the life

parker has the life.  seriously, he has no idea how good he has it.  james does, too.  here is a little peak into a typical day:

6:30am: parker wakes up.  (would like to push this back to 7 or 7:30 but i'm not complaining).

7:15am: p eats breakfast, usually applesauce (no sugar added :)), a banana (he stopped eating bananas for a while but now that he can bite off of the actual banana, he loves them again), 1/3 of my pbj & some of daddy's cereal.  he is such a little beggar when it comes to wanting to share mommy and daddy's food.

7:45: mom leaves for work

8:45: james and parker head to the gym:

they usually stay for 2 hours! sometimes 2 1/2. do you know how good of shape i could be in if i went the gym for 2 1/2 hours every morning?!?  jealous.

daddy loves lifting weights, playing basketball and relaxing in the hot tub.  it is a nice break in the day for him and satisfies the "i need to get out of the house" feeling. 

sweet playland at the gym (i have no idea who the kids are in the picture--just got it off the gym website, ha.  maybe i should take some pictures of parker at the gym... or that'd be completely weird...nah, i'll do it).  actually, according to james the teachers at the gym love parks and have taken pictures of him playing, but i have yet to get ahold of any of the photos.

p and daddy come home from the gym around 11:30 and parks goes straight to bed for 2-3 hours.  man, if i had 2-3 hours of free time in the middle of the day, i would cook, clean, blog daily, work on more shutterfly albums, etc.  or maybe i would just watch tv, but i'd like to think i could get a lot accomplished.  daddy and p play at home from 2-5 and then...

5:15 mommy gets home!  we often go to the pool or have dinner play dates with parker's best friends in the neighborhood, grahm and dylan.

around 7:45 parker goes to sleep and it is mommy and daddy time before it is time to start another day.  we all have a good life, and even though there are times i would rather be working out than stagnantly sitting a computer making pivot tables, there are many things i love about my job and life.

on the 1-2 days a week when james and i both work, parker goes over to my sweet neighbor cyndi's house.  even though p cries when we drop him off at the church nursery, he has never once cried when i've left him at cyndi's.  he loves her so much.  in fact, he's cried when i come to pick him up much more than drop him off.  p sure knows how to make a mommy feel good :).

but do you blame him?  look at this awesome bounce house she inflated for him to play in one day!  she takes him to the splash park, pool, etc. and he loves playing with her two kids. james mentioned the other day that he thinks parker is an extrovert because he just gets so excited when other kids are around.   

i am thankful for where we are.  after long distance dating, p's surprise 2 months into our marriage and job changes for james and me in the first year of marriage, it is nice to have comfortable stability right now.  sweet dreams and love you all!

grandma time!

a few weeks ago my mom, grandma and step grandma drove from central kansas to arkansas so parker could finally meet his great grandmas!!  four generations:

i always like to do my mom's hair and makeup when she is in town.

isn't betty (mom) beautiful?!?

there happened to be a free zac brown band & tim mcgraw concert in town, so we drove to fayetteville for the action!

i LOVE zbb.  tim mcgraw was great, too, because we could sing along to every song.  love country music!

the flash kept blinding parker, hahahaha.

ahh finally a good one.  daddy and parks.

we came home and played some apples to apples.

and of course hit up our favorite summer spot--the pool!

thanks for coming to visit, grandmas!  we love you!!

p?

i am exhausted tonight because parker did not want to go to bed until 9:45pm (as opposed to his 7:30pm norm), thus totally wiping out any "me" time.  last night p didn't go to bed until 9:30pm because of the wedding, and his whole schedule is still out of whack.  as much fun as it is to hang out with friends, i've found it is soooo much easier to come home by 7:30pm.  as limiting as that sounds, our whole family is much happier and productive when we adhere to normal bedtimes.  plus it is nice to spend time with james each night around the house and relax. 

for the last month or two i've found myself doodling potential baby names on the sunday church bulletin even though we're still figuring out the timeline for baby #2.  here are some favorites:

1. paxton (i love this name and think it sounds so cute to say "parker and paxton" but james says it is too preppy/metro).

2. preston (see response above from james.  i would really like 2 p names :)).

3. princeton (sure it's a lil' haughty, but i think kids generally grow into their names and hopefully it would encourage studious habits).

*besides all of these names starting with p, i love the strong hard "t" sound in them.

4. perkins (it could be cute).

5. payton (this is the only one james likes of the list, but i like it more for a girl).

other p's: prescott (now that is preppy!), pierce (although it reminds me of paul pierce who james dislikes even though he is a former jayhawk!), paul (BIL's name), peter (know too many creepy peters), etc.

and if we don't go with p, the other three names i still like from our first pregnancy:

1. blaze (there is something about the "z" that i love).

2. cash (how can you not smile when you say cash kehrli?)

3. hunter (hard t again)

james pretty much hates all of these names, but hopefully by the time #2 is here we can agree on something.  oh and girl names?  j reminded me again today that he is only capable of creating boys (the mantra he chanted our whole first pregnancy even though i was convinced we were having a girl).

and last but not least, here are a few of parker's one year pictures i never posted from a few months ago.  love him!!

sweet dreams!!

upcoming fun

james and i had kind of a lame-o winter in terms of vacation.  our spring break consisting of going to tulsa, and even though we got to stay in this decent hotel, it was mainly a work trip so it doesn't really count (although it was cheap!).

after being cooped up in arkansas for so long, we are very excited about our upcoming excursions!  james went camping in the ozarks last weekend with some of his college friends to kick off the summer (i got to visit my family in kansas).  this saturday we are going to my friend carajean's wedding (far left), and i am looking forward to seeing some of my old college friends.

they are having a nursery at the church for the wedding (awesome!) and i got this fun dress from white house to wear. 

in july my best friends from junior high and i are spending a week together in northern cal!  a few years ago we did the l.a./santa barbara/vegas tour, and this year we are touring san fran, napa and two nightst at spa on highway 1!  can't wait!!!  (parker is staying home with daddy and grandma)

and last but not least, in sept. we are taking a family trip to denver for my friend jinger's wedding!  (far right).  we worked together at pwc and i can't wait to see her walk down the aisle in colorado.

i love summer, love traveling, and love how appreciative i am to be home after trips!

looking back

i've been working on parker's first year shutterfly album for oh, 4 weeks (and there is still a long way to go).  before i had him, my goal was to do a nice album for each year of my children's lives.  that goal seems a lil' ambitious now (although i'm convinced that if i was a stay at home mom i would have time to do it), but at least i will have one album for parker's first year!  i don't know if i can keep up the pace of monthly photo shoots with each of our next children, but oh well.  i cherish the thousands of pictures i have of p!

one month.  i can barely remember when he was this little!

6 months!  chunky lil' monkey, but oh so cute!

one year!  love his personality!  love the smiles and belly laughs.

oh what a year it has been.  what a wonderful, joy-filled year.

t-r-o-u-b-l-e

parker might be the wildest 14 month old ever.

exhibit a: he loves to crawl off the steps in the pool into the deep end and dunk himself. they expanded our neighborhood pool by connecting the baby pool and big pool this year, creating a scary trap for young ones. we wanted parker to know that he cannot go past the edge of the steps into the deep end, so we let him go under a couple of times and swooped him right up. however, this backfired and now parker LOVES to go off the stairs and dunk himself as a game. it is so obvious that he is doing it on purpose because he always takes a big breath before stepping off the edge. oh well, i am just thankful that he loves the pool and water! here is a lil' video of him splashing.



exhibit b: pulling all of the books off the book shelf (and food out of the lazy susan, lotions out of the bathroom cabinents, etc). it does not help that he can open every single door in our house now. ahhh so much for shutting him out of non-baby proofed areas. here is a lil' video of him and his friend grahm making a mess...



exhibit c: parker demonstrated tonight that he can climb onto mini motor vehicles and drive them! we were playing outside with my next door neighbor's two boys and parker ran over to the 3 year old's fourwheeler, hopped on, and figured out how to use the gas pedal within 30 seconds!



parks, you are truly a rascal. all boy, all the time, always got to keep an eye on you. but that's why we love you! muah!

on budgets

call me a nerd, but every month i look forward to putting together our household budget.  ever since our class created a stock market team in 8th grade (erin!), i've loved all things related to investing and finance.  there is still part of me that would love to be a financial advisor, but i need to get a few more gray hairs before people will take my advice seriously.

i love reading about how other people budget.  i don't think there is a right or wrong way--what works for some couples doesn't work for others.  many young couples i know operate on a cash or envelope system and it works well for them.  james and i are not disciplined enough and too impulsive to do this.  if it is may 25th and we want to have steaks over the weekend, yet we don't have much "grocery money" left, we still buy steaks.  if our friends invite us bowling and we've exhausted our monthly "entertainment allowance," we still go bowling.  you get the idea...

instead of a strict budget, we have more of a budget "goal."  at the end of each month we reactively track our expenses and classify them accordingly to measure performance.  for us this is less restrictive and fits our lifestyle.  during the month we try to live frugally, but we don't change our actions because one bucket of the budget is empty.  post-spending tracking gives flexibility with variable costs (like the price of gas) and yields freedom.

sidenote #1: we are not anti-credit cards.  i agree with most of dave ramsey's advice, but credit cards can be a very useful and profitable financial tool if used properly.  we have a capital one card (with a personal photo on it, ha) that earns a $50 walmart gift card every other month on average.  by using our credit card on expenses, we get $300 worth of gift cards a year!  there is no annual fee with the card and we make sure to pay it off fully every month.   

sidenote #2: we love automatic withdrawal options.  all of our utility bills, car insurance premiums, mortages, cable bills, even our tithes at church are automatically taken out every month (i can't decide if i like this last one, though.  our church encourages people to give by direct deposit, but sometimes it seems to lose part of the heart of giving.  however, the accountability of having it taken out every month and the heart of that decision to set it almost makes up for it).

we also automatically transfer money to parker's college fund and savings fund.  we just switched his savings fund into a mutual fund because we were sick of getting minimal interest at the bank.  any time he gets gifts for his birthday we put it directly in one of these accounts and enjoy watching them grow (oh and our names are listed as the account holders even though they are for parker--better for financial aid later in life!) 

phew.  this is getting long and i haven't even listed our budget categories.  hopefully more on that later, although i'm not sure anyone is really interested in this topic or cares.  james and i are by no means experts, but we've found a good system that works for us.  and i can't do a post without a couple of pictures of parks...he can now open doors!  ahh this was a scary day when he realized he is tall enough to reach the handles.  and i love the next pic of him, even though i have no idea whose legs are behind him (at his friend abree's 1st birthday party some of her relatives were playing with parker).  so cute!

g'nite yall. sweet dreams!