Someone

Someone was very excited about her birthday celebration at school yesterday.

And that same someone is very excited about her birthday party tomorrow.

Can anyone guess the theme?

PSF and Three!

On Saturday, my sweet baby girl will be three.

Three.

I could hardly believe it when she turned two.

She has accomplished a lot this past year.

Melody has been potty trained. Twice!

She has perfected her role as bossy big sister and mastered the art of being an annoying little sister.

And she started preschool.

This past year, she has blessed us with an abundance of

cuteness

sweetness

and

giggles.

She forced reminded us to stop and smell the roses dandelions.

We've had tons of

twirling

and tutus.

Plenty of

silliness

swimsuit modeling

and

cheering.

We just can't get enough of those

sweet smiles

pony and pigtails

and

princesses.

But most of all

we've had lots and lots of love.

Happy Birthday to our sweetest little Melody!


Hosted by Cecily

WW - Twins?

True Story Tuesday and boobies

Boobs, in the past, have been a popular topic of conversation around our house.
And, yes we do call them boobs or boobies. I have totally been the bad mom that does not teach her children correct terms for their anatomy. And keep your comments to yourself since, yes, it has come back to bite me in the butt. But that's a story for another post.

Jack was 3 and a half when I was pregnant with Charlie and fascinated with my growing belly and the boobs that would be feeding the cause of the growing belly.

Frequently we would have conversations about who has boobs, when they get boobs, and the purpose of boobs.

This freaked me out generated a need for privacy to be taught at our house. I banned Jack from the bathroom whenever anything personal was taking place and we had many discussions about why privacy is important.

However, while I didn't have to deal with Jack staring at me, or rather, my boobs, whenever I was getting dressed anymore, our discussions on privacy had little impact on curbing the boob obsession.

One day I was standing in the kitchen while Jack and Melody were running outside on the deck. It was spring and fairly warm outside so they were shirtless.

"Mom! Come quick!" shouted Jack.

I ran outside to see him pointing at sweet, little Melody, sitting down, plump with all those rolls one year olds still have. You know those rolls. Where their wrists look like they had little rubber bands around them and their legs, tummy, and chest are still rolly polly.

Do you see where I'm going with this?

"Look at Melody! I think she's getting her boobies!"

The Lord's Prayer

Jack's school is having a speech meet in February. Each class had their own competition on Friday to determine the finalists who will represent their grade at the school wide speech meet.

Children could memorize and recite a number of things from poems, bible verses, etc. Jack chose to recite The Lord's Prayer.

And he was one of the finalist chosen!
(He reluctantly allowed me to record an encore performance.)



As my friend, Rachel, said, "Jack's love of talking is finally paying off!"

Congratulations, Jack!

PSF and Adios!

Tuesday my youngest brother, Andy, left for Costa Rica for a year.

After graduating college in December

he got a job teaching English at Glory Christian School in Heredia.

He has the awesome opportunity to spend a year immersing himself in another culture, teaching children, and sharing the Gospel.

Before he left, he came over here to visit.

And entertained us with his awesome talent
(can you believe that's just him playing around!?)

and provided some good dance music for Melody while playing my favorite song for me!

We'll miss you, Uncle Andy!


Hosted by Cecily and Michelle

WW - coloring for the first time!

I'm just thrilled he colored and didn't eat the crayons!

True Story Tuesday and Do I Know You?

One of the best and worst things about a schedule C-section is knowing exactly when you'll have your baby.

While it's nice knowing and not having to wait around, I always experienced a lot of anxiety, especially in the hours preceding my delivery.

Getting the epidural was especially anxiety inducing. Would it hurt? What if I didn't get numb? My anxiety manifest itself in the form of crying. So, pretty much the whole time leading up to the delivery (Ok, and after too) I'm a basket case.

For those of you who experience childbirth the natural way, and are probably screaming in pain by the time your epidural is in place, I'll give you the scoop on how it works.

The anesthesiologist comes in, after I've signed my life away, and gives me the low-down. This is stuff along the lines of sit really still, this is what you'll feel, etc. Then s/he introduced me to the anesthesiologist nurse who basically acts as my personal assistant throughout the whole procedure.

Remember those gowns you have to wear? The ones that are pretty much designed so that all private areas are accessible at all times?

As I'm sitting there with my nine month pregnant self hanging out of this gown, the anesthesiologist instructs me to place my feet on Alex's knees while she inserts the epidural. The anesthesiologist nurse comes in at this point and introduces himself, as Ryan. I'm trying to be polite while I'm sniffling like an idiot holding back tears.

The epidural is in place and I'm waiting to get numbed enough for them to place the catheter in. (Yeah, fun times, I know.) Since my legs are going numb and I pretty much can't feel or move anything, I'm just having to lay there, my fashionable gown not covering anything, with Alex standing on one side of the bed and my personal assistant, Ryan, on the other.

It is at this point that Ryan says to Alex, "You look really familiar to me."

Alex responds with, "I was thinking the same thing? Did you wrestle for Vestavia? I think we wrestled together in high school."

"Yeah! That's it," says Ryan and a conversation ensues about their glory days of high school wrestling.

With me, lying on the bed between them, legs spread.

Let me tell you, that did A LOT to calm my nerves. Right.

All I have to say is that I've never pictured myself lying on a bed between two men. However, if I did, wrestling certainly would not be the topic of conversation and I would not be nine months pregnant.

Thankfully that's one experience I won't have to relive again!

Frosty the Mini Snowman

When we had our snow day last week the kids were going crazy wanting to make a snowman.

Unfortunately, that day the snow was just too powdery and dry to stick. However, over the next few freakin' butt-cold days the snow actually froze making it much more pliable. So finally, Alex was able to scrape enough snow together to make a snowman.

Frosty, the mini snowman.

With teeny little acorns for eyes and buttons and a little baby carrot for a nose, he's pretty cute.

Almost as cute as these two.

(Anyone notice Jack's pink mittens? Despite the fact that he has several pairs of gloves in a wide array of boy colors, he opted to wear Melody's extra pair of pink mittens. Yes, you don't have to tell me that we've got some issues there...)

PSF and Charlie the Chubby Cherub

Charlie the Chubby Cherub is Alex's nickname for Charles.

In case you're wondering why that's his nickname, I'll tell you.

It's because he's the fattest. Baby. Ever. Ever.

Just to illustrate my point, here he is climbing/sitting in a normal child size rocking chair.

I know. I'm amazed it didn't break either.

The silver lining, though, is that toting around 28+ pounds of baby every day sure does bulk up those biceps.


Hosted by Cecily

WW - The Pigtail Princess

She's pretty irresistible with those pigtails.

but you're in for it when they come undone!

True Story Tuesday and is that my sweater?

Here is my handsome husband. He's the one giving his brofriend bunny years. They have a special relationship like that, but that's material for another post.

You're probably wondering why I'm posting this picture. It's because it's the second to the last time my husband has worn that particular shirt. Which happens to be my favorite shirt. He wore it while we were out new year's eve.



When we got home, he asked that I bring his wool shirt to the dry cleaners. I told him sure and just to throw it in the laundry room and I would get it.

I forgot.

Oops. (And this was the last time he wore this sweater.)



Fortunately, someone in the family can still wear it!

What we do on a snow day

This was the scene outside our front door Friday morning. I know this is small beans for some people, but for those of us who live in the deep south, this is serious snow! It was so cold, actually, that most of the snow had frozen into ice. Actually, 72+ hours later we still have some snow on the ground! (In fact, I don't known when we've had a colder winter. It's been mostly below freezing (even during the day) for over a week now. I feel like I'm never going to get warm!)


Since school shuts down at the mere threat of snow, we knew Thursday that we wouldn't have school Friday.
Once I got over the disappointment of not having school the same week we went back to school, we planned some fun activities.

Obviously the first thing we did was go outside and play. And I literally mean the first thing.
These next few photos were taken around 8:05 a.m. And it was 17 degrees out. By 8:15 we were back inside!

However, we did a lot in those ten minutes!

We "skated" on the ice on the road.


My angel made made snow-angels.


We tried to make snowballs but the snow was too dry and powdery.


And we wrote our names in the snow. (No, not like that! Gross!)

After thawing out, Alex left for work. The kids and I decided to walk to Kroger and Blockbuster. I have no pictures of that. It's really hard to push a double stroller on ice while trying to help a 5-year-old ride a scooter on ice without having to worry about taking pictures too. I was hoping that a walk/scooter ride would tire people out, however, I think I was the only one tired out!

Fortunately, Daddy came home early and took Jack and Melody ice-sledding!

Yes, those are laundry baskets they are in. (Alex's idea, not mine, but they worked!)

And finally we had a little home improvement time! My handsome, handy hubby replaced our broken kitchen faucet. (He's got one eye on the football game, of course!)

Did you have a snow day?

PSF and funny faces

We love to be silly in our family.

Along with all kinds of jokes, we're also big on funny faces.

In the past we've had some pretty silly ones

but I'm pretty sure that this one wins hands down!




Hosted by Cecily and Carrie

WW - I love Uncle Andy...

We all love Uncle Andy!

True Story Tuesday and the gift

Time for True Story Tuesday over at Once Upon A Miracle!

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Before Christmas, Melody's preschool lets all the kids "shop" for their parents. They have a little "Santa Shop" set up, the kids come in with a dollar and "buy" donated gifts for their parents.

It's super cute. When they bring their (wrapped) gift home most of them cannot contain their excitement and spill the beans right away.

Jack was one of those kids.
His first year of preschool he immediately told Alex he got him "sompin that you put da muney in." It was a John Deere bank!

Melody, however, didn't say a word. She's actually not some phenomenal secret keeper, she's just kind of indifferent. Her theory is; if it's not a cupcake, I just don't care that much.

So, Alex was really surprised when he opened his gift.

Yes, that's a car air freshener. A Georgia car air freshener to be precise. Which is totally ironic since we're about the biggest Auburn fans ever.

Alex asked her why she got him a Georgia car air freshener. (This was after Jack looked at it and exclaimed, "Dad, we hate Georiga!)

"It's not goes in da car. It fo-ur da twee. Here. You wet me hang it up hi-gh."

Yes, Melody got her daddy a Christmas tree ornament designed to make our tree smell like a new car (or a taxi cab). I'm not sure if it will be Alex's favorite ornament, but I know we'll hang it on the tree every year!