Welcome baby boy!

Welcome to the newest addition to our family:

Jack David Lyons

He was born October 10th at 6:18am
He weighed 9 pounds 11.5 ounces and was 21.5 inches long.

Birth story coming soon!

Day to Day Life

 Morgan reading "A Wocket in my Pocket" to Eva. She is all about reading these days. It is super fun.  These next few pictures are from the last merry-go-round carousel (it's a merry-go-round that looks like a carousel, so you push it instead of it being motorized) in the US. It's at the downtown mall in Charlottesville and Eva LOVES it. 

I couldn't resist snapping a picture of Eva's hair up in a pony tail. Also, we watch "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" a lot.

Morgan and I went on a date night to Zocalo. It is a latin american restaurant. It is pretty good, not our favorite, but worth a try. The part of the meal that was incredible is this first picture of our appetizer. It was a shrimp dish with fresh salsa and popcorn on top with a side of fresh potatoes chips. It doesn't sound nearly as good as it was, but take my word for it--it was amazing.

Eva has always loved shoes, but she just recently has started trying on my shoes and actually managing to walk around in them. This was her combo the other day. It made for an adorable waddle-walk.

Today we went to the Charlottesville Fire Department for a birthday party tour for one of Eva's friends. I don't know how much she actually loved seeing the trucks, but she loved hanging out with her friends and especially loved seeing the station's dog.

Master Bedroom Makeover

Our bedroom setup/furniture has never been what I would like in a master bedroom. But when your just starting out, you find what you can and do the best with it. Well, i'm happy to say, with our most recent redecoration that I have a bedroom that I could gladly use for years to come. Thanks to craigslist it didn't break the bank either. Our first edition to the room, and what really sparked the redecoration was a new TV. It needed a home, so we needed something to set it on which caused me to turn to craigslist and find this beauty: 

Our huge master bedroom has one tiny closet, and so last winter we bought a dresser. It still wasn't enough space, so we have been looking for a second dresser to add to the room for a while. I was so excited when I found one that matched almost perfectly. That never happens. 

Then I decided that I might as well peruse the queen bed frames on craigslist just to see what they had. To my delight we found a sleigh bed that also matched our dresser. It was like Christmas. 

The next day we loaded them up using our friend's van (thank you Murpheys) and brought them home. I love redecorating so I happily threw myself into it for the next couple days. I made pillows and even a bench for the end of the bed. Now just to give perspective, this is what the room looked like before: 

 I gladly said farewell to this squeaky old bed frame. It was time for it to go. 

And here is the after (it is SO much better): 

 I have been wanting to sew pillow cases for our bed pillows for a while, but just couldn't find fabric cheap enough. Here's my great tip: use curtains from Walmart. I got two curtains for $10 each and made four pillows and a bench out of them. 

 This bench was made from an old organ bench I found on craigslist. I spray painted the bottom brown, glued the foam to the top and then staple-gunned the fabric to the top. It was a fairly simple and inexpensive project. 

 The two matching dressers.

I absolutely LOVE this new set-up and I actually spend time upstairs now.

Nursery Makeover Reveal

Remember this post about how I had plans to redo our nursery. Well, I finally have it finished and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. Here is the bad news: I sadly did not take any 'before' pictures. So, just imagine this room looking a whole lot more boring and we are set. Here is it post-makeover.

This is the only shelf in the room. It makes a huge difference to have some vertical decorating in this space. 

 These are the paper flowers I made. The paper was super cheap and the vase was like $3 from Michaels. 

Here is my favorite part of the decorating process. I wanted some fun artwork in the room, but I wanted it to be personal. I recently have dabbled in watercolor painting and so I figured I'd just paint some pictures myself. I plan to have lullabies for each of my kids, so 'Baby Mine' is Eva's and "Hushabye Mountain" will be little boy's lullaby. Here are some closeups. 

 These are the DIY pom-poms I made to hang over Eva's bed. I love the whimsy they add to the room. 

And that's it. I'm super please with how everything turned out and I'm SUPER glad I actually took the time to put together the nursery finally. It definitely took long enough. 

Take Two: Back to Virginia

Morgan just started his second year of law school this week. He is pretty excited about some of his new classes. We have had a busy month back in Virginia already. We hurried back so Morgan could do on campus interviews, then we got to relax for about a week. We went to the beach a couple times, went to the park, went to some outdoor concerts and just overall enjoyed having so much time together.

Now it is back to the grind. We're finally settling back into a schedule and i'm working like crazy to get ready for baby #2 in six weeks.

I have had a major burst of nesting this last week. I redecorated our master bedroom (pictures coming soon) and have started sewing our Halloween costumes. My hip has been hurting a lot lately, but when it feels good i'm going a hundred miles a minutes trying to get things done.

Beka finally had her little girl, Clara Lela Sorensen. She is a doll.

I wish I could hold and snuggle. I'm glad that I will get my own little bundle here in a few weeks to snuggle with. Eva has absolutely no idea that a baby is coming. We have taught her to call my bump baby and she'll give him kisses if we ask, but besides that she is oblivious. Maybe it is better that way. Oh, I don't think I mentioned on here that we are having a boy, which is awesome! Now we'll have one of each gender and I won't have to worry what our next kids will be.

We're really loving being back in Virginia. It definitely feels more like home the longer we are here.

Summer 2015

We had an awesome summer in Colorado Springs this year. We lived with Morgan's parents while Morgan completed an internship with Judge McHenry at the district courthouse. Shay and Steph were home for the summer as well and we had a great time visiting, watching shows and playing games.

Morgan loved working for his judge. I feel like he finally found why law school was worth it through this internship. He excelled at everything his judge gave him and got a deeper insight into the court system. His favorite part that most surprised him was that he actually really loved watching the jury selection each Monday morning.

Eva grew leaps and bounds over the summer. We had three goals for her this summer: 1-learn to walk barefoot on grass; 2-learn to go down the stairs; 3-learn to enjoy jumping on the trampoline. I am proud to say that ALL three were accomplished in the 10 weeks we were in the Springs. She did take one big tumble down the stairs in the process, but wasn't seriously harmed. She also went to the zoo for the first time ever and loved it. Her aunts taught her a lot of animal noises before we went and she made the appropriate ones she knew (mainly monkey and elephant). Our favorite part of the zoo trip was when we went to visit the petting zoo and an aggressive chicken got too close for Eva's comfort. She quickly backed up, put her hands out and said, "whoa, whoa!" I don't even know where she learned that word from, but it was hilarious. Here is an Eva picture overload.

 Eva in her new pool

 First time coloring

 Relaxing in Grandma Lyons room while watching cartoons. 

 Making friends with the nutcracker at a German restaurant we went to.

 These are Eva's two favorite toys from Grandma's house: a stuffed dog and a blue purse. 

 Running errands

 Dancing in the living room

Splash pad 

 Watching TV with the aunts in her favorite chair

 Playing dress-up

 During family pictures, Eva decided little Gracie needed some encouragement to endure looking at the camera for so long.

I taught Skype lessons during the summer, worked on redecorating my in-laws house, enjoyed having company all the time and picked up watercoloring. Eva and I also spent tons of time together and went swimming and played plenty. It was so nice having Shay, Steph and Mom Lyons around to help entertain our high energy girl.

Other things we did: Visited the Garden of the Gods with the Laws and the McKeans (man, do we miss them both!),

went to a Skysox game (Eva loved Sox the Fox until she saw him up close),

had a tennis tournament (well, Morgan had one...and he won), 

tried camping in the backyard to see how Eva would do (it was a major flop), went up to Denver for the 4th of July to see Sam and Megan, and went to the Denver temple twice. On the last trip to the temple we did Daniel's temple work on the day he passed away a year ago. It was the perfect way to remember him and remember that families are forever.