Flora, Fauna, Merryweather and a giveaway

In my recent post about my addiction to Facebook the hilarious Facebook material Melody supplies me, I mentioned fairies.

Specifically, Melody putting fairies in her pants.

Many of you wondered what type of fairies I was referring to.

So, I give you, the infamous fairies, Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather.

Yes, the Sleeping Beauty fairies.

No wonder they were so easy to get lost in one's pants.

See how small they are?

(No, that is not a giant sized matchbox car. It's just a regular sized one.)

Funnily enough, they actually came with this really cool Princess Aurora doll.

Melody doesn't play with her as much as the fairies though. Maybe it's because she thinks she's Princess Aurora.

And speaking of fun toys, my IRL friend, Sierra, (mommy of sweet baby Jane) is hosting her first giveaway.

A Zhu Zhu Pet.

If you have one of those kids who always wants a hamster or some other weird creature that you don't want living in your house, then this toy is for you.

Head on over there and check it out!

PSF and thankful

I truly have an infinite number of things to be thankful for.

I'm pretty sure I would run out of paper if I tried to write them all down. Or I would get a hand cramp.

However, these three children are at the top of my list.

(Sorry the picture quality isn't that great. Since I forgot to pack my camera cord, I took these with my cellphone.)

They follow very closely behind their wonderful daddy and my handsome husband.

Yes, there is a plethora of blessings in the Powell household.


Hosted by Cecily

snow or sand?

This is where were are celebrating Thanksgiving.

We walked outside and Melody exclaimed, "wook at all da snow!"

Too bad Charlie believed her. He was in for a surprise when he tasted that first mouthful. Yes, I said first.

Sorry for the poor picture quality. I forgot camera cord so I can't download any of my pictures. This is from my cell phone.

So far we are having a great time! We have played in the sand, eaten sand, collected shells, shoveled sand, and Melody has seen several whales.

No one else has seen whales, but we have seen dolphins. Jack had a special treat yesterday; he went sailing and enjoyed a dolphin show up close.

Today we're expecting more beach fun and lunch at our favorite place, Bud and Alley's. We will be attempting to take a family photo for our Christmas card this afternoon. I'm prepared with many bribes so let's hope we get a good one!

Facebook with Melody

I'm a facebook junkie. I love facebook and I love updating my status when I experience those status worthy moments.

Thankfully, I have a two-year-old. Melody provides me with a lot of status-worthy moments.

I decided to take those statuses (stati?) and turn them into a blog post.

The following is a fairly accurate representation of Melody's activities for the last month.

*************************************************

I just told Melody not to put fairies in her pants. I'll add that to the list of things I never thought I'd say.

Melody was jumping up and down and I asked her if she had ants in her pants. She said no and that she had fairies in her pants.

Melody just told me her tummy hurt. When I asked what would make it better she said, "A smile!" Oh the sweetness that is that little girl...

[I have] an adorable two year old for rent. She comes with complementary whine.

Melody asked if she could have her fairies if she didn't "put dem in mah pa-ants."

Melody has refrained from putting fairies in her pants today. However, she seems unable to stop licking them.

Melody just said, "Remember when I was a duck? I would quack and waddle my body."

The following dialogue occurred between Marc Osier and Melody. Marc: Melody, can you dance? Melody: No, but I can take my clothes off. Yep, I'm really going to have to keep my eye on that one.

PSF and God Bless Baby Jane

The Sacrament of Baptism is my favorite sacrament.

While it's supposedly a mere ritual, I personally believe that a change truly happens when on is baptized.

Even in precious little babies.

All of my children have fabulous godparents. I feel it is an important role to undertake.

I was honored when I was asked to be godmother to this sweet baby, Jane.

And thankful to her parents for blessing me with this role.

Hosted by Cecily and Sue

The Tie

My adorably silly kindergartner begged me to get him a tie for his Chapel uniform.
(Ties aren't mandatory until 3rd grade.)

So, I obliged and got him one. Now he says he looks just like Daddy and Granddaddy.

Except that he no longer wants to wear it.

Because it's too tight around his neck!

True Story Tuesday and Parenting 101

*Disclaimer: I've thrown Alex under the bus a few times so I just want it to be known that, while he does provide me with fabulous blogging material, he is a rockin' dad and a wonderfully romantic husband with a great sense of humor!*

On Thursday mornings my husband takes Jack to school. Since Melody has school at 8:45 and Jack has school at 8, I appreciate his willingness to go to work later than he prefers and save me some time.

However, since Daddy is home on Thursday, this makes for a very chaotic morning. This past Thursday was pretty much the most chaotic yet. In fact, reliving that morning over and over would probably be the equivalent of my personal hell. We had a busted, leaky diaper from Charlie that required a rinsing in the tub, a cleaning of the tub, and then an actual bath. After finally getting everyone dressed, downstairs, and settled at the table with their waffles.

Usually Daddy goes downstairs and works from home until it's time to leave. However, this time he brought his laptop upstairs and sat at the kitchen table.

While the kids are eating breakfast and I'm standing in the kitchen waiting to bring them more of whatever it is they want I realize I had forgotten to make Jack's lunch. As I'm trying to tell him to bring me his lunch bag and water bottle, he's in the midst of explaining to me that he refilled his water bottle yesterday so he doesn't need new water in it. As I'm trying to tell him him that water that is close to 24 hours old is not good and he just needs to obey me, he drops the water bottle (in the sink fortunately) sending water everywhere. He's still talking instead of listening to me and at some point a juice box flew out of my hand and hit the wall. (No idea how that happened. I swear) Alex is still just sitting at the table immersed in his email.

I finally get things cleaned up, talk to Jack about not talking when I'm talking, and get him off to school.

After dropping Jack off, my husband calls me to discuss the incident. I tell him that Thursday mornings are just too chaotic for me. I have a hard time getting the kids ready because they are excited that Daddy is there and that I expect him to help me but he's not because he's on the computer working. I told him that if he wanted/needed to work that was fine, but to please go down to the man-cave and stay there until it was time to leave for school.

"Oh," he said. "I didn't realize you expected me to parent."

(Yes, he was completely serious when he made that statement.)

Thank you, honey, for communicating so well with me. But let me clarify; if you are in the vicinity of your children, I do expect you to parent. Especially when I am on the brink of insanity and throwing juice boxes juice boxes are randomly flying about.

Splish! Splash! We're taking a bath!

My kids love the bath.

Are there even kids out there who don't love the bath?

Here's Charlie washing his hair.

I'm playing peak-a-boo with Charlie and Melody is pointing at us.

Smiling for the camera

And pretending to be Santa...HO HO HO!

PSF and Tiger Meat

We're down to the wire.

Despite a rather dismal football season up to this point

these last two games can make it or break it.

They are our biggest rivals.

And in the Powell house, emotions run especially high this weekend

when we play kick some Georgia Bulldog butt!

(As my extended family are Dawg fans).

We've already got our game face on!

Those Dawgs are gonna be TIGER MEAT!

Hosted by Cecily and She's a moron and can't remember...

evolution of a tree

This is my favorite tree in our yard.

A huge Maple.

Here is is all full and green.



The view from the front...just starting to change color. It changes to a vibrant purple and yellow.

And the leaves are starting to fall...

This picture was taken last week and these last few leaves have pretty much fallen off as well. Time to start raking!

Ask Me Anything: Part 3 All about me!

Welcome to the final part of Ask Me Anything!

The section is all about me. Because it really is all about me. Right? Right!?

Kelly and Missy asked if my husband and I attended Auburn and Liz wonders about my career aspirations.

Alex and I are both Auburn Alum. We graduated in 2001. I have a degree in Philosophy and Political Science.

When I was growing up, I knew I mostly wanted a family. That was always my first priority. I never had one consistent career goal (outside of motherhood). In college, I became interested in counseling and really felt called to do that in recent years. I'm planning on going back to school for a masters in professional counseling in the near future.

Jenny Mac wonders if I cry when Auburn loses.

No, but my husband does. And mopes for days afterward. It's been a depressing fall for him. He also will analyze every single second of each game. That's kind of depressing for me.

She also asks what's my favorite book.

I am a huge reader. When I was younger, I was frequently found with a book in my hand and that is often still true today. I just finished The Glass Castle and am currently reading Unaccustomed Earth.

It's really hard to pick a favorite. There are just so many wonderful books out there. I try to keep a good list going. Evey year, when Time Magazine and Newsweek publish their lists of top 100 fiction and non-fiction, I choose ten from each category to read. I also try to read several of the current Pulitzer Prize winners each year. (Yes, I am aware that I'm totally type A and a big dork.)

A few of my must-reads are: A Thousand Splendid Suns, The Twilight Series (Ok, fine. Anything vampire.), The Chronicles of Narnia (actually anything by CS Lewis), When A Crocodile Eats the Sun; A Memoir of Africa, Harry Potter, Band of Angels, Experiencing God, and Boundaries.

The book I have always considered my favorite when I'm forced to pick a favorite is Our Town by Thornton Wilder. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. It's very short but incredibly insightful.

And since we're talking about books I like I'm also going to mention a few I didn't like. The Shack: Bottom line, it's hard to respect a book based on the Christian religion that makes no mention of the Bible. Eat Pray Love: Bottom line, the author had a hard time purely because of the choices she made. Bad decisions = bad outcomes. And it was incredibly boring. Incredibly.

My children are book lovers as well which thrills me. I cannot wait until Melody is a little older and we can read The Little House books together!

Julie wants to know my favorite guilty pleasure.

Hm, I'm not really sure I want to admit this. Ok, I just I might as well just out myself. I have to have dessert every night. I try (really hard!) not to, but I have no self control in this area of my life. I'm pretty sure this love of dessert is a trait I inherited from my dad.

Krystyn wants to know my favorite Edward dream.

Well, I think there are really too many to choose from and I'm pretty sure they are all too inappropriate to describe on my blog!

Angie wants to know what my favorite food is, where I like to go out to eat, and what's my favorite wine.

I'm not really sure I have one single favorite food. If I did, it would have to be chocolate. Or ice cream. Or cookie dough. I go through phases of what types of food I'm really into. Currently, I'm really loving sushi and anything with brie and/or cranberry. Pumpkin is one of my favorite fall flavors as well.

Atlanta is full of great restaurants. The Buckhead Diner used to be a favorite of mine and Alex's. We love Asian foods with Genki and Oriental Express being among our favorites. When we've got the kids with us, we love to go to Blue Moon Pizza and Atkins Park. I'm pretty sure we eat out too often!

You know, I love wine, but I'm really not too picky. I'm more of a white than a red drinker but I enjoy both. Thanks to Lauren, I've recently gotten into Rieslings.

Sandy wants to know what's the worst fashion trend I've ever followed.

Well, since I grew up in the 90s, unfortunately there's more than one. Remember the big, colorful parrot earrings? Yep. I wore those every day of 6th grade. I was also big into neon at one point. That included sporting a neon orange bikini during my high school years. Be thankful I'm not posting a picture. And remember those high hair sprayed bangs? Ok, I didn't have those. However, that's only because I have the finest, limpest hair ever. However, I tried my best to get them up there. It usually fell flat after about an hour and I'm pretty sure my big bang attempts drastically increased my carbon footprint.

Rachel wants to know what my favorite recipe is.

Well, I'm currently loving Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies. This is actually not my recipe, but very similar. I also love these. One (of many) great things about these cookies is that the dough freezes really well, so you can bake just a few cookies at a time as opposed to making a whole batch. (Have y'all figured out I have a sweet tooth, yet!?)

On a healthier note (yes, I do have a healthy side!) I love butternut squash soup in the fall and winter. It's chalk full of vitamins and very tasty. Next time I make it, I'll share the recipe here. I also love squash casserole. The vast majority of my favorite recipes have all come from my mom or Aunt Karen's kitchens. They are both wonderful cooks.

There you go! That's not everything about me, but I'm sure it's more than you wanted to know.

Thanks for all your great questions and I encourage y'all to try this on your blogs. It was pretty fun!

PSF and talk talk talk

My kids are talkers.

Ok, Charlie doesn't talk yet, in English anyway, but believe me, he definitely contributes to the noise level.

Melody and Jack however cannot. stop. talking. They mostly talk at the same time about completely different things which means the noise level at my house is comparable to the airport. Anyone who's been here can attest to that fact.

However, living with talkers does means that I get to hear some pretty funny stuff.

The other day Jack was counting for a long time. "Jack, how high can you count?" I asked, hoping that he would only say 30 or so.
"I can count to ten hundred," he answers very matter of factly.

Jack coming back in the room after brushing his teeth, "Whew. I am exhausted! I brushed every tooth!"

Jack's class went to the dairy last month. On the ride home, he was telling me about how they saw a cow get milked. "It was a girl cow," he said, "Her name was Rose."
"Oh, how did they milk her?" I asked.
"Well, they hooked up this big machine to her gutters."

He also told me how excited he was go get a break from all his school work to go on the field trip. "Day before day, we always work!" he exclaimed.
"You mean, day after day?" I asked.
"Oh, yeah!" he said.

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As Melody's teacher was buckling her in the car last week, Melody was playing with the buttons on the teacher's shirt. "I like your buttons," said Melody
"Thank you," said Teacher.
"I like your boobies too," said Melody.

We received Rice Krispie Treats as a party favor from a very fun birthday party we attended over the weekend. When we got home, Melody showed her's to Alex and said, "Look! I got Christmas treats!"

Melody loves oatmeal. She has been asking for it a lot. Today, after I dropped Jack off from school she said, "Mom, you go make some oatmeal and I'll eat it all up! Isnt' that a great idea?!"

And her latest obsession: ghosts. "A ghost says boo (sounds like she simply blew out a puff of air) and it scares you and then you run."

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Along with all this talking, we've also been doing a lot of jumping, frolicking, and falling...it's finally Fall here! After weeks of looking at everyone else's beautiful fall foliage, I'm happy we finally have some of our own.

Would you believe this is the best picture I got with the three of them? I couldn't sit Charlie down, move back, and snap the picture fast enough.

I'm very flattered that Cecily asked me to co-host with her this week. If you haven't been over there you should definitely stop by. Her creative talents are far superior to mine and, with three adorable muses, she has lots of great blogging material.


Hosted by Cecily and Emily

To play PhotoStory Friday, check this. Copy this code into your post and sign Sir Linky:
<center><a href="http://whatworksforus.blogspot.com/2007/06/iphone.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i212.photobucket.com/albums/cc50/whatworksforus/pfw.jpg" border="0" alt="PhotoStory Friday" /></a><br/>Hosted by <a href="http://mychaosmybliss.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Cecily</a> and <a href="http://5powellsinatlanta.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Emily</span></span></span></a><p/></center>

You've got questions? I've got answers. Part 2: All about me and my guy!

Welcome to Part 2 of Ask me anything!

This part is about my relationship with my husband.

Jen, Hit 40 and Missy want to know how I met my husband. Kat takes it a step further and wants to know every detail about the early years of our relationship and asks

-How did you meet your hubby?
Alex and I meet at a party in Auburn on January 1, 2000. My little sister in my sorority (who also happened to be named Emily) was dating Alex's brofriend, Webb (who still tries to take full credit for introducing us). Emily and her roommates were having a party and Webb came along with a few of his fraternity brothers. About halfway through the night Emily was concerned that Webb's buddies were getting bored and asked me to go talk to one of them so they wouldn't leave. After scoping out all three of them, I decided on Alex. (No offense to the other guys.) We hit it off that night and much later on Alex drove me home. He called me the next day and asked if I wanted to go golfing with him and his friend and his friend's girlfriend. I accepted despite the fact that I had never even held a golf club in my life. Fortunately, we were given the job of cart-driving. He asked me out again to a party the following weekend. And here's just a funny story: He had a pledge drive him over to my sorority hall to pick me up. When he introduced me to the pledge he introduced me at Natalie, this girl he dated before me! Yep, I was pretty ticked off. But, he eventually earned my forgiveness.

-How long did you date?
We started dating in January 2000 and in April, Alex broke up with me. I went home to my parent's house (they were living in Philadelphia, PA at the time) for the summer. Alex and I talked some during that time. My parents told me that if it was meant to be it would work out. About halfway through the summer, Alex told me he had made a huge mistake, and that I was the most amazing person ever, and that he couldn't go on living if we didn't get back together. (OK, I cant' remember his exact words, but it was something really close to that.) We went got back to Auburn for our final year we started dating again.

Here are a few pictures from when we were dating.

Fall 2000 in front of Jordan-Hare Stadium

Auburn vs UGA 2000 (we're standing in front of Alex's fraternity house)
New Years 2001, at my parents' house in Philadelphia, PA

Spring 2001, right after we were engaged.

-Did he or you propose? How?
On March 17, 2001, Alex proposed. We had dinner together earlier that evening and then he blindfolded me and drove me all around and eventually stopped and made me wait in the car. A few minutes later he came back and led me (blindfold still on) to a bench and had me sit down. When I took the blindfold off, I was sitting in the Arboretum, there were candles all around (only about half of them were lit though...it was a really breezy night!) and Alex was down on one knee. He asked if I would marry him and I don't think I actually said yes. I think I just jumped up screaming! Another funny story: Alex had not told our families that he was going to propose. So when we called to tell them we were engaged, Alex apologized to my dad for not asking them first. And my dad actually said, "Well, we'll have lots of time to talk later." In his "firm voice"! Alex looked a little nervous then!
Alex had told some of our friends, my roommates, and sorority sisters that he was going to propose and had arranged for everyone to meet later on that evening to celebrate with us. It was a wonderful proposal and celebration. (I looked for pictures from the night we were engaged, but couldn't find any on my computer.)
Oh, and here's just another detail to the story. We got engaged on a Friday night and that following Monday, I was sitting in class. There were some guys in the back talking to their buddy about how they had a paintball game going on in the Arboretum and some guy came up and asked if they wouldn't mind stopping their game for a few minutes while he proposed to his girlfriend!

-What is the most memorable moment from your wedding day?
Hm, there are so many wonderful things I remember about our wedding. I felt like my wedding was absolutely perfect. Well, except for the dress incident of course. I don't think I have a "most" memorable moment. But one moment I do really remember is when the preacher introduced us as Mr and Mrs Powell, I just couldn't stop smiling. I have this ridiculously huge smile on my face (and I'm totally aware that I look ridiculous but I simply cannot stop smiling) and we started walking the aisle all happy and excited and I completely forgot to grab my flowers. But we were married and that was all that I cared about! (Although I do also remember a distinct, but brief feeling like I had signed my life away and a "What have I done?!" moment right after that. But I quickly moved back on to insanely happy!)
I did laugh when we said our vows which kind of made Alex irritated and he actually whispered, "What's wrong with you?!" to me!

See? Goofy smile and no flowers.

Julie also wants to know: How did you know that your hubby was "the one."

Truly, it was when we broke up. I had dated people before and there had been all kind of break-ups: mutual, his decision, my decision, etc. But I was just upset when Alex and I broke up. Really upset. And I just had a feeling in my gut that it wasn't over.

Tina asks Do you and your hubby have "date nights" scheduled? If so, how often?

We don't really keep a set schedule although we do try and get babysitters and go out on a fairly regular basis. We kind of go in spurts though. Sometimes, it seems we have a lot of dates bunched together and then we'll go for a while without a chance to go out. We do feel that dates are important though and always look forward to a date!

Lastly, I wanted to let you know that I've updated Part 1 of Ask Me Anything. My mom and aunt felt that I wasn't very accurate in my story regarding Jack's birth and did not give the glory to God as I should have. I did not add all the details, but I will blog about that one day if people would be interested in reading it.

I added this on the end of that question: *Update* Truly, I had a lot of complications and problems during my labor and attempted delivery of Jack. For a while things were very scary and had God's hand not been guiding us all the way, there may have been a very different outcome. I am very grateful for all the people who were praying for me during that time and most of all for the wonderful blessing God gave me that day: a sweet, healthy baby named Jack.

True Story Tuesday and I'm not talking about you

This is a story from my childhood. I had actually forgotten about this until I read Kmama's True Story Tuesday last week. I'm not sure if my mom is going to appreciate me telling this story, but since I'm an adult now and it's my blog there's not a lot she can do about it. Except, of course, call me and get onto me for blogging about this. She can threaten not to keep the kids anymore but we all know that's an empty threat. Ahem, love you, Mom!

Anyway, when I was a teenager, probably 14 or so, my mom and I were shopping with my aunt and grandma. Mom and I went into the dressing room to try on a few things leaving Aunt Karen and Grandma to browse. We were sharing a dressing room and talking quietly since there were other people trying on clothes as well. As my mom is stepping into a pair of pants the lady in the dressing room next to us totally lets one rip. It is seriously loud and disgusting! My mom looks at me (with her pants half on) and mouths "GROSS!!" The offending lady quickly gathers her things and hightails out of there. Being the nosy person I am was, I peak out of the room as she leaves.

A while later we are standing in line to make our purchases. There is a lady at the counter and then one other lady waiting and then us. The lady at the counter is none other than, dum-da-da-dum, poot-lady!

I whisper to my mom, "That's the lady that pooted!" "Are you sure?" Mom whispers back. "What are y'all talking about?" asks my aunt who's just as nosy as I am. "That lady paying was in the dressing room next to us and had the loudest poot ever." we told her.

While this conversation is taking place, the lady in between us and poot-lady keeps glancing over her shoulder at us. By this point, poot-lady has walked away but we are still talking about her. The lady in front of us starts to walk away, glancing over her shoulder at us one more time.

"I think that lady in front of us thought we were talking about her." I said to my mom. "Oh, no!" says Mom, who's pretty much the nicest person ever, "I feel so bad." "Go apologize" I encourage her. So my mom walks over to the lady and says, "Excuse me, I just wanted to let you know we weren't talking about you." The lady just looks at her. "We were talking about someone else" Mom explains. The lady just kind of looked at her and walked off. I'm sure she didn't believe her since my aunt and I were standing there watching and cracking up at the whole thing!

Head on over to Rachel's place for some more true stories!

I plan on having Part 2 of my Ask Me Anything post up tomorrow...I know you'll be on pins and needles waiting!

Trick-or-Treat!

Happy Halloween! At the Powell house we've had quite a cast of characters.

After watching Bambi a few months ago, Jack has been all about being a hunter. I was nervous when he watched Bambi that the hunter scene would disturb him. Instead that was his favorite part, he told me. That's just great.

And may I present Princess Aurora. Some of you might have wondered, after reading this, if I forced this costume on her. No, I did not. Melody also thinks that Princess Aurora is the best princess. She is doing her best princess wave in this picture. Very regal, I think.

And here is little Charlie as Superman. Although Bizarro Superman is more accurate.

And there he goes...off to destroy save the world!

While I did not get any pictures of actual Trick-or-Treating since it was raining the whole time (um, yeah, that was fun). However I did get some video of them analyzing their stash.


And diving

right in!

BOO!