My New Toy

My new toy! I love it! I bought it at the BX on Friday because I wanted something with a faster processor to get pics of my crazy little man! I know I'll never be a photographer like so many believe when they start into the world of dslr cameras but I'm excited to have something that is nice and will with stand time better than the point and shoot I've been carrying. I am also excited to learn how it works properly and even add a lense or two to our collection and have beautiful pictures that will last us.

The hubby and I read and compared cameras for awhile and we decided on the Nikon D5100.

Here are a few pics that I've taken with it and hopefully I'll get better with it as I learn how to use the different settings :)

Not now mama too early!

amazing people!

love this pic of him!

our amazing host and wonderful friend

the love of my life

Quotes

I just loved this one and had to share:

He is mine in a way that he will never be hers, yet he is hers in a way that he will never be mine and so, together, we are motherhood. -Desha Wood

As many of you know we adopted our son. He is the most amazing person we have ever gotten to know. Its amazing to watch him grow and learn. He is so smart. He is so sweet. Its hard to express all that he is into words. He's just simply amazing....

What I'm Listening too....

I had a couple country songs that I would have liked to add but they wouldn't let me :( I know I'm random but I just LOVE all music!

Follow Me Back Tuesday

Well I haven't done one of these before but I was telling my friend about this so that we could get her moms blog involved. She is this amazing artist and makes these floor cloths that are to die for and has a gallery where she sells tons of amazing stuff. I seriously would have bought a billion things from it if I wasn't so freaking poor! Her blog is called In Color by Laura Harmon and just thought I'd give this follow me back Tuesday a shot before I had her try it out! You know I didn't want to go on and on about how its the greatest thing to get more readers and works magically, so I'm giving it a go!

I found this blog hop on a blog I follow and if you look to the left you'll see her button for Boobies, Babies, and a Blog. She has all sorts of neat stuff on her blog as well and is always having amazing give aways! Now only if I could figure out how to have people give me stuff for giveaways! I know I know what you're thinking I get all kinds of stuff but its just not the same!!

If you're here for the first time you'll see how random my blog is...started out for family and then its started to grow! I have followers I never thought would follow me since I don't know them personally, I started doing reviews for books which I love to read and I've found a few other ways to earn stuff! Plus I still keep my random ramblings and I like to show off stuff I love, will love, or have loved! We'll see how this whole follow me back thing works and maybe I'll do another in the future!

Summer Twizzlers Contest!

Disclosure: I am  entering a contest for a Twizzlers Landmark Summer promotion prize pack as a member of the Mom Bloggers Club.



If you're like me you absolutely LOVE Twizzlers and it is always packed in our bag of snacks! LIke for my friend Jen and I its a serious obsession LOL and so of course when I saw this contest I just had had had to enter. I mean a Twizzlers freak like me not enter thats just sad! Oh and don't get me started on Pull and Peel yum!

This summer we hope to travel to the Leaning Tower of Pisa!! I know how exciting right!!! Its only about a four hour drive but we just haven't found the time to do it but oh how I'm praying that next month we'll be able too!! I mean how can we live that close and only have a year left living over here if we don't make a road trip there?!?!? Plus it will be yet another amazing place that Nathan has visited in his short life so far! He'll have visited more places than most adults!!! how freaking cool is that?!?! Thankfully we're military overseas and I can still get my Twizzle on LOL and shop on base for all our Twizzler needs...I wonder if they even sell them on the economy. Pisa and then Rome I think are the last two places we'll see before we leave Europe, but Rome will be in the Spring with my BFF forever JEN!

These amazing Twizzler sites I hope to see one day when we're living back in the US (next year baby we'll be back! so excited about that!) I really never realized how much we've missed traveling in our own country and I can't wait to start that adventure for summer trips when we're back there!!!



Thanks Twizzlers now when I see these images in real life they're going to make me hungry!

Book Review: Deeper into the Word

Deeper into the Word

By: Keri Wyatt Kent

This is a great book for those who would like to study and understand the New Testament more thoroughly. It is beautifully written and a must have for those in the field of theology and those who just want to learn more. The author takes 100 words that you see over and over again in the New Testament and gives them more meaning to us the readers. We learn the origin and that things aren't always what we think they mean. You really can learn so much from this book and at the end of each section she brings the meaning to Christian living. A really great book to own and recommend!

**I recieved this book from Bethany House Publishing Group to read and review.**

Book Review: REGGIE: You Can't Change Your Past, but You Can Change Your Future

REGGIE: You Can't Change Your Past, but You Can Change Your Future

By: Reggie Dabbs w/ John Driver

I choose this book to review because I was interested to see how being adopted impacted his life. We have adopted our son and its rather interesting to see how adoptees deal with this knowledge. I didn't care for the fact that it took him so long to find out he was adopted. I'm sure back then though many people didn't want to approach the subject and its wasn't as open back then as it is today but adoption is a daily topic in our home and our son will always know that its a positive word in our world. I also don't care for how he found out how he came into the world and that he thought that was the reason he was here. He came into this world in a different means to be with the family that rasied him, but thats just my way of thinking.

He does tell an amazing story overall though he though he uses a lot of fluff to fill in some biblical stories. Its a great story for people to see that they can break free of the past and become something even greater. That the past doesn't have to hold us in place or drag us backwards. Its a great story and one I'm glad to have read.


I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.



Book Review: Beneath the Night Tree

Beneath the Night Tree

By: Nicole Baart

Well apparently when I picked out my books to review I didn't do my homework very well because also for this book I picked one from a series and this book just happens to be the end of this series and ya'll know me I prefer to start from the beginning! OH well I have learned from my mistakes let me tell you!

I will be honest though when I started this book I had no idea that it was the third and last part of a series. The story is beautifully written and truly stands well on its own. It really captured my attention and I couldn't put it down! This is definitely a book I would recommend to family and friends in the future and I can't wait to get the first two in this series now!

Its a story of an unwed mother who has a five year old son and how his father came back into their life. She also has a 10 year old half brother who is more of a son to her as well and she lives on a farm with her grandparents. Its a beautiful story of a multi generation family and how they work together and pray together. It truly is a great book and a great story and even though it doesn't have the happy ending many books have it still leaves you quite content with the ending. A definite must read!

**I received a copy of this book from Tyndale House Publishers in exchange for my unbiased review.**

Book Review: The Corruptible

The Corruptible

By: Mark Mynheir

When I choose this book to review it looked like something my husband would really love to read. He loves all those crazy mysteries and thought this would be something fun for us to read together. Little did I know that this was the second book in the series! I really would have liked to have known that when I was reading the description, so I was a bit disappointed when I found this out. The first book if you're curious is The Night Watchman (Ray Quinn Series, Book 1).

I will say that the back story was really easy to pick up as you were reading along with this book and honestly you wouldn't have to go back and read the first one if you didn't want to. I'm just the type of person who prefers to read from the beginning and not in the middle :).

It is about a dirty ex cop accused of stealing corporate secrets and is found dead in a motel. Ray Quinn is also an ex cop and his former colleague is hired by the corporation to find the secrets and in turn ends up investigating the death in the motel. Its an okay story with lots of suspects and police procedure. Not exactly what my husband and I were looking for in a mystery. Maybe for someone else this would be a great book but for us it was just so so. I honestly probably wouldn't really recommend this to many of my friends and family who enjoy a good mystery.

**"I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review”. **

Welcome to My Randomness

We have 1 year left in Italy! I know to some that sounds like a long time but considering we've been here for 3 already one year will just fly by! Which if you haven't already noticed 2011 is already doing! Seriously we're five months into the new year and some how I missed almost half of it! My child is getting bigger and smarter by the day, I'm trying to collect the last few things we want to bring back with us and plan our last trips overseas. Sheesh May 2012 will be here before I even lay my head down for a nap!

We have had our ups and downs but more ups than downs while we have lived in Italy. We will miss alot about Europe and Italy since we've been here for so long but at the same time there will be so much we won't miss! It really sucks that we'll have to go to a new base and leave so many amazing people behind and I do mean MANY! I just truly haven't realized the amount of amazing people God has brought into our lives while we've been stationed here! Our family has truly grown grown grown! Its truly exciting!! I can't wait to one day bring Nathan back to see some of these amazing people who are from the surrounding areas! The others hopefully we'll run into again after all the Air Force is truly a small world!

Nathan is at that age where its monkey see monkey do and his dad thinks its the greatest thing ever! He dances so that Nathan will mimic him and does all sorts of things to get him to follow. Its truly freaking adorable to watch those two at play! He is also playing pretend...well has been for a couple months but I really didn't know that started at such a young age! I really thought at the earliest 18 months! He likes to play that we're talking to Grandpa on the phone, we pretend to eat the food from his pot that Ms. Rhysa got him, and we hall stuff in the trucks, and so much more seriously fun stuff! And he sits down and will read you a book! I seriously wish I spoke baby when he sits there flipping through pages telling us a story!

Such a good boy cleaning up his mess!

as you can tell I don't feed him often enough!

he thinks this is so funny!

look at that face! and its scary he can stand in the highchair now!

he loves playing with his dada

and he loves to put everything on his head and i mean everything!

doesn't he look like such a big boy watching his signing videos!



he tried to put mama's shirt on his head and ended up putting his head through the sleeve!




my goodness he doesn't look like a one year old!

 Nathan is also doing amazingly well with his signing! If you have ever thought about doing it check out Baby Signing Time for the little ones and then there is Signing Time for the ones that are a bit older. Nathan doesn't really watch TV all that often but boy does he loves his signing videos! He does a handful of signs as well and is starting to talk still no Mama though :(.

I never realized how many children were on this base until we started getting invited to birthday parties! I think if we wanted to we could go to one like every weekend! Its insane and kind of expensive! Nathan loves them though because he is a social butterfly and totally loves to walk up to people and just start talking away! Hmmm....that may not be such a good thing now that I think about it!

We are no longer cloth diapering! I'm giving myself a much needed break. I did great though and lasted one whole year but the hubby decided it was time to end it and I sold them. Its killing me buying diapers for him but he doesn't really go through that many unless he's sick and he no longer gets a rash from them and I'm no longer behind on laundry! The hubby thought it couldn't be healthy for me to have to clean all that poo all the time and asked me to stop and I gave in....oh well....

I have been checking things off my 101 in 1001 and I think I'm at least half way down with my recipe count down woohoo. I'm getting excited for our trip to the states in August so we can be there for the birth of our niece! I love shopping for stuff for little girls and already have an order in for like 6 or 7 custom made bows! so excited! I have three boxes of stuff to ship to her and I can't wait to see how big she is so I can start the dress shopping! Needless to say baby girl is going to be spoiled by her auntie Kelly!!!

Well I've rambled on and on but I do have a few book reviews to post here in the near future. I'll also share about bzzagent and let you know about all the free goodies I've gotten from them and if you check out our recipe blog you can see how I've become obsessed with the Pioneer Woman's recipes!!! Ciao!

Nathan's First Swimming Pool

Nathan got his first swimming pool! He got his first swimming trunks when he was an itty bitty thing from one of the hubby's cousins but now he can put them to good use! He is such a cute little guy!