Angry much?

You know that time when you bring a helium balloon home from the grocery store, and your mom refuses to detach it from your favorite inflatable pal for fears that it will immediately take off for the vaulted ceiling? Well apparently it's very frustrating...

Poor, poor Gyffy took a beating.

Life Lately

This little blog space has been a bit quiet lately, mainly because life around our place hasn't been. We've been quite pre-occupied with cleaning, sorting, trying to get our ducks in a row, unsuccessfully coordinating social dates, creating and planning fun projects, and tying up as many loose ends as possible. In addition, Kevin has had some big work meetings, but thankfully my mom came down for a helpful weeklong visit. Don't be fooled though, we haven't been too busy to enjoy this amazing spring like weather that the region has blessed with lately. Though we could all do without these nasty allergies that has accompanied the heat...they're taking their toll on all of us!


In the meantime, here's a little of what's going on in Augie's world...

towers and tunnels. all day everyday.

Momo was initiated into the tower building club

old nanny Stephanie dropped by for some play time

breakfasts with Papa

learning to nap outside of our bed

allergies are no fun.

shorts in January

4/52

on the verge of three, but can still be spied sleeping liking a baby

* week 4 of the 52 project

3/52

"woakin' on Papa's compooter"

*week 3 of the 52 project

2/52

*week 2 of the 52 project

1/52

I recently happened upon an Australian blogger who has created a fun photo challenge for herself. Last year she decided to take one portrait a week of her children, and post them to her blog. At the end of the year, she would have 52 photos that document the adventures and the changes of the past year. Not being one to shy away from pictures of my offspring, I've decided it would be fun to join in the movement.
My brother recently acquired the same fabulous portrait lense for his camera that I have, so I thought it would be fun to enter him into the challenge. He's not one for much blogging, but is still up for the challenge, so we have a friendly little portrait showcase going on between each other. Though he has upped the ante, and has given himself the task of taking portraits of a different person each week! I don't have that much human interaction in a year, so I will be sticking to kids and dogs...
Anyway, without further adieu, here is my first submission for the year.

August in his natural element.

New Year

It was not my intent to wait two weeks before posting about the New Year. I started off the new year with the revelation that my hard drive was full. So we've spent some of our spare time over the past few days, backing up and deleting a years worth of photos and documents. Thankfully we are now up and running with plenty of free space to tackle the upcoming year. Talk about starting off on a clean slate!
We celebrated the New Year in quite the low-key Gupton fashion. We're not big on hoopla if you haven't noticed by now. Anyway, we weren't planning on doing anything particularly special for the evening. But while my sweet husband was out running errands, he impulsively decided we needed to have a little bit of a celebration to mark the evening. So he braved the masses at HEB in the 'burbs to buy all kinds of greasy, unhealthy indulgences for us to consume. It was a funny way to ring in the new year, and it was a relief to note that we just don't have the tolerance for all of that kind of food that we did back in our spry college days...
The next morning was a bit cold and dreary...a perfect day in my opinion. After watching the Tournament of Roses Parade (I'm a bit of a televised parade fanatic), we decided to bundle up and take a nice, leisurely family walk through the park. There weren't too many people out and about except for the hoards of festive revelers braving the waters of Barton Springs pool to partake in the annual Polar Bear Swim. Apparently it was a free, come and go event throughout the day. I truly was surprised and royally entertained to see all of the diverse types of people showing up to hurl themselves into the spring fed pool. Our little fish of a two year old, of course wanted to get a closer look. I'd be lying if I didn't admit to at least considering tossing him for the perfect photo opp, but realized it would probably be frowned upon, despite his consent. So my better judgement won out, and we continued on our merry way down the trail a bit more. Once we reached the pedestrian bridge and gawked at all of the turtles and fish, it was time to head home to eat our black eyed peas, okra, tomatoes and cornbread. I couldn't think of a better, more relaxing, way to start the new year if I tried.

Ringing in the New Year

Thirty Two

365 days have seemingly flown by, and here we are celebrating my birthday yet again. I'm not big on celebrations for myself for some reason. I feel a lot of people selfishly put too much pressure and expectation on their loved ones to 'go all out' for their big days. While of course it's nice to be noticed and celebrated for a day, I don't feel that too much of an effort is needed for it to feel successful.
So today I spent my day in a perfectly relaxing, typically Laura fashion. August started back to school for the spring semester, so I dropped him off first thing in the morning, and spent the remainder of my merry time running errands, doing a little shopping, and a lot of browsing at my own, quiet, pace. Did I mention it was raining all morning? I absolutely love nothing more than a slightly cold, grey, rainy day. The perfect birthday backdrop if ever I could have created one.
Anyway, I didn't buy anything particularly flashy or noteworthy, as a matter of fact almost everything was for my boys...I do love shopping for them. Then I treated myself to a Chickfila lunch, picked Augie up from school, put him down for a nap, came home and baked myself a cake from scratch. ( I make yummy cakes, I do not claim them to be pretty or clean) Before I knew it Kevin was home early with a handful of my favorite purple irises, and the rest of the evening was spent with my loves. A perfectly simple, and lovely way to spend my 'special' day.

he ate one sprinkle for every one he placed.

he's REALLY into birthdays right now. 

Thirty Two in all her 'glory'

always nearby to lend his help

literally cheered Papa on the entire time he was cutting our slices

she was every bit as scrumptious as I had hoped

the end of a wonderful day,
and the beginning of another blessed year.

White Christmas...kind of.

Despite the rarity, a large portion of the DFW metroplex received a white Christmas this year. Once the wind started whipping, the rain storming down, and the temperatures plummeting, I found myself staring at the radar in hopes that we would see some of the white stuff out my parents windows. Unfortunately the snowflakes missed my parents house by about ten miles.
The next day came and went and I didn't think anything more of seeing the white stuff this year. However, two days after Christmas, Kevin, my dad, Emeri, August, and I drove out to a neighboring town to attempt a fun playground photoshoot. Much to our surprise, when we drove up, we found an empty playground and several beautiful, untouched mounds of snow! While a certain toddler was in no mood to cooperate with our original planned photoshoot, we all had a grand time frolicking in the snow.

Christmas #3

Our third and final installment of the Christmas holiday took place with my family up in Granbury. We drove up to my parents house Christmas Eve day, and were met by my sister and her family later that evening. August was able to get a lot of play time in with his cousins, Kevin pitched in to make some pies, and we were all able to hang out, open our Christmas Eve pajamas, and watch a few classic Christmas movies before the hoopla of the big day.
Santa finally made his much anticipated arrival in the wee hours of Christmas morning. He brought August his teddy bear and a fun pop up teepee, Emeri the jump rope that she asked for along with a bag full of other goodies, Noah got some Beats headphones, and baby Milo received a fun little playhouse. While August appreciated his gifts, he quickly took sole ownership of Milo's house. Thankfully Milo wasn't interested in hanging out for too long, because Augusts inability to share didn't make for a pretty sight.
My brother's family wasn't able to make the short drive from Dallas, so we went on with our morning gift exchange with just the ten of us. The adults of the family decided to simplify our gift exchange this year by giving primarily homemade, or super personalized small gifts for one another. It was so fun and thoughtful, I really look forward to recreating it again next year.

He adores his big cousin Emeri. They're inseparable!

Again this year, August was a bit overwhelmed by all of the commotion surrounding the gift opening process. He preferred to slowly open his first gift and just go play. As a mom, I can't say that bothers me too much. I can hope that he never builds too high of an expectation, becomes ungrateful, or forgets that Christmas is about love, family, blessings, and the eternal gift we've all been bestowed. At that point it may be time to make some changes and refocus. 

some of the homemade/semi-homemade gifts we contributed:

for the moms of the little ones in the family

fairy gardens and art supplies

for the man who already has absolutely everything