a year in review

Is it really Thanksgiving already? Where has the year gone?

Here is a summary of our year.
Jan
Wesley was living in Brandon, FL with Brother and Gina. MK and I were living in Opp, AL with my Mom while I was looking for a job in the Tampa area. Wesley got laid off from the job he moved to Tampa for.
Cheryl and Justin got married. I was a bridesmaid. Wesley was an usher and MK was just cute!
Feb
Wesley and I celebrated our 4th anniversary. I got a job at Camelot Community Cares, Inc. MK and I moved to Florida with Wesley
Mar
Nothing major sticks out for March! Guess it was a quiet month.
April
MK turns 1!!


Lots of family came to see us and help celebrate MK's birthday. She had a beach party at the beach with a sandcastle birthday cake. She also walked on her own the day after her birthday. She hasn't slowed down yet!!!!
We find out MK will have a cousin later in the year. Lauren and Brandon are expecting.
May
May was again a slow month, nothing sticks out as happening.
June
Wesley parents come visit and we go to a family reunion in Seffner, FL (about an hour from where we live).

I think June is also when Joseph and Jess came to visit, but could be wrong on that. We move into an apartment to try to downsize and safe a little money. Wesley starts his job at Terminix thanks to Lost my Balls. MK starts at Ms. Teenas. She was hesitant at first, but warmed up to it and got to the point she didn't want to leave when I got there to pick her up.
July
Mom, Lauren and Brandon come down for the 4th. We do lots of swimming. We went to the bay to watch the fireworks.

MK and I ride to Alabama with Jenn and Grandma Sally for Sunii's birthday party. It was quick trip, but worth the ride.
Aug
Wesley begins the last year of his 20s with a birthday hash. Brother also celebrates turning 29. I think there was lots of drinking completed in August.

I got tickets to the Judas Priest concert through work.
I start a new position at work. I am now the Adoption Family Finder. I will be helping to build support networks for our teens getting ready to age out of care. I hope to have them a network of family that will be there for them when those of us that are paid to be there are no longer there.
Sept
We rode to Alabama with Aunt Debbie and Uncle John in their RV for the Labor Day holiday. That is definitely the way to go as far as traveling with a little one. we had family pictures taken while in Alabama by Priceless Pix.

We help the Murdocks welcome little Ayden into the world, and boy was he little!
Oct
October was, in it's usual fashion, a crazy month!
I celebrate the big 3-0 with a birthday hash. Okay, it wasn't really for my birthday but the Jolly Rogers H3 celebrated their 500th run on my birthday, so we had a big hashy party! A few days later Ericka also turned 3-0 and her not to be out done husband, Ben, rounded out the week of festivities with his 30th birthday. We co-hared a hash on Ben's birthday. It was lots of fun. Then we went for drinks at one of our favorite bars, Grind House.

I became an Aunt!! Landon Wyatt Behrens joined the world on 10/26 after giving his Mommy lots of labor pains. MK and I went to Alabama to see Wyatt Halloween weekend. It is also Wyatt's Mommy and Daddy's birthday on Halloween. MK was a Tampa Bay Pirate (okay maybe not a Tampa pirate, but cute one none the less!).

Brother becomes a home owner and moves his stuff to his new town home from the apartment.
Nov
We also move to Brother's new townhouse. It is super close to work!! MK starts at Time of Wonder daycare center, aka school.

This is a picture of her first artwork. It is hanging on the fridge!

This is the first time she has been in a center. She seems to like it, but cries when I leave her. The teachers say she is fine when I leave. She was the same way at Teenas. She also catches a cold in the first week she is there, so that adds to the clinginess. We are ending November with a trip to Alabama for Thanksgiving and the Iron Bowl. ROLL TIDE!!
Dec
We will be staying at home for Christmas. Wesley parents are coming down sometime the week before. My family is coming down on Christmas Eve and will stay a few days. Green and Dane (friends from Alabama) are coming down the end of the month and will be here to bring in 2010. Chrisy and crew will also be in town for the new year. Hopefully with Sunii and Dell as a permanent part of their family!

It's AUNT Misty to you....

I'm officially an AUNT now. Several of my cousin's kids have called me Aunt Misty for a while now, but my sister and brother-in-law welcomed Landon Wyatt into the world at about 430 am. He was 7lbs and 11 oz and 19 in long.



Isn't he adorable??

Here is a picture of him with Mommy and Daddy


Lauren might kill me for the lovely picture, but it's already on facebook!!

We had a pretty busy weekend this past weekend other than Wyatt being born. Saturday morning I had to work a recruitment event for our kids awaiting adoption. It was the 1st recruitment even I had ever worked. It was a bit of chaos, but I think a lot of kids had families express interest in them.


This is a board of kids that are available. Thanks so much Krystina for cutting out 150 or so stars for us to put the kids name and ages on their pictures.

After work I went home and fed MK and got her down for a nap. Too bad she didn't get down until 140. We were suppose to be at a birthday party for Ian at 230 and it was about a 30 min drive. We were late, or did we just arrive in style?! We had a blast hanging out with everyone for Ian's 2nd birthday. His Grandparents bought him an awesome swing set but Mommy couldn't put it together by herself. The whole party revolved around getting it put together. MK and Ian ran around in the backyard while the adults put the swing set together.




They actually played together this time and not just near each other. They were so cute together. Ian can say Madelyn, which is a lot to say for a little one, but he does it wonderfully!


He was giving her a kiss. I missed the actual kiss on the forhead picture, but it was super cute.

I can't resist posting this face

she is SO expressive! I love it!!

Kim had pumpkins for us to carve, but we never got around to that. I did try to get some cute pictures of the kids with the pumpkins (which hearing MK say is adorable. She says "pu kin")





there was a ton more, but I think this post is picture heavy enough!! Stay tuned for pictures of our trip home to see Wyatt!

I don't think I've posted pictures that we had taken Labor Day weekend, so here are some of my favorite.

New look... again!

Several of my friends updated their blog backgrounds and inspired me to do the same. October is my favorite month, so I went with the Halloween theme for now. I plan to change it to Thanksgiving in Nov. and Christmas in Dec. We'll see how that works out.

It's been a while since I've given a good update on MK. She is getting way tall and is sassy as ever. I'm dreading the teenage years already!! Wesley was getting on to her the other day for messing with his PS3. She looked at him, rolled her eyes and continued with what she was doing. He was not amused. She has also started throwing tantrums when she hears the word NO.

She is talking non-stop. We can understand about half of it. Some her her favorite words are: Mommy, Daddy, puppy, kitty cat, Kywee (Kylee, who is her best friend ever at daycare), NeyNey (another daycare friend), Coco, Stewie, Stitch (all of which are dogs at daycare). She can tell you what most of her body parts are with a few exceptions, shoulder being one. When you ask her where her shoulder is she just says knee and points to her knees. She has been in a "big girl" bed for about a month. We tried it a few weeks before it actually happened, but she is there for good now. When we tell her it's time for bed, she grabs her bottle (yes she still prefers a bottle and at night we allow it. Actually we probably allow it more than we should during the weekend too, but it makes her happy!) and Ellie and off to her room she goes. She normally wakes up between 1-3 and comes in our room. No crying or hollering, just walks up to me and says up.

For those that don't know, Brother (yes that's what I call him) is buying a house in Tampa. We will be moving with him to continue to try to save money (He lives with us now). The house is about 2.5 miles from my office and at least 15 miles closer to Wesley's office. I'm sad that MK is having to leave Teena's, but it is just an overall wise decision. I know she will really miss Kywee and NeyNey. I'm sure she will miss Ms. Teena too, I know I will!! We are looking at a few centers. MK has always been at a home daycare, but because she is getting older I think a more structured program will be good for her. The specific center I am looking at has a really impressive website. I've also looked at their DCF ratings and they are all good. Brother plans to close on the house no later that Halloween.

Speaking of Halloween, my sister Lauren (or as MK calls her CuCu)is expecting about that time. Her actual due date is Nov. 9th, but I have a feeling little Landon Wyatt will make an appearance on his Mommy AND Daddy's birthday. Yep you read that right, his Mommy AND Daddy share a birthday.

Let me know how you like my changes.... you digging the festive backgrounds? What about the new signature?

August-Smagust

Since Kristi so nicely pointed out that I skipped blogging in August, I thought it was time to do an update!

We've all been busy as normal. It seems Wesley is working all the time. He works long days and on Saturdays. He seems to be doing a good job and making all his target budgets. I have a new position/title at work. I am now the Adoption Family Finder. Sounds important doesn't it!?! I, along with 7 co-workers, are in a year long training for the Family Finders program. The training is 2 days a month for a year. It is so interesting and rewarding. We have only had 2 days of training, but have already done some amazing connecting. The purpose of the program is to develop a support network for kids in foster care that are getting ready to age out of the system. A lot of times the families believe that the children were adopted years ago. They have no idea that the kids are growing up in the system. I have also been helping fix data in our "wonderful" computer system that was just updated. Lots and lots of data did not convert like it should have, effecting payment for kids that were previously adopted as well as those in the process. I am not the FSFN (our computer system) guru.

MK is getting way to big. She is talking up a storm and saying anything she hears. Time to be more aware of what we say! She is again in a big girl bed. We tried it a few weeks ago, but her bed ended up back as a crib because she would not stay in it during nap time on the weekend. She really does great going to bed at night. We can tell her it is time to go night night with Ellie (her doll) and she goes to her room. She still needs help getting in but stays in it and goes to sleep. She usually wakes up in the middle of the night and ends up in our bed. The other night at about 130, I wake up (not sure why) and hear pages of a book turning. I look down and MK is in our room "reading" my book that I had on the night stand. To make it even cuter, she had on her glasses while she was reading. I'm not sure how long she had been up or when she came into our room!! It was too cute.

Blog with pictures to come .... soon.... ish?

Where did August go?

Wow! Has it really been over a month since I did a blog entry?

I've been working on (with lots and lots of help from Chrisy) the Misty's Kreation website. Chrisy has a few other things preoccupying her time, so it is a slow process. She has just learned how to start at home dialysis, so she has been unable to work on the website. She's doing it all voluntarily so I'll take it as she can get it. Her little one start Kindergarden next week so she has also been getting ready for that. I have a feeling once school starts back she will have a little more free time during the day, so we can get the site up.

here are a few things I've done recently:

Backpack for Sunii. She is all excited about starting school!


Onesie I made for a coworker's little girl. I can't wait to see her in it. I got the idea from an outfit Alaina wore to Lauren's reception. Here is the original outfit

Leave me a comment and let me know what you think about my version.



Bib and matching onesie I did for my cousin Michael's new baby.

I've been working on an order for hasher friend over in Cocoa Beach. I'm excited about it. I will get pictures of it once the entire order is complete. I can't wait to see it on the models she is buying it for. The order includes a new item, Big Brother/Little Sister shirts. They have turned out super cute. I hope to do many more of them!

If you are on facebook, be sure to become a fan of Misty's Kreations. We are over 100 and growing daily.

The next time I will update you on what's been happening in our lives besides Misty's Kreations!

Welcome July!

My Mom, sister and Brother-in-law came to visit for the long 4th of July weekend. We had lots of fun in the sun. Friday we had a low key day, hung out at the house and pool. Brother treated us to dinner at Rumba, a local island-style restaurant. It was yummy food.



MK enjoying a lemon while waiting on dinner. She is by far an entertainer!! Don't you just love that facial expression?!?

Saturday was our busiest day. We went to Paige's to swim with our friends. The pool at Paige's apartment is great.



My kid loves some water. She did take a break long enough to pause for a picture with me. She loves pictures too so it wasn't hard to convince her to sit still for it.

After the pool, we all changed clothes and headed to Victoria's (for those not familiar with Vic, she is Brother's new lady friend) house for some family fun time with her family. There was great food. MK had a good time barking back at the dog. The dog did not enjoy it so much and actually jumped at her twice. Luckily Vic came in and saved the day. We then went to Bayshore Drive to watch the fireworks over the bay. You could see fireworks in all directions around the bay. The main display was done several miles away at Channelside. We couldn't hear the fireworks, and I kept getting side tracked and not watching. I think I need the noise to keep me engaged.

Sunday we were going to the beach for some family pictures, but were too wore out and didn't make it. We did hang out at the pool at our apartment complex again.



I'll leave you with some digital scrap pages I did tonight from this weekend.






I hope to get some more pictures from this weekend done tomorrow.

until next time.....