

We even grilled a few times at the park.  

And saw our first native New Mexican wildlife creature...a TARANTULA!!! 

We checked out the White Sands Heritage Museum.

While we were there, the hubby almost stepped on our 

 second native New Mexican wildlife creature we saw....a BULL SNAKE!!

To keep Liam busy, we took him to the aquatic center, which he loved 

and went down the water slide by himself for the first time, took him to the movie 

theater to see "The Avengers", and busted out the water guns for a water fight.

It was a fun time, but we only lasted a few days there due to 

the drive into and back from town for meals, everyday things 

at Walmart or Target.....So we decided to book another hotel in the city.  

Luckily, we closed on our new house while we were there, so we were able to take

Sparky to the house to stay while we stayed in the hotel.