SUYL Sinlges

Today on Kelly's Korner she is doing Show Us Your Life Singles!! This will be my first time to participate in SUYL. I'm so excited. I'm hoping to help my sweet brother-in-law out. So, meet John. I have known John for 13 plus years now. To say he is beyond one of the nicest people I know is an understatement. John has a huge heart and is seriously just such a nice guy. He is always willing to help anyone out.

John is from Fayetteville, AR and has lived in Arkansas his whole life. He grew up on a farm and has one brother. He has a bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering, as well as a Masters in it too. He is a graduate from the University of Arkansas. John used his degree for a few years, but just wasn't getting a lot satisfaction from his job. So, he decided to go to Medical school. John is getting ready to start his 3rd year of Medical school at UAMS in Little Rock.

John is a great uncle too! He only has one niece, Kinley. He loves her so much and is so sweet with her. John comes by our house just to hang out and play with Kinley.

John is also a twin. I'm married to his twin, Jared! They are best friends. They do everything together. Jared is one year ahead of John in medical school. I know they are going to both be amazing dr's one day.

Some of John's hobbies would include, fishing, reading, traveling, cooking, and working out. Right now, he doesn't have a lot of time for stuff like this. He also loves animals. He would love to have a dog, but lives in an apartment right now and wants to wait to have a yard. He was raised in a wonderful Christian family and his faith is definitely an important role in his life. He loves the Lord and is hoping to serve Him better through his future career.

Ok, so I guess that is enough of details for now. Here are a few pictures. If you want to know more about John, just leave me a comment! Again, I can't tell you enough what a great guy John is! I also might add, he's pretty cute too! :) Thanks for stopping by!

John is on the left! They are identical twins!

Uncle John and Kinley!

Playgroup and Recipes

We are part of an awesome playgroup! We usually get together a few times a week. This is such a great group of kids and moms. Kinley and I always have a great time. On Tuesday we met up with Ashley & Addi and Sara & Lola at CFA for some lunch. My friend Trisha came too.

I let Kinley have a few licks of a ice cream cone. I pretty sure she really liked it.

Let me tell you, the people at this CFA were SOOO nice and friendly. They brought all of our food and drinks to the table for us. Lola dropped her passy on the floor and a lady brought a cup of super hot water to clean it off. We were asked at least 3 times if we needed refills and then they brought us 2 kid cones for free.

On Thursday we all went over to Leslie and Brilee's house. We had a great lunch of bbq chicken and pork, mac & cheese, baked potato salad and baked beans. Another great thing about our group is we have some awesome cooks! We always have great food. Leslie had a couple of kid pools and sprinklers set up and we tie dyed t-shirts too.

Tara and Ava, which are also our neighbors!

Sweet Hadley, she is always making us laugh!

The hostess, Leslie and Brilee.

Hollie teaching us how to fold our shirts to tie dye. Leslie looks like she is really concentrating! Ha! I think Hollie ended up folding most of our shirts for us. Thanks Hollie!

Spraying our shirts and cutie pie Lilly is right in the middle of the fun! :)

Autumn and Eliot.

Last night I took dinner to a sweet couple at our church that just had baby Jackson. Oh boy is he a cutie!! I made them smothered enchiladas and blackberry cobbler. I got both of the recipes out of my Southern Living cook book and they were wonderful. I kept half for our dinner since it made so much.

Smothered Enchiladas:

2lbs of ground beef ( I used lean ground turkey)

1 package of taco seasoning

1 4.5 oz can of chopped green chiles

2 cans of cream of chicken soup ( I used the healthy request)

1 16oz container of sour cream ( I used light)

8 (8-inch) flour tortillas

2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese ( I used the monterey jack cheese with the hint of philly cream cheese)

Cook ground beef (or turkey) until done. Add taco seasoning ( and water that it says to add on back of package) and half of the chopped green chiles. Set aside

Stir together remaining green chiles, soups and sour cream. Pour half of the mixture into a lightly greased 13x9 baking dish. Spoon meat mixture evenly into flour tortillas, roll up and place seam side down over sour cream mixture. Pour remaining sour cream mixture over tortillas and top with cheese. Bake uncoverd at 350 for 25min or until bubbly and heated through.

Blackberry Cobbler:

1 1/3 cup sugar

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup butter, melted

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 (14 oz) bags frozen blackberries, unthawed

1/2 (15 oz) package refrigerated piecrusts

1 tablespoon sugar

vanilla ice cream (optional)

Stir together first 4 ingredients in a large bowl. Gently stir in blackberries until sugar mixture is crumbly. Spoon fruit mixture into a lightly greased 11x7 baking dish. Cut piecrust into 1-inch-wide strips in a lattice design over blackberry mixture. Sprinkle top with 1 tablespoon of sugar. Bake at 425 for 45 minutes or until crust is golden and center is bubbly. Serve with ice cream.

These were so good and easy recipes!!

Our Weekend

We had a great weekend! Last weekend my sweet niece, Ashton came back to LR with us for the week. My sister came down Saturday morning for the weekend. We went down town to the Farmers Market. It was soooo HOT. We were all pretty miserable, but had a good time. I forgot my camera, so I didn't get any pictures. We ate at Flying Fish and it was so good. I cheated big time on my diet though and had fried catfish and fries. We just went back to our house and hung out in the cool for the rest of the day. Jared and I did go meet up with a few friends for the evening. We had a great time. My sister called me at 11 and Kinley woke up crying and she couldn't get her to quit, so we went home.

Sunday we got up and I made eggs and blueberry pancakes. My sister and Ashton left around 11:30. Ashton was so sad to leave. She is leaving next weekend to go to a Christian Camp for a month and she won't see us for 5 or 6 weeks. She is sad that she won't see Kinley for so long. She is SO good and sweet with Kinley. She was such a big help and we will definitely miss her!!! Kinley loves her so much!

I had a baby shower to go to that afternoon. Jared stayed home with Kinley. There are 5 pregnant girls in our small group at church and they are all pregnant with boys!!



This was Jared and Kinley before I left. So sweet. When I got home Kinley was in a different outfit and so was Jared. She had a major diaper and he said it got everywhere. He had to give her a bath. We went to US Pizza for dinner and then just hung out the rest of the evening.

We had fun taking a few pictures together!

Memorial Day

Over Memorial Day weekend my whole family and Jared's parents all went to a place called Har-ber Village in Jasper, OK for the afternoon. I wasn't too sure what to expect. I was told that it was an outdoor antique museum. It was the most interesting place and had some very unusual things. Everything there was either collected by Harvey and Bernice Jones or the items were donated by people from all over. We all had a good time. It was a hot very windy day, but nice to be outside.




Kinley and her Papa (my dad, if you couldn't tell :) )




There were over 150 exhibits and they were all in these cabin like buildings and everything was behind glass.



Kinley with her Uncle Brian and Uncle Brad, my brothers.



They had all sorts of old tractors. I'm not exactly sure what this crazy looking machine was. But I thought it was a little scary looking!



My two very favorite people! :)

Fayetteville

Kinley and I spent 3 weeks in Fayetteville recently. One of my very good friends, Sara, was there visiting from Colorado for 6 weeks. She also has a little boy, Finn, who is now 1! Kinley and Finn had so much fun together. We had a lot of fun spending time with our family and friends.

This was our first night there. We went to my best friend's house, Tamara for dinner. A bunch of my girlfriends were suppose to be there with their kids, but most of them canceled last minute. But, we had a great time anyway and a great dinner! It was unseasonably cold our first week there. I'm glad I packed a few warmer clothes for Kinley! We were in full summer gear in LR.

Kinley with her great grandparents. Kinley definitely gets some of her petiteness from her great grandma! I even think they look a little bit alike!

This picture cracks me up!! Kinley is looking at Kynzie like she is crazy or something!! Hahaha! They are just too cute. We had gone over to Tamara's for breakfast. We had yummy pancakes, bacon and eggs!

This is my sweet cousin Lauren! She just loves Kinley so much and is so sweet with her! I know that Kinley loved all the attention she got from sweet Lauren!

Kinley and Finn having more fun together. It was so much fun watching them play with each other. They were always taking toys away from each other, but never cried about it. Poor Kinley was still in her PJ's! They are exactly 3 months apart (Finn is older). I wish so much that we lived closer. They live in Colorado.

I have several more photos I want to share, but will do another post tomorrow. We had so much fun and it definitely makes me homesick!!

Laundry Basket Fun

So, I finally bought a laundry basket to keep all of Kinely's toys in that stay in the living room. She has had so much fun playing in it. And, she has started to pull up on things that she can reach to. She might be a small little toot, but she is definitely strong and determined! :) Such a big girl!

Oh, how this sweet smile just melts my heart!

I'm still trying to figure out posting with pictures. It will take some practice!

My First Blog!!

Ok, so this is my first blog post! I am really excited to start a blog! Honestly, I wish I had started one much sooner. I regret not having one the first 8 months of Kinley's life. But, that's ok. I have all the monthly highlights and milestones recorded in her baby book and have written some in a journel. I'm hoping to blog more of our day to day life and enjoy looking back on it later on.

I have several friends that blog and I always enjoy reading their posts. I think it's neat how some of them have met people through their blogs and are now friends! Really, if no one other than our family reads, that is fine by me. This is just meant to be a journal of our life.

I absolutely LOVE my blog design. It's just perfect. It was created by the talented Faith, at A Design of Faith. You should check her out if you are in need of a new design. She is super sweet, has great prices, and is excellent about creating exactly what you want!

In case there does happen to be one person to stumble across my blog, I will tell you a little bit about our family. My husband (Jared) and I have been married for almost 7 years. We started dating when I was 17 and dated for 6 1/2 years before we got married! Yup, we have been together for 13 1/2 years. I'm really blessed to have him. He is my best friend. He is an amazing father and just absolutely adores Kinley. I think he would be a staty at home dad if he could! Anyway, we both grew up in NW Arkansas. We moved to Central Arkansas almost 4 years ago. It was a big change for us. We have never lived anywhere else other than Fayetteville. We moved for Jared to go to medical school. He is just getting ready to finish his 3rd year, one more year to go!! I went to nursing school and before I had Kinley, I worked for a very high maintenance neurosurgeon. There was never a dull moment and I learned a lot. But, now I have the most amazing "job" in the world, being a SAHM. I love every minute of it and don't take it for granted. There are definitely challenging moments, but I wouldn't trade them for the world. We are so grateful that God chose us to be Kinley's parents.