Weekend Videos

This weekend we headed to Camden and had a great time. My sister was home and so was my brother, which gave us the opportunity to celebrate him turning the big 2-4 on Saturday. We also had a wedding to attend and had so much fun catching up with people we don't get to see often.

What else is there to do on a long car ride other than play with pink vampire teeth?

While we were in Camden we all (myself, Chad and M) were still battling terrible allergies but we managed to get in some time with LG picking blueberries and also some "pool time". LG was drinking the pool water and Chad on the other hand was pretending to sip water from the pool. He was trying to convince LG to do the same since, although it is just straight up hose water, I am about 99% sure she peed in it. This video is her 'pretending' to drink the water. She cracks me up....

M, as I mentioned, is suffering from some serious allergies but as luck would have it they caused her to develop an ear infection. Miserable for a mama who was all alone with the kids last week with a baby who couldn't sleep because she was so sick, but good because the doctor was forced to give her meds for her ear infection. And I'm pretty sure the antibiotics took care of what was a sinus infection too because she is like a new baby today! Back to sleeping better and being her smiling self. We took this video yesterday over Sunday lunch. Maggie had been "talking" 90-to-nothing (though it sounds more like growling) since we sat her at the table and I finally had to get some of her on video! Love my sweet girls :)

Drinking

Hello Blog - we've been away as indicated in the picture below.

This was my Monday...lunch time drinks at Bud and Alley's in Seaside while Chad and I were entertained by watching my sister and my cousin who were out in the ocean attempting to (and succeeding some) at paddling surfing.

We have come back to reality but still feel on vacation as indicated by this "Beer-rita" that I am currently sipping on while I type.

Hanging on to vacation for as long as I can is part of the reason for drinking, the other part is a 2-year old who decided she couldn't be inconvienced by going to the potty and peed on our living room rug instead within an hour of getting home today. And that is just the tip of the iceberg with our little toddler these days. Life...when it hands you lemons you certainly do make Beer-ritas out of them.

So once I get back into my "normal" [whatever that is] routine I need to blog about M's dedication at church (she's 3 months old today by the way...yay for you pretty girl!) and I also need to get some pics up from our beach trip with my family which is always fun.

But before I go I have to comment on what I saw at the grocery store this evening.

Hello? Really? All 3 of the Kardashian sisters have their own magazine cover this week? Is it really necessary? Don't get me wrong - I am all about some reality TV if nothing else is on, and the Kardashians are one of the few 'reality' shows I'll actually watch from time to time, but I still don't get the obsession. I think the media (yes, that would be you Ryan Seacrest) have made them such a big thing that it is nauseating. Who else can be famous for being famous and not actually for their talent? Go figure. But hey, I can't blame them...I'd be milking that gravy train for all it was worth if I could just look pretty and have people interested in my life and make millions. Okay enough on that. Y'all have a nice night and I'll be back soon!

Hanging by a Thread

Quite Literally. My pants...they are hanging by a thread.

Imagine this - me minding my own, walking down the hall at my office when all of a sudden the left heel of my black pumps gets caught in the [rather large] right cuff of my favorite pair of black Banana Republic dress pants. This happened about a week and a half ago. Yes, I tripped. I thought I had broken my foot in my attempt to catch myself from completely eating the tile carpet on the floor. You can laugh at me if you want. I certainly did, because when you royally embarrass yourself, what else can you do but laugh? This morning the same scene played itself out again, minus the severe tripping. I just had a 'little' hitch this time when high heel met pant cuff, but it was enough to send my pants over the edge.

In order to keep them from flapping in the wind for the rest of the day I finally had to resort to stapling, yes stapling, them back together and use a black Sharpie to color the staple with so that it wasn't blatantly obvious that my pants were being held together by a small, metal office supply.

As I was *ahem*, stapling, my pants back together I realized what a metaphor that was for my life right now. My pants are a prime example of how things in my life seem to be hanging by a thread these days and I am going about just "stapling" them back together. Or I tape them, bandaid them, bangage, glue....whatever the case might be but in a hypothetical sense I am doing a quick patch up job - just enough to get us by - and moving on to the next thing. And really, nothing is wrong with that. Surprisingly, my perfectionist self is okay with this being our way of life at the moment. We are getting by. It's madding and hysterical at the same time. We run on little sleep, with lots of caffeine, eating semi-homemade meals in a kitchen that is never clean. At least our clothes stay clean...well 50% of the time at least!

As you can tell, life with 2 has thrown us for a loop (a good one!) and we haven't quite gotten a daily routine down yet. We're almost there, but not quite. Miss M is 12 weeks old today and I can't even begin to think how those weeks went by so fast or what we ever did before her. She is a joy! Except for when she just gets out of the bath tub....this was last night...

LG has been potty training for almost 3 weeks now and is doing a great job at it I might add! Her favorite song right now is "Rise and Shine and Give God the Glory, Glory" and she has gotten funny lately about naming things specifically -- we don't go to the grocery store now, we go to "Publix or Walmart". Everything comes from Target. And we don't just swim, we swim at the Y-M-C-A. It's so funny to hear her talk about these things and know where all these places are, espcially since at 2 years old I would have had no concept of these considering the town where I grew up didn't have a Publix, a Target, a YMCA or even a WalMart (gasp!). The Piggly Wiggly was kind of the catch-all.

LG is always willing to help with M and is such a great big sister! The ironic thing is that right now though, LG is the one getting up at weird hours and crying at night. The 12 week old gets up once a night, and that's it. Go figure.

I'll leave you with 2 more pics of sweet little M. I think she's weighing in at about 12 lbs. now. She can laugh up a storm and has the best toothless smile. Obviously since I haven't posted in 2 weeks you can tell my time is limited, but I am going to try and get back on here soon since it is the girls' only 'scrapbook' and documentation of things. Guess that means I need to get back to taking pictures again...not just iPhone Instagrams!

Back in the swing of things...Kind of...

I've got to stop putting off blogging - these week late updates are resulting in really long posts that I am sure that no one makes it to the end of!!! So...last week I went back to work (cue the tears). I dropped sweet baby girl off at 'school' and started my week long commute of going back and forth between work and 'school' during the day to see my little one. I'm not goint go lie, last week was ROUGH. Really rough...I barely made it thru and I think I did only because of the wonderful people in my life who were thinking about and praying for me - thank you all!!! I think everyone in the office had learned by Wednesday to not even talk to me because I was in a foul mood. Too much catching up to do for my job, too much chaos at home, too much missing my newborn and too many hormones. That being said, this week is going much better so far and we are slowly getting into the swing of things with getting 4 people instead of 3 out the door in the morning.

Here are me and the girls on my first day back!

Also kicking off last week were swimming lessons for LG. We were probably crazy to sign up for them the very week that we were also starting a new routine, but that is when they were offered and I wanted to get her in a class before they all filled up. And plus, we are going to the beach in May and I wanted LG to have a little more water 'safety' knowledge before we go because heaven knows she isn't afraid of the water and that in turn makes me super nervous. The class is actually a "Parent and Tot" class so I do get to swim with LG and we are doing it with LG's friend Hubb and his mom who is a dear sweet friend of mine, Lauren. The kids have been having a blast in the class and Lauren and I have been good sports about wearing bathing suits since we both have had babies in the past handful of months. I could comment more on that, but there's no need *sigh*.

(Okay, they don't look like they love it in this picture but I promise they do!!)

LG stayed this past weekend with the grandparents in Selma. She is slowly but surely warming up to their cows and even sat and watched them for a hour! It took a lot for her Papa to drag her away! She also got to meet the horses that belong to her future-uncle. She did well with them and I am thinking she will LOVE the horses when she gets a little older. While LG was gone M attended her first crawfish boil. She enjoyed herself :)

And also while LG was gone Chad and I frantically got the house in some sort of order. Why do you ask? Because close to 30 people were eating at our house Sunday after church! M was dedicated and we had a host of people over to celebrate with us. Separate post on that soon!

In addition to M being just the cutest little thing, and a really, really content and sweet baby, she did her parents a HUGE favor this weekend and slept through the night on both Saturday and Sunday. WOO HOO! The past 2 nights have not had the same result, but for us to have those 2 nights when we were tired and worn out was a-maz-ing. Thanks sweet baby girl!

Easter 2012

Hello to all! I am hoping you each had a blessed Easter. We had a great one - it was super busy. The festivities started with LG's school egg hunt. Since I was still on maternity leave I didn't have any problems scooting over to the school and taking some photos. LG was the first one out the door for the eggs and each time she found one she squealed. Like giddy, loud squealing - it was hysterical but I am thrilled that she enjoyed egg hunting so much this year!

On Good Friday we made our way to see my dad, aka "Doc", in Camden and to stay (wait for it).....overnight. Our first overnight trip with 2. YIKES. And I have to say that the car was just as loaded down for one night as I anticipated. Those kiddos require a lot of stuff. Oh, and we took the 55 lb. dog and her kennel too. Insane, maybe, but there is never a dull moment. Staying over night was a success and we had a fantastic time at Doc's. LG would say that it was in part to the Easter basket Doc provided her that left her with a tummyache from all the candy in it, but I would say it was due to the amazing weather. Isn't is great how in the midst of a crazy heat-wave in March that God throws in picture perfect spring weather for Easter?

So here's a fun fact about me. I am not always the nicest person in the morning...not until I have my coffee at least. Give me my cup o' joe and I'm a new person. While at Doc's house I went to go get said cup of coffee and returned to find that Chad and LG had found Uncle Bo's old train set and had it put together. From what I have been told, Chad's personality hasn't changed much from when he was a small child until now. He's always been fairly reserved, a little OCD and has a slight temper he has to keep in check. Knowing the life-long personality of my husband, I was able to then see how it must have been to play with him as a child as I witnessed the comical event of my husband trying to not loose it as his 2 year old daughter destroyed the train track he had built and was trying to 'play' with. I had to remind him that she IS 2 years old after all...making it even funnier was the fact that LG was oblivious to the fact she was doing anything to irritate her father. She was, after all, just playing with the trains and track they way she wanted to!

Couldn't you just eat this little one up?!?

On the agenda for the day - helping Doc plant some in the garden (although LG said it was too muddy for her) and staying outside looking at flowers and birds and playing with side walk chalk. 

Corn!

I also managed to slip in an afternoon tea with the Wilcox County Alpha Gams while I was in Camden. I love all those special ladies -- my mom would have been front and center at the tea if she would have been there and mom's legacy and the sweet [and extremely large] group of AGDs from Camden remind me why I have already started brainwashing my girls to join our sorority of choice :). We came back to Montgomery late Saturday afternoon to have dinner with my aunt, uncle and grandmother. LG hunted more eggs, which she loved because there were prizes involved that included Elmo and Dora.

One of many awkward photo attempts...more to come....

Sunday morning the Easter Bunny came and we had a good time with the girls going through their baskets.

We have a fan of Chocolate Bunnies...

We then got dressed up and headed to church. I attempted to get some pictures of the girls together - FAIL. Everytime I told LG to smile she just would put this fake smile on her face that looked like she was in pain or smelled something bad. Maggie isn't really into sitting up just yet, so the pictures were not so great. There's always next year!

Photo 1...not bad.

This is about photo attempt #3 or 4 - Really LG? Not one "real" smile you could give your old mama?

LG is smiling but M is mad.

Okay, so M is being strangled now...Hello again awkwardness.

We're done.

By the time we made it to this point we had the tripod set up outside for a family photo but I was just too darn tired to even bother. So, pictures were taken of parents and kids individually. Oh well. We do what we can do.

On Easter we also had a visit from Chad's parents and sister and LG had so much fun with them. Family, friends, beautiful weather and a risen Savior....Easter 2012 could not have been any better!

Backtracking and Easter Eggs

I am backtracking a little bit to look back on the past two weeks. At the beginning of last week my sweet s-i-l came to town to stay with us for a day and a night. She looked after Maggie while I got some things done, including doing some running. She didn't mind keeping my little newborn while I went out and huffed and puffed and almost blew my knees out. Getting back into shape is a lot harder than I remember it being, but I guess you have got to start somewhere!

The girls love their aunt LW!

Our weeks have been good - filled with running lots of errands and one silly little girl named Leighton Grace.

This past Saturday afternoon left LG completely worn out from jumping in the giant bouncy play yard at one of her friend's birthday party. Sunday we did church and then had a low key afternoon followed by painting Easter eggs and doing some finger painting!

While LG, Chad and I painted Easter eggs, M hung out a bit and watched!

Hoping you each have a wonderful and blessed Easter as we celebrate how much the Father loves us!