So, don't eat pink pork.....

Obvious, right?

Weeeeeeell....last night I was eating my pork chop and remember thinking, "this is a tinge pink, I should microwave it". I was exhausted from volunteering for 4 1/2 hours at my consignement sale (to thus get in early) so opted not to get up to microwave and ate it anyway. Sure enough, about 30-45 minutes later started feeling awful! Long story short...I was sick all night (even while I was nursing Ryan--he did not enjoy that-yuck). I woke up this morning with fever and feeling disgusting. Chris ended up coming home from work early and I slept for about 4 hours. I'm feeling much better now...but man, I surely felt awful this morning!!

As mentioned above, I volunteered at my favorite kids' consignement sale (it's a bi-annual sale) so that I could get in early to shop. It opens to the public tomorrow at 9, but I got in today at 5. I did some damage, but, I am completely done shopping for the kids fall/winter wardrobes (except for Anna-Kate's shoes....curses on her wide feet!). I always have so much shopping...the thrill of the hunt. I got smocked dresses for $8 and $10 and some precious John-John's for Ryan for $6 and $8! I even managed to come up with one matching outfit for the kids! Impressed? You should be. :)

Interesting to me that both this sale and last sale I was feeling awful--yet duty calls--must save money and shop for cute kids clothes! Last sale was when I was in labor with Ryan (about 24 hours in). I had to stop and breath through contractions...and wouldn't you know it, noone let me go in front of them in line? Well tonight I felt a lot better than that...but still not great.

Maybe next spring I'll bring my A-game.

Beach trip to St. Simons

So every summer my college roommates and I have gone to St. Simons for a long weekend at the end of July. This year the invite went out to the "Fab 10" and the number grew from 4 to 7! So fun! Unfortunately, Ryan and Eli (Liana's son who is 2 days older than Ryan) are too young to be left at home with daddy's, so they came with us. This is not my ideal idea of a beach trip (though to his credit, he took a short morning nap on the beach):

They boys much more enjoyed Liana and I staying back at the condo with them to hang out:

Here is a picture of Liana and I the night we went out to dinner at Barbara Jeans--yummy!! We split a shrimp and grits that was amazing and had fresh pumpkin bread.

Here's a sweet picture of me with my boy! He always looks surprised in pictures...

Here's a group shot after church on Sunday:

We had a great time of fellowship and some really good conversations about "real" things and our lives with the Lord. Covenant was a wonderful place to make some of the most amazing friendships I have in life, and for that I am quite thankful.

I'm it!

So I was "tagged" by a friend to reveal 6 ordinary things about myself...here goes (and for those wanting new pics of the kids...I have beach pics coming tomorrow).

1. I am a bit (don't laugh, a lot?) OCD...I bleach my sink and countertops (almost) every night.

2. I am good about laundry, but HATE to put away the clean folded clothes. You will often find some folded in a pile on my dresser. Ugh.

3. I used to scrapbook, years ago, but am so uncreative that it hurt my head. Now, I am going to give it another shot to better capture and remember the fleeting moments of my kids' young lives.

4. I am painfully technologically illiterate and "not-of-my-generation". My friend, Emily Tate, helps me do everything on my blog, and Chris rolls his eyes at the questions I ask him about the computer. It just isn't my world anymore.

5. I am the worlds worst napper. I hate to take a nap because it will inevitably effect my nighttime sleep, there are so many other things to do during the day and rarely is a short nap enough (plus, I HATE the feeling of waking up still tired and knowing I have to get up...).

6. I don't leave my house without makeup on. Ever. I have "trained" my hair to only get washed every other day...does that make me a bit less high maintenance?

5 months ago....

Well, 5 months ago yesterday actually...I couldn't seem to get my life together yesterday...Ryan was born. I CANNOT believe he is already 5 months old!! How much faster can life possible speed by me? He is doing well--jumps constantly, feeds like a champ, and is just a charmer-always smiling and "talking" to us. Love this boy!

Could he be any cuter? :)

Summer pickin'

I took the kids down to Macon late last week for a visit with my parents. While there Anna-Kate got to pick tomatoes from Nana and Poppy's (much-more-successful-as- of-now) garden and go blueberry picking for the first time.
My girl LOVES tomatoes. She picks them the size of an apple and then eats it. Outside, uncut, unwashed: all gone. :)


Friday morning we went first thing to pick. Ryan didn't enjoy himself at all. In fact, if I was out of sight he cried. I guess because it was hot-even at 8:30 am. Anyway, here is Anna-Kate with her little bucket:

and here she and I are together at the field:

My boy LOVES his jumperoo. So much in fact that we travel with a johhny jump-up because he loves to jump so much (he's spent an hour at one time in it on occasion). Here he is, lovin' it:

Friday afternoon we met Liana and her kids at Chick-fil-a for the girls to eat chicken and play on the playground. They had so. much. fun. It was great to see them giggling, going down the slide together and just running around enjoying life! Pictures to come...haven't gotten them off of my moms' camera yet. :)

Manipulation?

So a few nights ago I was preparing dinner and Anna-Kate asked me to put her in her high-chair. As she now has a booster chair and I was planning to put Ryan in the highchair (just to sit with the family as he's not eating solids yet)...
JH: "I don't think so".
AK: "peeeeeeese mommy?".
JH: I was busy, not wanting to be bothered..."ask your daddy."
AK: She trotted off and a minute later I hear, "daddy? Hi daddy. I loooooove you. Daddy, I sit highchair please?"
Of course he said yes! It was my own fault. :)

In the car and on the phone...

So we drove down to my parents' house today to give Chris some time to finish his work and relax a bit and for the kids to see Nana and Poppy. While in the car Anna-Kate asked me to pass her her cell phone (it's bright pink and has Disney princesses on it and talks...she loves it).
AK: "I call daddy. Hi daddy! I go see Nana, bye bye".
JH: "Did Daddy say anything?"
AK: "yes, he says 'good'". "Now I call Adam. Hi Adam, hi. Uh-huh, uh-huh, yes. Oh that sounds fun. Uh-huh, uh-huh. OH NO! You hear me? Hear me Adam? OK, YUM! See later dude. By Addy (sometimes call him Adam, sometimes Addy)."
JH: "What did Adam have to say honey?"
AK: "He say hi, and he have gigantic pancakes!"
JH: "Why'd you say 'oh no'?"
AK: "Because Adam doesn't share pancake snack"

And what do you answer to that? :)

Summer fun

We hosted Ryan's playgroup today (that's right...not quite 5 months old and has "friends" already!:) ). Thankfully, Lydia Crabb is in the group, so Adam is always there to play with Anna-Kate. The big kids ran circles around the house (great naps!) and the babies played in my living room where I moved my coffee table out and put a big quilt down. Anna-Kate thought it was the greatest thing in the world to have the furniture rearranged. :) "I have picnic mommy, ok?". :)

While I was going to the bathroom the other day Anna-Kate came in (privacy and personal space are non-existent for me, and highly under-rated pre-child I've determined) to inform me that "Ryan said 'ahhh' mommy". "Great, what else does he say Anna-Kate?". "Well, he says 'goo' and 'ahgoo' too". Thanks for the update. He also squeals. That's his new thing....my friend Liana says it sounds like a pot-bellied pig. Ha.

Tonight, after dinner, we all headed outside to enjoy the relative cool. We played with bubbles (of which I am the best bubble-blower ever) and drew with sidewalk chalk. I drew a big circle, a big square and a big triangle and was trying to get Anna-Kate to jump from one to the other (kinda like hopscotch with no throwing of a rock). I ended up extending it and she really got into it(girl LOVES to jump). She jumped for probably 15 minutes. Seriously? Can I bottle and sell the energy, or just borrow 5 minutes' worth? So towards the end of the evening I hear...
AK: I jumping mommy!
JH: Great, jump square, circle, triangle, square, circle, triangle.
AK: OK. scare, tri-angle (accent on the "an"), oval...
JH: not an oval baby, it's a circle.
AK: Circle? No mommy, oval.

OK....so I can't draw, not even a circle. How pitiful is that?? My 2 year old can already see my inadequacies as an artist!

Busy weekend to end a long week.

So had I been looking forward to a long, relaxing weekend to take it easy, I would have been dissappointed. However, I was geared up to party, so it worked out. :) Saturday at 10 I had a brunch with about 12 girls from my church who have all had babies this past "school year" (ie, will be in nursery and same school year with Ryan). It was SUCH a great time of fellowship! God has truly blessed us with a wonderful church filled with amazing people! I had to leave a bit early to feed Ryan and then head to a wedding shower. I just love a party though, so that was fine with me! I usually don't enjoy shower games, but, as I won both, I can't complain. :) Last night Mom and Dad came up to see the kids and have dinner. It was a short visit, but Anna-Kate loved the time and Chris and I were thankful as well. Good food and fellowship, what more can you ask for?

Today was a relaxing Sunday......church this morning and small group potluck tonight. It POURED all day, so it was perfect for curling up with Chris and passing a lazy Sunday afternoon.

This has been a really long week for us/me. I think Ryan is teething (I know, it's what they all say), and it's killing me! He usually sleeps 8-8 at night, and at very specific times during the day (for a total of 5 hours)...all week he's woken up at 5 am SCREAMING, and then fussing until 8 when I feed him. He's been waking 20-30 minutes into naps and not going back to sleep which means he is a cranky over-tired baby. For anyone who knows Ryan you know that he's totally laid back...my "easy" baby, so this just isn't right. Finally I was so tired last night at 5 am that I gave him tylenol--like magic he quit crying and fell back asleep until 8--so I can't think of another explanation besides the ever popular excuse for terrible baby/child behvior, teething. Say a little prayer for my sweet boy if you think of it....and his tired parents. We need this week to be better!

Pictures and peaches

We went to visit my grandparents today. Anna-Kate got so excited to see Mana and Papa. Of course they wouldn't let us leave without taking some fresh picked peaches and home-grown tomatos!!! Let me tell you how good my lunch was...

In other news, my friend emailed me the pictures from when the VBS kids led worship a couple of weeks ago. I thought they turned out pretty cute!

It took her a few minutes to warm up to the idea of singing in front of all those adults:

Watching the big kids to see what they were doing:

Watching Mama to make sure she was doing it right (and she was--words and motions!):

Totally comfortable doing her own thing!

I distinctly remember last summer watching the kids from VBS sing and thinking how sweet it would be when Anna-Kate was old enough to do that. I honestly didn't think she'd be up for it this young--it was so sweet and special to see and hear her sing songs to Jesus! That is good stuff!

Cheers!

So Anna-Kate and I "toasted in" the beginning of fresh from the garden tomatoes! They are delicious! She's a girl after my own heart. Every night she runs out to check them out, but we have to wait for them to turn red. Well one night she was especially insistent on eating them and had managed to find a couple of orangy/red cherry tomatoes hiding deep in the plant. So she tapped my tomatoe, said "cheers mommy" and we ate. YUM.

Visit to St. Louis

We had a great time visiting with Chris' side of the family over the long weekend. We left at 2am so the kids would sleep....didn't quite work out very well, but they did terrific overall, so I can't complain. Here is Ryan with Chris' mom, "Mimi".

And here's Ryan with Uncle Hunt, Chris' brother.

The reason we went was because one of Chris' cousins was getting married and it gave us a great excuse to see the extended family. While we were there though, Chris' parents had a little Sip and See for Ryan and we went to the St. Louis zoo--which Anna-Kate loved!! Here's Anna-Kate on the way to the zoo...she LOVES riding in her stroller! I love the double stroller, even though it's a beast.

Girl loves fish. In fact, if you ask her to tell you her whole name it's, "Anna-Kate _____ fish".

There was a new exhibit on dinosaurs and Anna-Kate ended up being afraid of them. So, in an effort to get a family picture (which ultimately failed) Chris tried to set her mind at ease...

She was so excited to see real turtles.

"Look Mimi, giraffes"

Family picture in front of the giraffes. They were so close that some of the kids were feeding them leaves right out of their hand!

Ryan had the best seat in the house.....the zoo is really great, but incredibly spread out...we were so tired by the end!

Riding the train in the zoo.

She is obsessed with seeing herself in pictures and is interested in the "self portrait". :)

We got back late last night--we had fun, but it sure is good to be home. Though, I hate getting home because it means LAUNDRY time!!

Anna-Kate's first haircut

We went to Pigtails and Crewcuts yesterday for her first haircut! She was so excited (a couple of weeks ago she informed me she needed a haircut...). So, as we leave for St. Louis to meet family on Wednesday, figured go now. When we got there we had to wait for 30 minutes so I decided to go to Moe's to grab a quesadilla (a "duh") while we were waiting. As I carried her out she cried, "no leave, need haircut mommy, need haircut". I assured her we would be back. :) Here she is in the chair waiting to for the first cuts. She chose to sit in the taxi (though informed me, "no taxi, yellow car").

The before:

The first cut:

The after (from behind--she wouldn't smile for me):

She cut about 3 inches off the bottom. I'll take a picture of her from the front when she wakes up. It curls under about at her shoulders. Cutie! :)