Cafe de Valentine

I took pictures on Fathers Day with Ryan's family (because of the cute baby you know) but didn't get a single photo with my family. I know a huge part of that was that I was eating the ENTIRE time we were there, but still. I feel bad. This was my brother in law's first Fathers Day. I took this photo on Mother's Day actually. Carsyn's Nana found a beach ball at the dollar store and blew it up for him. Holy smokes was that the hit of the day! He was squealing and having a grand ole time with that thing. Do you think his parents would notice if I just took him? He's so stinkin' cute! I'm not sure why Oz wasn't in this photo but we had Brad (FIL) with his son and grandson. This picture just warms my whole heart. Do they love each other or what? Tender moment for Baby Carsyn & his Papaw.

I know I'm a bit biased about this little guy, but he's just the cutest. I love his facial expressions and his personality. Tell me that face below doesn't make you want to die. Ha! He was DONE smiling at me for pictures! And again... He LOVES Yo Gabba Gabba cartoon on Nick Jr. I mean, he is so into it you can't get attention for ANYTHING! He was watching it in the picture below. Nothing is sweeter to me than watching my husband play with him. They were playing hard and finally little guy needed a break. Tell me this doesn't melt your heart? No? Just me then huh? My sis-in-law took this one. I don't know what we were doing other than playing on the picnic table. {this is also the photo that made me realize I needed new makeup, separate post on that to follow} I love that he will come to me and that even with his Mama sitting right there he'll let me hold him and play with him all day. Katie was taking these photos and he wasn't too fond of the gras...

It only took us 2 months but our home office is finally done! When I say done, I mean functional and put together... I still have some plans for the wall decor. I also am not sure why some of these pictures look really pixelated on the blog, because the hard copies don't look that way. This photo shows the new hardwood floors. The desk & the book shelves. You can also see the drawers behind the desk chair if you look close. The book shelves were a cheap WalMart find. The back piece was white like the sides and shelves and we painted them dark brown to add some contrast to the tan walls and white shelves. The baskets on the shelves are from IKEA. I had actually bought 3 of them from there probably 6 years ago {maybe longer} and wanted some on both shelves, so my sister went and got us 3 more of the same kind. They hold random things like my camera software/manuals & cords, CD's & some random computer software, and extra picture frames. Each of the two side walls has ...

I've never tried to post a video before so I have no clue if this will work. I heard this song this morning for the second time on the radio. The radio announcer before the song said that the lead singer wrote this song after a rough patch in his marriage. I can't help but think as great as our marriage is, if we could be proactive about these things. I also wonder how many couples we do life with on a regular basis that may have issues below the surface that they never lead on about from the outside. Husbands and Fathers have a really tough job Biblical in the family. I can only imagine what's it's like to lead a spouse much less a family, but I also acknowledge that us wives don't always make this easy on the poor guys. Do we allow him to lead? Do we allow him to love us? Do we allow him to fight for us? Do we still allow him to dream? If we allow him to do so, do we make it easy? Do we speak to him as if he's still the love of our lives? Do we serve him as...

Hubs and I just finished the first day of our Couch to 5K training program. Oh wow. First, let me say that we downloaded the iPhone application which is really cool. Day one is a 5 minute warm up walk, with 20 min of running/walking, and a 5 minute cool down walk. The 20 min run/walk is 60 seconds running then 90 seconds walking alternated for the full 20 minutes. I figured 60 seconds was easy enough and the first couple were. I am not good at math, and I hadn't calculated in my head how many running sessions it would be to do that for 20 min, I think I had figured like 4 or 5 um, it was NINE! The iPhone app is really cool, you can load music to it so while it's counting your time for each session, you can listen to music. It also beeps at you at each session change to tell you to change from walking to running or vise versa. Since my fingers will be too sore to type this out tomorrow, I wanted to recap tonight: *60 seconds doesn't start out seeming like much, by cycle two ...

So let me tell you a little story... In the midst of the house remodel the last few weeks we had been noticing mouse droppings {see title of this blog post} in the work bench. We decided to invest in a few traps and hubs set them around the work bench. A few nights later we were preparing for the trash guy to come and loading up with the cans with the old carpet and padding. {side note: we pulled up so much carpet and padding that there wasn't room for it all in our cans, so we've had a pile in the garage and we put a little out each week to fill the cans until it's gone} I picked up a pile of carpet to put it out and I saw a mouse run out the pile. It took me a second to realize that it was in fact a mouse and it had run out of the pile of carpet I was holding. I won't tell you all the things I said and did at that point, but this is probably the part you wish there were photos or video of, because I assure you it was funny to watch. I did walk the handful out to the ...

Disclaimer: If you know me at all, you will find the following information quite shocking. You may want to sit down to read this post. Many of you know of my involvement in the Susan G. Komen Foundation & their local board. We had a great family friend lose her battle to Breast Cancer years ago and we have all been involved ever since. The local Komen foundation has their annual Race for the Cure event each October at Fresno State and the event gets better and better each year! I have helped with set up, tear down, site supervision, water stops along the race track, etc each year and loved it. You see familiar faces there year after year. You see kids race with win little medals. You see family and friends gather around survivors and those still battling for their lives. I've NEVER been to an event where I haven't cried. The only thing I've never done at the Race is actually Race! They have a family "walk" and they have a men & women's 5K run (they ru...