Weekend Wrapup

Even though today is dreary and rainy and our little girl woke up with a fever, I'd say this was a great weekend!  And KW's fever is forcing us to wrap it up with a lazy day inside, and I can't say I'm complaining!

Here are some pics from my phone over the last several days.

You know you're bathing at Mimi's house when your bath toys are empty thread spools.  Who knew they could be so much fun, though?!

Lately, I've had to keep a close eye on my new house shoes.  I got these for Christmas and it seems Katie bug loves them as much as I do.  If I accidentally leave them unsupervised, she steals them from me!

Poor baby girl saw me throw her pink blankie into the dryer straight from the washing machine and, when I wouldn't let her have it, had one of the biggest meltdowns I've seen.  It was a rookie Mom mistake; I now know better than to let her see it going into the laundry!

She has done such a good job of taking care of Baby Doll lately that I think she's going to make a great big sister.  Friday she made sure Baby Doll didn't go hungry and even let her drink her orange juice straight from the jug!

Will I ever stop taking pictures of her sleeping?  I'm not sure that I will...at least not any time soon.

We had the big kids at our house this weekend.  It's funny how often we catch them playing with Katie Wynn's toys.  :)  After dinner Saturday night, I created our own version of Supermarket Sweep to justify their fascination with KW's grocery cart.  They were super excited about it as we laid out all the rules and defined the course.  I created shopping lists for them both, which would be waiting for them on top of the tiny pantry, and then we tossed a coin to see who would go first.  Anna was up and got set at the starting line.  She made her way quickly around the course and shopped pretty fast, but ended up getting a 15 second penalty for a banana falling out of her cart.  Rats!

Wyatt saw Anna's banana snafu and made sure to hold on to his fruits.  I just knew he was going to get penalized for leaving stray groceries on the ground, but he picked them up at the last minute.  He did get a 5 second penalty, though, for not closing one of the pantry doors.

After the penalties were calculated in, Anna was announced as the winner of Round 1 of Supermarket Sweep!

Now, you know we couldn't let them have all the fun.  Matt and I decided to go head to head so Anna and Wyatt worked together on our grocery lists and the game course.  I won the coin toss so Matt had to go first.

He completed the course with no penalties but...so did I.  :)

It was a close run but, well, my dear husband got beat by his sweet wife.  :)

Before calling it quits, we had another round that all four of us competed in to see who the real winner of the night was.  

Y'all.  I smoked them all.  That's right, this five-months-pregnant mama blew them away.  Matt was the closest coming in at 6 seconds slower than me, but Anna and Wyatt weren't even close.  I guess we know who plays with the groceries the most.  :)

If you're wondering how we could spend all evening playing with Katie Wynn's toys and not even include her, let me just say that the original rules involved her riding in the cart during each round, which definitely would've changed the way we were able to turn corners. :)  Unfortunately, she wasn't really feeling it.  She was much more content to just sit and watch all the excitement.

Don't be surprised if you're ever over for dinner and we ask if you want to play a little Supermarket Sweep!

Sadly, our fun came to a halt this morning when Matt noticed Katie Wynn was burning up during breakfast.  Poor little sweet pea was rocking a good fever.  I knew she didn't feel well when, after getting out of her high chair, she just laid down on the floor beside my chair while I finished eating.  Bless her heart!

We sent Matt and the big kids off to church and the two of us settled in to spend the morning resting.  Katie bug ended up sleeping on me for about three hours!  I hate that she didn't feel well but I sure did love getting to hold her all morning, even if both my legs and hands fell asleep and I thought my bladder was gonna burst.  :)

After a couple doses of Tylenol, I think we've gotten her fever under control.  She has spent most of the day asleep, but maybe she needed that to recharge.  I just hope she doesn't feel recharged around 2:00 in the morning and want to play!

Matt just told me that it's Superbowl time.  Guess that means I'll head out to the living room and at least be in the same room as where the game is on.  Don't worry, I have a list of things to work on in between the commercials so I won't get bored.  :)

Christmas Finale

Our very last Christmas celebration for this holiday season actually fell on New Year's Day.  So I guess this counts as that recap too.  Our New Year's Eve?  It went something like this: work all day, family dinner, KW bathed and in bed, a little bit of TV, and then in bed before 10.  Party animals we were not.

Anyway, this last celebration was with my mom's side of the family.  She has one sister and since both of their parents have passed away, it's really just the two families (Mom's and my aunt's) that have to coordinate schedules and find a day to get together.  Shouldn't be too hard, right?  It's ridiculously hard!  Our families are expanding and we're all super busy, but getting to see each other is definitely something we make time for.

This year was my mom's turn to host, so our Country Cousins, as we call them (I'm sure we're their City Cousins), drove our way early on New Year's Day.  I didn't do a great job of remembering to take pictures throughout the day.  I have just a few pictures of the kids outside playing and then I put my camera down until food and presents time.  Oh well.

Have you ever tried to get a decent pictures of 8 wiggly kids?  While they were on a slide?  Yea, it's no easy task.

Here are my Mom and Dad and my Aunt Kim and Uncle Ron.  They are the oldest generation at these gatherings.

Then is my generation.  My mom's three kids with our spouses, and my aunt's two kids with their spouses (except it looks like I didn't get a picture of Joel and Ashley together...Oops).

And the ten of us in our generation have added LOTS of cute little people to the family!  I think there are 14 grandchildren total but Anna and Wyatt weren't with us this day.  And we'll be adding one more to the mix in June so next year we'll be at 15 and the adults will be officially outnumbered by the kids.  Yikes!

And I thought 8 kids on a slide was a hard picture to get.  Ha!  Twelve kids on a couch was even more difficult.

Right now the grandkids are equally divided - 6 girls and 6 boys (7 of each with Anna and Wyatt).  In one week we'll find out which side's gonna inch ahead by one!

After eating a delicious lunch (that definitely included black eyed peas and cabbage so that we'll all have a good year), all 26 of us crammed into my Mom's living room so that we could exchange gifts.  We keep it simple these days by all the kids receiving just one gift each.  The adults bring generic gifts so that we can play a fun game of Dirty Santa.

Since my uncle is a New Year's baby, we also got to have a birthday party.  At his request, my aunt brought a homemade cheesecake so we quickly sang to him so we could dig in.

Here are a few other snapshots from throughout the day.

It was a really good wrap-up to all the holiday festivities and I can't wait to see all of these guys again this spring!  We'll head to see them then and hopefully get to visit Paige and Roger's horse arena.  You can still ride a horse at 7 or 8 months pregnant, right???

Trans Siberian Orchestra

This year, for the big kids' birthdays (that both fall in December), we decided to give the gift of "experiences" instead of more stuff that they don't really need.  Wyatt's birthday has already passed and he opened tickets to a Titans game.  Matt will take him for a boys' weekend at the end of the month, and I think they're both looking forward to it.  Although Anna's birthday is still 4 days away (Christmas day!), she got to go ahead and open her gift since it was tickets to see the Trans Siberian Orchestra on December 6th.

We made reservations at a nice restaurant - Itta Bena - for before the show and though we spent most of the afternoon stressing over whether we'd actually make it there or not thanks to a day's worth of ice that had arrived and covered the roads, we had a delicious dinner just the three of us before the show.

Itta Bena is located above BB Kings on Beale Street and we couldn't leave without a selfie in front of the big BB Kings sign.

Since it's somewhat of a big birthday for Anna - 13! teenager! - we splurged on really good seats.  As in, four rows back from the stage.  We took this picture before the concert started to try to show just how close we were.  That's the stage right behind us!

Once the lights dimmed, it was almost three straight hours of rockin' Christmas songs.  Have any of you ever seen the Trans Siberian Orchestra?  There is a lot of head banging and swaying and hair tossing involved.  We joked a lot about what happens if any of the singers show up for work one day and have had their hair cut off.  Do they get fired?  There was only one person (a male) that didn't have long flowy locks and he only got to sing two-ish songs.  We guessed that he probably used to be the lead singer but was demoted after the scissors got to his hair.

In addition to all the long hair, there is also lots of cool effects.  It is much more than just a concert.  The first two-thirds of it was a story (The Lost Christmas Eve), complete with lasers and lights and fire shooting out everywhere.  We were so close that every time the fire shot out, it warmed our faces.

Oh, we even got snowed on!  For one full song (and these are not short songs), we sat under a steady snowfall of fake (soapy?) flakes.  You can see them accumulating in Anna's hair below.

Here are a bunch of snapshots I took throughout the show.  You can tell just by glancing at them that the lights and effects were constantly changing...it was all so colorful!

I won't lie, I got a little bit nervous every time they climbed onto these things and panned out over the audience.  Not for them...but for me!  They passed straight over our heads multiple times.

The show was really, really good, but if I'm being completely honest, it may have been a tad long for us.  Three hours is a long time to listen to electric guitars and violins, especially when they don't start until after 8pm.  This mama can't stay up that late!  Needless to say, we weren't sad to see these final bows.

I do recommend going to see the show if you ever get the chance.  It was definitely worth the trip.  But the best part for us was definitely getting some quality time with just our oldest not-so-little-anymore girl.  Happy birthday, Anna!

FORTY!

Hap, hap, happy fortieth birthday to my one and only, Matthew David!! You don't look at day older than 28. :)

If you're looking for your present, I already gave it to you...back in June...remember that party?

Today, just for fun and to honor mah man, I thought I'd share forty facts that you may or may not know about Matt.

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1.  In high school, he starred in Fiddler on the Roof, Guys and Dolls, and Sound of Music. 

2. When he was little, he would roll the edge of his blanket into a point, suck on it, and then stick it in his eye.

3.  He can rap all the words to the Linkin Park and Jay Z mashup Numb/Encore.

4.  He ran his first half marathon under two hours.

5.  At age 15, he became an Eagle Scout.

6.  He won his elementary school's spelling bee.

7.  During the summer of 1988, he rode his bike 7 miles to school every day to take driver's ed.

8.  He has been in 49 states.

9.  He's never had a cavity.

10.  At age 10, he got his first pair of glasses.  He switched to contacts when he was 14.

11.  He consecutively held the 7th and 8th grade push-up and sit-up records at Clark Pleasant Middle School.

12.  He has to lie down to have his blood drawn.

13.  He's a good cook.

14.  He has two grandfathers that were veterans of WW2.

15.  As a senior, he was awarded a Marine Corps ROTC scholarship but was medically disqualified after tearing his rotator cuff in a wrestling match.

16.  One of his favorite song lyrics is from "Kiss" by Prince...Act your age, not your shoe size...

17.  His right ear has "cauliflower ear."

18.  He once bench-pressed 265 pounds without a spotter in his own garage.

19.  He loves newborn babies and would hold them all day.

20.  He owns 11 suits.

21.  At any wedding, he makes a point to compliment the bride on her big day.

22.  He has worked for his current employer for 8 years, 9 days.

23.  He was the Most Outstanding Performer in his high school show choir.

24.  He won a state championship with his adult competitive tennis team.

25.  For 4 years and 5 shoes sizes, he insisted on wearing the exact same pair of shoes.

26.  On the golf course, he's had one hole-in-one and shot 75 twice.

27.  Tootsie Rolls are his very favorite candy.

28.  He's terrified of snakes.

29.  He still wears the Cole Haan belt that he got for his 23rd birthday.

30.  In the summer of 1994, he sold educational study guides door to door in northern Florida.

31.  He is a CPA, CFA and is three for three on FINRA exams.

32.  At 10 pounds, 1.5 ounces, he did not fit in the stocking that all other December babies were placed in for discharge at Bartholomew County Regional Hospital.

33.  On his 21st birthday, he drank a pitcher of beer, two gin and tonics, and 23 shots of liquor.

34.  In 2000, he spent 6 months working at a Dot Com that Dot Bombed.

35.  For Matt, 1992 was the year of the mullet.

36.  He has never had braces.

37.  He's been under anesthesia twice.

38.  As a child, he had a terrible temper.

39.  He balances his checkbook every single day.

40.  He's forty and has no grey hair.

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Happy birthday, Love!  Here's to forty more...and then some!

A Great Weekend!

I don't even know if it's possible to find words to accurately describe how great this weekend was.  I mean, it was just perfect!  After a full day of rain on Friday (ok, that part was not really perfect, but our grass did need it) , we had the BEST weather for an outdoor birthday party on Saturday.  So many of our friends and family came over to celebrate our little girl and she was just as happy as could be at her party.  The rest of the weekend didn't disappoint either, with a Notre Dame win, fun times with Matt's parents and the big kids, and a wonderful church service were Matt spoke and one of my best friend's sweet babies were baptized.  I really don't want this weekend to come to an end!

One of the best things I did when planning Katie Wynn's first birthday party was hire a photographer.  I knew I didn't want to be hiding behind the camera lens when the big day came, and I'm so glad I didn't have to.  I really enjoyed just being at the party!  The down side to that, though, is that I don't have any pictures to show for it yet.  Seriously, not an even an iPhone picture!  So a post all about the party will have to come once I get the photographer's pictures back.

That doesn't mean I don't have lots of other pictures from the weekend!  And here they are, from super crappy, blurry phone pics to semi-decent ones from my real camera. 

The weekend started out with a dreary, all-day-rainy Friday but it didn't slow my little Lady Bug down!  She hammed it up all day long her her Lala and Poppa who had just arrived into town. 

I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned it on her or not, but Katie Wynn loves men!  She shies away from the women - you know, the ones who always want to hold her - but she'll flirt and peek around at men on any given day.  It didn't take her long to decide she loooooved her Poppa.  Seriously, she never cuddles like this in my arms!

I really don't think he minded being her favorite and getting all of her good lovin'.  

Obviously with Friday's all-day-rain shower, I was a nervous wreck about Saturday's outside party.  There was no way I would be moving the petting zoo into my house!! My worried prayers were answered when I woke up Saturday morning to sunshine.  We woke up early and got to moving furniture out to the grass.  The yard was wet but it thankfully dried off before the animals (and party guests!) arrived.  We tried to so hard to lay Katie Wynn down for a nap around nine so she would be well-rested.  But you know, nothing ever goes as planned.  T minus seven minutes til her birthday party and she face planted into her Poppa's chest and fell asleep! 

We let her sleep for about 25 minutes before waking her up and bringing her outside.  She had no idea what was going on!  The picture below is from the end of the party, when I finally found the party hat I made for her.  She was supposed to wear that when eating her smash cake!  Oopsie daisy. 

Like I said above, the party was a huge success.  I hope the photographer got a good picture of her grin when she rode the pony, but it's really her giggles that I want to remember!  Maybe we have a little cowgirl on our hands?  I know that would thrill some of her cousins! :) 

On the party invitation, we requested that, in lieu of gifts, guests bring a donation for Heifer International.   I'm thrilled that we'll have a sizable donation amount to send their way, and I'm also thrilled that we don't have TONS of new toys to find room for.  We waited to open what few gifts she did get until after everyone had left except for her grandparents and great grandmother.  KW did a great job of opening the first gift - two barnyard books - but then couldn't be bothered to open any other ones.  She was too busy carrying her books around!  Thank goodness for Anna and Wyatt being there to help (and being more excited about her gifts than she was).  Oh, and one gift had a blue ribbon on it that she wore as a birthday princess sash.

It wasn't until they got to the very last present that she decided ripping the paper off could be kind of fun.  Good thing it was a big box with lots of paper on it! 

As soon as all the gifts were opened, the birthday girl crashed HARD!  She didn't even fight going down for a nap.   

After her nap, it was fun to watch her face as she rediscovered her new toys all over again!  This is Lulu Ladybug who plays four different songs.  It jingled the whole time it was wrapped up in its box.  I feel for the poor UPS man who had to drive it around all day!

After a busy Sunday morning and a lazy afternoon, we took Katie Wynn outside in the early evening to try out some more of her new toys.  How cute is this garden cart that she got from her Aunt Beth, Uncle Nick, Jett and Bren?

It doubles as a wheelbarrow, but she hasn't quite figured out that it would be MUCH easier to wheel around if she would pull up on those handles! 

This chair is not new at all (five bucks at Walmart, go get one for your kiddo!) but we had it out for her too.  She decided rather than sitting in it, she'd rather carry it around.  That seems smart for someone who's still trying figure out how to walk without falling over, right? 

She took a break from her furniture rearranging to play basketball with her Daddy.  I bet her brother would be thrilled if she took up an interest in this sport!

She ended the evening back with the chair, but this time actually sitting in it.  And of course, she's giving all those grins to her Poppa! 

I'll be back soon with updates about this little girl being ONE.  How is that even possible??  Til then, kick back - literally - in your lawn chair and enjoy this awesome weather!