Happy Birthday, Andrew!

Dear Andrew,
Today we celebrate your two years of life! I am so very thankful for you. You are my sweet, funny, smart, happy little boy and your Daddy and I love you so very much. It has been exciting to see you grow, change and learn new things and I can already see that you have the heart of a servant. You would rather help Mommy in the kitchen or in the yard over playing with toys any day! I am excited to see how the Lord uses you!

I pray that you will love the Lord and trust in Him to be your everything. I pray that He would help me be a better mommy to you and not just tell you to love Jesus, but to show you through the way I live my life.

You are the best big brother Joshua could have! You just love on him and play with him and he loves to laugh at you! There are so many people that just love you to pieces, you are a blessing to many!

Happy Birthday Andrew Spencer, I love you sooooo much! XOXOXOXOXO











I wrote about Andrew's actual birthday HERE!

Two Recipes and a Picky Eater

Last week we had a party to go to and I was supposed to bring a "casserole." I made Delmonico Potatoes just like my Mom used to make them, they are one of my favorite things!

You will need:



8-9 baking potatoes (a few less if they are HUGE like the ones I used, I think I only used 5)
8 oz shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 pint whipping cream
1 C milk
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp dry mustard
paprika
butter

Boil potatoes with skins on until done (the skins will start falling off when they are nice and done.)



Peel and let cool.



Shred them into a buttered 9x13 dish. (I am sure that a bag of hashbrowns would work the same and would allow you to skip over these first three steps!)



Heat the cheddar, whipping cream, milk, salt and dry mustard on the stove until smooth.



Pour cheese mixture over the potatoes. Sprinkle with paprika and dot with butter.



The recipe says to refrigerate overnight and remove one hour before baking, but I always skip that step and they seem to turn out fine! Bake at 325 for 1 hour uncovered.



This next "recipe" can't really be considered a full-fleged recipe. It's only two ingredients that make for a very tasty lunch.
All you need is this



and some of this



Lunch is served! It's a very sweet dressing and it really can be eaten on a salad all by itself! (If you want to get a little fancier with it I would suggest adding strawberries and pecans too!)



Now, about my picky eater. I take full responsibility for allowing this little munchkin to become quite the picky eater.



When he started eating baby food if he wrinkled his nose and turned away I just moved on to something he did like because I didn't feel up to a fight. (I was lazy! I admit it!) Well a few weeks ago I realized what a limited diet he had and knew it was time to make some changes. Also, he is almost a year old and I am ready to be done feeding baby food! So after a few miserable feeding times that could be titled, "Mommy vs. J-Man - Battle of the Wills" I am glad to say that he is becoming quite the self-fed-variety-eating baby!



We still have a ways to go before I can say "He will eat anything I put in front of him," but we are getting there!



I have it admit that it was worth the struggle for a couple days to now have a happy, eating baby! Now we just have to work on being a "tidy eater!" Haha!

Wordless Wednesday - Another House Project

Busy Weekend Ya'll!

We had a wonderful, fun, lots-of-work-involved weekend. Friday night we had DATE NIGHT thanks to Spencer's grandparents for keeping our boys! We actually ended up having a double date with some friends at a little restaurant out on the island.

Saturday started with "panpakes" and bacon, as Andrew calls it! Spencer loves cooking on Saturday morning and Andrew is his #1 helper. Then we started another mini-home improvement job. (More on that later!)

Saturday night we were invited to go with Spencer's parents to a fundraiser for the school/daycare that is at our church. The theme was "hoe down." There was BBQ chicken, line dancing and a silent auction. I was excited to have a reason to dust off my cowboy boots!

I wanted to snap a picture before we left....Joshua did not!



I took Andrew out to learn how to line dance and he did pretty well! He was the cutest line dancer out there!





Joshua enjoyed some chocolate cake and then it was his turn to dance with Mommy!





Andrew wanted back in on the dancing and things got interesting! haha



I told Andrew that real cowboys chew on hay....



...and wear cowboy hats :-)



Daddy with the littlest cowboy!



Joshua is cutting teeth, can you tell!?!



Hope you had a wonderful weekend too!

A Closet Remodel

Two weeks ago I got the itch. The itch to organize and clean out our closet. It started with pulling some old stuff out and ended with me removing the shelving, busting out the white paint and asking Spencer to price some new shelves. When we were first married I thought it would be cute to paint our closet half pink, half blue. His side, her side. When I was in Ohio for a long weekend Spencer surprised me by painting it. I enjoyed it for a few years but decided it was time to get our closet looking more uniform, organized and make the best use of the space we have. Here are a few pictures from our recent closet make-over.

Before, pink and blue, only one rack on each side with a lot of wasted space.



It's amazing how much stuff you keep in a closet! Our house looked like a bomb went off for a few days till we got it all put back.



After a fresh coat (or 3) of white paint and some new racks. It's amazing how much more organized our closet looks! (This was before all the stuff was put back of course!) I'm sure my clothes and shoes appreciate the breathing room :-)