Stewart

No, not my last name my 3 month old nephew- with a great name I might add.  I was able to go eat him up for a few days...not long enough.  

Yes he smiles this much and yes he's this cute and yes he is already a stud!  

to Aunt Cassie ...

from E, Maren and Neevzies

we love you and miss you and hope you get good presents

This awesome girl turned 7 on December 22.  Oh how we love her so.  Love seeing her grow, develop her talents, teach her sisters, laugh out loud, set a good example, and just be herself.

She's been a bit busy the last few months.  She was recently in a play at the Dallas Childrens Theatre- "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever"  18 performances or something crazy like that-running from November to December.  She was a trooper though and didn't get tired of it once. She had a blast and felt oh so important- I think autograph signing after the show was her favorite part :)

She especially enjoyed having two of her besties in the play with her!

Know what makes me happy?

The Bird Room

Rocking and changing babies in the bird room, art from good friends in the bird room, a little bit of anthro and some of my mama's sewing in the bird room, my children counting all the birds in the bird room (39 at the moment), Esme pretending to do her "homework" in the bird room, guests staying in the bird room, adding sweet gifts to the bird room (below). 

Yep, pretty much makes me happy.

Keeping those ears warm!

Move Over High School Musical

It's all about Harry Potter this year!  Ava is a reading machine and just started book 4.  Sophia and Esme get into it as much as they can with her telling them all about it.  It's cute because whenever we are at the bookstore or party store Esme will see something related to Harry Potter and run to Ava and say "Look Ava Harry Potta Harry Potta!"  They were excited to be two black cats this year and even more excited when Ava told them there are two black cats in Harry Potter.  

Here is our first little remodel.  The ornate vanity and mirror in the girls bathroom was nice but not what we imagined for them.  In fact I am certain people will wonder why we exchanged such a fancy piece for such a simple one but that is how we roll over here...

Plus two girls can brush their teeth at the same time!

Before

After

Our inspiration is this family's bathroom shown on Designspongeonline.com

Maybe one day we'll get this big (expensive) deep farm sink :) But we're sure pleased to have our (really inexpensive) one from IKEA!

HaAUNted HOusE

Second year in a row the Stewart Fam's have gotten together to make haunted houses.  The kids love it and we love that we are making it a tradition.  

As you can see we told them to look scary when we took the pic :)

BEACH!

Ahhh Surfside....Where have you been my whole life living in Texas?  

In just 5 hours we arrived at Surfside beach last weekend with some of these great peeps.

And their cute kiddos

We played in a lot of this!

They played a little of this

We didn't care about the wind in our hair

And enjoyed ourselves thoroughly in these waves 

An attempt at a little surfing

The face of a girl who got it right!

Speaking of faces- here is one we could not stop snapping pics of

We were lucky enough to spend some time with My bro Jason and his wife Glencora (and my nephew baking away in there-woohooo!) who live less than an hour away from this cute spot.  

It was nice to meet you Surfside.  If the two of us have it our way we'll be seeing lots more of you.

Solo Trip

I am just getting around to posting this June outing of mine.  

I was able to go to Utah to visit my BFF, Babata, for a few days.  I was happy to spend a day in the life of this great friend of mine.  I especially enjoyed spending time with her three little girls.  We never imagined while growing up together that we would both have three girls!! Maya, Aliyah, and Tehya are awesome and spending some 1:1 time with them just makes me wish I lived close to see them grow.  

Of course we found time to do what we do best- eat good food and have good late night chats! 

Thanks Girls for a lovely time!

Tehya

Maya and Aliyah

Some Catching Up To Do!

I'll start with MAY and hopefully get caught up with August before it passes us by...

We were fortunate enough to have the Gauntt cousins at a our house while their parents went on a trip. They truly are as sweet as they look.  Neva and Esme were like having twins and the cat fights were pretty funny.  Neva's scowl at Esme was the best- but don't get it wrong-Esme gave it as much as she took it!

 These guys live too far away so it is very special to us when we have them around and makes it way too hard to see them go.