Crazy, crazy June!

Summer has always been a busy time in our family. Starting in June we have my birthday, Father's Day, Brady's birthday, our anniversary and then Chris' birthday in July. That's not including other family and friends birthdays. This year we decided to throw a big move in there too just for fun!

We were blessed enough to have lots of family and friends in town to help us celebrate some of these big events. On the 14th we celebrated my 30th with our little family and my mom and grandma. It was nice and low key although Chris did a pretty good job of making it special. Here's a pic of the cake he surprised me with (those who know me, know I LOVE birthday cake!!) and the flowers and one of my presents he got me- a new bathing suit. He picked out the suit totally on his own and it actually fit...Hooray for me not having to go bathing suit shopping this year!

That Saturday we celebrated Brady's 1st birthday during the day at John Chestnut Park. We lucked out with gorgeous weather and a baby who didn't protest too much to having a party during his naptime. It was so nice to see so many friends and family coming out to support our little man's big milestone.

Here's a pic our friend Alissa took of Brady's party...chicken nuggets and balloons were his favorite part!

That night grandma and great-grandma watched Brady and we went out with friends to celebrate my 30th birthday on Clearwater Beach. One of my besties, Lindsay shares a birthday with Brady so we got to celebrate her 30th that night as well.  Palm Pavilion on Clearwater beach at sunset was the perfect place to celebrate! It was great to hang out with friends with drinks and yummy food...and more cake! Chris ordered one regular birthday cake for Lindsay and one "doughnut cake" for me...because if there's anything I like better than birthday cake, it's doughnuts. It sounds odd, but anyone who was there that night can attest to the fact that Chris may have stumbled upon a genius idea. It was Ah-Mazing!!

Jake, Lindsay, me and Chris

Gator girls!

Can you see the doughnut cake in front of me?!

The next day was Father's Day. Chris's first Father's Day as a daddy! (since Brady was stubborn last year and was not born on Father's Day like he was supposed to!) We got to spend some time with my dad and step-mom and then give Chris his gifts. Here's Brady giving his daddy his present!

It was matching Batman shirts! B-Man was so proud!

Later that week we got to celebrate Brady's birthday again on his actual birthday. It was much more low key and we tried to do all of Brady's favorite things. We met Chris for lunch at Chick-fil-a (Brady's fav!) and ate and played in the kiddie area. Then we opened more presents that night and went to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner. Brady took down a whole lot of pizza bread and ice cream- which is exactly what you should do on your birthday!

Chicken nuggets make us soooo happy!!

Um, duh, of course I can feed myself ice cream. I'm ONE!

This was such a bittersweet day. Of course we remembered everything we were going through a year ago and reflected on how different our life is now. I know everyone says this, but having Brady in our lives has made everything better and while being a parent has had it's challenges, it's sooo much fun! He constantly surprises us with what he can do and makes us laugh every day. From the little things, like when one of us steps outside of the house and he goes to the door and makes funny faces on the glass...

...to the big things like how he took 7 whole steps in a row all by himself on our anniversary! Watch out world, B-man is close to toddlerhood!!

Speaking of our anniversary, we celebrated 6 years of marriage this weekend (with Tropical Storm Debby!) We didn't exchange gifts, although we did go order new appliances for the new house! It rained all day, but we made the most of it by eating junk food, watching movies, and drinking champagne. We thought about how different this anniversary was than last year's. Last year we had just gotten home from the hospital with our new baby. We've come a long way, and I can only imagine how different life will be this time next year...In Pennsylvania!!!

PA...our new home!

So, I just want to start out by saying this past week or so has been full of twists and turns. The three of us are healthy and doing well, but we have some friends and family that are going through some struggles recently. So, if you have a job, a home, your health, love and faith (or any combination of those things) consider yourself blessed, and take a moment to be thankful for them!

With that being said, we are feeling so blessed that we may have found our new home. Last weekend Chris and I took our first trip without Brady to go check out houses and different areas in Pennsylvania. B-Man stayed with my mom because we knew it would be a quick and hectic trip and hard to pull off with an 11 month old. We missed him like crazy, but it definitely made house hunting easier to be kid free. We spent most of our time in Lancaster County at the recommendation of several people who were from the area. Let's just say it is a totally different world from what we are used to. I think my exact text to Jill was, "Cornfields, and fireflies, and Amish, oh my!"

Taken from the car window. AMISH! I was freaking out. :)

For real. Buggy crossing.

A backyard of one of the houses we checked out. A wee bit too country for me, but pretty!

So, as you can see, Lancaster County has many "rural" areas, but it also has many small cities and townships throughout it with new construction and the all important malls and Targets. Whew! We ended up looking at some houses in a town called Lititz and absolutely fell in love with the area. It was the first time that we actually felt like we couldn't wait to move! The town had an adorable downtown, a beautiful park with springs that ran through it, a CHOCOLATE FACTORY!, a rec center, community pool, library, Target, mall within 20 minutes, minor league baseball team within 20 minutes, and a great little house that we could see ourselves living in.

Chris playing in the springs that run through the park. There were a lot of little kids wading in it at the end. So cute!

Us in the park, getting super excited about finding this town!!

Chocolate factory! Free tours and SAMPLES!

Home, sweet home! *Fingers Crossed!*

So in total we looked at 17 houses in two days. It was exhausting, but worth it! We put an offer on the house above in Lititz and it was accepted. Now we are just hoping all goes well with the inspection so we can close at the end of the month and move sometime in early/mid July.

In addition to finding a new home and exploring a new area, this quick trip was a fun grown-up get away for Chris and me. We stayed at this cute "Inn" where they had beautiful gardens, an old barn, a spa, putting green, and a great restaurant (with cheap wine!) Here's a few pics from our mini-"vaca".

Embracing the non-Florida grass. PA grass is SO soft!

Walking around the grounds of the inn...I wanted a pic of this barn star. They're everywhere up there!

Wish the lightning bugs showed up in this pic!

I realize I look ridiculous here, but check out the piggy bench! M.F.E.O.!

What we've been up to...

So time is definitely flying! In less than a month I'm turning 30. In less than a month and a half, our little man will be one. (Whoa. That's hard to even type.) In less than two months we will be living in Pennsylvania.

Almost 30 and almost 1!

We've been super busy enjoying the rest of our time here in Florida and beginning to plan for our new life "up north." We made a Florida to-do list for our remaining weeks and have been checking things off one at a time. Zoo, aquarium, beach, Gainesville trip, baseball games, hanging out with friends and family... We are also planning another trip to PA to search for our new home. We are trusting in God to help with the timing of our town home selling and moving to all work out. On top of all this fun and (a little bit of) stress, Chris has also begun his new sales position while still doing his old job.

Meanwhile, I've had two little projects that I have been working on. (Besides my normal job of, "Keep Brady From Eating the Dog Food/Cat Litter/Other Kids at Library Time" Project). I've always been a big fan of meal planning and love "strategic grocery shopping" AKA buying ingredients that can be used in many meals throughout the week, using fresh ingredients up at the beginning of the week, and finding ways to save time and money. Sometimes I like to have theme nights throughout the week to make it easy to plan. In other words, Tuesday is crock pot night, Wednesday is Mexican night, etc. I've also been going back and forth on the idea of trying vegetarianism, but I know that would be hard to do on my own and my Texan hubby has made it clear that "no meat" is "not an option." Also, this girl loves some Chick-fila a little too much to give it up all together. Soooo, I remembered an episode of Oprah I saw where the entire staff tried having a "Meatless Monday" every week. I thought this would be a great way to reduce the amount of meat we eat, focus on consuming more vegetables, and add a new theme night to the repertoire. There are tons of reasons to reduce the amount of animal proteins in your diet such as reducing your risk of diabetes, cancer, obesity, and your negative impact on the environment, so I convinced Chris that we should give it a try. Now, I knew I had to get creative to convince him that he really didn't need any type of meat throughout the day, but we've done pretty well our first few weeks. Here's two of the meals I've made that got a huge thumbs up from Chris.

Zucchini, squash, tomato pasta with garlic pesto cream sauce.

Bean burritos with avocado and sauteed onions and peppers

In no way shape or form am I claiming these to be diet foods. I get that cheese and cream sauce come from animals. But, the goal was to not eat meat and add more veggies to our diet which we definitely did. I'm on the lookout for more Meatless Meals on Pinterest, but I'd love to know if you have any tried and true Meatless Meals that you make. If you want more info on the Meatless Monday idea, check out this website: http://www.meatlessmonday.com/ I'm super excited about it and hope others can get on board to help make a positive change in our environment and health!

OK, so on to project #2...Brady's 1st birthday party! It doesn't seem possible that this is happening next month, but it definitely is so I am in full on party planning mode. Brady has his multiple wardrobe choices all laid out for the party, paper goods are bought, and decorations are, um, a work in progress. Here's a little sneak peek of my attempt to by crafty for this event.

Gotta love chalkboard paint!

Potential centerpiece...oh dear! It will look better by June 16!

So now we just need to pray for good weather the day of the party and for a happy baby who doesn't mind be overwhelmed by tons of people right in the middle of his normal naptime. Luckily there will be cake and the aforementioned Chick-fila nuggets at the party so, it's all good...

Brady A-Z

So our little B-Man has been a busy boy lately. All of a sudden his toys are just "OK" but everything else in the house is AWESOME! Not only do I have a shadow that follows me everywhere I go, but that shadow leaves a trail of destruction behind him. (That shadow is pretty darn cute though!) Here's a little glimpse of how things have been around here...


Dirt was everywhere...plant relocated.

All house plants are fair game.

So this is dangerous...definitely doing some rearranging.

The cat has never figured this door out, but Brady did!

Seriously left the room for 2 seconds and this is what happened!



If this is how it is with army crawling, I can only imagine walking. He just started showing an interest in cruising, and that made me painfully aware of how many candles I have sitting around. It's time for those to go to higher ground!

So since Brady has shown such an "interest" in the world around him, I decided to make a picture/ABC book of the things in his world. I've seen cute, professional looking ones such as:
Shutterfly Picture Book   Buuuut, I'm a momma on a budget and a teacher at heart, so I knew I could come up with one on my own. Basically I took pictures of things around our house to go with each letter of the alphabet- sounds simple enough until you get to "u," "v," and "x." Here's some examples of what I came up with...

I thought this would be a great way to help Brady identify common objects, work on his vocabulary, and eventually phonics and sight word recognition!! After I printed all the pictures (using a Walgreen's coupon-Holla!) I just put them in a small soft sided photo book. The whole project cost me about $4. I'm pretty sure I would have spent more than that on shipping if I had made the other "fancier" kind. Brady already had a photo book of "People Who Love Brady" with pictures of friends and family that he's obsessed with, so I figured this one would be a hit too. Here he is checking out his new book...

He is at such an awesome age and we are enjoying every minute of it! He finds humor in the littlest things, observes everything so closely, and is learning so quickly. I swear he has been trying to say the word "alligator." He says the "aaah" and then follows it up with "gay gay gay" when looking at his Gator mobile. We practice it every time I get him from his crib...Gator brainwashing has begun! We know that the real fun has just begun and we are totally enjoying seeing the world through Brady's (enormous, gorgeous, blue) eyes!

Spring Break! Part 2

The second leg of our trip was to Atlanta. Our good friends Lindsay and Jake get tickets to the Masters every year and Jake invited Chris to come with him this year. This was HUGE. The Masters was on Chris' "bucket list" and is so impossible to get tickets to. Basically Jake made one of Chris' dreams come true- *tear* While Chris and Jake went to the Masters, I got to hang out with Lindsay (one of my college besties) and her sweet little boy Jackson who is just 4 months older than Brady. It was awesome to see Lindsay as a mommy and get to know her little man. He is quite a bit bigger than Brady and more mobile, so Brady was a little intimidated by him at first. Jackson is so loving that he couldn't resist giving Brady lots of "kisses." Brady even had an Oreo colored ring on his forehead after hanging out with Jackson! This part of our trip went too fast and we wished we had more time to hang out with our friends...

Chris at the Masters

B-Man and J chillin' in the wagon

After Atlanta, we started our journey home. It's about 8 hours from Atlanta to Clearwater. Our only stop was in Gainesville (about 6 hours from Atlanta.) So basically we drove 6 straight hours with a 9 month old. That was a little crazy of us, but Brady did surprisingly well on this part of the trip. Again, he only took one short nap but played and ate snacks the rest of the time. You might be asking yourself, "How do you go 6 hours without changing a baby's diaper?" The answer is, yeah, you shouldn't do that. When we pulled into Gainesville, we parked on University Avenue in front of the row of bars that we spent so much time in in college and I had to change Brady's diaper ASAP. It was very surreal being able to see drunk college kids partying on one side of me and Brady on the other. Oh, how life has changed in the past 10 years!

Brady at Grog! I can't tell you how many nights were spent here with my Gator girls!

It was fun to walk around the campus and take pictures with Brady. We even had a picnic in front of my old dorm (because apparently Pita Pit doesn't have high chairs!) Here's a couple of my favorite pics of Brady.

The last two hours of our ride home felt long, but we made it safely and successfully conquered an 8 day road trip with a 9 month old. Whew! Here's my unofficial/ unprofessional tips for traveling with an infant:    
                     *make frequent stops/stretch breaks
                     *buy a few new toys that intrigue your lil' one
                     *pack fun snacks
                     *bring a DVD player/Ipad to play short videos
                            (fully charge before leaving!!)

One last thing...Brady and I played a very silly game to pass the time. Basically I used my cell phone to reflect a light on the ceiling of the car and pretended to chase it around. This entertained Brady for so long and I managed to capture some of the giggles. The link below will take you to the video- hope it brings a smile to your face!

Road trip giggles!

Spring Break! Part 1

Us Smiths decided to take a Spring Break road trip. Well, actually Chris was given an opportunity to go to the Master's (more on that later) and we planned a little vacation around that. On our first leg of the adventure we went to Savannah to visit my dad and step-mom (Grandpa and Nana) but passed through Daytona on our way. Clearwater to Savannah is about a 6 hour drive and Daytona was a good stopping point. We had a little picnic on the beach and let Brady stretch out and play for a while.

The second part of our drive went pretty well. Brady was entertained by a bottle, Elmo snacks, Baby Einstein videos, alphabet links, his photo album of his favorite people, and a short nap. Once we got to Savannah we were able to settle in for about 5 days and feel at home. It was a lot of fun to show Brady some of our favorite spots in Savannah, spend time with my parents, and eat lots of yummy foods. Chris and my dad went on a motorcycle ride one day and we got a couple shots of the boys before they left on their ride.

We also did lots of shopping, eating, and relaxing. I think the highlights of Brady's trip were playing with Grandpa and Nana, visiting the Easter Bunny and playing at the park. He apparently had so much fun that he did not feel it was necessary to nap during the days...yeah... Oh well, he was in vacation mode!



The bunny kinda creeped Chris out, but Brady LOVED him!



After 5 days in Savannah, it was time to head to Atlanta. We were on the road again! More on that after I work on unpacking, laundry, and sorting through Brady's fun new Easter stuff!