A Painting for Beau

I really challenged myself to think outside the box with Beau's Christmas present this year. It hasn't taken long for me to grow tired of the Cabelas and Bass Pro Shop gift cards! I mean, I'm sure he isn't tired of receiving those ;) but I wanted to do something different this year. A sentimental gift was the goal but I didn't want it to be cheesy - a tough balance for a guy's present. I just so happened to be catching up on one of my favorite blogs and saw where she gave her hubby a painting for his birthday. Like us, they wanted more artwork in the house but since real paintings are usually pretty expensive, they hadn't pulled the trigger. Well, thanks to Etsy (LOVE ETSY!), they found a great artist that sells very affordable artwork. Here is their blog post showing the painting. I love it! I decided I would do the same for Beau. I saw where the artist advertised that you could commission your own painting of your favorite picture. I think this is such a great idea and is the perfect sentimental gift for someone who is interested in art! I highly recommend the artist too - in addition to affordable and good work, she was super fast as well. (Interesting fact: she just so happens to be located in Corpus!! And the couple from the blog above is in Virginia so total coincidence.) 


Without further ado,  here it is. Beau LOVES it :) And below that is the picture that was used - one of our favorites from a rainy day in New Orleans...

Crawling!

Well, army crawling. But it's all the same to me - it means this kid is not looking back! He is so driven to get his hands on everything so it's only natural that this, coupled with his strength, would get him crawling before he's even sitting up on his own!



I was going to post this video today - guess it's not that big of deal anymore! :)

11 Goals for 2011

I thought it would be fun to whip up a few quick goals for the new year. Kidding, these have been on our minds for a while but it's always good to make a list - who doesn't love lists?! These are absolutely in no particular order and have been kept general (read: no hard #s) to keep at least a little bit of our personal life off my blog ;-)

1. Go to church most Sundays out of the year 
• Let's be honest, we can't make every Sunday, what with the 27 weddings we have this year and traveling and such. God understands. :)
2. Continue to build our savings to a predetermined goal
• We can only hope and pray that 2011 will be relatively drama free. I try not to be negative Nancy on my blog but I watch the news. I hear people's stories. Sad and scary things happen to good people and I worry. A lot.  
3. Strive to be a fun, active family 
• We want to be creative with our family activities and want Grayson to have lots of fond, fun memories of his childhood. So working on this now rather than waiting for him to be older is key so we don't get into a rut with couch time. I know this is easier said than done but I never want movies and pizza to be the norm or the default, I want it to also be a special family event that doesn't happen all the time.
4. Save for and purchase the much-desired Nikon D700 with lens/flash/battery/bag 
• Beau has been dreaming about, talking about, planning for, threatening to sell the house and/or his soul, etc. for this amazing camera. I must admit it makes everyone a professional and I need all the help I can get. I'm on board.
5. Replace the fence
• The downside to a big yard is A LOT of fence that needs replacing. This needs to be a priority as it is the only thing keeping us from the neighbor's 5 daughters and 3 standard poodles - ahhhhh!! ;-)
6. Beau - work predetermined hours of contract work
• Beau has had two great opportunities from executives at his former company to work contract. He typically wouldn't have considered this but as he said, "The work is just so easy." I can't blame him - he won't have to travel, he can do it anywhere on his own time and the pay is sick. Where were my guidance counselors in school when I wanted to go into Marketing?! On the account service side?! TECHNOLOGY & COMPUTERS, PEOPLE! Oh well, I wouldn't have listened anyway since I still can't even tell you what my husband does for a living... :P
7. Stacey - get ACA up and running and have it bringing in a preetermined amount by the end of the year
• It's no secret that we are so behind in launching this but we are soooo close!
8. Get in shape 
• Ugh....I can't promise this is as important to me as it is to Beau although I wish it was :/
9. Get the house organized/maximize space
• The baby isn't even 7 months old, we've experienced two FABULOUS gift-giving occasions (baby shower and Christmas) and I'm already getting anxious about storage. This house actually has a good amount of closet space - we just aren't using it well. The Container Store Elfa people would be itching to get ahold of this house! It will be up to me to get creative on this one while saving money (read: not hire out the Elfa people).
10. Give back to the community 
• Through both volunteering and monetary donations, we are both interested in giving back. Beau has become interested in helping high school kids who are at the very important cross-roads of deciding to either go to college or go straight to work. I think he would be a great mentor in a role like this. :) 
• We are also looking at pledging to our new church home St. Philip's. They are in a great time of growth but I am discouraged to see their pledges are down by 4% from the year before. Interesting when membership is up and the economy is on the upswing. We would love to help however we can.
11. Stick to the budget 
• In 2010 we were able to pay off all credit card debt and most student loans! We plan to keep this up by strictly following our budget spreadsheet :) (Similar to #2, this is barring major life-changing events). 

There you have it - 11 for 2011. I hope to look back on this often to keep our focus. I'm curious as to what my friends' 11 goals are for this year. I hope to see a similar post from those of you with blogs! :D

A Look Back at 2010

2011 has a lot to live up to. I joke with Beau that we have a lot of work to do in 2011 since our history goes like this:

2007 - we met
2008 - engaged
2009 - married
2010 - Baby Grayson arrived

How can 2011 top this?! I overheard my Mom telling Grayson the other day (yes, she talks to the baby all the time) that maybe his parents will have twins in 2011. Ha!!! There are 3 things certain in this life: death, taxes and Beau and I will NOT HAVE TWINS in 2011. :)

So before we have a little talking to with 2011 regarding everyone's high expectations, let's reminisce about this perfect year....

January
We started off the year in full swing! I was well into my second trimester when we found out that Baby Reynolds was in fact a boy! We knew he would be - I just had a feeling. And Beau was just hoping :)

February - April 
There were so many decisions to make - from nursery colors, to furniture, to baby names, strollers and diaper bags, I was consumed with thoughts of baby but somehow managed to stay focused at work. Thank goodness I had that balance to keep my mind from obsessing!

April
Beau and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary with a date to Maggiano's, a place we frequented in the beginning of our relationship. Just yesterday I came across that Q&A page he put on my pillow that night (I talk about it here) - it's still very special to me!

My parents moved to Frisco! Just like that. House hunted for, found, bought, moved. It seems like it happened in a matter of weeks. And by far, next to Beau and Grayson, this is one of the greatest gifts I could have been given! I love having them so close.

May
The best baby shower ON EARTH! This was an amazing day that I will always cherish and hope that I can give back to each of my hostesses the way they have given to me! That includes my sisters - why don't I have a picture with Andrea??

June
BEST. MONTH. EVER. My long-awaited baby Grayson arrived perfect as all get out. But he didn't come easily. Beau got great satisfaction sneaking pictures of a MISERABLE Me in the few weeks leading up to the delivery. Like these...

 Goodness the feelings of discomfort come back to me like it was yesterday. I remember sitting in meetings trying to concentrate on important matters all while Grayson's head was prodding my rib cage. It's enough to consider a surrogate the next time around. Kidding. I guess this is where I post pictures of my perfection!! I have 100+ pictures of my wonderful hospital experience but here are a few favorites of his first minutes:

Newborn Photo Shoot!

Grayson met his Aunts Andrea and Amanda within a week of each other at the end of June/beginning of July! They love him SO much!

July
It's all a blur really but tons of family time over the 4th of July (the 5th is my Grandmother and Amanda's birthday!) and lots of bonding with Grayson. I was still nursing at this time so most of my time was committed to that in some fashion.


Brinkley was sent off to finishing school (okay it was hunting training) in May and stayed through the end of July. He was missed dearly but it was very nice not to have him under my feet when I was walking around with a teeny tiny baby in my arms. Especially after surgery. He's better than ever out in the field...

August
I became a full-time Mommy in August - something you just can't prepare for! What a beautiful time in my life that I will never forget! At about this time Beau left for London for a week-long business trip - his first trip to England and it had to be for work (and without me!) :)

My friends and I went down to float the river for Nikki's bachelorette party at the end of August and it was OH SO MUCH FUN! My first night away from Grayson (he was 10 weeks at this point) and I think I did pretty well :) Girl time is a must and is healthy for any new mom. Love my girls and only wish I could see them more.

September

I was lost in my world with Grayson spending days nesting and watching him grow before my very eyes! It was difficult with Beau leaving every week - it seemed to him like he was missing all of Grayson's changes. We did have some fun outing weekends like Ma's 90th Birthday and the Texas State Fair with my parents! 

October

TX/OU was a great time with friends as it is every year. My parents were so nice to be our DD down there and Grayson made a brief appearance...

Halloween! My sweet boy had two costumes due to some unseasonably warm weather (uh, 80 degrees? that's not Fall)...isn't he just adorable?!

Beau's family pumpkins - perhaps he should consider a new career...

My Mom and I made the big trek across the state of Texas to be with Ma after we learned that one of our family members passed away. Eight hours in a car there and eight hours back with a 4 month old is just something I will never forget. :)

 November
Thanksgiving was incredibly special to me since both my sisters and their guys joined us in Frisco for Thanksgiving. My parents house was bustling with people and we also joined the Dallas Caldwells for their huge meal as well! I love family time and if I was wealthy, I would purchase tons of hill country land and force my entire family to live on it with me!

This one is of the Reynolds guys only since you have already seen all of us here.

Beau started his new job in November! Okay, this is ANOTHER "greatest gift" I have been given. I keep saying that. :) But really, having him come home every day and wake up next to him each morning is so new to us and something I hope to never take for granted. He helps put Grayson down at night and cuddles up with me on the couch each evening and I already can't remember how I spent Grayson's first 4 1/2 months without Beau home.

December
I love, love, love Christmas! And it's even cooler with a child. :) I can only guess that it will become more stressful joyful and toy-filled spiritually significant as Grayson gets older! :) We did take some time for ourselves with a date night here and there. We didn't get photos of Christmas parties or us at the Christmas Eve service, which I'm disappointed about but we did snap one the night that Beau took me to The Nutcracker! I really do hope we can make that a date night tradition.

The play group I joined had a Moms Night Out/gift exchange in December and we had a ball! I'm really enjoying getting to know the girls in the group and am loving all the fun, inexpensive things they plan. They can really keep a girl busy. I'm looking forward to seeing them all more in the new year.

Grayson was just over 6 months old on Christmas and we loved seeing his reactions to the presents that Santa and his family gave him. The presents could have been filled with tissue paper and he would have been just as happy. :)

Overall, a great year indeed and as we look forward, we can only pray for as beautiful of a year as we had in 2010!

Happy New Year friends!! I'll leave you not with a toast wishing you a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year (although I do wish that) but I'm signing off with a picture of NAKED BABY. Cheers!

New Year's Eve Shindig

Beau and I hosted our very first NYE party! But not just any NYE party - one with kiddos! We had 10 adults and 5 babies (including ourselves) and had a ball! I learned a lot from this party - mostly because we were hosting what was ultimately a play date but still planned it with an adult party mindset - ha! All in all, I think everyone had a great time and we hope to do it again next year - with just a few changes. Here is my short list of lessons learned:

• Put your makeup on! Good grief - who forgets to put makeup on for their own party?!
• Take the "adorable kids with goofy hats" picture when everyone first arrives. Who waits until their own kid goes down for the night? Me. Of course it didn't help that he crashed ridiculously early.
• Everyone brought something and it was a HUGE help! And it was all SO good!
• We should have started earlier. It was no secret that the party wasn't going until midnight so why not start earlier so that the parents kids can play longer? Done.
• People always migrate towards the kitchen. Unless there are babies and toys then it's the living room floor! We focused way too much on our kitchen when we should have made the living room the hang out place. Thus, we should have moved the gigantic play pen that took up 1/2 the floor space so that people could actually move. Noted.
• There is a level of distraction with children that I have simply never experienced. From forgetting to put things out (hello, sandwich tray!) to forgetting to tell the non-drinkers about our yummy hot chocolate station to not even getting out sauces for some of the foods - goodness! In addition, Beau and I were both trying to play host while our friends were left babysitting our fussy child! 
• Maybe next year wine sippy cups for the adults? Again, because we were all on the floor, wine and champagne glasses had no home. We do have tons of the stemless wine glasses - should've used those! I always wondered what those were good for ;-)

I feel better now that I documented these so that I can look back for next year! Here are some pics:


Our various centerpieces at the end of the night (another thing we forgot to do - more pictures in the beginning):

I can't really tell you if the kids or parents were the more entertaining part ;-)

 The final product, which I stole from Annie's blog since we didn't get one of all 4 kids  (left to right: Cole, Emmie, Piper, Liam (not pictured: Grayson & the baby still baking in Annie's belly):

Maybe Grayson will make an appearance in the photos next year!


Happy New Year - I can't wait to see everything that 2011 has in store for us, our family and friends!

The Holidays Bring Friends In Town

One of the many reasons that I love the holidays is that it brings friends home. I guess I used to be one of those people always going home to Corpus for the holidays but now that my parents have moved here, we are able to stay in town and see the friends that come home to their families :)


First we saw the Pharrs at lunch at Baker Brothers this week! They are in from NYC and are some of our favorite people. Matt is in the running for one of the funniest people ON EARTH (in my world anyway). He keeps us laughing the entire time and the conversation is always great. I say this a lot but they are such a breath of fresh air around here! Just super easy to be with and always a good time. I'm really glad they asked us to lunch b/c we were originally supposed to see them for happy hour later that night but didn't make it. More to come on that...

Here is a picture of us with the Pharrs at their first going away party when they were moving to London a couple of years ago.

Here's a crazy story - we actually also missed the Pharrs' second going away party when they were moving to New York earlier this year. I was about 8 months pregnant and that party was supposed to be just about the highlight of my month! :) However, while our friends were seeing them off over cold beers...this is what I was doing:

An unexpected trip to Labor and Delivery that, as we all know now, ended with no Labor or Delivery. Anyway, I hate that we keep missing them but that's why we enjoyed our long lunch so much! :)


The same day as the lunch, we also had plans to meet up with the McAllisters for dinner. Justin was a groomsman and Katie read at our wedding. They live just outside of L.A. but get home to Texas about twice a year. We met them and Deran and Sarah at Maggianos for our annual holiday dinner. It was great to see them and catch up even though I started to feel sick during the dinner. Boo. 


Why do I not have any pictures of us with the McAllisters? Probably b/c Beau is Beaugarting them on his computer. Get it? Get it?...never mind.


My parents kept Grayson that night (since we thought we were going to the Pharrs HH afterward) and thank goodness b/c I was miserable all night and I later found out that Grayson was up all night at my parents' house with a cold. Good news - we are both better! :)


All in all, an awful evening with a cold, but a great day with friends made it all worth it. Miss them already!

Baby Food Maker!

It IS a baby food maker, not a baby maker as I keep calling it. So. many. jokes....

I am really excited about my decision to make Grayson's baby food! I am doing this for several reasons - primarily because it saves a lot of money and it's healthier for him.  But an additional perk is that overall, it's better for the environment than bottled food. Also since I'm staying home, I have the time/ability to do this. I would never dream of doing this if I had a full time job so I'm totally not knocking the bottled food! 

My parents gave me this fabulous baby food maker for Christmas! It comes very highly recommended from friends and professionals/critics from various things I've read. It's sold at Williams Sonoma and so far, SO GOOD! It's makes things easy enough that it's still fun. :) It does everything in this one little machine. I have successfully made bananas so far only to find out that bananas don't need to be pureed. You just add water and mush 'em [sigh]...oh well, next up apples and pears today. It all freezes really well so I plan on making about a week's worth of food. Grayson has liked everything he has tried so far (including plastics, rubbers and cottons) so hopefully, the streak will continue so I don't have to throw it all out! 

Christmas Gift - New Pendant Light!

My sisters are UH. MA. ZING. I have been dreaming about this pendant light for my breakfast area for almost a year now! You may remember it from this post. I kept talking about it and looking at it and it just never quite seemed to be in the budget. I put it on my Christmas list with other items that were more practical so I just assumed that I wouldn't get it. However, Andrea and Amanda are the best at not getting people things that they would normally get themselves. I should've known! ;-)

Here are the pictures from Christmas Eve (I only wish they could have been here with us!!)....

This is a "before" of the breakfast area (you will have to look over my unshowered-Christmas-morning shoulder to see it)....

And voila! The most perfect fixture to complete my breakfast area. And I LOVE the soft light it gives off. Way better than that sharp, exposed light from before. This was taken during the day so it doesn't do it justice but trust me, it really proves that lighting can totally set a mood. I'm much more relaxed in this room....which makes me want to change the lighting throughout our house! ;-)

THANK YOU SISTERS!!! I love you with every way-more-chilled-out-because-of-my-new-soft-relaxing-light bone in my body! xoxo

Next up: window coverings! Beau and I are locked in mortal combat over roman shades in this room. I will warn you my fellow roman shade friends, the outcome isn't looking good. Stay tuned...

Grayson's First Christmas

What a perfect first Christmas for baby Grayson! Picture perfect in fact and what better way to document our wonderful memories than with pictures of Grayson with our families....

My beautiful boys

 Yaaay more presents for my gummy mouth!

 We have confirmed that all gifts can and will be chewed on.

 Pure joy. We wonder if his mouth aches from smiling so much :)

 Jeff got a #1 Pop mug! 15 oz. of course :)

 Being spoiled by Beau's family with the Santa Sack that just kept giving :)

 Very serious "opening gifts" face

 With cousin Payton

 Four generations of Reynolds men (this was only the beginning of Grayson's new refusal to nap. look at those tired eyes!)

We will never forget this Christmas! There are about 100 more photos of this first Christmas but I'll spare you :) I'll dedicate a post to some other fun Christmas pictures and gifts. Until then, I hope you had a very Merry Christmas with your loved ones. We look forward to all the new blessings that 2011 will bring our friends and families!