Happy Birthday, MJ!

Yesterday was my niece's first birthday. My bags were packed and I was ready to go when BOOM! Saturday morning a migraine hit me like a ton of bricks. See, I had made plans to get up Saturday morning and drive down to Ruston in time for her party. At 8am, I was on the floor hugging the porcelain throne for at least 5 hours. (Sorry, TMI?) Well, needless to say, I didn't make my niece's first birthday party and feeling a bit sad about it today, I'm dedicating this post to her. Makaylan Joy. And what a JOY you are, little girl. This past year you have brought a smile to so many faces. Happy Birthday to you, MJ! I can't wait to see you grow up into a young lady who loves to laugh, has compassion for others and most of all who loves the Lord! Happy Birthday from Aunt RaRa. Keep rocking that hair, girl!

Here is MJ sitting in the chair I bought her opening presents on her birthday. 

Isn't she adorable?

Carson Thomas

Welcome to the world little one. This week my second nephew, Carson Thomas Walker, entered the world as a big 8 pound 14 oz healthy baby boy. Born on Wednesday, April 25th,  Carson was 21.5 inches long and had lots of dark hair just like Landon did. He is perfect.  

My parents with Landon (who will be 2 yrs old this July) and brand new baby Carson

Me getting my turn at holding Carson

My brother's family: they look pretty good as a family of four. :)

Momma and baby Carson

I can't wait to take Carson's newborn pics soon. :) I'm sure you will be overwhelmed by baby pics so just bare with me. Who doesn't love baby pictures though, right? 

Easter Weekend

This Easter weekend was all about family. My mom and dad drove up from Louisiana to spend some QT time with us. This was the last time they would spend with Craig, Nicole & Landon before Carson gets here! yay! He's due on the 25th of this month. So we soaked up as much Landon time as possible! :)

Friday evening Buie's parents drove up as well from Rison and the whole family had dinner at Maddie's Place. We all shared a plate of Louisiana crawfish and watched Pop teach Landon how to howl like a coyote which was quite entertaining.

Saturday morning I dropped our foster dog JoJo off at CARE for adoption day with my fingers crossed. Each time, JoJo goes to a new home for a trial run or to a adoption day it's bitter sweet. I have high hopes he will one day find the perfect family to take care of him like we do but in my heart I wonder if there is anyone who will really love him as much as I already do. I'm kind of mad at myself for falling in love with this dog. Why oh why do I love animals so much? Well, I picked up JoJo from CARE and no potential owners asked about him. No one wanted more information on him. No one. But I was just as happy to take him back home to me. Sometimes I wonder if this is where he belongs....

Mom and I headed over to Dempseys Bakery to get a couple of Easter treats and grab lunch. They had a gluten free hot dog stand! I was pretty excited actually. It's been about 5 years since I've had a hot dog with a bun on it (which is actually just a wiener). If you're gluten free and live in the Little Rock area, you HAVE to check out Dempseys Bakery. EVERYTHING they make is GLUTEN FREE! EVERYTHING. I only allow myself to go in their every month or two for a treat. It's so tempting just to open up my purse and start dumping things in and screaming "I've been deprived of these things for YEEEEAAARS!!" But I don't. They might call the cops or something. I managed to only eat a hot dog, some chips and two gf cookies and I was stuffed. But man! was it gooood!

Saturday night, we went to a swanky engagement party for one of my dear friends and I'm mad at myself for not taking any pictures because it was at a gorgeous house overlooking the Arkansas river. Oh well. You can just imagine how pretty it was. Sunset over the river. Aaahh. Pretty huh?

Sunday was Easter and I woke up to this: Sweet right? Not only does my husband cook all of my meals for me, he surprises me with Easter baskets filled with my favorite magazines, favorite candy and a new book to read on the beach next week. Oh, and he's all mine, so no, you can't have him! ;)

Monday mom, dad, Landon, Craig and I spent some time downtown and I rode my first trolly but I'll save that for another post... Hope y'all are having a great week!

February Pinterest Project

I'm playing catch up on my Pinterest projects. In January I decided to pick one Do-It-Yourself Pinterest inspired project each month this year and yes, I have done one the first 3 months of the year. In February I put to use the many corks I had saved from the past few years. You wouldn't believe it from looking at this bulletin board but I actually am not a big wine drinker. This is an accumulation of corks since I was about 23 or so. There are so many ideas of Pinterest to use wine corks, including trivets, and even a bath mat made out of corks. This bulletin board was the first to catch my eye, but since I don't have that many corks, I decided to make a small bulletin board.

orginially from this blog: Life as a Thrifter

I actually already had the frame so there was really no cost in this project. I started hot glueing the corks in a pattern around the outer boarder working my way towards the middle. Once I got to the middle, it was harder to squeeze in the corks. Some of them I even had to sand down to make them fit.

In the end, they all fit and I was pleased with the turn out! This cork board brings some texture to our kitchen. We can tack pictures or our favorite recipes on the board - whatever we want! :) Thank for the PINSPIRATION!

Check out January's Pinterest project here.

Cousin Time

I'm catching up on some blogging and I can't NOT blog about these two cuties. After our Mexico trip, I did a quick load of laundry, picked up my car at the dealership, packed up some photo props for my next shoot and headed down to Louisiana. I had made plans to shoot two birthday parties in Shreveport, but FIRST I had to see my niece and nephew. My family (minus mom & Buie) met at our favorite local catfish restaurant, Port au Prince, to enjoy a little food & fellowship and of course entertainment from these two:

Lately I've seen my niece, Makaylan, more often than usual. My oldest brother, his wife, and Makaylan came up to Little Rock a couple a weeks ago for some family time. We loved seeing the two of the kids interact. I just know they are going to be best friends!

Pretty soon we will have one more niece and one more nephew to add to our family! My nephew, Carson, will be here in less than a month! Woo hoo!