Monday, August 31, 2009

first day of preschool

Today my baby girl starts preschool.

She is very excited.

Every day, when I drop Jack off, she has asked to go to school.

And carry her own bag.



She's such a big girl. Ok, and I know I'm a little biased here, but I just think she's about the cutest thing I've ever seen.


We had Meet & Greet with her teacher last Thursday.

She made herself right at home. (Yes, she does climb on the table at home. Constantly.)



Had fun on the slide



And brought a book to her teacher and ever so sweetly said, "will you weed dis to me, pwease?"

They have already discovered how irresistible she is.


Charlie joined right in. He would stay if they would let him!



Congratulations to my big girl! Here's to a great year!

Saturday, August 29, 2009

and the award goes to...

Oh, thank you, thank you! You really do love me.

I'm sorry I'm so behind in graciously accepting my bloggy awards.

Now, in keeping with my flakey fashion of late, I'm not sure what I have to do to accept all these awards. I know that for one of them I'm supposed to list 5 things I'm obsessed with so I'm just going to make that the rule for all of them.

5 things I'm obsessed with:

1. Purses and shoes. What can I say? I just love love love them and cannot get enough.

2. My family. My kids are growing up so fast I just want to savor every little bit of sweetness that emulates from them. Those sweet kisses and hugs they give, their adorable voices singing songs, those little feet I hear pattering across the floor every day just warm my heart!

3. I'm obsessed with Facebook. I'm constantly updating my status and stalking other people's wall making witty comments on other peoples statuses (stati?). I love Facebook.

4. The return of fall TV. During the summer, I'm always thankful for a TV break as it allows me to catch up on reading which I love to do. But by the end of August I need a Smallville fix in a bad way.

5. This last one is something I need to be obsessed with. Exercise. I used to be obsessed and then August hit and it has been so freakin' hot and I've been so busy that I've fallen off the wagon. I need to hop back on and get my fanny in gear. Maybe now that I've admitted this on my blog, I'll actually do it!

And the award goes too....

I received this one from Viv @ The V Spot. If you don't already read her, you should. She's freakin' hilarious.


I award this to Heidi @ Sacred and Profane. Heidi is totally awesome and I look forward to reading her blog daily.


The equally hilarious Jenny Mac @ Let's Have a Cocktail bestowed this upon me. I love the sass and attitude that comes with this.


I'm bestowing is one to my bff and fellow blogger Lauren @ Sanity Sold Separately since she too has a lot of sass and attitude.


Lyryn @ Breaking Through has honored me with this award. Lyryn is so refreshing to read. She's open, honest, and always encouraging.


his I give to
Missy @ Two Little Monkeys. Her little twin girls, Emma and Abby are fabulous and so is she!

As lastly Lauren @ Sanity Sold Separately has graced me with this award, well, obviously because I am the queen!



I'm passing this award to

Kmama @ The Daily Dribbles, Brandi @ My Three Bubs, and Kelli @ Random Thoughts of a Supermom.

These women have all boys and a husband, so you know they are the queen of the castle!

Thursday, August 27, 2009

PSF - I should have named her Ava

A few weeks ago, Melody and Jack got to spend the weekend at their grandparents' house in Birmingham.

One of their favorite activities is a visit to the McWane Center.

Since Captain and P3 are total pushovers, the kids always gets to pick out a present at the gift shop on the way out.

Jack, who is so original, {sarcasm} always picks out a different variation of the toy he got last time.

Melody picked out this
Yes, that's a sippy cup for a little baby with the name Ava on it.

P3 tried everything she could to convince Melody to chose something different. Melody even turned down a stuffed animal (completely unheard of for my huge stuffed animal lover!) for this cup.

And then, being the pushovers that they are, they bought her, what is now known around our house as: The Ava Cup.





I guess I should have named her Ava.

And I can't really blame Captain and P3...it's next to impossible to resist this cutie-pie!



PhotoStory Friday
Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

clapping hands

Some of the cutest little hand clappin' you'll ever see!

My adorable little guy is 11 months today! We are so close to one, it's scary.

He cruises like crazy and stands alone when he thinks no one is looking.

He thinks he can talk as much as his brother or sister. (Yes, the noise level in my house rivals that of the Atlanta Airport.)

He can climb stairs. Fast. Very fast.

He can destroy a room quicker than you can read this sentence.

He will give the sweetest open mouth kisses.

He has the best belly laugh.

He is loved like crazy!!

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

True Story Tuesday - the day the dress broke



Today I am celebrating 8 years of wedded bliss.

And in honor of this celebration, I'm going to share a true story that took place on my wedding day.

It's one of those totally-not-funny-at-the-time-but-hilarious-now stories.

Dress shopping was one of my favorite wedding
preparation experiences. Who doesn't love dress shopping?! And wedding dress shopping? Even better. My dad actually went with me to pick out my wedding dress. He narrowed it down to two and I chose his second favorite.

Like all brides, the wedding gown fitting is an important part. Several times I drove from Auburn to Atlanta to try on my gown and have it adjusted. Let it out a little here, take it in a little there.

The last fitting I had was just the week of my wedding.

When I put the dress at the last fitting, I commented that it was a little tight around the bust line. (Those were the days of my fabulous bust line.) The seamstress and I discussed options and since there were only a few days before my wedding, it didn't seem too tight and I didn't want to let it out only to have to worry about tugging it up all day, I decided that I would just leave it the way it was and, you know, make sure not to eat a lot that week.


Fast forward to the morning of the wedding and my Granny fluttering all around reminding me to eat. She kept talking about how she once saw a groom pass out at a wedding because he hadn't eaten all day. She tell me this as I'm getting out of the shower, again as I'm headed out to get my hair done, and again as I'm getting ready to go to the church.

Of course, I'm thinking, "I can't eat! I have to fit into my dress!"

I go to the church, hair done, make-up appl
ied, into the dress, suck in and button.

Ahhhh, perfect.

Out to take pictures and then back to the brides room to wait for the actual ceremony. Enter Granny. Still going on (and on) about eating. This time, though, she's armed with a tray of pastries. The temptation proves to be too much and I reach for one.

Apple danish. YUM!

I scarf it down and then bend over to grab a napkin...

All of a sudden I feel and hear a popping sound. Then suddenly I have a more freeing sensation around the top of my dress.

Yes, that top button had popped right off!


I immediately knew what happened, however, my lovely bridesmaids gather around me telling me that the button has just come undone. They are looking for a safely pin and then spend a lot of time attempting to safely pin it together. All the while, assuring me the butto
n as merely become unfastened. In walks my mother-in-law and joins the hoopla trying to safety pin my dress as well. In walk my own mother and aunt. The take one look at all the commotion and just walk back out.

Can you believe someone (and I'm not sure who!) took pictures of this fiasco!?!



Now, I don't actually know how long the whole process took but it felt like an hour. It was definitely long enough for me to eat one more danish.

A nice shot of rum to calm me down and a little while later I was ready to walk down the aisle and sign my life away marry the man of my dreams.

Ironically enough, the dress actually fit perfectly after the button broke! I was able to dance the night away! And I am happy to say that was really the only snaffu we experienced. Mostly.


We had a gorgeous wedding and a fabulous 8 years and I can only imagine how wonderful the rest will be!


Happy anniversary, babe! I'm so glad I married you!

Monday, August 24, 2009

boys will be boys

The other day I told Jack to pick up his erector set before Charlie woke up. I kept catching him putting them in his mouth. He was spitting them into the container.

(I know you're all thinking you're never coming over here to play again!)

I got onto him several times and finally threatened a punishment. "Don't put them in your mouth again, or you won't be allowed to play wii tonight."

Then I caught him doing this....yes, he is blowing them into the container.


Really, there are no words.

Why do boys have to be so gross!? Seriously, what's next? Pull my finger?

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Payin' It Forward

My bff, Lauren, had a pay it forward a few weeks ago and I was one of the winners!

We had the chance to go shopping together a few weeks ago and since she knows me so well she got me these adorable shoes! How
cute are they?!


She also sent me an adorable little pillow with my personal motto on it. She truly knows what I value in life! =)

Somebody else liked the shoes too.

Somebody who thinks she's a princess.


Oh, wait. She is a princess!



So now I get to pass on this contest to all of you!

Here are the rules...

1) Be one of the first THREE bloggers to comment on this post.

2) You then agree to share your snail mail address with ME (my email is in my profile) so I can send you a small gift handmadepurchased by ME!

3) When you receive your gift, you then blog about this game & link back to my blog in that post.

4) And most importantly, you ALSO AGREE to pay it forward and send a small gift to the 3 people who comment on your blog post...

So comment away...and while you are at it I am going to try and get my shoes back from my daughter!

Thursday, August 20, 2009

jump around, jump around

If Jumping Jacks were an Olympic sport, Melody would win the gold.

Except she calls them Jumping Melodies.



She would also win the gold in the whining category too.

I'm just sayin'.

In other news: I did have a BLAST at the concert last Saturday night. You can read the stuff I opted to post about regarding my good time here. You can email me if you want to know the really fun stuff that happened! heehee.

And if you read that post, you know that I am in the market for a new camera. I thought I had decided on one. Then my husband decided to have an opinion. Now, I'm pretty sure that I'm going to win (I mean, I am the woman and all) but if any one has any camera recommendations and/or advice, I'm all ears!

PhotoStory Friday
Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

beans

It was a rainy after noon. At our house that means bored and stir crazy kids.
I wracked my brain trying to come up with an stolen original idea to keep them entertained while I sat around eating bonbons did housework. Then I remembered this post.
Thanks Lauren, for sharing your fun idea! It provided quite a bit of entertainment for these two.



The clean up, however...well let's just say you've been warned!

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

ww - the future Mr and Mrs Powell


Tuesday, August 18, 2009

True Story Tuesday - pushing carts



For those of you who don't know, I dislike Target. I know, I know. Many of you are gasping in shock and re-reading that sentence because, certainly I didn't mean it!

Sorry, it's true. Shopping at Target is just impulse buying at it's worst. You can't come out of Target without spending $100. Plus there's no running in for something really quick. No, Target is always a process.

I try to go as little as possible, but sometimes a trip there is unavoidable.

For some reason, I made the mistake of making my first outing with three small children a Target outing.

There is a Target right by our house, but for some reason I decided to go to this other Target still relatively close but a little farther away. This Target is recently redone and pretty nice. It does have a Starbucks in it which makes it slightly better. However since there are no cup holders in the carts, walking around, monitoring three children and pushing a cart while holding a Starbucks really isn't possible for someone with a mere two arms. Seriously, think outside the box people.

Anyway, we go into Target, get the 3 things on our list as well as about 10 other items since Target is designed to increase impulse buying exponentially. We check out and get ready to walk out the door when I notice it's raining.

Fan-freakin'-tastic.

Three children, one who is an infant only a few weeks old, and several bags of stuff.

I decide to make a run for it. Melody and Charlie are both in the cart and I grab Jack's hand and tell him to walk very fast with me. We make it to the car, I grab Charlie's carrier, snap him in, throw the bags in as Jack climbs in and then grab Melody. As I place her in the car, her foot slips and she falls out on her head. Yes, you read that right, smack on her head. I pick her up and jump in the car with her (as it's now raining harder and I'm pretty wet and cold) and shut the door. (She was alright and just a little scared.)

Now is probably a good time to mention that for some reason Target's parking lot is on a hill. Seriously, what kind of building planner thought that was a good idea. Um, yeah, let's built a store where 90% of the people use carts to shop and put the parking lot on a hill. And not a slight hill either, it's pretty steep!

So, after I closed the door, I'm pretty sure my cart rolled away. I have no idea where it went and since my baby had fallen flat on her face I really couldn't care less.

However I'm assuming it bumped another car.

I'm assuming this because a few seconds later some punk 20 something kid with an earring came up and tapped on my window to inform me that he saw me "pushing carts in the parking lot".

I informed him that I pushed nothing and that my baby had fallen on her face and I didn't give a rats A55 where my cart went after that. And for that matter, if they didn't expect carts to roll around they shouldn't have built the Target on a freakin' hill!

He then informs me he's going to call the police and report me.

Um, obviously he's never dealt with a wet, cold, sleep-deprived, lactating, still-fat-from-baby-weight-and-not-happy-about-it mom before.

I opened the door and told him that would be wonderful and when they get here they could go ahead and arrest him for harassing me. And that if he continued to harass me while I waited for them to arrest him that would be OK because I had enough adrenaline and hormone surging through my body to flatten his A55 right then and there.

He got the message and just turned and scurried out of there.

So there you go, my first outing by myself as a mommy of three and I get busted for pushing carts.

Check out more true stories at Once Upon a Miracle.

Monday, August 17, 2009

it's the post you have all been waiting for...

Here's the concert recap:
The concert was a blast. Unfortunately, I don't have any stories for you. I failed to take into consideration that this is a PG blog and the stories *ahem* are not.


I do, however, have many pictures.

Here we are tailgating at the concert. This was before we got really crazy!

You know, people watching is one of the best aspects of concert going.

We got to see all kinds of crazy people in all kinds of crazy get ups. And not all are strangers. The guy in the hat is our friend Brent. And the hot chick in the next picture is his wife, Mari.
Now, OK, the guy in the spandex. Seriously. It was horrible to look at but we just couldn't stop staring. There was a line to get your picture made with this dude.

TIME TO ROCK-N-ROOLLL!!!!!!
The music rocked. Cheap Trick started off and got us going. Poison followed and they were seriously kickin' it. Def Leppard was just awesome.


As you can see we're now getting just slightly crazy. Alex snagged the hat from Brent and I'm not really sure what I'm doing other than just singing at the top of my lungs with the other thousands of people at Lakewood.

Mari and Alex were rock stars themselves dancing to Def Leppard. Here's one funny story I can share. Mari dressed the part which included extremely high, er, um, hooker shoes. On our way back to the van, she kept getting little rocks from the gravel parking lot stuck in them and kept stopping. Finally, Alex couldn't stand it any more and just picked up Mari, (who is probably about 3 in
ches taller than Alex and about 8 countin
g the shoes) and carried her fireman style all the way to the car!


We had such a great time the whole time, but I have to say that my favorite part of the concert was swaying back and forth like cheesy high schoolers dancing with the husband to Every Rose Has Its Thorn. Nothing like hearing Bret Michaels sing a romantic ballad while dancing with a sexy man. Alex said that his favorite part was dancing to Pour Some Sugar On Me. But I think that's just because I let him cop a feel or two.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Now, in other news, our camera broke. I'm pretty sure it's a result of the camera being crushed in the pocket of Alex's jeans all night and/or being left on a blanket where whomever could have and probably did step on it.

Obviously with kids as cute as mine I can't be without a camera for took long. =P So, I am in the market for a new one.

Any advice? We had a P&S (Cannon PowerShot) and I'm not sure if I'm going to get another P&S or upgrade to a DSLR.

Do you have a camera you love? What kind of features should I be concerned with?

Thanks!

Saturday, August 15, 2009

things I've said to my children lately

Dude, it's August.
Dudette, put some clothes on!

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Nothin' but a good time

On Saturday night


it's going to get wild
and crazy!
Rock-n-rolllll, baby!!!!!!!!

Stay tuned for pictures and, if I'm lucky, maybe a story or two.

PhotoStory Friday
Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Charlie and the terrible, horrible, no good very bad day

Anyone who knows anything about me knows I hate bugs with a passion. And I'm terrified of them. I won't kill them, I won't catch them, I just run screaming from them.

(Yes, I know all my IRL friends and family are nodding their heads and rolling their eyes right now.)


Yesterday poor Charlie had a run in with one of those heinous creatures.

We were playing outside on the deck and all o
f a sudden he started screaming. At the top of his lungs. As if someone was pulling his toes off.

I run over and try and see wha
t's wrong. He's swatting at his face, but I can't see anything. I finally catch his hands and am turning his head around and still can't see what's gotten him so upset! I move his head again and finally see it.



This #*&(%$* thing caught in the folds of his sweet, fat, little baby neck.

Stinging him.

More than once.

Poor baby.

I did run screaming, but after I killed it. And continued to freak out about it long after Charlie calmed down. Fortunately, he was alright and didn't have too much of a reaction. Just a little bit of swelling where he was stung. A little Bendadryl helped with that issue. As of this morning, the swelling is almost totally gone and there's just some slight redness at the stinging sights.

A warning to all yellow jackets; stay away from my baby!!

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

ww - what's wrong with this picture?


Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Alex, by himself, plus 6



It's time for True Story Tuesday again over at Once Upon A Miracle!

This week's TST comes from Alex's perspective. Alex babysat six children on Friday so that Lauren and I could go out on the town! Here's his take on the evening...

The girls left to go out around 7. They looked awesome. You know, I just love it when Emily hangs out with Lauren. Especially when they go shopping together. I'm so glad that my wife has someone to share her love of shopping with. (OK, I added all that but I'm sure Alex thinks that, right?!)

About 7:20 I hear crying upstairs. I hope it's one of my kids. It's not. I go into Charlie's room and there's EJ crying up at me. Great. What do I do for this kid? So, I lay her back down and pat her back. She's still crying. I pat some more. I leave the room and hope she falls back asleep.

She doesn't.

I go back in the room. She's staring at the door and crying. Pat, pat, pat. Still crying. I go downstairs and call Emily praying she answers her phone. Thankfully she does and they are just down the street at Webb (you know, my brofriend) and Lindsey's house.

I talk to Lauren and (since I don't want to seem incompetent...after all, I have three children myself!) I tell her I'll give it a few more minutes and call if she doesn't stop crying.

She doesn't.

I call back. They decide to swing back home.

Then I hear a strange sound. It sounds like a baby crying but it's not Charlie over the monitor. Is it EJ, I wonder? I go back upstairs and into the room. EJ's actually being quiet, but I still hear that crying. I walk over to the crib and holy s*#^ there's another baby in there!! What the?... Oh, yeah, Lauren did have another baby a few months ago!

Hm, two crying children, neither of whom are my offspring. Girls on their way back home. I decide it's not my problem any more and go back downstairs to finish my beer. After all, Shark Week is on!

And that's a true story by Alex!

Monday, August 10, 2009

the first day

It's hard to believe that a mere three years ago, I sent this little guy to his first day of preschool. He was so little but I was so excited for us to jump into the preschool experience.


And we did

for the next three years.

And today begins our first day of a new journey: kindergarten.
While I am excited for him, it's a little bittersweet. It's hard to believe I'm leaving the preschool years behind and jumping feet first into big kid school. I think I'm in for quite a ride!




Have a great first day in Kindergarten, Jack!