Tacos.

What's been up around here?

1. Diaper rash. There's been a lot of crying around this house lately. Definitely gonna take a shot a potty training while we are on vacation. I'm gonna try the 3 day method and pray a whole awful lot.

2. Saturday we leave for our annual trip with my family to the Outer Banks. Every year my aunt rents a house along the beach and we love it. Its so relaxing; nothing to do but enjoy the beach. We go out on the (small) town one night in the week and the rest is spent hanging out. I'm so excited. If you know me, I'm very much a procrastinator but I'm trying to get a headstart and pack today and tomorrow since I'm working up until Friday night. This will be the first trip with Eli that is longer than 2 hours. Last year, Eli was 9 months old so he slept the entire car trip. My key to happy traveling toddler is lots of snacks. And of course his fav trains. Do you mom's out there have any traveling with toddlers advice?

3. Here's tiny fact about this family: We. love. tacos. Good tacos. In our taco exploration around RVA we have come across some uniquely delicious kinds of tacos: Shrimp and grits tacos, pork belly, BLT from Boka Tako and  grilled street corn and fried fish from En Su Boca, yum. We've chosen a favorite: Don't Look Back in Carytown. Hands down the best carnitas. But let's face it, all this taco eating can get expensive so we decided to try to make them at home. I'm creating a pinterest board just for our love for tacos with yummy recipes like this one.  Do you Richmonders have a fav taco joint? 

4. Eli skipped an entire shoe size in a matter of months. Randomly we wandered into saxon shoes and I decided to get his foot measured. Sure enough, my kid is a size 8. You should've seen my face. He was wearing the size 6 shoes I just bought him at the end of June. Sheesh. 

5. I have discovered the red-eye coffee at Starbucks. Game changer. When you work 3 twelve hour night shifts and take care of your toddler and your husband and your house and the list goes on, all I can say is two words: Jesus and coffee. So anyway, a coworker told me about the red eye and I tried it. Needless to say, I'm hooked. 

Check out more photos from our week here.

Until next time..

Love,

Kellye

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you would think.

So here it is 2 weeks later and I am just sitting  down long enough to write a post. I've had an entire week off so you would think I would have sat down before now to post.  I haven't even taken photos with anything other than my iPhone. And after all we have done in the last 2 weeks I don't even know where to start. We've mostly been trying to decorate our house a little more, which included painting a FREE antique we got. Eli and I sat out on the porch while I painted the furniture and he painted everything insight. He even lifted up my shirt and started painting my back. Thank goodness for washable paint. We've been trying to spend more family time and explore RVA including doing fun things like the Watermelon Festival. I've also been trying to engage Eli more by doing things like puzzles. I have discovered he LOVES those jumbo knob puzzles by Melissa and Doug like this one. I'm running out of ideas and he probably watches television far more than he should. What do you moms out there suggest for educational activities for toddlers?

Here's a note to new parents: Don't blink. Kids grow so fast and its so fun to watch. These last two weeks we have seen such a change in Eli. Its like he's almost two (he is lol). He's so independent and he's even using the potty every morning when he wakes up. I guess we will venture into that world pretty soon. I love his little personality. He's just like L.C. I mean, just.like.L.C. I don't want him to grow up. Just stay little forever. 

Here are some snapshots from our past two weeks.

So grateful for you readers! 

Love,

Kellye 

Nothing Special

At this point, I am just using this post as a photo journal of our life this past week. Which actually now that I think about it is a pretty good idea. Well anyway, here are some words to go along with a few the pics (for those of you who are interested) + a few other lessons learned this week.

1. Eli is really into cars, and also Cheerios. So I found this Cheerio race car hanging by the cereal in Kroger that can hold the beloved snack in the trunk of it. So, naturally I bought thinking what a fun idea. Seconds after I gave Eli the fun race car with his favorite snack, the entire lot was spilled onto the floor. Great. He does love the car though.

2. I'm obsessed with Mrs. Meyers cleaning products. I buy them at Target all the time and they are natural and less harsh on the environment, so on and so on. Well, I learned this week that not only  do they are preserve the environment, they provide relief for the mom, who turns her back on a toddler who pours out an entire bottle of cleaning solution and he may or may not have ingested some of it. The label says "if ingested drink water". Ok. I called poison control anyway (I have them on speed dial) and they said the same. He was fine, I think he just wanted me to clean up yet, another mess. Needless to say, I'll never make the rookie mistake of leaving cleaning products within a toddlers reach again, and if by some reason he does get them, I'll only buy natural products, so we are all safe.

3. Lewis Ginter. I love it there. We bought a membership and we go there at least once a week. The splash pad is awesome and hardly ever crowded and they have so many cute things to do there like a giant sand pit and story time under the tree. The children's garden is right by a man made lake and its so peaceful. What makes it even better? When you go there with friends. 

4. We have played in the rain, played football with Grandad, put Thomas the Train stickers everywhere,rode the train at short pump and cooked out on the grill (eggplant + salmon on a cedar plank= so yummy).

5. Our community group is doing a woman's book study.  Reading a book by Timothy Keller called "Reason for God". Two chapters in and my mind is blown. I'll post more on that later. 

Until next time..

Love, 

Kellye

pictures here
 

Wedding + Breakfast with friends

So this past weekend we went to what was our fourth (yes fourth) wedding so far this year. L.C. being a groomsman in 3 out 4 we had yet another packed weekend with wedding stuff. I love going to weddings, it is such a reminder each time of the meaning of marriage and God's covenant with us. I cry every time! My other favorite part about going to weddings is meeting new friends and/or reuniting with old friends. We got see a lot of friends from college that we haven't seen awhile. Since this wedding was local, we got show our friends around town and they got to see our new house! It was so much fun. 

Amidst all the wedding fun, we got host another group of friends (that I've known since middle school) for breakfast. If you haven't gathered this info by now, we love hosting! So anyway, I got up super early and started cooking breakfast for a 9am pajama breakfast. I whipped (with the help of L.C.) cheesy hash browns, eggs + avocado, bacon, sausage, pancakes topped with summer peaches and whipped cream, we had mimosas, cold brew coffee (i made myself) and a few other things. It was an all around feast. Breakfast was such a good conversation; some serious, some reminiscent, and if you know my husband mostly funny. 

L.C. and I so fortunate to have so many good friends that love us and support us. We truly are blessed. We love all of you guys so much! 

Check out a few pics from brunch and the wedding here

Thanks for reading!

Love,

Kellye

First Post + Beach + Aquarium

So last weekend we decided last minute to go to the beach. This is the first time this summer we have been to beach and now that Eli is older (last summer he was so little) we thought he would love it! I really wanted to take him to the aquarium as well. So, we packed up our little Mini Cooper and headed on. Eli slept the entire trip which was probably the best thing. We were only able to spend about an hour on the beach before it started pouring down rain. Turns out, Eli wasn't really into the cold ocean water anyway. So we went to lunch at the Whole Foods cafe in VA Beach and headed over to the Aquarium. I'm pretty sure I was most excited out of the 3 of us. We had a blast looking at the sea turtles, sharks, otters and  cool looking fish or "pish" as Eli would say. After the Aquarium we visited our newlywed friends Marvin and Ardaith and their son Devon who live in VA Beach. We had dinner at one L.C.'s fav spots down there called Yard House. By the time we got back home in Richmond, we were exhausted but we had so much fun! Hopefully we can take some more fun trips this summer before it ends. 

Check out a few photos from our trip here

Thanks for reading my first blog post! I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

--- Love,

Kellye, Novice blogger