Photo Friday, golden birthday fun, and a surprise guest!

Wow it's crazy how much can happen in a week. First of all, thank you for all the birthday love! Usually, I'm so excited to celebrate my birthday, but this year, I don't know, I just wasn't feeling it. I would've thought that it being my golden birthday, I'd be celebrating longer than my normal week, but I just couldn't get excited about it.

Last Thursday night, Josh got called into work, he ended up working past 9 o'clock. I was trying my hardest to stay awake, but this pregnant mama was struggling. Just as I was about to call it a night, I hear the front door opening. When I looked over to greet Josh, a different person met my glance. My mom strolled through the door!

If you know me, you know I'm kind of hard to surprise. I love being surprised, but for some reason, I end up ruining it. Every. Single. Time. Not this time. Josh and my parents really got me, and no one believed that I had no idea. I couldn't stop crying, I was so happy. I feel so blessed that the people I'm closest to know not only how to brighten my spirits, but also know that they needed a lift to begin with.

Saturday, we went bowling. Our friends Shelby, Billy, and Sophia surprised me with a beautiful birthday cake!  Later that night we played "Cards Against Humanity," if this was any indication of how my birthday week was going to be, I was in for a birthday to remember!

My actual birthday was spent sleeping in a little, hitting IHOP for breakfast, then making the hour trip to Las Cruces to hit the mall there (there really isn't much of a mall here), and enjoying Dippin' Dots and Olive Garden, before heading back home. The rest of the day was spent just hanging with a few of my favorite people. Oh and it was 70 degrees ON MY BIRTHDAY! That has never happened to me, and will probably never happen again. I soaked up as much of that glorious sunshine while I could.

 One of our family photo outtakes

The beautiful drive to Las Cruces includes scenic mountains and white sands

I didn't realize how much I missed Dippin' Dots, so good!

 My birthday dates

My other birthday date

Take home birthday tirimisu from Olive Garden! One of the many surprises I recieved from Josh, my new dehydrator. He also got me a wine cooler and the essential oils I've had my eye on. Seriously, my husband is pretty awesome!

Wednesday was my mom's last full day here, so we hit up the Old Apple Barn. Guys, this is one of the cutest little stores I've ever been to. It's basically a little nostalgia shop, but you can also get fudge, pies, apple and cherry ciders, and assorted types of nuts. My favorite part was the cider, you can get it in a bottle, or they also serve it in slushie form!

I'm pretty sure he would've drank that whole thing by himself if we let him haha

 I love that you can see the white sands in the distance

 My Mama is way braver than me!

Me and my love!

So, like I said before, it's crazy how much can happen in a week! With that being said, I still have a Photo Friday to share!

Day 24: Best invention ever. Airplanes. Airplanes are the best! They brought my mom down here and I still can't believe I got to spend my birthday with her! Thank you Mom, Dad, and Josh!

Day 25: Cloud 9. I love my boys, and I can't wait to see Josh with one more added to the mix. Cole asks me at least once every morning, "Where Daddy?" They are two peas in a pod, and I love seeing the love between them. 

Day 26: Home. 1. Don't you love how Josh's car is displayed?! 2. It looks like there's a tiny circus in our back yard. 3. The blue skies here are unreal sometimes. I think it's my favorite thing about living here. 4. Gotta love base housing and our neighbor's garage door being a different color than ours!

Day 27: Birthday. Wow. I am 27. It's still sounds foreign to me, but then saying I was 26 sounded funny too. In typical Trout family photo fashion, I am the only one looking at the camera. I really hope this next kid takes after me, and actually looks at the camera for more than a split second. 

Day 28: Letter "D." This one slipped my mind. Can we just count the "D" in the signs behind us? You may also notice, Josh is looking at the camera! Baby steps, baby steps.

Day 29: Street. This was taken on our way back from the Old Apple Barn and I can't get enough of just how beautiful this view is! 

Day 30: In my bag. It's super exciting, I know. If I hadn't cleaned my purse out earlier this week, you would've also found a couple of toys, old shopping lists, and a few receipts. If we're running errands and I know we'll be gone for a while, I might also toss an orange in the bag as well.

Day 31: Goal. I really want to make as many memories in New Mexico as we can, before we move back to Omaha in October.

I'm also celebrating 4 years of blogging! It's crazy to think that when I started this blog, I was still living in Omaha, Josh and I were childless, had never been to Europe, or New Mexico. Yet, here we are, living in New Mexico, expecting our second child, and we have great memories from our time in Germany. Life's pretty amazing!

Photo Friday

Day 17: In progress. I loved doing Cole's paintings for his big boy room so much, I decided that little brother should have a DC comics room. If you follow me on Instagram, you might have caught my sneak peak into this painting!

Day 18: Entertainment. Sometimes I look over at my son and he has covered himself up with a blanket, and is thumbing through a classic.

Day 19: Out & about. We had a doctor's appointment on Monday, we decided to celebrate a good check-up with some Buffalo Wild Wings!

Day 20: Yellow. Okay, so this one is kind of hard to see, but this yellow truck was so stinkin' cool! There are so many old classic cars and trucks in this area. These fixed up beauties cruise down the roads all the time around here.

Day 21: Legwear. In celebration of my mom's 29th birthday, I'm rocking a pair of sweats she gave me! Happy birthday, Lady, I love you so much!

Day 22: Diptych. I had never even heard of diptych photography before I started planning for my January Photo-A-Day challenge. When it snowed yesterday, I knew I wanted to give this particular challenge a shot. Cole has never had a good chance to play in the snow (it didn't snow our last year in Germany, and it was too cold when we were visiting Omaha). We were only outside for about 10 minutes, but he had an absolute blast. It's a good thing we went outside when we did, it was all melted about 2 hours later.

Day 23: Every day I. Drink ice water. In copious amounts. If there is one thing I'm proud of with this pregnancy versus the last one, it would have to be the amount of water I drink. With Cole, it seemed like I hardly drank any water, and as a result experienced a lot of inconveniences that could've easily been avoided. Lesson learned. 

Photo Friday

Day 10: Jewelry. This was my anniversary gift this past year. I'm loving it a little extra right now because I'm unable/afraid to wear my wedding bands this pregnancy. When I was pregnant with Cole, I had severe swelling in my fingers and my rings got stuck. Luckily, they didn't need to be cut off, but I think I was getting pretty close. I've been fortunate this time around, and haven't experienced the swelling I experienced with Cole.

Day 11: Noise. Doesn't my neighbor's dog look like a brown Nessa? This little pup was kinda hard to snap a photo of because it was all over the place! I don't mind the barking, and I think it's because this dog seems to have a similar personality to Nessa. P.S. don't you love my dirt yard?! 

Day 12: Ordinary moment. When we lived in Germany I dreaded doing laundry. First of all, the washer and dryer we had were VERY small. Second, they were in our kitchen. Third, because they were German, I couldn't read what the different functions were without using Google Translate. Now that we have our American washer and dryer back, I don't mind laundry anymore. I love how spacious they are, more importantly, I can read what the different functions are. It's the little things...

Day 13: Destroy. Okay, this one may be a stretch. On Monday, Cole was playing and gravity failed him. In other words, he slipped and fell. He already had a tiny scar from a previous mishap, and I think that's why the floor "destroyed" his chin the way it did. It looks worse than it actually is, but I have no doubt it still hurts like the dickens. We did our best to bandage him up, but gave up by Tuesday, because he didn't seem to bother it as much when there wasn't anything there (which works out, because I was able to at least get a picture of it, not for the blog, but to make sure it didn't look worse over the next few days).

Day 14: Read. I'm actually in the process of reading two books right now. I'm finishing up Ina May's Guide to Childbirth, and just started The Day They Hung the Elephant. There is a lot of lore that surrounds this story. Mary the elephant was actually hanged for murder in 1916, but the facts surrounding it have become foggy. The author makes an attempt to separate fact from fiction. Like I said, I'm only a few pages in, and I can't wait to see what happens! This was a book that belonged to my late Grandma, she's from Erwin, Tennessee, where the everything takes place. My favorite part of the book, is that it still smells like my Grandma's house. This week, I feel a little closer to her.

Day 15: Craving. Cereal, man. Cereal. I don't care what box it comes in, I'll eat it. I can't be stopped. Not pictured: Life cereal and Frosted Mini-Wheats, because it was trash day and I had already polished them off. 

 Day 16: Bump. This week marks my last week in the second trimester! Specifically, today marks 90 days until my due date! Coleden and I celebrated by playing in the water.

Photo Friday

Day 3: Outside. IT SNOWED HERE! We woke up Saturday morning to a little snow. By the time we left to run errands around 9, most of it had melted, but there was snow on the ground! Pictures or it didn't happen, right?!

 Day 4: Four. Last weekend, Josh and I were organizing Cole's room and came across a bunch of Josh's old Hot Wheels. Cole has been in hog heaven ever since. He loves racing them around his road rug! I think Josh likes racing cars on the road rug too! Boys. :)

 Day 5: Great song. Have you ever been hanging out listening to music, and you just have to have a dance party?! This is an everyday occurrence at our house. Our current favorite dancin' tune is
"Uptown Funk." We especially love using cars as microphones to sing along.

Day 6: New. We upgraded our Kia! I will miss my Kia Soul. I loved that little car, but that's exactly what it was-little. With baby number 2 on the way, Josh and I decided it was time for a "grown up" car. It even has heated seats, fancy!

Day 7: Makes me smile. I really wanted to grab the nice camera for this, but I absolutely did not want to wake him up! Sometimes my son sleeps with his hand under his armpit, other times I find him with his hand down his pants. Must be a boy thing!

 Day 8: Recipe. We've had this tasty supper a few times now, and every time, I'm surprised by how easy and filling it is. To simplify things, I use Oscar Mayer carving board turkey or chicken (we've tried both, be sure to buy 2 of the 7.5oz. containers). I've also used Hungry Jack mashed potatoes if we don't have leftover mashed potatoes.

 

 Day 9: Paper. Does cardboard count as paper? I think so. I also think Amazon would make a killing just selling their big boxes. Cole sat and colored in this box for almost 30 minutes. THIRTY MINUTES! He won't color on paper for more than 30 seconds, but he stayed busy for an entire television show! Why didn't I think of this before?!

Photo Friday 2015!

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a great New Year's Eve and Day. Our night was spent finishing off the Harry Potter series, drinking sparkling grape juice (Josh too, he was on-call), and reflecting on our crazy year. We actually rung in the new year watching an episode of "House Hunters International," it was based in Germany, in case you were interested. I think we made it to about 12:15, and the only reason we made it that long, was because we wanted to make sure that there wouldn't be any fireworks (there weren't) that could possibly wake our sleeping babe.

I figured, it's a new year, why not give Photo Friday another shot!

 

Day 1: 12:01 a.m. Okay, so this wasn't at 12:01, more like 5:30, but it's the best I could do. Our camera isn't so good for the selfies, and a wiggly toddler meant I had to take a snapshot with my phone, not my favorite method, but I also wouldn't have gotten this cute picture of Cole had I tried to grab another camera. I'll mark it as a win!

Day 2: Words to live by. A few days ago, I was scrolling through Pinterest and came across a pin for a reading challenge. This specific challenge gives guidelines on types of books to read. In this case, my challenge was "A book you can finish in a day." I chose "The World According to Mister Rogers." It's a compilation of Fred Rogers quotes. I've had my eye on this book for a while, and finally decided to sit down a read it, and it was just what I needed. I remember watching Mr. Rogers when I was younger, his show always left me with a smile on my face, and that's exactly what this book did as well.

Photo Friday

 Day 12: Play. I pulled out the paints and the big paper and let Cole go to town. I learned he's not a fan of painting with cotton balls or his fingers, but give him a paint brush and he'll go to town!

 Day 13: Sunday Funday. We munched on Cheerio necklaces while we watched "Planes." Movie snacks are way more fun when you make them yourself!

 Day 14: Upside down. This is one of Cole's favorite things to do right now. He'll climb up on our couch, throw his legs on the back of the couch, and just hang out upside down. Weirdo.

 Day 15: Sidewalk. It was such a nice, warm week we decided to take that to our advantage and head outside for some fresh air and chalk fun. Cole lasted about 5 minutes before he headed back inside.

 Day 16: Cold drink. On a whim, I decided to throw some mango, and blueberries into our blender with a little cherry juice, and guys, it's amazing! Cole has his serious face on, but it's because I was making him take a picture when he was trying to watch "Planes," that movie has been on a lot this week. A lot.

 Day 17: Open. A glimpse through our skylight.

Day 18: Freckles. I love my freckles, it's one of my favorite things about myself.