Maggie Moo is Almost Two...

Can you believe that my sweet little itty bitty baby is only 4 months away from being a 2 year old. Seems like time is just flying by when all I want in the world is for it to stand still.

Maggie is an absolute joy to have around. She is so fun and so funny all at the same time. She is into EVERYTHING...but is so smart! Some of her favorite activities include texting on mommy's phone (oh dear), working a puzzle, reorganizing mommy's sewing area, riding and playing outside, and watching a "SHHHOOOWWWW!"

Her best friend is still sweet little pink bunny that she goes no where without. She as also taken to sleeping with a blanket. I always said that I didn't want to be one of "those parents" who allowed their child to have an item that they can't live without. Well, guess what. Maggie needed bunny when daddy was in the hospital and she hasn't let go of him since and that is a-okay with me.

Josh, Mags, and I headed to a beautiful local park one day last weekend to take some pics of Maggie. Josh's skills are blowing me away. He is just so comfortable with the camera. I loved how they all turned out and hope you do too. It is just unbelievable that the child in these pictures as already had two haircuts, is walking, carrying on conversations, and has the best manners of any child I know. I love her with all that I am. Enjoy!

How sweet is this picture. She was really reading to bunny. I just love it!

Of course, Daddy caught one of me too. Just thought I would share it too.

My Heart...

Thinking about all that our family went through after Josh got sick, can often be an amazing pill to swallow. I have been asked several times if I wish it had never happened. That is also an interesting question to answer. Don't get me wrong, I would never wish for a day that Josh would have been so sick...but do I "regret" it...NO! It was God's plan. Just like lots of different things in life, I didn't understand God's plan at the time, but more and more lately I am seeing it unfold and I am so thrilled with the path God is laying down for my family.

Josh is loving school and while it often presents challenges that could make you want to pull your hair out, I know that he goes to work every morning happy and proud of the person that he as become. Maggie is growing like a weed. She decided to use the potty last night for the first time ever! She was so proud of herself and so were we!!! I am loving my job and just life in general. I feel like I am making a difference in the lives of my students and just happy to be in the building I am in and working at such an awesome "job."

On Friday, Feb. 6th I did something that changed my life in a way that I could have never imagined. As you all know, I am a PE teacher in Hendersonville and love it. I have participated in Jump Rope for Heart events before both while I was in Elementary School and as a teacher at my former schools. I was thrilled when my awesome principal allowed me to do the fund raiser this year here at school. I wasn't sure what to expect...to say that I was nervous, would be an understatement of the year. I just wanted my students to understand why we were doing it and that sometimes in life, it is not all about the prizes. I have an amazing JRFH coordinator that I LOVE. I was researching online some information about my event and came across something that immediately struck my attention. Go Red For Women was hosting an open casting call for women from all walks of life to come on down and tell their story. SERIOUSLY! So I immediately thought...there is no way they will even be close to TN even if I could go. They were coming to Franklin, TN on Feb. 6th, which just happened to be National Wear Red for Women Day!

I immediately got tears in my eyes and knew that I had to do this. PERIOD. There really wasn't anyway around it. My heart was pounding and I was so excited to walk downstairs and tell Josh that I was "going to do it...I have to this!" So...I did. I left school as soon as possible on that Friday and headed straight to Franklin Macy's. The open call was from 4-6 and I had no idea what to expect. Thankfully, my awesome Molly Lolly was there with me by my side, being a bestie...as usual. I had thought about it, prayed about it, had others pray about it, and wrote down my thoughts so at least they were organized. Lyndsey took me to Barnes and Noble one afternoon, which was proved to be so productive! (Thanks Clem!)

So I went, I cried pretty much from the time that I sat down, I made some new friends, and I felt so proud of myself. The interview lady was awesome and by the end of the videotaped interview, the camera man and video runner guy were both teary eyed! They said that it was the best interview of the day. The interview was not exactly what I expected. They had a set of questions they wanted you to answer...pretty basic stuff. I just decided that I was going to be honest and if it worked out for me to tell the true story, then so be it. I felt from the moment that I walked into Macy's that God had his hand in that whole situation.

I was able to tell my story about Josh and how CPR and awareness saved his life. I told how I told my story here at school and teachers here are getting their CPR training soon because of that. I told them that Maggie was absolutely the highlight of our lives and that essentially she saved Josh's life. That she was his angel from day 6. I told them how it didn't matter if my stitches from the C-Section ripped or if I cracked a few of his ribs while performing CPR, he lived. I told them that I didn't think that Josh really started living until after he had gotten sick.

It was an amazing experience and one that I will always carry with me. I don't know what if anything will come of the opportunity, but I am so proud of what I did and for the example that I created for Maggie that day.

All submissions will be available at the end of the month for the public to view and if I am chosen, I will be notified by mail by May 1st. I would be one of the spokeswoman and face of the Go Red For Women Campaign. Imagine how many that would reach! I have turned it over to God. If it is meant to be, it will be. I think it would be one of the most amazing things EVER!

It Truly is the BEST Show on Earth...

So has it been forever since I blogged...YES! We have been having so much fun lately that I haven't made time to blog. Whoops!

Last month on Jan. 24th, we took Maggie to her first CIRCUS. It was awesome. Ironically enough that was also her 18 month birthday. My awesome student teacher, Lyndsey, randomly said one day, man I want to go to the circus. I had no idea they were even in town. So what did we do...we WENT and it was amazing!

Truth be told, it was a bit long. It was right at 3 hours. Okay, I am 27 and it was almost too much for me and my backside. But, it was so cool for Maggie to see all the animals and clowns and to just have the experience. We arrived an hour early so we could go down and meet and greet with the members of the circus and the oobbeeerrr awesome animals.

Josh, of course, came fully equipped with his camera so we got some amazing shots.

I took one picture the whole time with his camera. He NEVER gets in pictures anymore since he is always behind the camera. So, I got this shot of him and Mags. She is watching the before show elephant act. It was so cool!

So, I already mentioned Lyndsey. She came to Walton Ferry right after Christmas and is moving to Hawkins Middle next week. We have had such a ball together. She is so fun and just lovely to be around. As soon as we got down to the pre-show, I snagged "Slim the Clown" (I have no idea if that was his real name or not, but TRUST ME...the clown had about 0% body fat) to take a picture with Lyndsey. Too funny! I had no idea she was making that face until Josh developed them, but it suits the person standing next to her!

The show itself was awesome! Tons of kids, tons of adults acting like kids, what more could you want for a Saturday morning.

Lyndsey was kind enough to take a family pic of us.

I ABSOLUTELY love this picture of us. It is for sure a framer. What a blessing our relationship has been to my life. I can't wait to see where God leads Lyndsey's life, but I am so thankful that I was lucky enough to get to work with her for 8 weeks!

What a great day with LOTS of awesome memories!!!

Our Little Dane...

...is here. He is so stinkin' cute and so loveable! We are so glad that he is growing and that Lori is recovering quite well. Mr. Dane decided to come a little more than a month early, but he is healthy and just beautiful! We had a great trip up to see him this weekend! Enjoy a couple of pics here and be sure to see the rest on Josh's photo blog!

The Beckoning of Lovely...

There are not many videos on YouTube that I just love. I just love this one. I love everything about it. I hope you love it too!

Happy Holidays From The Harris Crew...

...Maggie, Anna, Mary Elizabeth, Isaac, and Luke...

Well, we sure hope that everyone had a great Christmas and is looking forward to a fun and safe New Year's Eve. Our Christmas break has been unbelievable! Josh and I both having all this time together to spend with each other and our families has been the best present of all.

Maggie had a wonderful Christmas as well. We spent the first part of last week here at home. Josh and I treated ourselves with a special gift to each other. We bought a new Christmas tree. It is beautiful and it was a BaRgAiN! We have always had a tree. It was the first tree that we purchased at Target together when we first got married. $16.99, not pre-lit, and even had the individual sticks that you place in a pole to create the tree. It was time for an upgrade for sure!

We spent Christmas morning at my sister's house. It was so fun. Her kiddos racked up (in a good way) from Santa so there was so much for Maggie to play with. We always start with a Christmas morning breakfast with JuJu cooking. Grandma Norma is a master with the eggs and this year the first thing I saw when I walked into Brea's house was Anna in the kitchen with her American Girl apron on manning the sausage! How cool is that! She is growing up so fast!


After breakfast, it's presents time! I am so happy to say that everything I (we) gave to Brea's kids was completely homemade! It was so cool to see them be excited about something that Aunt Alie made them!


I was jazzed when I opened up my new Dyson Root Vacuum! I am so excited to clean!


Notice that Maggie is sporting her new hair do...PigTails! Her hair is getting so long and thick that we needed to do something...and why not piggietails...or as Molly Ledford would say Kibbibs!
Maggie got a ton of really great presents from everyone! JuJu and Poppie Eddie got her a Pottery Barn Kids Anywhere Chair that she already loves to sit and and climb on! Love it!


The Freeman Crew got Maggie this Step 2 Rollercoaster! She loved it from the second that she saw it at their house! She loves to go "weeeeeee" all the way down it!



This awesome painting was a huge surprise. My dad, Poppie Eddie, created this painting for us. I absolutely love it. The first thing we did when we got home was hang it up! It looks so beautiful above my sewing table...and means so much because Dad created it for us to love!

I just had to include this picture. This was at Brea's house and the boys are trying to teach Papa Charles how to play the Wii MarioCart. It was too funny to watch. Papa had no clue what he was doing, but what a great memory for the boys!

After Christmas here in TN, we jetted up to Indiana a day early to surprise Josh's family! It was great! His mom just couldn't believe we were there! We stayed there for 5 days. It was so nice to be there with his family for longer than a weekend. We even got to spend a morning shopping with his MawMaw. That was great! Our sister-in-law Lori decided to go into labor when we hit the Kentucky/Tennessee border, but she is a bit too early so they stopped her labor. She isn't due for a couple more weeks, so hopefully little Dane will wait a bit longer to make his appearance!

We had a great Holiday with our families. We are so blessed to have such awesome people in our lives that love us so much!
Happy New Year's to everyone!

Happy Thanksgiving from The Harris Home...

Hope you all had a wonderful and relaxing Thanksgiving. Josh is sure in love with "the teacher's schedule" as he was able to have an extra day off this year. He is not going to know what to do with himself around Christmas time with two whole weeks off.

We had a great Thanksgiving. Very low key and just about being a family. We went to my JuJu's house and had a yummy Thanksgiving lunch on Thursday. Josh, of course, brought his camera and captured some beautiful pictures of everyone, especially Brea's kiddos.

He captured this image of me and Anna. She is my beautiful 10 year old niece that I still feel should be Maggie's age. She is such a fun, loving, and sweet young lady. I love her so. She will always hold a special place in my heart as she was my sister's first child. I still remember standing out in the hallway waiting to hear her cry. I was a Junior in High School and had no idea how cool is was going to be to be an aunt to such an awesome little girl.

I was lucky enough to get some sewing done over the break, including this skirt. This was the free skirt that I custom made for the winner of my sewing blog contest. I love the way it turned out!

Now we are looking forward to Christmas and all those memories they will hold. Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Maggie's New Do...

Today was such a fun day. I love days where Josh, Maggie and I just get to hang out and be us together with no real agenda. We decided to get a couple of things done today.

We first headed out to Phillips Toy Mart in Nashville and spent some time in there just looking around and picking up a few Christmas gifts from Santa! That place is so much fun but so packed full. No strollers can get through, which is fine with us because Maggie is going through the "I don't want to be in a stroller when I can just walk or jog anywhere I want to go" stage. I say stage...Lord, I don't know if it is a stage.

After taking care of that we headed over to Green Hills Mall to check out a couple of things there and then headed back north for Maggie's first haircut. To say that Maggie was overdo for a haircut is the understatement of the year. She is so cute and as much as I love her peacock hair, it was out of control. I mean, you know it is BAD when strangers come up and ask Maggie in their "I'm talking to a baby" voice if Mommy has been rubbing a balloon on her head!

We went to see Ms. Nicki at Mitzi's...we love her. She was great with Maggie. They were used to each other because Maggie always goes along for Josh's haircuts and my services (i.e. waxing the bushes off my forehead). Maggie did great. She didn't love the cape, so we got hair all over her, but that was okay!

This is the before picture...oh My!

And the after picture...

She is getting so big. She looks like such a little girl in this picture. Ms. Nicki rewarded Maggie with a sucker, which Mags loved. How cute are those overalls...Thanks Aunt Brea! Also, I just have to say this...Maggie LOVES bracelets. We found this one at Phillip's for a $1.99. She loved it! Overall, it was a great Saturday with great memories!

For Patti...

I have never been a huge fan of sending flowers to a funeral home when someone passes. I get the point and I value the beauty that flowers provide, it is just not my thing.

Last week, my mom's best friend lost her mother. Let me just say that my mom's best friend, Patti, is one of those women that you love to be around. She is little, sweet, beautiful, and just plain fun. Patti and her hubby, Ronnie, have been in my life for as long as I remember. We ALWAYS did things with Patti and Ronnie, and still do. I remember going over to Patti's mother's house and playing volleyball in the backyard and searching for Easter eggs. We are not related to Patti, but it always felt that she was just our family. I love her. She used to fix me the BEST ice cream sundae's when we would go to her house, just because she knew that I liked them.

When I found out that Patti had lost Mrs. Per, I wanted to do something that would hopefully hold more long term meaning than flowers. I decided to make her a hanky with a calendar cut out of the month and date that her mom passed. November 14th has a heart around it. It is not to constantly remind her of the date, rather to constantly remind her that she is loved by so many. I got this awesome vintage calendar cut out from Etsy seller chakrapennywhistle. I contacted her to make sure that she had the right date to line up with the right day of the week. Since they are vintage, you have to double check those things.

I love the way it turned out and I hope that Patti will love it for years to come as well. Mrs. Per was a wonderful lady who had a wonderful family. Heaven just got sweeter...

love...

...this girl so much!

Happy Halloween...

Happy Halloween to all of you!

Maggie had a great Halloween. This was her second Halloween, but since she was only 3 months old on the last Halloween, this Halloween was soooo fun!

I purchased her costume about a month and a half ago. I was searching on Ebay for some cute ideas. I came across this costume made by Babystyle and LOVED it. If you have ever met Maggs in person, you know that her hair is generally standing straight up as if she has been living inside of an electricial outlet. It is cute and funny, but not so great when your going to church or somewhere more serious. I love her hair. I think it is great. When I saw this peacock costume, it was perfect. She has always been my little peacock with that hair.

I got a great deal on it and Maggie loved it. The costume itself is beautiful. Huge, but beautiful!

We were excited to trick or treat with Brea and Jonathan's kiddos. We love those guys so much!

They always have the cutest costumes. This year they were characters from Alice in Wonderland. Anna was of course Alice and she looked so beautiful and grown up.

The boys were Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Little Mary was the Cheshire Cat.

How great is this picture. I can bearly look at this without tearing up. Those girls are going to be the best of friends.

Hope everyone had a great and safe Halloween! Hard to believe that the Holiday season is coming so quickly. We were so excited to have warm weather for trick or treating last night.

Since the Holiday season is right around the corner, be sure to hop over to my sewing blog where I am giving away an awesome Maggie Moo Skirt. I am going to custom make one lucky winner a skirt of their choice. Be sure to check it out!

Maggie's Sweet 15 Month Photo Shoot...

Today was a great day! Josh and I headed up to my mom and dad's house in Greenbrier to do Maggie's 15 month photo shoot. We tried so hard to get some great 1 year pictures 3 months ago...it just didn't happen. Today Maggie was in top form. She was smiling, laughing, playing some serious peek-a-boo...and just plain having fun.

I love my mom and dad's house. Josh and I had our wedding pictures taken there in the backyard before our wedding. They have a beautiful pine tree row that is practically famous, beautiful flower beds, and some cool old barns.

My mom and dad were so much help today. You should have seen my dad playing with Maggie to get her to smile. I just sat and watched how my dad interacted with her and it made my heart happy. I am very close to both of my parents. I only hope that Maggie will grow and love her parents as much I as I love mine.

These two shots are not the best of Maggie's face, but I just love the simplicity they hold of her just sitting and playing in the grass and looking back at us from the chair.

Of course, daddy, Josh, took all of these amazing photos of Maggie.
I just love every single one of them and the memories they will always hold!

jdharrisphotography.wordpress.com

Buying Homemade...It Just Feels Good!

If you have not been to Etsy.com lately, GO NOW! That site is unbelievable!

Since I craft myself, I LOVE to purchase other crafter's work there and either keep it for myself or give as gifts. 98% of what is on Etsy is homemade. You just feel good when you shop there. People are friendly, they want you to love what they have spent hours creating.

Here are some of my most recent purchases off Etsy.

My Joshie actually purchased this print for me. We all know how obsessed I am with birds. I have been talking about this ever since I order a print for Anna. I just love it! It is from seller dazeychic.

This is the print that I ordered for Anna's birthday. It just said ANNA to me. She loved it! Art is also by dazeychic.

I purchased this shopping cart cover from a great seller, MichaelMoooDesigns. I hated the store bought shopping covers because they didn't really cover the buggy the way I wanted. This cover is the best. We get compliments on it every where we go.

I ordered this beautiful brooch from PrettyinPosies. Jenn is the BEST to work with. She has created tons of clippies for Maggie. I got this brooch for my mentor at school. She LOVED it.

So, if you have not been to Etsy lately...GO! You will be purchasing a one of a kind item that someone made with tons of love and time. It just makes your heart feel good.

So, Going Back to Number 3...

If you read a couple of posts ago, I admitted that one day I would LOVE to have my own children's line of clothing. Since I just started heavily sewing a little over a year ago, I have always wondered what it would be like to make Maggie's clothes. Not really for others to compliment, but for me to know that I could do it.

I love Sunday afternoon naps for Maggie. She loves to sleep for a really long time, partly because she is worn out from the week, partly because we don't make a sound in order to let her sleep. Today, I thought I would work on an awesome skirt for Ms. Maggie. We are fixing to do her 15 month (can you believe it?!!?) photo shoot and I wanted to have something special for her to wear. It took about 2.5 hours to make and I LOVE the way it came out!

So, who knows about that clothing line. Maybe one day, maybe one day soon...

I would love to know what you think about it...I hope Maggie will love it!

What Do You Get...

...when you combine a kitchen window being close to the ground and a really tall hubby?