Maggie Claire update & some outside fun

These past couple of weeks I have seriously been reminding myself of how blessed I am to have Maggie Claire! She amazes me everyday, and she is already getting so smart. Maggie Claire is now 16.5 months old, and as healthy as can be! When we took her to her last doctors appointment, she was a little over 23 pounds, and I think 33 inches tall. She got her 15 month shots, and she had to get some blood drawn, and it was so pitiful. We gave her a sucker when they started to draw the blood, so that helped with her laying still, but she still cried when they stuck her :( She was a trooper and was obviously spoiled for the rest of the day! ;)

I took these sweet pictures of her last week while we were playing outside. It was still a little cold, so I was trying to get her to wear the hat. I got this cute picture before she pulled it off her head! She knows she's cute! ha!

Maggie Claire loves playing with her soccer ball, and a lot of the time, I will see her carrying around both her basketball and soccer ball at the same time! She was hugging her soccer ball and running at the same time her cheeks were jiggling! This toddlerhood stage is so fun.

She is getting quite the personality and I love it! She says words like mama, daddy, choo choo, cheese, side{outside}, shoes, mimi, papa, oma, opa, and she tries to say Jack "ack" and Tate "ate" too. Mags will try to repeat just about anything you say, but sometimes she just looks at us like we are crazy when we ask her to say something! lol.

Some of her favorite things to do are play outside, eat {she eats anything and everything!!}, watch yo gabba gabba, veggie tales, toy story 3, play with her picnic basket, play with her kitchen, and her most favorite thing still to do is read books! Today I saw her walk over to the stairs, sit on the bottom step with her legs crossed indian style and she was looking at one of her favorite books, Harry the Dirty Dog. She loves that book! I tried to snap a picture, but it was right when Mike got home, so as soon as she heard the door open, she started running to her daddy. :)

We are enjoying this fun stage of toddlerhood, and are looking forward to and loving this beautiful weather we are having today and tomorrow! We are also very excited about Mike's parents coming in town this weekend from Colorado!!! yay, Mimi and Papa will be here to play with Mags! :)

1 Thessalonians 5:24

"The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it."

cousin fun & hat weather

On Wednesday, we headed over to my brother & sister-in-law's house for Maggie Claire to have a little playdate with her cousins Jack and Tate! She had the.best.time. Thanks Bethany & Brad for hosting us. :)

The kids played in the backyard for a while and ran off all of their energy!

Jack was showing us all his new digger he got for Christmas.

Attempt to get a picture of all three of them. They are so sweet! I love these little blonde headed babies! :)

Since it has been a little chilly outside lately, you know I had to get pictures of Maggie Claire in her adorable cupcake hat she got for Christmas!

seriously- cutest cupcake ever!

teaching mags how to warm her hands by rubbing them together

I love this picture of Maggie Claire and her friend Will who is 11 months old. I watch Will a few days a week and Maggie Claire loves him. She gets so excited when he is here! He is such a sweetie! :)

"A friend loves at all times"

Proverbs 17:17a

welcome mid-november :)

sweet november!

I love November for many reasons, one of the main reasons is because it's thanksgiving, and just thinking about all the things I can be thankful for. My family is one of them, and so thankful that we are hosting Thanksgiving at our house this year! Mike's parents and grandparents are coming from California and St. Louis! I'm excited because I'm buying a turkey and making lots of yummy foods! oh, and decorating... which makes my heart happy! :)

Maybe one of the most exciting things about november is that it's my birthday month! ;) This year my birthday falls on Thanksgiving day, which what a blessing that is!! Everyone should be thankful for me. :) {I'm totally kidding, hehe} I've been saving up for my own birthday present this year, and I am just too excited about it... details coming soon!

I am so thankful for November and for this sweet baby girl who isn't so much a baby anymore. I'm also thankful for the excitement and busyness that this season brings.

Also for being in our new home this year. Typing that just fills my heart with joy knowing that this is our house to build our family in for the Lord! These pictures make me thankful for a my beautiful big backyard to take pictures in!

Watching this little baby girl grow has been one of the most precious things to see this year and I'm praying that her heart will be thankful the more she does grow.

I'm so thankful for my discipleship huddle that is so encouraging and challenging to me. We are doing a "no excuse november" that our women's ministry director started. It means there is no excuse to not read his word daily, so we are twittering #NEN for accountability along with a verse that we read that day. These women keep me accountable, and I am so thankful for that!

{follow me on twitter @hilarysurratt}

so blessed and so thankful!

"Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus."

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

the perfect day

I wanted to tell you all about Maggie Claire's birthday. We had the best day celebrating her and just spending time with her :)

Here we are right before lunch. We went to Cane's and we ate yummy chicken, which is her favorite. I love how she has her hands folded in this picture. She is precious and she totally knew it was her birthday, she was acting so giddy!

Big girl, she is so proud drinking her milk in her sippy cup!

Enjoying lunch a little too much.... {notice the foot propped up}

After lunch we went and picked up Mimi Sherry from the airport. She had a lot of birthday surprises for the princess!

We hung out outside, {her favorite thing to do is go "side", which means outside}

Swinging with Mimi Sherry

Before we went to dinner, I gave her a ponytail. It was so cute!

She has the best time pushing her princess car around!

I still can't believe how fast this year has gone by. I think I only cried a couple of times that day realizing that my "baby" is growing up! We had the best day with her. It was perfect!

fun fall day!

Today was such a fun fall day! This morning I took Maggie Claire to get her picture taken in her cupcake halloween costume. Seriously, it was so cute. I have never taken her to get her pictures done by anyone, because I have just always done them, but this opportunity came up last minute and so I jumped on it. She did such a good job that the photographer gave her her first sucker. She loved it and sucked all of it gone! I can't wait to see how they turned out! Here is mags eating her lollipop with my mom who came with us this morning!

After taking pictures we went and ate at Chickfila. She has never really played in the playplace, so I let her play for a few minutes and she was acting like she could play in there forever! Crazy girl! {She had her legwarmers & bloomers on underneath her costume}

After Mags woke up from her afternoon nap, we went to the pumpkin patch at Boone Hall. I forgot my camera, so all of these pictures were taken on my phone! Here is our family picture at the pumpkin patch, We had fun taking pictures with all the pumpkins!

Maggie Claire even picked out her own little pumpkin. She was so sweet playing with it.

Maggie Claire with her Oma & Opa

I have been decorating my house for fall. I put my little pumpkin lights outside with our candycorn welcome sign! :) I think we will actually have lots of trick or treaters too because we have quite a few kids on our street! yay! :)

Happy Fall y'all!

does summer have to be over?

I started a new "nanny/caregiver/babysitter" job last week. Can you tell I'm having trouble what to call my new job? hehe. It's 3 days a week, but it's 10 hour days 730-530, so it's a full time job. The little boy {he's 6 months old} comes over to our house so it has been great and so nice because Maggie Claire can stay on her schedule and nap in her crib. I'm just so blessed to have off on Wednesdays & Fridays! Especially because Friday is Mike's day off, so we declare it
"friday family funday" along with a lot of other families who work at Seacoast.

Since I started this new job we have had less time to soak up the sun at the pool or beach, but are still trying to as much as possible. On Friday, we set up Maggie Claire's baby pool in the backyard and let her play in it. She is just like her momma and loves to be outside. Can't you tell? She loves to cheese at the camera...
I really would like to go to the beach some more before it gets too cool outside, but luckily living in Charleston, you can go to the beach just about anytime up until November! Hopefully this weekend {if the hurricane doesn't hit us}, or next weekend we'll be hitting up the beach. :) What I do love about school starting back is that going to the park is way more fun because it seems to be less crowded. I'll be taking both babies to the park a lot in the fall. :)

Since summer is winding down, the fall brings a whole new season of life that we are starting back up including our Thursday morning Bible study! :) We are doing a Priscilla Shirer study called SEEDS, which I am definitely looking forward to! Also- it's starting to be birthday season! All of Maggie Claire's friends are having birthday parties-starting this weekend, and then it'll be Maggie Claire's 1st birthday in about 6 weeks! I'm trying to prepare myself for this- I am definitely not ready for my baby to be 1 yet. Good thing we still have 6 weeks.

Well, I'm looking at the baby monitor and looks like Maggie Claire is ready to get up and eat some lunch, so I better get back to mommyhood. It's very rare for both babies to be sleeping at the same time, so I was soaking in this blog writing time. Have a great Tuesday everyone! :)

California Trip

We had the best time in the beautiful state of California! We've been home for 2 weeks now and I am finally getting back into the swing of things. It's more like the "new swing of things" being in out new house! ;) I wanted to share some pictures and show you all the exciting thing we did on our trip.

Here is Mags playing peek-a-boo with my new hat. She is so funny playing this, and it makes her laugh every time she plays it.

This place was so awesome. This "beach club" was in my in-laws neighborhood. It was a pool, but it had sand like a beach to play it. I'm not sure if I had more fun or Maggie Claire did playing in the sand!

We went to a couple of places where there were petting zoos and this lama{I think that's what it was} was just looking at MC and it kept doing its lips funny! It actually never scared her, she just kept looking at it like "what is this thing?!?!?!"

sweet mags swinging in the swing. Look at her precious sandals!

MC petting a goat at the petting zoo. This goat had weird eyes!

mimi sherry helped her not be scared of any of the animals, because you know this mama is not an animal lover!

We went on a little train ride too, Mags sat with mimi and papa. They had the best time with her, we were so sad to leave!

OK, yall! Maggie Claire road a real pony! This was the most precious thing ever and she loved it! She didn't even hold on the entire time- my brave girl! She really had no idea she was even on a pony! I was so paranoid the entire time she was going to fall off- as you can see my hand in the picture right behind her, as Mimi Sherry walked the pony. The pony's name was Dan. how cute! Afterward when we were taking pictures, she was so proud of herself. We got it on video too. It is the cutest thing! You can watch the video on youtube here!

Nothing says California like going to in-n-out burger! I'm not a burger gal, but it was delicious!

Mike and I celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary while we were in California! We went on a date that included riding a ferris wheel, shopping, and eating at the cheesecake factory. We had a great time, and I got to wear my newest favorite dress I bought at ross for $12.99! :)

it was a perfect night with my love!

Of course we went to the beach while we were there. The famous, Laguna Beach! We came here on our honeymoon and it was so neat to come back and enjoy it 3 years later as a family of 3. We also went to Balboa Island one day and that was fun too!

Mimi & Papa had Maggie Claire lots of toys and fun things to do at their house including this adorable fun hippo pool that she absolutely loved!

mags with her glamorous mimi sherry!

Looking forward to coming back again! Luckily, I have some really great in-laws who have a beautiful place for us to stay, so vacationing to California will be a regular event for us! We really did love it, and most of all we loved visiting them!!!