Drew's 2nd Birthday Bash

We had such a great time on Saturday. I tried to keep it somewhat simple when it came to "day of" activities, but fun overall! For lunch we had spaghetti, corn on the cob, green beans, and rolls; and for dessert we had peach pies and polka dot cupcakes (which I'm STILL eating...not good for the scales--or my thighs.). We visited, ate, watched Drew's 2 year video (coming SOON), had dessert, and opened gifts. It's safe to say Drew had a ball!

The morning of the party Andrew and Ms. Debbie took Drew to get a *much* needed haircut. So while they were busy lowering his ears, we got all the prep work done.











Papaw and Caroline hung out while we waited on the birthday boy and other guests to arrive. :)

Then Deda got her turn...



And the birthday boy finally arrived sporting his new haircut and shirt made by Mommy & Grammy!



Making a shirt like this IS really easy if you don't get Wonder Under all over your iron. If you were to do that, you might have to spend an hour scrubbing your iron with a vinegar soaked rag. I wouldn't advise that. Not that it happened to me, of course.

After being in the house 3 minutes, Drew had already torn down 2 balloons!



He really liked everyone singing for him. :)


And blowing out his two candles....

(Yes, laugh hard at the face I'm making. 50% of the pictures from the day include me making such types of faces. Apparently, I'm very animated with my child!)

He loved his cake, but mainly wanted the M&Ms off the top. Following last year's tradition, he kept himself fairly clean. Sweet boy. :) Then he gave Daddy a bite...


He opened so many wonderful gifts and was thrilled that most of them are for outside! These people must know my kid well. ;)



And this car has now driven around my house so many times I'm pretty sure it's going to wear a path in the carpet!


We are so thankful for such a sweet spirited, fun little boy! It was a fabulous day of celebration with family we love so much!

Check back soon for Drew's 2nd year video!

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Today my dad turns 51! In honor of his birthday, I decided to list some things my dad has taught me during his 51 years on earth...well, technically I guess he taught them to me in 25 since, you know, he didn't have me at his birth. You know what I mean...

-My dad knows all about Johnny Weismiller (sp?). My dad was/is a Tarzan fanatic. And can I tell you how many times my dad would tell me "that's actually Johnny in the water right there! Look at him swim! Man! Did you know he set the swimming record for....?!"

-Oh and he can do the Tarzan 'holler.' I'm not kidding. One time he did it for my new youth group friends in Missouri. I almost sunk into the ground. But it's pretty cool that he can pull it off!

-I owe my love of Reeses peanut butter cups to this man.

-He showed me how to blow up beaver dams when I was like 8.

-He taught me how to cast a line and pull a fish in. He also showed me how to skin them, but you couldn't pay me enough to do that.

-He tried to teach me to cut the grass. One of the few things he failed at. I never did it.

-He also showed me how to row out into the middle of a lake to get a deer he just killed while going for a impromtu swim...in his sleep pants!

-He taught me to always check for goose poop on your shoes after walking around a park full of geese. (He once forgot and blamed it on the other family members in the car...and then got out in total frustration and, with much force, rubbed his feet all over the ground while nearly slipping and falling. The rest of the family was dying of laughter in the vehicle. Obviously, we STILL get a crack out of this 15 years later.)

-My dad taught me a love of singing!

-He taught me that if someone takes a bite of your lunch burger, you should give them your milk too...only his version was to pour it over the perp's head. (We're talking grade school here, people.)

-He taught me that it's important to spend time with family.

-He taught me respect for my elders.

-He taught me to spend every second with my baby boy possible, because they grow up fast!

-He continues to teach me generosity and giving!

I love you, Daddy! And I totally expect you to teach every one of these things to Drew! Who else is gonna know EVERY fact about Tarzan?!

Hope you have a wonderful birthday!

Love you,

Merry Christmas --2009

(Disclaimer: This post was written days ago, but my camera was MIA. People don't like posts without pictures, so I held out until I found it. That happened right before leaving for Greenville, MS where we have super slow internet. Long story short--all the pictures will have red eye or some blemish because my connection is too slow for online photo editing. Please forgive!)

I deserve to be beat with a wet noodle. (Didn't your mother ever threaten you with that punishment?) I've been a bad blogger. I'm probably the last person on your reader list to blog about our Christmas celebration, but at least I'm doing it. Better now than never!

One unexpected gift I received this year was a stomach bug. It started a day or so before Christmas with nausea and extreme tiredness (yeah, I was thinking I was pregnant, too) and then resulted in other not so fun things on Christmas Eve night and Christmas day. Thankfully, Zofran spared my life and left me able to at least hold a video camera on Christmas morning. I didn't get to partake in Christmas foods or go with the family on Christmas day, but I'll venture to say I still had a great Christmas watching my little boy and spending time with family.

Christmas Eve was spent at my parents with the traditional meal of fried fish, french fries, hushpuppies, cole slaw, and tea. Can we say Southern? Can we say yum? Well, everyone else said it was yum.

We tried taking a few family pictures, but there was way too much going on for Drew to be in a "sit still and smile" mood. This is the best we got:

It'll do. ;)



Since we weren't all spending the night at my parents' on Christmas Eve like tradition holds, we opened up our new Christmas PJs and put them on immediately. I must say we were a cute bunch!


And a pretty goofy bunch...





We dove into the rest of our gifts. We are one spoiled rotten bunch. All of us. I won't lie and say I don't like receiving a great gift, but I enjoy seeing other people open gifts from us even more. (Especially if you can tell they actually like the gift!) My sweet sister Kacie spent hours pouring over her gift for me and I am so indebted to her! She made a book out of my blog of Drew's first year of life--pictures and monthly birthday updates included. I was so honored that she took up that much of her time and so thankful that she took that burden off my hands! It was on my to-do list for January! Thank you, Kacie!

My mom was presented with the most gorgeous diamond ring from my dad! It was beautiful, and she was very grateful!


Drew had a ball opening his gifts, but wasn't too keen on opening another gift when he wanted to play with the one he just opened. (I think my advice for other parents would be to go ahead and take the toys OUT of the packaging and then wrap them for 12-24 month olds. That way you don't have to spend tons of time ripping cardboard and tape apart and breaking fingernails.) To say he got a lot of stuff would be an understatement. I think I'm going to need to have a garage sale to make room for the new stuff!


Late Christmas Eve night for Andrew & his mom was spent cleaning the house and preparing for Christmas morning as well as being my 2 little nurses. They got gold stars from this patient!

Mom, Dad, Kacie, Judd, Caroline, and Mamaw got here around 9am Christmas morning to see Drew open his gifts. I went a little crazy and wrapped everything, including stocking stuffers. His main gift was a kitchen set since he loves playing with anything in the kitchen. Imaginative play isn't quite developed yet, but he's getting there. He likes to stir up stuff in a bowl and come give you a taste. He always expects you to say, "Mmm!!"



(Here he is having a taste of plastic beans...)

Drew's Granna and Papaw brought Drew's big gift with them after he'd opened Santa Claus presents. Guess what it was?

Yep. He was thrilled! It's an outside tractor so we can't wait until it gets warm outside again! I have a feeling I'll have a really hard time getting this child to come inside this year! Thanks Mom & Dad for the generous gift!

Andrew and Ms. Debbie took Drew to my side of the family's celebration for lunch a little while later. Drew's great grandmother had been working on him a twin sized quilt out of some fabric I picked out. The plan is to decorate his eventual big boy room in a cowboy theme. Well, I thought the quilt turned out FABULOUS and Drew did too! They said he was squealing when he saw it and started clapping his hands and wanted to rub it! Pretty sure that made my grandmother's day! How awesome is this quilt?!



He got more toys of course and was pooped when he returned home to mommy!

Since then, he has played his little heart out with all these toys. My house is a disaster zone, resembling Toys R' Us at the end of Black Friday. It's slowly being pieced back together now. I did something totally out of the ordinary; I took my tree down yesterday! I always leave it up until after New Year's, but Drew had utterly destroyed the poor thing and it was just a constant headache to trip over scattered ornaments. I will say I am really enjoying having my house back in order!

What a wonderful Christmas to celebrate our Savior's birth with family! It still amazes me to think that Immanuel ("God with us") left a perfect heaven, knowing his destiny, to walk among the sin of this Earth because He loves His people so much. Thank you, God, for your Son who cleanses us daily and gives us the hope of an eternal life!

Merry (belated) Christmas & Happy New Year!

Ms. Priss Goes to the Pumpkin Patch...and takes her family with her

It's 12:07am and I have no clue as to why I'm sitting here with cats on my eyes, attempting to blog. I guess that will be my excuse if you find 20 grammatical errors in this post. ;)

Did anybody else get to pull out their long sleeves this last weekend? We had planned on going to a pumpkin patch with Andrew's mom which was located in Arkansas. Andrew's mom even made Drew an adorable pumpkin shirt for the occasion! We woke up Saturday morning around 8am, stopped for doughnuts (First ones we've eaten in over a year. Um, I had three. And I'm not ashamed.), and headed out on the 2 hour drive to a pumpkin patch.



So we got there, petted some stinky animals, rode around on little miniature tractors, and took the obligatory pictures. Drew had a grand time running amuck.



What a cutie!


Then his daddy wants to go and be the center of attention... ;)

Then we headed out past the donkeys and a pig to get on the biggest trailer I've ever seen sitting in the biggest pile of mud ever to ride to the pumpkin patch.

(Biggest trailer ever.)

Okay so we rode to the pumpkin patch. Does that sound weird to anyone else? All the pictures I'd ever seen of people taking their kids to the pumpkin patch consisted of kids sitting among piles of orange pumpkins placed conveniently next to the cash register. Not so in our situation! We headed out to the actual "patch" of pumpkins. And mud.


I clearly was not prepared to walk into the actual patch of muddy pumpkin fields since I had chosen to wear my brown suede flats. Instead of ruining my shoes, I opted to play the role of Mrs. Priss and keep my feet inside the trailer, taking pictures. Boy, was I a sight among all these other women! Let me break it down for you:

We're on this extremely long trailer full of hay being pulled by a tractor through the mud and muck. I so conveniently chose to sit right by the tires of the tractor. Three words: lotsa mud slingin'. My hair is blowing in my face and sticking in my lipstick while all these other country women had smartly chosen to ponytail it for the day. My sweater is just a little more than see through, and the wind riding down the highway doesn't make me much warmer. I'm really cold and shaking and am trying to wipe my kid's snotty nose on my new Gap sweater to keep it from being blown back into his hair. Andrew says rather loudly due to the engine noise, "Too bad it's not two weeks later! You would have been in luck 'cause I would have had my camouflage coat in the truck." "I don't think I would get that desperate!" I said, in hearing range of all the other country women on this trailer.

Then I took my cute brown suede shoes and shoved them down my throat.

They were all wearing camouflage. One lady was wearing a baby sling made of camouflage.

"Yeah, I only wouldn't wear it cause it wouldn't match these shoes, dear." Argh!

So then add to the fact that I didn't wanna get out in the mud to pick a pumpkin, and they really thought I was stuck up. Then it really didn't help that when I stayed in the trailer, I was "hollering" to my husband where the pretty white pumpkins were to pick for me like a little priss pot. Then I'd either yell to him that I liked it or hated it.


Trying to find the wife a suitable white pumpkin.

Sorry, ladies that I came off as a snob. I'm really not! So next year I think I'll just stick my hair in a ponytail and borrow the hub's camo to save myself the embarrassment.

Okay so ALL of that to say....we had a really good time overall! Drew had more fun than any of us, and really loved playing with his pumpkins. Here are all the pictures that couldn't fit into my crazy, snobby story:


This little guy was on clearance!


He doesn't think my joke is funny.




A fake picture of me looking warm and not snobby and my child's nose clean for 0.5 seconds.


Someone is impressed with pumpkins...






Daddy showing off Drew's new Mossy Oak camo boots from Uncle Austin!




Drew's scary face. :)



Overall a very good time at the pumpkin patch of 2009 with lots of lessons learned for mommy!