The Easley's: 2013

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Moments of 2013 {in pictures}!

2013 was by far a wonderful year! I always hate to see a great year come to an end but I know the next year will be even better. This year was full of fun and laughter, joy and even more joy, new experiences and a new house, and many other unforgettable experiences! I'm going to let the pictures do most of the talking!

1. Brent celebrated his 29th birthday 2. The Ravens won the superbowl 3. Rowen got his first pair of TOMS. 4. We visited the zoo...a lot! 5. Brent and I got into great shape! 6. We celebrated Valentine's Day as a party of 3 at Amerigos 7. I got bangs. 8. I got pretty crafty...one of my silly creations=a heart shaped pizza w/heart 'ronis. 9. Brent and I spent a weekend in Memphis and caught a Grizzlies game while we were there. 10. Our nephew, Connor, celebrated his 3rd birthday. 11. Rowen's favorite place in the spring/summer was the park. 12. My friend Kate got married. 13. We found out that we would be having a second child. 14. The first ultrasound. 15. Found out it was a girl and decided on a name! 16. I celebrated my 31st birthday.

1. Rowen found a love for Thomas the Train. 2. My cousin Rebekah graduated from Harding University 3. My cravings for donuts got shared w/my little guy! 4. We spent our annual week in Destin w/Brent's family. 5. Brent and I celebrated 3 years of marriage. 6. Rowen celebrated his 2nd birthday w/a train party. 7. He was a penguin for Halloween. 8. We celebrated our first Halloween in the new house. 9. Rowen got a big boy room. 10. He also discovered a love for ladybugs! 11. I got my haircut. 12. A major haircut! 13. Brent and I have enjoyed some nice warm nights in front of our fireplace. 14. We welcomed our daughter on December 5th. 15. Sibling love. 16. Heading home from the hospital.

{ Enjoying our life as a family of 4!! }

Monday, December 30, 2013

Easley Christmas Eve 2013

Our family Christmas card 2013:

I love our card this year. I used Minted last year and will definitely use them again but this year we needed a quick turn around with our cards so we used Walgreens and I think it turned out wonderfully!

Christmas Eve was spent with Brent's dad's side of the family that afternoon and my parents and grandparents that evening.

5 generation picture

{Brent's great grandmother holding Isla, Brent's grandmother, Brent's dad, Brent, Rowen & Isla}

We had a nice time visiting with family and eating yummy food. We played some fun games too!

My grandparents came into town to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas day with us. Every other year my side of the family goes up to WV for Christmas but this year was our year to stay here to be with Brent's fam so my grandparents decided to come down....mainly to see the new baby :)

I failed to get a picture of all of us together and even a picture of Rowen and Isla with my parents! Oops! But here's a picture of my grandparents with the kids:

{Rowen would not hold still. It must have been all the excitement of new toys!}

My mom fixed a delicious meal and after eating we all opened presents.

Rowen got a trampoline, a basketball goal, some new trains, a barn w/animals, and a bean bag just to name a few things! We had a great time that night w/my parents and grandparents.Brent and I got lots of giftcards! Love getting giftcards. We also got chairs for our dining room table.

Sweet Isla.

It was definitely a wonderful day with family.

Friday, December 20, 2013

Christmas jammies, snow, and a few decorations...

I can't believe Christmas is almost here...5 days?? It has sneaked up on me! My days just run into each other right now anyways{ hello 2 week old baby! }. I still have some gifts to buy so I unfortunately will have to bump elbows with the other last minute shoppers this weekend. Super!

On a different note, how cute are these littles?!

I love Christmas jammies. I haven't been as good this year with making sure Rowen wears his Christmas jammies every night to bed so they may extend into January. I'll be keeping it festive around this house for a bit longer after Christmas.

Rowen loves the tree this year and has pretty much destroyed the bottom 3 feet or so. It usually would have made me sad to see torn up branches of a pretty Christmas tree but he giggles when he runs into it and those giggles are sweet and won't last forever right?? So the pieces laying at the bottom of the tree and the branches that are hanging on by a thread are totally ok with me! Watching your child have fun is priceless.

A week or so ago we had a pretty good snow. It's pretty much hit or miss in the winter here in Nashville if we have a snow or 2. We sometimes go through winter without seeing the fluffy white stuff which makes me a little sad. I LOVE snow! So when I woke up to see it covering the ground, I totally got giddy and excited. I couldn't wait to take Rowen out in it. He loved it and even launched a snowball at me which busted all over my jacket.

snowball in hand

I hope we get lots and lots more snow this winter!!

I kind of slacked on the Christmas decorations this year: enter 2 week old! I did however get some things up to make our house look a little Christmasy. We have a huge tree in the living room, stockings hung on the mantle( I love having a fireplace this year ), lights on our trees outside, and pine and a red bow on our mailbox.

Rowen even has a little Christmas card holder hanging in his room that we have hung some of his Christmas things on( bottom right picture ). I love this time of the year and wish it lasted longer than a month. Happy {almost} Christmas!!

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Meet the newest member of our family: Isla Wren Easley

Born on December 5th at 1:37am.

Weighing 8 lbs 6 oz and 18 inches long

This was me earlier that day! Not feeling a thing and obviously not knowing we would meet our sweet girl less than 12 hours later.

The birth story will come in a few days but I just wanted to share photos from her first few days in the hospital...

Her brother only weighed 4 oz more than she did. Isn't she so sweet?!

Rowen meeting his baby sister for the first time!

In their matching shirts.

On our first night there, all of the siblings showed up! and Rowen's sweet little cousins. 11 and growing!

Going home!

Isla is such a sweet baby and we are so blessed to have her as part of our family!

Sunday, December 1, 2013

Hello December!

I can't believe it's already December! One of the best months of the year. Baby Isla is due in 5 days but I can just feel that she will make her appearance before then. I can't believe that we are about to become a family of 4!

We have been trying to squeeze in as much time with Rowen as possible. And we have certainly done some fun activities lately. Last weekend we went to visit Santa at Bass Pro shop. Rowen has never been afraid of Santa so I figured everything would go smoothly...and it did.

He actually loved sitting on Santa's lap. He got a bit shy when Santa asked him what he wanted for Christmas though. I love this picture!

A little comparison. Oh how he has changed so much in a year!

I looked outside while Rowen and I were sitting in the kitchen last week and saw a lot of birds and squirrels scrounging around for food. And I had the idea of making peanut butter popcorn pinecone treats. I made these a couple times when I was little and thought Rowen would enjoy this fun little activity.

We already had everything so it took no time at all and we had fun watching the ummmm...squirrels gobble all the popcorn up. The birds didn't even have a chance to taste the yummy treats!

Yesterday we headed to the local botanical gardens to see some reindeer and Christmas trees. We have a membership there and they have fun things to do and see all year round. The reindeer were so cute.

They also have a pretty cool train exhibit outside. That of course is Rowen's favorite part of Cheekwood!

We also went and got our tree on Friday. There was actually a big tree lot set up about half a mile from our house and they had fantastic trees. The tree we picked out is huge! It's probably 9 feet tall and 6-7 feet around.

{pre-decorated tree}

{finished tree}

I just love this time of the year! Don't you?! I'm guessing that my next post will be letting you know that our sweet baby girl has arrived. It literally will be at any moment now!!

Until then...our cute and handsome little guy :)

Thursday, November 21, 2013

-Rowen's 2 year pictures-

We had Rowen's 2 year pictures taken on the last Saturday of October. It was a chilly morning but a very beautiful day! The wonderful Libby Barker took pictures for us. You can check out her website HERE. I love every single picture she took! I have spared you from all 150 and picked out a few of my favorites.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

{A hair cut, tuna, and a cutie}

I have been thinking about chopping my hair off for weeks now. I have gone back and forth, listed pros and cons, second guessed my want for shorter hair etc...etc...Well, last Tuesday I had an appointment and went for it. I have had long hair for many many years and I loved it but just wanted something different.

I visited Trim. Brent gets his hair cut there but it was actually my first time there. I loved the atmosphere and the girl that cut my hair was awesome! I took in a picture, we had a quick consultation, and she went to work on my super long hair. She was actually really excited to cut lots of it off which made me that much more excited. I was a little nervous at first but so ready for a new look as well.

And here's the before and after:

8 or so inches gone! I am really enjoying it. It takes much less time to wash and dry which is perfect with a baby who will be here in the next few weeks. I'm still playing around with how to style it but I'm sure I will figure it all out soon!

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I was really craving tuna and noodles last week for lunch and knew I had those 2 items in the pantry. The only thing I didn't know was what creamy sauce would I use to hold it all together. I of course Googled "tuna noodles" and every recipe that popped up was pretty much the same. This might sound like a college kid type meal but it was super quick and took about 10 minutes to throw together.

*one can of tuna

( we get our canned tuna at Whole Foods and it's the most delicious canned tuna...it really is! )

*half a can of cream of mushroom

*a handful of egg noodles

I boiled the noodles then drained them after they were done. Left them in the strainer while I mixed the tuna and cream of mushroom in the pot on the stove that I used for the noodles. I let those heat up together for a few minutes and then put the noodles back in the pot. Mixed it all together, added a pinch of salt and pepper and voila! Tuna noodles! Some of the recipes added peas and chopped mushrooms to the dish. But I just stuck with the basic recipe.

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Rowen has been quite the cutie on camera lately. He has always been really good at smiling in pictures but lately I feel like his cute, sweet personality is really shining through in pictures.

{at the park last week}

{at Union Station watching the trains}

And this is random BUT don't you think Rowen looks like me here?! I do! I feel like our facial features are almost identical right down to our cute little cheeks!

Happy Tuesday!