Saturday, October 30, 2010

Christmas Pics and Baby Shower!

The yummy spread!


This has nothing to do with either one of these but they were very proud of the fake teeth that came in the Halloween basket from Cece. (I realize my kids are always naked...it's just what they do.)

Baby Lyla's yummy cake!


Thursday we headed to Amy's to take the kids Christmas card pictures. I didn't have to worry about this last year because we took family pictures at the beach. When I was talking to Amy about taking the kids pics the other day I realized I better do it soon because she is about to be busy with a newborn and all the busyness that surrounds the Holidays! So, we went over and I got the kids all dressed in their Christmas gear. And then the real fun began. Let me just say that my kids are not the easiest to photograph. Last year it was Trey and this year it was Addison. Every time the camera would be pointed at her she would start yelling, "No" and run off. We finally got one or two pics by telling her she would get a package of Nerds when we got back into the house. I LOVE the way the card turned out and can't wait to send them out to everyone. At one point I told Amy that I wanted family pics done when Addy turned two and I'm pretty sure she's considering going out of business by then! Here's a link to her blog if you want to check out a few of the pics. The 2 on the card are a secret! http://www.amyaukesphotography.blogspot.com/


This morning was Amy's baby shower at our house and we had a great time. She got such cute things for baby Lyla. Now, we just can't wait to meet her!

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Completely Random...

Checking to see if Nana has noticed she has climbed on the ottoman.


"Woo-hoo! Go Hogs! And no one is making me get down!"


Strolling through the Promenade with Claudia and Kennedy.


Trey sleeping at school....this never happens so I had to capture it!


Addison fell asleep while eating a sucker! You know she was tired!




Shopping with the girls while daddy went to the Razorback game!



"Whew...that was close. Maybe I should listen to Nana and get off to cheer!"


That's the only title I could think of for this post because it's really a lot about nothing. This week is SUPER busy because this weekend is Amy's baby shower! I am so excited to have everyone over and help her celebrate. I just hope I can get everything done!


On a completely random note Addison has started really "telling" on Trey. It's so funny because nothing you do is secret anymore. The other day he hit her arm for knocking down his tower of blocks. Well she ran right up to me and said, "bubba hit my arm." So I went to Trey and asked him if he did that and he just looked at me and said, "Addison was able to tell you that??" I think it shocked him too and I tried to explain to him that she can tell me everything he does now!


Trey has started keeping track of everything he wants for Christmas. The list has grown to...a leapster explorer, pellet gun, microphone, four-wheeler, and pillow pet. Lets just say that I can already guess 2 of the things Santa will be leaving off. It's so funny how he has such strong opinions about things this year. We have 2 Halloween costumes because he wanted Superman and then Buzz Light Year and both were on clearance. I'm going to relish in one more year of buying Addison whatever I want her to have!

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Blanket Obsession!!

These pics are out of order, but I have never figured that out on blogger.



Addison crying, waiting on the blanket to get out of the dryer.
Reaching for the dryer screaming..."my banket, my banket."

What started it all....playing in the bathtub with her blanket.



For those that know Addison well, you know that a pink blanket follows her wherever she goes. It started out as a pretty strong "like" but as she gets older it is turning into an obsession. She never puts it down so when I have to wash it she stands at the washer and cries until it gets done. Her new thing is to want it when she takes a bath. I have always put my foot down and made it sit beside the bathtub until she gets out. Well, tonight she was soooo cranky so I gave in and let it take a bath with her. Then, when she got in with it she started crying saying "banket wet!" You can't win with this child. Anyway, after the bath I had to go put the blanket in the dryer and she stood there and cried for 10 mins until I got it out and gave it to her damp. She is such a mess!!

The video is Trey singing the Razorback fight song. It took me 4 years to learn this thing and Trey picked it up in one afternoon. (Excuse his lack of clothes....he prefers to run around in the buff at home and obviously, as indicated above, I let my children do whatever they want.)

Notice the serious face until he starts. He means business.

10 year reunion and Birthday Present!

The camera that has changed my life!



Court, me, and Amy at the reunion.


Addison running away from the picture.




Eating at Juanitas!



This weekend was our 10 year reunion and I had a great time seeing everyone and catching up! Friday night Amy and I took Trey and Lane to the football game and they had so much fun playing and watching the game. Trey has learned a lot from J.O. cause all he kept saying is 1st down and Boo Cave City! It was pretty funny! Lane just wanted to run out on the field and play. At one point he escaped and made it on the track before his 8 month preggo mom caught him. Saturday we went to the park with the kids and let everyone play. Addison really showed her true colors there! She got hungry and cranky towards the end and didn't want to sit down with the other kids to have her picture taken. Out of all the kids she was the ONLY one who kept getting up immediately and running out of the picture. Then she yelled at a poor girl who tried to help her get into the swing. She made me take her back out and redo it with only me helping. Last night we went to Sticky Fingers and had a ton of fun getting out of the house with no kids! J.O. and I went out to eat with Amy and Josh before to watch the game and eat some good food. I thought J.O. and Josh were going to start throwing things at the T.V. because the game turned bad so fast!! At least the food was good!


My birthday is tomorrow and I have been asking for a small digital camera that I can take anywhere with me. The one I have is not very big but it's too big for me. It also was an after Christmas sale and it has pretty much been worth the $100 bucks it cost me 3 years ago. It's just not that great. So...I pretty much gave J.O. free reign to get me whatever small digital camera would be good with the kids. I have to say, I want to marry this new camera. It's the new Nikon Coolpix and it's the most awesome thing I have ever seen. It looks like a phone its so small and it's all touchscreen. It also has an HD video camera. However, one of the coolest things I have found is called auto smile. You can turn it to this setting and it will automatically take the picture when the person smiles. Trey (and J.O.) had a blast playing with this today. Trey would make the worst face and then smile really fast to see if it would catch him. I have to say the camera won every time. That sucker is fast and would snap the photo in like half a second. It also lets you put the picture in black and white by just touching a button or you can blur out the background or write on the picture with your finger! Seriously, I am in love with this thing. It was the best birthday/anniversary present I have gotten in a very long time!


Tomorrow starts the last year in my 20's! My sister has been very gracious to point this fact out to me a lot today. Maybe I should do something really crazy to mark my 29th year. Like stay up until 10:00 3 nights a week. That sounds super crazy to me!

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Baby fever.....


Not so much......

I guess Addison is getting to the age where it is common for people to ask me a lot if we plan on having more kids. I completely understand this and have to admit I have been the guilty party asking people that before. However, I think the thing that gets on my nerves is they really don't want to hear what I have to say. The fact that I am so breathtakingly young (for 5 more days) makes people assume that I should have 1 more. The last person to jump on this bandwagon was a random person at the doctor. She told me she was done at 2 kids because she was almost 35 but since I wasn't 30 yet I should definitely have one more. She said this so matter of factly that I almost felt a need to mind her. People also feel the need to give you the opposite side of the story...a woman told me just this week to not have a 3rd because that child is what almost put her over the edge emotionally and financially. Um okay.

I mean, don't get me wrong. I don't mind at all when people ask me if we plan on having more kids. Ask either one of my sister in laws and they will tell you I am all about THEM having numerous babies. The thing that really drives me crazy is when people try to convince me to go with their plan for my life.

Just so you know...this is the stock answer that everyone receives...


ME: "No, we don't plan on having more children but if something happened and we did, we would be fine with it."
J.O. "Absolutely not. End of story. I don't know about her but I would not be fine with it."

Since J.O. is so busy at work, I know he never reads this anymore and my most fun thing to currently do is act like I have baby fever. I will randomly look at baby pictures of the kids and talk about missing it, or I will talk about Amy being pregnant and say how much I miss that. The other night he got so worked up I had tears running down my face I was laughing so hard.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Pumpkin Patch

Lovin the boots she borrowed from her friend Lane!


Ready for fall and fall temps!


Hot and sweaty in 90 weather!


He was yelling, "My head is stuck...help!"








Pics are small because they are taken from phone..I changed the size to large.

Well, like everyone else in the world we headed to a pumpkin patch this weekend. Last year the pumpkin patch we went to advertised really awesome things. It said there was a hay maze, petting zoo, hay ride and so forth. Well, we pulled up and I kept thinking there had to be more that was just hidden. We got onto a tractor and it literally pulled up 2 feet and told us we were there. The hay maze had been dismanteled (to feed the horses of course) and the petting zoo was pretty much a stray dog and cat they had found to put in a cage. Okay, maybe there were a few animals but not many. When I finally got up the courage to ask the guy about the hayride he told me we had already experienced it. Oh, how could I miss the ride out to the barren field.



Anyway, so I was hesitant to go this year but Amy went first and assured me this one was pretty good. She was right. We went this weekend and both the kids had a blast. Trey even rode a pony which shocked us all. They had a great hay maze and even pig races. I have to admit though the pig races kinda made me laugh. I mean, wow....talk about living in Arkansas. But at one point I found myself laughing and cheering before I knew what was happening.



If you know me at all you won't be surprised at this comment....I forgot my camera. Yes, I realize that all you super moms out there that document every single detail would never do that but for some reason my camera is usually the farthest thing from my mind when I walk out the door. However, this time I told myself all morning, "grab your camera, set it out and don't forget it." When we got there I was so embarassed because everyone else had cameras out and I kept yelling, "J.O. get your phone and take their picture, hurry!" At one point, a woman looked at me funny when I kept snapping pics on my I-Phone so I just whispered "he forgot the camera." and then rolled my eyes for extra effect. Just kidding J.O., I would never do that....


It was so much fun and I have to admit I may be slightly looking forward to Halloween this year...only a little though.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

When it rains it pours...

Okay, so I think that saying is extremely corny, but I wasn't sure how else to describe this week! Trey woke up in the middle of the night (or maybe 10 pm) Sunday night saying his ear hurt. So, being the good mom I am, I went ahead and went to work and took him to school. By 9 am he was in my room laying on my couch saying his ear hurt. So...I left work early and took him to the doctor and of course he had an ear infection. While we were there we knocked out the kids flu shots and I went home feeling pretty good about things.
Yesterday, Cecily stayed home with the kids until 12:00 and just let them play and rest. Trey acted 100% fine yesterday afternoon and I thought everything was great. However, this morning he woke up at 6am burning up. I took his temperature and it was 100 and he said his ankles and legs hurt. Great. I called into work and me and the kids stayed in pajamas all day. Poor guys fever hasn't gone much below 101 or 102 all day even with mucho Motrin and a bath. Thank goodness for Cece this week (and always!) cause shes heading back over here tomorrow so I can go back to work. I have decided that it's definitely ridiculous to ever expect a mom to work 5 days a week cause it's not going to happen. My average has been around 4 since I started this job. Thank goodness for a Christian school and a workplace of all women because they pretty much expect this stuff! Hopefully we will all be healthy soon cause a trip to the pumpkin patch is supposed to happen Saturday!

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Blessing Shower

"I'm going to act like I'm looking off in the distance while she takes my picture."

One of the ONLY pictures I have of this child smiling!!!

And back to the scowl that is so normal for Addison (please notice the hot pink nails and baby ring she is wearing....she is 20 months going on 20.)

Trey is loving life and Addison just wishes he would walk away. You can even see her teeth are gritted here. I'm sure he was close to being pushed off.


Last night we went to a blessing shower at my in-laws for some people who have been friends of their family for as long as I can remember. Now, you may be wondering what a blessing shower is because I know I had NO clue until I had one when we got married. I will admit that when I first heard about these things I had several thoughts..
1) I was nervous that I would have to stand in the middle of the room or something while everyone circled me and said things.
2) I also wondered if these blessings came in the form of tangible gifts, like my toaster I needed or coffee pot.

Yes, I know this sounds selfish, but I had never heard of this before so I'm just being honest.

However, what it turned out to be is a really neat way for people to give advice and bless a couple getting married or having a baby. When you take away all the "stuff" all that is left is the important things anyway. We got so much great advice from the couples at our shower that we still remember. Now, they also take everyones picture and make a scrapbook with the advice so you will always have it.

So...anyway, last night was a blessing shower for a couple who had a baby and everyone had great advice for them. Mine and J.O.s advice was to not stress about the small things...they will outgrow everything. I remember stressing about when to take the bottle away, when Trey would potty train, etc, etc. I remember the silliest thing I stressed about with Trey was him going to bed with a cup of milk every night. I mean, after all the dentist assured me this would rot his teeth out. HELLO...he only had 4 teeth until he was 2 1/2 and even then I'm not sure if you are aware of this but baby teeth fall out. I finally quit caring so much and realized that he wasn't nearly as attached to it as I thought he was and he just quit taking it.

It's so nice not caring about the fact that Addison has a paci that must go everywhere, or the fact that she demands to have a cup of milk in bed with her, or the fact that she hits me randomly sometimes (okay, maybe I should worry about that one). I have just decided that they grow up so fast that I refuse to stress about every little thing.

J.O's advice was also to take time for each other. I have to admit that J.O. is the one who helps me with that. He loves to travel (with or without kids) and he is so good about making sure we take a big vacation and go little places throughout the year (even if it's just a weekend to Fayetteville!). I have come to love these times away and we have so much fun.

I think it's so funny to see the difference a second child makes. Trey was kinda an experiment on what to do and what worked as a baby (and now child). I didn't think anyone else could do it as well as I did and a schedule was so important! Addison is just a ton of fun because we are so much more laid back and don't let things bother us. If she stays up until 9 or 10 at a certain grandparents house (you know who you are! :) we just know she will come home and take an awesome nap for us!! Everyone wins!

Anyway, I'm no expert but that's my 2 cents and if anyone ever wants to give you a blessing shower don't be afraid. They really are awesome!