6 months!

Yeah, I'm kinda late on posting this one. Here's our sweet boy's 6 month pic.

As soon as I get used to saying I have a 5 month old or 6 month old, a new month rolls along.

We tried laying him down again and he wasn't really feeling that...

We're so amazed by this kid. Love him so much.

Yard Makeovah

While the three of us were away on vacation, some sneakiness happened in our yard. Some very-much-appreciated-we-finally-have-some-plants-in-our-yard kind of sneakiness. After a long drive home from Destin and a very unhappy teething baby, we drove up to quite a surprise. I was even able to dig up some previous before pics to show the changes. So here we go.

Before...

After!

Plants! Plants! Plants! Finally in our little plant bed. I'm planning on getting some dark mulch to put around these sweet thangs.

Before... (cra-hay-zy!)

After! Farewell rickety picket fence. There's also a new plant back there.

Before...

After!

Yeah, this was probably the biggest surprise. I don't have a good before picture of this side of our yard but it was mainly a great. big. sand. pit. And I mean a sandy sandy sand pit. No grass. Nothing. When we first moved in, cats used to use it as their little box...thankfully that stopped once Jack ruled the yard. It be looking mighty fine now, miiighty fine.

Also, I'm finally finally finally trying to learn more about my camera. I have a Nikon DSLR D3100. I love my camera but I can't stand the fact that I don't know how to fully use it. I found a really helpful blog (manuals just don't do it for me) called Click It Up A Notch that's really getting me back into the basics about it. And I mean baby basics, like just getting an understanding of aperture and shutter speed, ISO. I finally discovered the white balance feature on my camera. (Sorry, you can just skip below if you don't wanna hear all this techy talk, lol)

So I'm giving myself the challenge to strictly shoot in manual. No more auto focus or settings. I'm going to learn these settings and get them to stay in my brain. It's due time. I do see myself looking to get a new lens in the future, because my basic lens that came with the camera has an auto feature even when shooting in manual. So one day, a new lens will be fun to play with. But for now...I'm just gonna experiment and learn.

Some little tootsies that belong to a little handsome boy. Oh and that water bottle? One of his favorite toys.

Teething cutie...still can't get over how he's just sitting up like he's been doing it forever.



So a huge thank you to our loved ones who surprised us with this beautiful yard makeover. I can only imagine the sore muscles, sweat, and possibly tears that went into this, and we seriously can't thank you enough. Slowly but surely our house is becoming our home.

I've got a DIY art piece on my mind for the area above our sectional. So seeing how things go this week, I may get started on that. It's should cost little to nothing which is even more enticing to get moving on it. I'll be sure to share.

Love to you all!

Vacation!

Sorry for being MIA a-gain. I hate leaving this blog hanging for weeks and weeks. But to make up for it I have a bajillion pictures to share with you of our recent vacation in Destin, FL! Can I get a woot woot.

Yep, our first Dunkin family vacation together. Some of my immediate family and extended family met up in Destin to spend our days at the beach, pool, and anywhere else we wanted to go. Ah, the beauty of vacation.

I love being with family (missed having everyone up there) and I finally got to meet this adorable second cousin? of mine. Love this kid, cracks me up how he has the biggest personality contained in that little body of his. So sweet.

Rob and I have done a few beach vacations and so overall if it weren't for family meeting up there, I don't think we would typically make the drive to Destin since we have beaches that are beautiful too but a lot closer. But don't get me wrong, it was beautiful. Definitely a great city to visit with plenty of beaches to walk along.

Clear water, although hard to tell from the above pic since a previous storm had kind of churned up things up. And my favorite part about the water? The fact that you could walk right in without wincing in pain from stepping on shells. There were no shells that I saw...and my feet were A-okay with that.

Here's Finn getting his tootsies wet for the first time on a beach...he wasn't all too thrilled, lol. The water was a lil shocking at first, but perfect once you got used to it.

Shortly after, little man took a nap in our tent...

When he woke, he was pretty happy. Got these sweet shots of him with his daddy. If this kid is in a standing position, he is usually one happy boy.

The red in Finn's hair really comes out in the bright sun...my little Weasley. :)

Other days were spent at the pool...whether at our location or at my brother and sister-in-law's place.

And another napping photo...

Now that I think of it, I think this kid took a nap at every location whether pool or beach. Thankful that the change of surroundings didn't mess with him too much.

All of us "kids" even got the chance to go out on a triple date. All the grandparents stayed and watched the kiddos and we went to a great place called The Back Porch. Everyone's food was great, and the view wasn't too bad either.

We all even stacked our phones in solidarity to sit back and enjoy our time. iPhones, represent!

Love this man...I mean, just look at that smolder. :)

Brian working it for the camera...lol...

Love this pic of them...

Love seeing these two and what amazing parents they are with their little one. Still a little crazy to think my cuz is a daddy!

Outside our restaurant was this large adirondack chair...so I asked the boys to get on it and take some pics. And honestly there's almost. not. one. clean. picture. Boys. This is the cleanest pic I could find.

Oh, here's a great place for ice cream...Stephanie and Brian approved. :))

Surprisingly along the beach we couldn't find many ice cream shops. I always thought ice cream and the beach went hand in hand.

Oh and Stephanie even made shirts for us all...they all say Fiorisi Beach Bash. Rob threatened to cross off the Fiorisi with a sharpie and write Dunkin over it, lol. He conceded as you can see. You can also see that there is one hungry baby in the picture and I have a towel draped over me instead of a shirt, lol, yeah, long story short, a shirt was missing.

I'll stop being so chatty and just share the rest of the pics.

It was quite a milestone trip for Finn as well. He started sitting up and crawling. We even caught him standing in his port-a-crib. Our strong growing boy.

Oh Destin, you did us well. Loved the time with family and the time away. I owe you some posts surrounding our home. We had a surprise yard makeover while we were away. It felt like we had been HGTVed! Will share soon. :))

Love to you all!