One Landes Place

Hope you all enjoy Thanksgiving. This year I am thankful for God sustaining our family in these past seasons. No matter what, he has provided for us as always. Here are some pictures from Sarabeth's MDO program last week, enjoy!

This year Matt and I decided to make Christmas gifts instead of buying them for his family. Each year we trade off holidays with each family. This year we are spending Thanksgiving with his family and also celebrating Christmas while we are there. One Packed Weekend! So this year I drew Matt's dad and he is really tough to buy for. Matt offered to build his dad a surprise for me to give to him. Matt drew Aunt Phyllis and she is no easier to buy for than his dad but Matt has a good idea of what to make her. While Matt was busy in the garage, I decided to make some things for the nieces and nephews. I made the cutest tutus for the little girls and put them in these totes I found at Michael's for $3. I added the names and put the tutus inside. Instant gift! For Gavin, the youngest, I put decorated a paint bucket and filled it with little cars. Hopefully they will enjoy them. Sorry Tarah and Cheryl, I ruined the surprise for next week! :)

As much as I try to convince Sarabeth she is a prissy pot, her inner tomboy just won't let her believe it. She is an outside girl all the way! Anytime I open the door, she is out. She loves the grass and flowers, but mostly she loves the dirt. Here are some pictures from yesterday when she dug a huge hole in the flower bed. It will take me days to get all the grime out from under her nails. Poor baby, she doesn't even know what a manicure is yet, but she desperately needs one.

Sarabeth loves to hide. She will start running down the hall for me to chase her and then quickly find a place to hide. It's so funny!

Wow, the week has flown by! I have been thinking a lot this week about how much Matt does for our family. I don't always put myself in his shoes and try to imagine what it's like to carry the burden of providing for my family. Matt graciously gives his all to work and then comes home and gives 100% to us. He can't wait to get home and play in the floor with Sarabeth. The other night he said after playing with her for over an hour "man I really needed that!" Family time with her is like breathing, he has to have it to live. I love that about him. This week in my MOMS group at church, we were talking about creating a home environment that our husbands desire to come home to. It's not about the decorating and furniture placement but more about creating a soft place to fall. Matt works so hard and then comes home and I bombard him with the craziness that happened with us that day. He always listens, although I think sometimes he would rather just come h...

He's so special he gets two MHR entries this week! Matt is such a wonderful husband and also my best friend. Here lately he has been getting home from work so late and it has started to irratate me some. By Wednesday of this week I was so done with it all that we had a little disagreement on the phone that ended abruptly when I hung up on him. Not the wisest thing to do, especailly to him because he HATES that more than anything! So I just knew when he got home, it was on. About 9:00 pm I get a text from him asking me what kind of treat he could get for me at the store b/c I deserved one. ??? What, are you kidding me? That's exactly what I texted back to him. He said he wanted to bring me home something special because he loved me. Ok, guilt trip please! I said I didn't want anything so he said ok, surprise it is! A few minutes later he walked through the door with a box of Blue Bell Ice Cream Sandwiches....one of my favorite treats. What a man! Nothing else wa...

I am a huge fan of the website Tip Junkie . She has some great ideas for just about any thing when it comes to decorating, gifts, crafts, you know the girlie stuff. For the next 12 days she is giving away some great prizes from moms that have their own businesses. It's called Mom-Preneur Shop- a -Thon.Take a look and enter to win and while you are there check out the cutest, fun ideas!

I used to always see SAHM on chat boards or places like myspace and facebook and never really knew what it meant. It's always fun to try to interpret acronyms. Like SWF, Single White Female, I think they made a creepy movie about that. SAHM could stand for a lot of things but it stands for Stay At Home Mom, something I am starting to enjoy being. I never thought I would have the opportunity to be at home and raise my kids. I always knew at some point I would have to go back to work. Matt and I really wanted to wait until we were out of debt to start a family so that I could stay home but that would be a long time! Last night Matt and I were talking about things and we both just started getting weepy (sorry Matt) over the fact that somehow we are able to manage with me not working. It does NOT make sense on paper at all. God has worked it out in a way that we don't even understand, and we are thankful. We both have peaceful hearts about where God has us right now. Although some ...

Ok , I'm super guilty for not keeping up with my MHR posts. I was so reminded by my sweet hubby tonight that I must have forgotten that he Rocks. I didn't forget, I just haven't made the time to sit down and talk about it. SO, I'm making the time now-guilt or no guilt. My back has been hurting for a while now and I have been seeing a chiropractor and a Physical Therapist for the past few months. So far, no improvement. So I talked to Matt about getting a new bed and he suggested just swamping out the one we have with the one we have in storage. It is a smaller bed but I LOVE it and hopefully it would help my back. It's been a few weeks since we decided we would do this so today was the day. After a few hours of relaxing, we (and when I say we, I mean Matt...) went upstairs to disassemble our bed. I didn't realize it took power tools to do this. After it was taken apart, we had to wrap it tightly with several layers of furniture wrap...a 2 person job f...

My Dearest Sarabeth, Happy Birthday sweet pie. These last 12 months have flown by, but I have enjoyed every minute with you. I am so thankful that Daddy works so hard so Mommy can be at home with you. I have loved watching you grow and learn this past year. You are walking and climbing all over the place. You love to look out the window and bark at the dogs in the back yard. This morning you climbed into your Bumbo chair that I had set out to take to storage. You are so full of surprises. You love to laugh and play chase anytime! The outdoors have become your favorite place to be. All I have to say is "bye bye" or "outside" and you make a bee line for the door. I love reading to you and singing and dancing. You love music of any kind and will start dancing even when you hear a cell phone ringer go off! You sleep about 11 hours a night and take 2 naps. We just started you on whole milk this week and you are doing ok so far. Getting you to trade in your bottl...