a christmas surprise

We started the morning the best way I can think of...sleeping in. I had a late night last night because of an ornament exchange with some friends and as I crawled into bed at 1AM I just knew The Mayor would be my wake up call before 7AM. We are lucky if he sleeps past 7:30/7:45 anymore (since being in his big boy bed) and the thought of being up before 7 made me want to cry. So when I woke up at 8:18 to a perfectly quiet home, I wondered what was going on for about 1.3 seconds, rolled back over, counted my blessings and fell back asleep. The Mayor slept until 8:45, which means I slept until 8:45...so happy!

After our sleep in we ate breakfast, dropped the teacher's gifts off at The Mayor's school and went shopping for a sectional. The kids and I headed to the outlets to check their inventory (found nothing), went to Meega's to play with Bennett, ate lunch with them and then headed downtown to meet D to check a store called "The Dump". Sounds horrible but it is awesome. A huge warehouse of furniture and decorative items at rock bottom prices. They were having a 0% interest for 24 months and free home delivery sale this weekend only, so it was worth a look. And wouldn't you know it, we found one we love. It will be here Sunday!

During our venture out today, we got a call from Big Daddy. They will be here tomorrow night and if we play our cards right, we might be able to convince them to stay through Christmas. I think their plan is to stay until Wednesday but I have no problem using my children to attempt to guilt MeMe and Big Daddy to staying and spending Love Bug's first Christmas with us. Looking forward to having them here and having family around for the week. What a great surprise to an already great day.

bad hair day

Today was a day where PJs stayed on momma until 2PM, momma didn't shower until 6PM and The Mayor woke up with bed head that would have made A Flock of Seagulls jealous and I didn't even attempt to comb it down. The Mayor's school was closed due to the ice and with the ice and grey gloomy morning came a day chock full of some laziness.

Love Bug is now 9 months old and with that comes the mastering of eating finger foods. For the second day in a row she has eaten banana. Not banana from a baby food jar but chunks of real banana. She will be put on table food a lot sooner than The Mayor. With The Mayor I was just so excited to feed him baby food that I probably had him on it too long, but with Love Bug it is just one more unique meal I have to make. And being that she is more interested in what we eat than the baby food in front of her, I am sure she will not object to being a part of the family table. I am hoping she starts getting some more teeth to assist her with the eating but for now she seems to be doing just fine with the two bottom teeth.

Tomorrow promises to be a more productive day. We will be stopping by The Mayor's school to drop off his teacher's gifts (since school was canceled today he missed the opportunity of bringing them in himself), heading up to the outlets to do a little shopping then meeting D downtown to go furniture shopping. This weekend's agenda is to find a sectional sofa for the basement. Merry Christmas to us!

check out that hair

more food on the face than in her belly

o christmas tree

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree...how I seriously love you. But you are going to become the bane of my existence.

I am psycho about my Christmas tree...and that is no lie. One year, I dragged D to 7 different locations before we found the perfect tree. I am married to a great man because I'm pretty sure most other people would have left me after the 3rd location. I'm a little like Clark Griswald; I can't put a tree on top of the car until an angelic halo appears around it when I look at it.

My annoyance comes with every single year my tree stops taking in water about 2 weeks before Christmas. When I bend down to turn on the lights, a choir of dropping pine needles hitting the gifts beneath the tree sings out...driving me up a wall. How do you keep a tree from drying up? I have owned a Christmas tree from every store/farm within a 30 mile radius of my home so the common denominator is me. I don't neglect my tree; it is the first thing I check when I come downstairs for the morning. I fill up my pitcher and add water. But the water in my stand right now has been there since Tuesday morning. Is this common?

Oh, but as annoying as it is, I will continue to drag the family to the perfect location to get the perfect tree every year. Nothing beats the smell of a real tree.

our day

This morning was Love Bug's 9 month well visit. At 9 months, Little Miss is 28 1/4 inches long and 20 pounds 5 ounces (she has gained 1 pound 5 ounces and grown 1 inch since her 6 month checkup). Apparently due to the crawling and constant moving, her growth has slowed a bit because she is now in the 75th percentile. Today she received no shots and got a healthy report...gotta love a visit like that!

The Mayor was at school today and by this afternoon I was seriously reconsidering the dropping of naps idea. After a weekend of travel and visiting with family, not feeling 100%, trying to catch up on the missed sleep from the weekend and a school day...yikes, did he need a nap! You know you're in trouble when he comes up to you at 4 in the afternoon and tells you "I am so tired". As soon as we were done with dinner, we bathed him and then loaded the kids up in the car and went to look at Christmas lights in the neighborhood. By 7:00 we were rocking in his bedroom and by 7:05 he was asleep on my shoulder.

Tomorrow we have a few errands to run before our play date and then we will be laying low at the house for the rest of the afternoon. Need to try and get The Mayor caught up on sleep before school on Thursday.

our home

how cute is this? The Mayor made this in school and gave it to us today as a gift

snowy weekend recap

We are home from a great weekend in South Georgia and it is snowing! If only it would stick around and paint the world around me white. I would l-o-v-e a white Christmas. This Yankee loves snow and hasn't had a white Christmas since I was just a few years older than The Mayor. But being an Atlantan now, my dreams of getting one are pretty slim. So for now, I will enjoy the flurries.

We made it back home before 1 this afternoon, ate lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant (because we had no food in the house) and then hung out all afternoon. The Mayor is coming down with something...not sure what. His cough is kicking back up so I started his breathing treatments again. His eyes are a little swollen, but I think this is a combination of being tired from the go-go-go of the weekend and I think he was allergic to something down south (we spent a lot of time outside Saturday). Regardless, he has a fever now so if that fever is still here in the morning, we are going to the doctor. Don't want him to miss his last week of school before Christmas and I definitely do not want him sick over Christmas. I am hoping it is just him being run down and a good night's sleep and getting back on schedule will perk him back up in no time.

Anyway, as promised, here are some pictures from the weekend. It was a wonderful, and way too short, visit with family. We were so happy to be able to get down there and celebrate Trey's 13th birthday. Can't wait to see them for Christmas!

the one and only picture of The Mayor smiling at the camera...and because Love Bug wasn't looking at the camera, they didn't take the picture.

because The Mayor either was slumped over like a rag doll...

...or squeezing his eyes closed...all in an effort to "hide" from Santa

Love Bug and MeMe

Love Bug and Trey...I remember when Trey was this age...seems like yesterday

The Mayor and Luke...The Mayor followed Luke around like he was his shadow

The Mayor was so exhausted he tried to cuddle up with Luke and fall asleep

The Mayor and D cuddling before The Mayor passed out for the night

*the picture at the beginning of the post is the sky outside our window Friday morning...gotta know it's going to be a great weekend when it starts out that beautiful

greetings from the south

Yesterday morning we headed to Atlanta for our appointment with the big guy. And it was hysterical...I absolutely can not wait until we get the DVD because D and I were cracking up the entire time The Mayor and Love Bug were with Santa. The Mayor did not live up to his name. He was so shy. He crumpled over like a rag doll the second he got into Santa's lap and when he would sit up, he would squeeze his eyes closed so Santa couldn't see him. He had a conversation with Santa while his eyes were closed and would just smile and shake his head 'yes' when Santa asked him a question. It was so funny; Love Bug just sat there taking it all in.

From Atlanta we headed to South Georgia and are loving every second of our visit. We are so blessed to have two sets of grandparents who love our children so unconditionally. Big Daddy and MeMe are soaking up their time with The Mayor and Love Bug and the two kids are eating up every moment of being loved on.

Taking lots of pictures but wouldn't you know I left the cord at home so I can't download any of the pictures onto my laptop. Tomorrow I will download and post the pictures from Santa and the weekend.

Love Bug is eating breakfast then we are all getting ready and heading over for Trey's 13th birthday celebration. Going to be a great day!

hit the road runnin'

D is on his way home from a business trip...we sure have missed him the past 3 days. But it has surprisingly been easy being a single parent for the week with the babes. I think The Mayor's diet and new sleep schedule have a lot to do with that. But now we have to buckle down and get a movin' because tomorrow morning we head down to Atlanta to see The Real Santa and then we are motoring on to South Georgia for cousin Trey's 13th birthday. I can't believe he is going to be 13! I remember the night he was born...not sure how he has aged 13 years and I haven't aged at all.

The washing machine and dryer are on full blast, the kids are eating dinner, I am wasting valuable time blogging, then we are moving on to bath time and bed time. Then I will be packing up my bag and the kids' bags, helping D unpack when he gets home and helping repack his bag. Then load up the car so in the morning we are ready to go.

I love this time of year...just go go go.