Our latest project

a little less than 2 weeks from now will be my last day as a nanny of 5. 

i have very mixed emotions, as i have been with this family for almost 6 years, 

and 3 of the childrens' entire lives.

but i am VERY excited to have more time to devote to my little cookie business, 

The Cookie Kiln

and to have a little extra time to work on some of the many projects 

that have been on my list for months.

but I am most excited about preparing for what is definitely my favorite thing that i have ever had part in creating. ;)

my husband and I cannot wait for our newest family member to arrive in february!

we had my friend jennifer wakefield from J. Catherine Photography take some family photos for us to make our announcement this week. she is SO incredibly talented and was so patient with the dogs.

if you ever need a family, child or pet photographer, i would highly recommend her!

here are a few of my favorites~

so excited to add another member to our little family!

{i loved that she was able to get this shot with no cars in it}

this was at the beginning of the photo session when the dogs were still somewhat behaved.

this one just makes me smile. 

love these 2!

'we're going to have a baby!' 

{unfortunately i think that they probably thought that i was saying something about treats}

i absolutely LOVED this one. 

the sky was gorgeous that evening.

amos loves to stand up like a real boy, paisley is usually pretty hesitant.

me and my baby girl, paisley jaye

topher and his boy, amos hawke

paisley and amos, soon-to-be big brother and sister!!!

{they have NO idea what is about to happen to their little worlds}

we let the balloons go off the top of the parking garage.

sending them up to heaven to the baby that we lost in december. 

we are so thankful and feel so blessed that God has given us this precious gift! 

praying for and looking forward to meeting our healthy baby in 7 months.

i put together this little announcement for on my facebook profile:

i used a picture from a few months after we started dating,

a picture of our cake toppers from our wedding day, 

and then i asked my dad to knit me a tiny hat and 'sweater' for our little peg baby.

i made the little stroller with some wire, leftover bridesmaid dress fabric, tires off of a toy dump truck, and nail polish for the handles and the wheels. 

my dad is amazing! 

i thought that it turned out perfectly. 

favorite things (thank you hormones)~

it has been kind of ridiculous the things that i have been craving since being pregnant.

the first few weeks literally all that i wanted to eat was sour patch kids and diet root beer.

now sour things don't really sound good to me at all.

sweets however are still sounding really good.

here are a few of my most-craved/favorite things since pregnancy hormones 

have taken over my body:

i eat an embarrassing amount of skittles each week!

i am loving fruit! peaches are my favorite, 

but i have been devouring lots of cherries, blueberries and grapes too.

i cannot start my day without a yogurt, or 2.

so very thankful that i am still allowed a little caffeine.

my 1/2-caf, nonfat white mochas are definitely a splurge that our budget would appreciate me quitting.

so glad that they make caffeine-free diet dr. pepper!

and then there's the salty.

if i don't develop gestational diabetes by the end of my first trimester,

 i will likely swell up like a balloon from my sodium intake.

i have to admit, at least 1/2 the stereotypical 'pickles and ice cream' pregnancy cravings 

has proven true for me,

 i have gone through an insane number of pickles in the past 2 months!

i discovered these chips which taste almost exactly like the ones that they serve at Chili's!

they are so thin that they practically melt in your mouth. 

caution, they're addictive! 

but in all honesty, i only use the chips as a vessel to get the salsa into my mouth. 

salsa is by far my most craved food for the past 8 weeks. 

i decided to just make a huge batch of my favorite salsa {recipe here} to save my poor husband from my daily requests to go out for mexican.

(i do not lie, we had mexican for 8 meals last week!)

i love going on walks with these 2!

(or 3)

and i figure that it is good for all of us to get some exercise to work off all of the above cravings.

and i just thought that i would add a few pictures of my babybump so far.

this was last weekend at 10 weeks. 

i kept thinking that it was just 'bloat', 

but i was very excited when the doctor told me tuesday

 that it was definitely my baby making that little bump. :)

and this is saturday's weekly picture. 

it is pretty exciting to watch this little miracle happen.

we are SO thrilled about this new addition to our family.

the new addition- puppy love

about 2 months ago our family got a little bit bigger... ok, a LOT bigger. ;)

my husband and i adopted our 2nd 'baby', a 10 week old, 23 pound, merle great dane puppy.

 we had discussed getting a great dane, *someday*. but i really didn't think that we would be able to get another puppy for several years due to our schedules.

 i was SO incredibly thrilled when my husband made the decision in november to switch to part-time work to accommodate his school schedule {i will add that i would never recommend that anyone attempt full-time work/full-time school/and marriage all at once. as newlyweds, it was overwhelming for both of us for him to keep that schedule}. 

i feel like our honeymoon has begun all over again now that he has cut back his work hours. we have been loving being able to spend meaningful time together where he is not too exhausted to engage in a conversation. 

all that to say that with my husband home more, we decided that this would be a great time to add a new puppy as we would have the time to deal with the puppy training.

i am excited to introduce 

'amos hawke collogan'

me and amos on the drive home from kentucky

my husband had his heart set on a fawn colored great dane, which is the scooby doo type coloring. we had searched for breeders for months and i had several in mind for when the day ever came that we would get our puppy. 

the first week in november we went to iowa to visit my in-laws and to go to an iowa hawkeyes game for my husband's 30th birthday.

 as we were leaving the game we saw a beautiful, giant, merle great dane outside the stadium. my husband instantly fell in love. so we were back to the drawing board for breeders. i searched for hours when we got back to greenville. we didn't want to drive too far for a puppy, but we wanted to get one pretty immediately.

i found a breeder in kentucky, which was about 4 1/2 hours away. they had several litters with merle puppies. it was so hard to choose because they were all completely adorable, but we fell in love with this little face.

this was at about 7 weeks

we drove up to kentucky the weekend after we found him online. 

he was as sweet as could be from the moment that we met.

i was so incredibly excited... but at the same time i had mixed emotions. i knew that this was going to be difficult for my 3 year old weimaraner. she has always been an incredibly spoiled, only child.

we took her with us to pick up amos. it actually was worse than i had anticipated. not only was she not at all interested in the new little friend that we were bringing home to her, but she was furious at me. she wouldn't look at me, she wouldn't let me pet her, she wouldn't even let me sit beside her. i did not anticipate that at all. 

this was at one of our potty stops on the trip back to south carolina. 

you can see paisley went out of her way to ignore her new brother.

he is definitely a daddy's boy. amos adores topher.

it is funny to me that i thought that he was SO big for a 10 week old puppy... and now 7 weeks later he has already over doubled in size!

this was 3 days after we got home. paisley finally would let him within a few inches of her, but she was still not happy about him being around.

2 weeks later, on thanksgiving day, they were finally getting along.

we had my sister take a 'family photo' of us when she was visiting for thanksgiving. 

i had no idea how much more difficult it would be to get 2 dogs to cooperate. we managed to get a couple with everyone behaving. although, the out-takes are pretty funny.

amos LOVES going on walks and instantly was a pro at leash walking. 

we live downtown, so we walk up main street and then back home, which is almost a 3 mile walk. 

poor little guy would get so exhausted that we would have to stop and let him take a nap 1/2-way.

i was amazed how quickly he outgrew his baby crate and had to move up to his big one. but he definitely loves being able to stretch out in the big one. not for long though, i am sure.

although now their favorite thing is to share a crate... guess it's like a slumber party.

this was probably about one of the last times that he fit on my husband's lap.

 amos got to go with us on our trip to michigan for christmas. he was a great traveler.

he would let us know that he was thirsty by licking the windows. i don't know if the cold glass felt like water to him? haha. 

we 'celebrated' amos's 4 month birthday on tuesday and he was already 48 pounds. he eats 7 or 8 cups of food a day! topher is really hoping for a giant great dane. i would be content if he is average... whatever that means. he is definitely a BIG baby.

he is such a fun 'little' guy. i am sure that you will see more of him in the near future.

Avery's Dress

About a month ago I was invited to my friend Valerie's baby shower. I have known Valerie practically all of my life, so I wanted to give her something really special for her first baby, but finances being a little tight that month I was having trouble coming up with something that I thought would be the perfect gift for her little girl. I decided to attempt to make her a little dress and some matching shoes.
I started with the shoes knowing that they would take a little bit longer. I didn't have a pattern, so I just traced a pair of the smallest baby girl shoes that I could find at work (I am a nanny). I will admit it took quite a bit of tweaking, and being a perfectionist I was a little disappointed with the shoes by the end of the night, but by the next morning I had enough time to step away from the project and I was pleased.
For the dress I just made a simple pillowcase dress. I did add some little arm holes because i thought it might be a little easier to dress the baby. I was very happy with the end result... and I think that Valerie liked it too.
Avery Jael Adams was born Friday night, July 30th. I am so happy for Valerie and Jon and I hope that they are enjoying their sweet little girl. :)



My first attempt at cobbling(is that a word?)- baby shoes that will hopefully fit a human child. :)


I never knew how simple pillowcase dresses are to make.


Avery's baby shower gift.