Cute Shirt

I have added a new blog under favorites to the left of our blog, Petite-Designs. My cousin Davis's wife Suzanne has started a business appliqueing shirts with cute designs. Matt is wearing one of her latest creations...a golf shirt. Betty Ward ordered this for Matt for his birthday. I think he looks so cute. Suzanne is doing a wonderful job. I plan on ordering some because they will be great to wear with little shorts this spring and summer. I have my eye on the alligator shirt and the crab! I could see these shirts with gingham checked shorts. Check out her blog to see all of her cute creations that are for sale.

Matt's Birthday Week

Matt's Birthday Week has now come to an end.  I hope he can get back to life as usual without the parties and cakes and presents and attention.  I know he can do without the attention - that part didn't please him at all.  He told Nana that birthdays make him nervous!  His week started last week with a party at Granny's, then all of the Cummings family went to Shoney's on Thursday night, then the actual Big Day on Friday.  We didn't get to the cake on Friday, so we had another mini-celebration on Saturday.  Here are some pics from the week.

Happy Birthday Matt!!!

Today is Matt's fourth birthday! We celebrated with Betty's family this past Sunday at Granny's and Nana and Grand came over last night and all the Cummings family celebrated at Shoney's.  Here's a slide show video of some pics of Matt from the past year.  The song is Find Your Wings by Mark Harris.

Happy Birthday Matt!!!!

Yard Update

Well, I'd like to say that we are finished with the yard but that's not the case. There are always those things that need to be done before doing what we really want to do. Like for instance, having a stump ground up.

This is the damaged river burch we had cut back in the fall and I had to get rid of the stump before we could add more soil conditioner to the beds. The beds have too much clay, so Kent is going to come back and add the rich dirt and till one more time. That' okay because its giving me time to really think about what I want to plant.

Here is a picture of our side bed. I love it and want to design something that will tie into this existing bed. It is very natural and that is the look I am going for.

Kent did a great job on the sod, now if the moles will stay away! Ha! At our other house the moles really liked tearing up our front and back yards. As you can see in the picture, the monkey grass bed is gone, replaced with sod, and he created a new mailbox bed .

This morning I took a picture of Matt while we were playing Candy Land or the Candy game as he likes to call it. Max found a comfortable seat in the box to watch us play. Matt has really started enjoying games, so that is probably another reason why chores don't get done around here sometimes!  But I wouldn't take anything for the time with him. Chores can wait, but he can't! It's hard to believe our little man is going to be 4 this Friday. Ugh, that sounds so old. It really makes me sad. I just can't believe how fast he has grown up. This year Matt wanted to go back to Alabama to see Thomas the Train instead of a party, so that is what we are doing in a few weekends to celebrate his birthday. We are all looking forward to going back, even McKenzie!

T-Ball

Matt is playing t-ball for the first time this year and he is so excited!  We went out to the ballpark Thursday afternoon for the first time to let him hit on the field and run the bases.  He hit ball after ball and ran all around the bases after every hit.  I'd ask him if he needed to take a break and and he'd say, "No, I have to hit another one."  I told him he didn't have to run the bases after every hit and he just looked at me like I had two heads.  He hit the ball well, but he was a little disappointed that he didn't hit any over the fence like the kids in his favorite movie, The Sandlot.  I'm sure we'll see him act out a few scenes from The Sandlot this year in t-ball!  Let's just hope it's not the "Oh, ship!" scene!

Here are a couple more pictures.  The second one is after we got through and Matt wanted to watch the big boys practice on the field beside ours.  He was squatting down like the catcher.

Here's a short video of one of his hits and his trip around the bases.  It kind of looks like footage from a bigfoot sighting as he rounds second base.  Make sure your sound is tuned up at the beginning -- he was pretty impressed with himself!

Happy Easter

Amanda inspired me with her Easter decorations, so I decided to get mine out, too. I haven't wanted to lately because its been so dreary and cold. Everything looks so dead. But maybe this will get us ready for spring!

Amanda is the friend who shared the painted Easter egg idea with me and I am so glad she did! It is one of our favorite traditions with McKenzie and Matt. I did a blog post on this last spring but for those who may not have read it, every year I order these from Old Tyme Commissary in Jackson. I have the artist paint an egg for McKenzie and Matt and what they are into at that time.

This year McKenzie's egg is a girl bunny playing a guitar.  She got a guitar for an early birthday gift from Nana and Grand and hopes to learn to play it. If you will notice the bunny is wearing a Taylor Swift t-shirt because McKenzie loves her music right now.  Matt's egg is a boy bunny golfer because this past year he was so into golf. I think the boy played it everyday in the front yard. Plus he enjoyed playing at the Dogwoods with his daddy and  the "Tiger Woods" (country club) with Ward. These eggs will be a great reminder of what McK. and Matt were enjoying.

This year, I decorated our coffee table for Easter.  I used the kids' Easter eggs, McCarty bunnies and my favorite Easter picture of them. McKenzie wanted to be included in the picture!

I put their baskets on the mantel along with this cute bunny that I found at TJ Maxx back in January.

Here is a picture of bunnies on the chest in our entry hall.

Two of my nieces, Jordan and Anna Catherine made me feel so good when they told me around Valentine's Day that they love what I put on my front and back doors for each holiday. I really didn't know that they noticed! Ha! So, with that in mind I wanted something fun and hung this egg wreath on the front door.

Kerry at the Flower Co. here in town made the bows for it. The wreath on my back door is a last year Target find and I hung this iron carrot on it. Found that at the Flower Co.

One last picture...in our backyard around this tree are beautiful, blooming daffodils that the former owners planted. It was a nice surprise to see them coming up a few weeks ago. I can't wait to add more plants to this bed!

Extreme Yard Makeover!

I am so excited that work has begun in our front yard. As many of you know, we moved into our new home back in October. This is the first project that we have tackled since moving in. I know the yard used to be pretty years ago, but it is needing work. The grass is dead and the front yard looks like a desert. I hate it! I want the kids to be able to run around barefooted this summer. Also there was too much monkey grass, making it look very snakey. So I found a landscaper who is going to sod the front yard and bring in a load of dirt, till the beds, and get them ready for planting. There was a time when I would do all of the manual labor but that was before kids! Ha! I just don't have the energy anymore. I am going to come up with the design plan and then plant the shrubs. Should be alot of fun. I am ready to put my stamp on the house and make it more our home. I enjoyed landscaping our other yard and can't wait to begin with this one.

Here are a few before shots of the yard as Kent was getting started this morning. I will post the after shots as soon as I finish this project.

Double Doozies

I saw this cookie idea called "double doozies" out in blog land the other night and I have been thinking about them ever since.  I wanted to make them last week, but David came down with his own "double doozie" stomach virus so we had to wait. So tonight I made them for me and David and they were wonderful. You only need two ingredients to make them...chocolate chip cookies and vanilla frosting. I bought the Betty Crocker whipped vanilla frosting and it was really good and light. Now I just hope I don't get the awful stomach virus during the night that Matt has had for two days! (Thanks David!) Poor baby, the couch covered in beach towels has been his home for the past two days. I am happy to say that he is doing so much better tonight.

There are alot of shows that David and I like to watch together after the kids are in bed, so we end up DVR-ing them to watch later. I have been looking forward to this new show that is produced by Jerry Seinfield called The Marriage Ref. We watched it and ate all of the double doozies! The show is hilarious. It is all about those little silly arguments that every marriage has. I can't wait to watch this week's show on Thursday night.

Wedding Weekend

We had a fun weekend in Nesbit! My cousin, Elizabeth was married Saturday to Justin Winn at Bonne Terre. David had the honor of taking their wedding pictures. McKenzie was the little program girl and she had a blast! She enjoyed getting all dressed up and took her role very serious. The wedding was very elegant and sweet. The ceremony took place at the little chapel there on the grounds. The reception was held at Ashley Hall where they had great food and a great band. The guests stayed at the Bonne Terre Country Inn. David went up for the rehearsal and dinner to take pictures. McKenzie, Matt and I stayed behind for McKenzie to play in her last Upwards game. Saturday morning, we dropped Matt off with David's parents, then drove on to Nesbit. Saturday was an absolutely beautiful day for a wedding. David started taking pictures around 1:30 and didn't stop until 9:00 that night!  I think he did a great job. He has a gift for capturing real life moments. Here are a few pictures from the big day...