Tennessee Vaca Part One

The first week of November Mark had his week off (the only one he gets all year) so we took full advantage of having time to get away as a family of three and we drove to Tennessee for the whole week. We seriously had THE BEST time. It was mostly just incredible to get to see him for seven whole days in a row and he never had to get up at 4:30am and his dumb pager never went off and he never wore scrubs! :) and Reeser absolutely LOVED all the daddy time she got too. 

We spent the first part of the week in Nashville with my brother (yes, the brother who is good at everything and now he's started a videography/photography business and he's now also a 'mobile genius' at the apple store...) anyway, it was AWESOME to get to see his world in Nashville and just enjoy the incredible-ness of fall in tennessee! We LOVED it. I'm pretty sure I could live there for the rest of my life, i'm just sayin. We were so busy having so much fun so I didn't really take many pictures... and Eric was taking pictures of the important things so I still don't have those... except for a few awesome ones that I'm saving for a surprise on our Christmas card maybe.... 

here are few pics though...

this of course doesn't do it justice but the drive down there was seriously unbelievable!!!!! The trees were so pretty- like straight out of a movie!!

 hanging out at Eric's house having a little jam session. :) reesie boo sure loves her 'eck eck' aka uncle eric

 We got to spend halloween in Nashville and loved trick-or-treating in this FANTASTIC neighborhood near belmont that I would just die if we could live in one day. of course i have no pictures but the houses are like the coolest, old, southern, front porches, so much character, cutest little families.... so fun. I'm pretty sure Reese thought we were just walking around looking at people's pumpkins haha until Erk introduced her to her first dum dum sucker and her new obsession. oh dear. what a mess. but she was grinning ear to ear.

hilarious picture. but this place is worth mentioning bc i'm not kidding when I say it was the best pancakes I've ever had... well besides my dad's that he makes every saturday morning. but these were AMAZING. PANCAKE PANTRY. go there. every morning that you're in nashville. go there. yum.

We did a lot more fun things like shopping, eating out, going to parks, playing outside, playing in the leaves... etc. thanks for showing us around uncle eric!! we love you!!!!!!!!!

18 months

18 month stats:
weight: 20 lbs 6 oz (4%)
height: 30 in (8%)

still a peanut.

quick update so i don't ever forget:

man, this girl is a talker. its sorta crazy to me how much she can say. even today when we were having lunch at dairy queen "da-ee keen" and after we ate a lady came over and asked how old she was because she couldn't believe how much reeser was talking haha. we probably ruined everyones lunch experiences by how much she was yelling 'free fries' 'sam!!' 'ice keeeeeem' 'buckle' 'open peeese' a billion times. sorry dairy queeners. she has started saying a lot of phrases in the last few weeks like: thank you mommy, all done, no thank you, more cheese please, watch pooh please....

this is so funny to me too.... she thinks that she can manipulate getting something she wants by saying 'thank you sam' (or whoever she wants something from) with a huge smile as she takes it from them haha making it look like they gave it to her.... sneaky little thing!

we have had many tantrums lately and are really trying to nip it in the bud but this is a battle right now for sure. its usually just when she is tired or hungry but somehow those tears form on her cheeks in less than an instant.... i pray her sweet heart easily understands what it means to obey and how to do it with a cheerful heart. oh and no idea where this came from but when she doesn't want me to pick her up she just goes limp like a noodle and tries to wiggle free. hilarious.

she still loves shoes!!!! and dressing up in her "re-reeena" (ballerina) skirts and twirling around. and she recognizes princesses now too. still dances around all the time. adorable.

winnie the pooh is a MAJOR obsession these days. she cried, like major tears crying, when i turned off pooh yesterday so we could go outside. and when we were buying the dvd she held it tight with two hands all the way to the counter and when the man had to take it to get the case off she FLIPPED out! I don't think i've ever seen her cry that hard. oh girl. she is passionate about everything! (she's already living up to what her name means)

she still has 8 teeth. slowly getting some strawberry-blonde-ish curls in the back. wears mostly 12-18 and size 4-5 shoes.

the obsession with pumpkins still continues but we've moved on to missmas trees too. she now constantly searches for pictures of missmas trees in magazines and points them out anywhere we go.

and the other day i was telling her how at christmas it's jesus' birthday and she broke out in 'happy birthday to you :)" and now anytime we say jesus or christmas she usually says 'birday' and we have to sing to jesus. i love this. i pray we can instill the celebration of jesus in her heart and make that the foundation before she is bombarded with santa and presents.

her favorite food is spaghetti. she says 'badetti"

oh and she LOVES LOVES balloons. our grocery store gives them to kids for free every time. so this has become an awesome reward if she stays in the seat on her bottom the whole time she gets one before we check out. today i asked, 'what color do you want reeser' and she said 'purpur ballloooon!!!' with a huge smile. man she's such a big girl! we've been working on colors and she's getting pretty good at saying the colors and sometimes recognizing the right ones but usually just saying a random color name.

its been raining lately and she loves to say 'wain' wet' and 'um-bell-a' too cute.

ok thats all i can think of for now.


oh and when she says 'another one' it sounds like 'monnon' and she loves to say 'where go?' when someone/something is hiding and put her arms up and then when it reappears say 'theeeyyaa is' :) love her

jake ousley kickstarter

My brother, Eric, and his friend Tanner have started a business doing photography and videography in Nashville and while we were there they were filming this video for Eric's roommate and awesome artist, Jake Ousley. Watch this video and support Jake and also, while you're watching the video make sure to look closely for a little tiny someone who is making her big nashville debut :) :)

turkey shirt

I saw these cute turkey shirts on Lullaby Lubbock's blog a while back and was excited to make them for Reese and for Avery this year :) How cute are they?!! {more to come on our AWESOME trip to Tennessee to be with the Drakes and also with my brother... but for now... just turkey shirts}

Reeser and Aves were matching besties pretty much the whole time. adorable. {please disregard that one eye on her turkey fell off haha-  probably should have sewn it on instead of hot glue!}

Of course I forgot to take pictures as I went along in the process but here's a quick after-thought tutorial of sorts to show how easy it was to make :)

1. I bought $5 shirts from Target

2. Cut out strips of different colored fabric that I had leftover {about 18-15 inches long and maybe 2 inches wide}

{you can see in the above picture that I did a lose stitch at the bottom of the fabric to gather in and make the ruffle}

3. I actually did the gathering stitch on the machine when I made the shirts but you could also do it this way... 

 

and just thread the needle through the fabric loosely and then gather it up. make sure you tie a good knot in each end after you gather it so it doesn't unravel.

so it will look like this after you gather it (above) {when i did it on the machine, I went ahead and stitched a tight stitch at the top of the fabric too - so it wouldn't fray too much and I also stitched up the sides to keep it all gathered. you don't have to do this though}

4. gather as many colors of fabric stitches as you'd like. I did four and then layered them on the shirt to get them the length and order that I wanted.

5. cut out two circles for the turkey. one large and one small for the head.

6. I used Wonder Under (from hobby lobby) and ironed it all onto the shirt. SO EASY! I cut small strips out to make it easier to curve the fabric... then I just ironed it all on one at a time, starting with the top ruffle and working my way down to the turkey. 

7. I used hot glue to glue on two buttons for eyes and a triangle of orange for the beak {as I said before, I probably would sew them on next time}

and there you have it! cute little turkey shirts. hope that makes sense.

happy thanksgiving. I'm so thankful for the Drake family.