So Very Thankful...

DISCLAIMER: This is a really mushy, lovey post...

A lot of people have been posting things they are thankful for on facebook this month.  I love that idea and thought it would be good to write a blog post on this topic.  I have so much to be thankful for right now - it seems not a day goes by that I don't think about all the wonderful blessings in my life!

Obviously, I'm thankful for my sweet little girl, Ellie Bean.  She is my favorite person, my best friend, and my own personal angel on Earth.  She reminds me every day that God is good!  She is growing up to be such an independent and intelligent little girl.  I'm constantly impressed with how fast she can learn new things.  Having Ellie was a pivotal moment in my life and she has taught me so many things about love and family in the last 19 months. 

I'm also incredibly thankful for my husband, Bennett.  In the last year he has truly won the husband of the year award!  After we had Ellie, Bennett felt a powerful calling from God to be a provider and spiritual leader for our family.  I slowly started to see incredible changes in him - he made church a bigger priority for the family, he started helping me with chores around the house, he started telling me how beautiful I was almost every day, he began giving money or clothes or food to those in need, and probably the biggest change was his decision to change careers.  I had been struggling with wanting to be home with Ellie but was not comfortable with giving up my income just yet.  Bennett kept pushing me to quit my job because he saw how unhappy I was with the little time I could spend with Ellie.  After a long job search, he completely changed careers so that I would be more comfortable with our financial situation.  This selfless act on his part is something I am thankful for every single day.  Bennett's job is much more demanding now so his stress level has gone up a bit,  but he feels that this sacrifice was the best thing for our family.  I love this man more today than the day I married him and feel incredibly lucky that Ellie gets to grow up with this example in her life.

Ellie and Bennett are not the only things I have to be thankful for, but are certainly the biggest parts of my life.  I also have amazing family members who love on my little girl or help us renovate our home, my best girl friends that keep me sane, my neighborhood mommy friends that can relate to all my feelings about motherhood, my Mom and Dad who are willing to fly 2,000 miles for every holiday to visit us (because I'm way too nervous to put Ellie on a plane yet), my brother who has become such a dedicated and hard-working attorney, and my friends and co-workers at Vendormate who still make me feel like part of the VM family.  If I forgot someone - I'm sorry!  There are just too many wonderful people in my life (what a great problem to have, huh?).

And last, but certainly not least - thankful to God, for He is the one who has given me all these blessings and has been very present in my life this past year.

Halloween 2013

I'm way behind on blogging - it's a lot harder to find time to do this than I thought!  Being a stay-at-home mom is super fun, but sometimes I feel like I have less time than I did when I was working.  I've got a little girl who needs attention 24/7, where I used to have a lunch break to run errands, check emails, etc.  But it's still the best decision I ever made!

Anyway...Halloween was a two-week event for us!  It started with a visit fro Grammy (my mom).  She came in for a long weekend before Halloween and Ellie had a blast with her here! We took Grammy to Music Class, pre-school, and had tons of fun playing at the house.  We made a trip to Augusta for pumpkin painting with all of my nieces and nephews at Bennett's Dad's house.  I loved that Ellie was able to spend some time with her cousins - she doesn't get to see all of them often, especially not all together like that.  It was a lot of fun watching the kids paint pumpkins and get their faces painted!

 

The next week I hosted the Halloween party for Ellie's pre-school class.  I made some adorable Pinterest-inspired snacks and the party was a success!  I wish I had taken more pictures, but I was so busy helping the kids eat and play with their stickers.  It was a lot of fun to get to see Ellie interact in her class environment.  She is getting so big!

 

On Halloween day, we had a mini-party at our house with our neighborhood friends.  It was a pretty good turn-out with the Brewer's, Latta's, McEwan's, and our new neighbors the Armstrong's stopped by too.  This is the best picture I was able to get of the little ones...

We all left our house around 6:30pm and went to Redding Rd. to trick-or-treat.  That street is blocked off from cars for the night and is like a huge block party full of kids in their costumes.  We packed up Ellie in the wagon and had a blast looking at all the neighborhood kids in their costumes.  Ellie only went up to about 2 or 3 houses to ask for candy.  She didn't quite understand the whole "trick-or-treat" concept yet, but we had a ton of fun!  Here's my little princess...