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!

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.

our weekend in review

It was a fun fall weekend over here at the Powell household.

Captain and P3 drove over on Friday afternoon for a visit and spent the night. Saturday morning, we all went to cheer Jack's tball team on to another victory tie.
Then we went out so P3, aka P-parazzi, could take some pictures of the kids.
(These are the pictures I took. P3's will be about a gazillion times better than mine.)

Jack and Melody played Snack Shop and sold goldfish

to Charlie.

Captain did crazy things with the baby which Charlie loved.

We actually managed to get P3 in front on the lenses for a change.

Alex and I enjoyed a night out with friends Saturday.

And on Sunday we saw our friends Webb and Lindsey's baby, Grayson, baptized at church.

We ended the weekend picnicking with friends at the park.

Today, in between loads of laundry, I am preparing Part 1 of my Ask Me Anything post. It should be ready tonight or tomorrow. I know you'll be clicking refresh in your reader, eagerly awaiting it to pop up.

It's been a long time...

Last night, I did something I haven't done in a really long time.

(No, I did not get a full night sleep, thankyouverymuch.)

I went to a bar and heard live music. Really. It was so so so fun! I can barely remember the last time I did that.
Alex, his bff Webb, and I headed off to Peachtree Tavern last night (leaving Grammy in charge of the sleeping children) to hear Shane O'Dazier play. Shane went to college with us and is one of Alex and Webb's fraternity brothers. After school, he moved to Nashville to try and make it and now has a song playing on the radio and plays all around the Southeast. If you like country music, you should definitely check him out. He's a great guy, has a great voice, and puts on a fun show.

I don't have a lot of pictures from last night. I was having too much fun dancing with my husband to stop and take pictures!

Here's Alex, Shane, and Webb. Yes, Alex and Webb are dressed alike. No, they did not plan it. Yes, it does make me question their already questionable relationship!

Alex doing the "fraternity boy" dance...but without the long hair now!

Shane and his guitarist, who was awesome by the way. In fact, my brother Andrew, maybe the the only other guitarist I've ever heard live who can rock out as good as that guy can!
And, since you already know I'm age-obsessed, I'm just going to admit this; on the way home, we did discuss whether or not we were the oldest people in a bar filled with mostly college student. For the record, we were not. Shane is older than us (by about a year) and I definitely saw one guy sitting at the bar who was older. He may have been the owner, but still, older is older. There were three other married couples there together. We debated for a while whether or not they were older than us. Alex's vote was "no, they are about 25." My vote was, "I'm not sure about the girls, but one of their husbands was definitely in his 30s." And Webb thought they were all like 40ish. (Shane got the guys free beer for a while when we first go there, which explains Webb's poor age perception.) Regardless of their age, we all agreed that we were way cooler than they were.

I mean, come on, Alex and Webb were in matching outfits. You don't get any dorkier cooler than that!

random picture challenge and catching up

Here's this weeks random picture challenge courtesy of

3rd Folder, 1st picture with the color brown

This was a hard challenge because I really wasn't into brown that year! This was the only picture with any brown! Can you see where the brown is?

This was May of 2006. We were at Webb and Lindsey's wedding in Dothan, AL. I posted a few more pictures just beacuse we had such a fabulous weekend. My mom kept Jack for us...he was not quite two yet. Alex and I got to Dothan early Friday in time for the guys to play golf and Stephanie and I to catch some rays in Panama City before the reherseal dinner. Saturday we hit the beach again, this time with the guys and our friends Chip and Luann. Yes, I got a shrimp po'boy at some point. I don't go near the beach without getting at least one!

Saturday night was the wedding. It was definitely one of the top 3 contenders for "best wedding I've ever been too"...excluding mine, of course, which takes the cake hands down. The bride and groom were completely in love.

We saw lots of old friends and partied well into the night. Definitely one of those weekends that were so good we still talk about it!

Oh, and if you haven't figured it out yet...my sunglasses are the 'brown' in the photograph!

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Ok, on to other stuff. I feel like I have been MIA. This week was super busy for me. It was Kindermart week. Kindermart is the fundraiser for Jack's preschool. This year I got roped into joining the committee. It was a blast, but took a lot of time. A lot. Along with my first year as a committe member, this is the first year I have shopped too. I have heard stories of great consignment sale buys but am not the best bargian shopper due my extreme lack of patience mild impatience. However, as a committee member, one of my perks was getting to shop early. So, since there were no other crazied and seasoned consignment shoppers people to deal with, I browsed around a bit.

This is my favorite purchase. A Cozy Coupe. I actually go two. One for our house and one for my parent's place. Do you know what these things retail for? Amazon.com has them listed for $49.99. I paid less than $20 for each. My kids were thrilled and have been playing with them non-stop.

My other favorite purchse was this hat for Melody. She's been wanting a baseball hat like her brothers. I found this one; it's Gymboree (which is pretty much my favorite store) and it still had the tags on it! Deal! It's hard to tell in the picture, but it's yellow gingham and has a little purple and green pineapple on the side. It also ties in the back instead of the regular baseball hat look. She looks adorable in it even though it makes her look like she has even less hair! And more importantly, it'll help keep the sun off her fair skin.
I did get another fun toy for Jack but that's for another post. It comes with a funny story and a video.

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Here is a brief Charlie update. We have made more paci progress! Yes! Friday afternoon when I went to get him up from his nap he had a different paci in his mouth than the one I laid him down with. Yes, friends, he put the paci in by himself while in the crib.
I believe this was the turning point for him because last night he slept for 12.5 hours STRAIGHT. Which means that I got 8 whole hours of sleep at one time. I felt like a new woman. I felt like I was 29 again.

We'll see if this trend continues. I've bragged about it so much I've probably jinxed myself and he'll wake up 3 times tonight.

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Lastly and most importantly the Twilight DVD was released today. Ahhh, I'm looking forward to my Edward fix tonight.Feel free to stare at him as long as necessary and go here if you need more.

a new dog and a new tooth

The other day, as Webb and Lindsey were welcoming Baby Grayson into the world, we babysat their little Yorkie, Bailey, for the day.

Bailey is absolutely adorable. This isn't actually Bailey; this is just some little dog that popped up on a google image search. But, Bailey does look a lot like this guy.
The kids had a blast with Bailey. You would think that did not have a dog of their own. I guess it's different when the dog is the size of one of your stuffed animals as opposed to a dog that could eat you for a snack. Not that Luke would actually do that.
Anyway, Jack spent a lot of the day with Bailey, even hand feeding him a few times. After one of their feeding sessions, Jack came upstairs and asked why Bailey was here. I reminded him that Webb and Lindsey were at the hospital and Grayson was being born. He thought about that for a second and then said, "So they don't want Bailey anymore?"

In other news; Charlie got his second tooth yesterday. Hopefully this will mean less crying at night and more sleeping. I have never had an issue with the crying mainly because my first two never cried that much. But, man, this guy is persistent. If only he could figure out how to put that paci in by himself!

Welcome Baby Grayson!

Our good friends Webb and Lindsey welcomed their little boy, Grayson Webster Morris, into the world yesterday. Acutally, they are more like family to us than friends. Alex and Webb had been best buds since college and they are our childrens' godparents. I can't count the number of times Lindsey has babysat, giving Alex and I a chance to go out, or came over in a pinch to help me out. Now that they have Grayson, I can't wait to return the favor!

Webb and Lindsey at their baby shower in January

And now the pictures you've really been waiting for...
I was so excited to get to the hospital that I forgot to grab my camera. I did have my phone so there are pictures to post, unfortunately, they are pretty grainy. I was so thrilled to get to hold Grayson yesterday, even at 8lbs 3oz he was teeny-tiny!

Here is sweet Grayson - barely 6 hours old!

And a closer shot - he kept making this adorable little kissy face with his lips.

Look at the proud Daddy and loving Grandma!