A little boy in "Big Church"

     E has been going to "big church" with us for a few months now.  He does really great a being quiet and pretty still.  Last Sunday we were standing up singing and Clint happened to look back at E and catch this sight.  It was so funny that he had to sneak his phone out and snap a picture.  I know it's blurry, but it still cracks me up!

The Good Ole Days

     I came across a really cool website today and I had to share it because, well, I like it.  It's called  Dear Photograph and it is so neat.  Basically, you take a photo of an old photo in the same basic setting it was in originally and then you write a "Dear Photograph" caption.  Check it out!  I loved it, even though one of the pictures reminded me of my grandparents and I am now a big crying mess.  Regardless, it's cool!

Back to Reality

     Whew!  This past week and a half has been a little crazy and I feel like I have fallen off the face of the earth.  After all the Father's Day celebrations were over we decided that we needed to get out of town for a few days.  E was going to the beach with Clint's parents so we took advantage of that and booked a very last minute cruise.  We left Thursday and got back home today.  It was fun and relaxing, but we were both SO glad to see our sweet boy today!  I did what is quite possibly the worst picture taking ever and only took 4 pictures the whole trip.  Yep, 4!  Sad!  Still, it was a good trip and I'm glad we were able to take a last minute escape.
     On another note, we came home to find that our sweet boy caught Hand, Foot & Mouth disease somewhere and has been dealing with blisters everywhere.  Poor thing!  His little mouth and feet look terrible.  How random that your mouth, hands, and feet can all be affected by the same thing.  There are some strange things out there!  Even though he is sick he was so so so glad to see us!  He gave us the best hugs ever.  There is absolutely no place like your own home sweet home for sure!!

Happy Father's Day

     I am so blessed to have a great Dad, a great Father-in-law, and a wonderful husband who is an incredible Daddy.  So, Happy Father's Day to the special dads in my life!

My own Dad

My Father-in-law

And, one extra special dad...who is one sweet little boy's Daddy

Look Who's 2!

     This past Saturday was E's 2nd birthday!  We had a small birthday party with just family and it was really nice.  I even managed to not get all emotional over the fact that my baby is growing up...score 1 for Momma!  Anyway, here are some pictures from E's special day.  *Disclaimer:  I did a TERRIBLE job of taking pictures!  I got 1 blurry family photo and pretty much nothing else!*

 The birthday cake.  Don't laugh at it!  I did the best I could!

E blowing out his candle

For some reason my child decided to eat his cake like this...no fork necessary!

And, the one picture I got of people!  Here is Clint, E, and Clint' grandmother Mamaw Hope

So, that's the birthday party in a nutshell.  It was fun even though I didn't document very much of it in pictures.  My sweet boy also had his 2 year old check-up on Monday.  E was 37" tall and weighed 36 lbs.  He was > 95% in everything which is where he has been his whole life.  (He was bigger than all the other babies in the nursery at birth, even though he came 3 weeks early.)  I'm proud of my sweet, healthy, perfect little boy! 

A perfect good-bye

     Yesterday I had the opportunity to go to a memorial service to say good-bye to the sweet grandfather of one of my longtime friends.  This was the most appropriate memorial services I have ever attended.  It was a little sad because it was a good-bye, but at the same time it perfectly honored who Mr. Matt was as a father, grandfather, and friend.  He was the kind of person that was so funny all the time, loved everybody, loved to eat, and that everybody loved back.  He always insisted that he didn't want a sad funeral, but a celebration that he was in heaven seeing his wife and all his friends that beat him there.  So, after Mr. Matt died his family took time to plan the perfect way to honor him. (He donated his body to science so there was no traditional funeral.)  My friend called me and told me that they were planning a red shirt spaghetti supper in honor of Mr. Matt.  Sounds weird, I know, but it was perfect!  Mr. Matt LOVED to eat.  And he especially loved spaghetti.  He was a business man who wore suits to work, but he always kept a red shirt in his car in case he ever had the chance to eat spaghetti.  That's how much he liked spaghetti!  So, all his grandchildren flew in to town this past week and yesterday all his friends and family had a red shirt spaghetti supper for Mr. Matt.  After we ate, different people shared stories about him...most of which were funny of course.  It was a very sweet time and I am so glad I was able to attend. 

Success!!!

     Did you notice my blog's new look?  I just spent well over an hour trying to find a new look for my blog and I finally found one that works!  Of course, all this shows how non-tech savvy I am.  I hate trying to figure out all the html computer junk.  BUT, I did it and got rid of that hideous purple striped background.  Go me!  (Yes, I know I am way too excited over this but please let me have my moment of victory!)  Now, if I can just be as successful at making E's birthday cake tomorrow...

A much needed break

     Sometimes I feel like I can't be a good mom, a good wife, and a good worker all at the same time.  There are a lot of days I feel like I just barely keep everything going by doing the bare minimum because that's all I have time to do.  I've been in some kind of slump lately where all the mom/wife/employer juggling is getting to me more than usual.  So, over Memorial weekend I had a come to Jesus meeting with myself and decided to get some perspective in my life.  I decided to take this entire week off of work and spend it at home with my sweet baby boy (who will turn 2 THIS Saturday by the way).  I called this week "Operation Potty Train" because I wrote off diapers during the day and am making E wear nothing but real underwear.  But, honestly, I think this week is something I needed to do for a long time.  I have been extremely snappy with my husband, my co-workers, and even with E sometimes and I hate that!  So, I am enjoying my much needed break from work and from taking care of other people's children and I am taking care of my child.  It has been just us...no errands to run...no running up to work for a little while....no last minute thrown together suppers.  We now have a clean house, clean laundry, clean sheets on our beds, and I have actually cooked real food for our family to eat!  I even made a practice birthday cake before making E's real cake for his party Saturday.  (FYI it was a very good thing I practiced first!  The cake did NOT look good....at all.)

     So, I hope everyone is enjoying their week as much as I am.  Work will still be there on Monday, but my little boy won't be 1 anymore after this week.  And I'm glad I took time to love on him a little more before he grows up any more!

I LOVE this kid!

I just need to say that I really really LOVE THIS KID!

  Who wouldn't love a boy that can smile for the camera...

Or a boy who can accessorize!  Notice the hat, sunglasses, and mustache...

I am so thankful to have my sweet boy!

The dumbest of our dumb ideas

     So, last week Clint and I had another one of our famous hairbrained ideas.  This particular idea was one of our more expensive and least successful ones.  It seems like we are always coming up with dumb ideas that make us laugh when we look back on them.  Some of our crazy ideas have included.....an 11 pm trip to the store to buy a carbon monoxide detector because we both had headaches are were certain it must be due to carbon monoxide in our house.  Newly purchased detector malfunctioned and wouldn't stop alarming after the test button got stuck which led to a late night session of whittling away plastic so the darn thing would stop beeping.  Oh!  How about the time Clint bought an air soft gun to use on a whiny cat that would not shut up (no, we did NOT use it on the cat) but tested it out on his own leg first and ended up with a gigantic bruise on his inner thigh which led to him only using said air soft gun for target practice.  Did I mention that the target was set up above our mantle and all the shots went straight through the target and into the wall?!  What, you want to hear about another one?  Ok, what about the time we decided we could sheetrock our bathroom addition on our own and I started laughing so hard at my own lack of upper body strength that I nearly dropped a whole piece of sheetrock on Clint's head.  (We finally called in some help so we didn't end up getting a divorce over sheetrock).  Or, the time Clint was trying to see if it was possible to connect our laptop to our overhead projector and dropped the laptop from an 8' ladder instead of running a cord down to a normal non-8-foot height.  Yeah...these are the kind of good ideas we have!

     Anyway, back to the current great idea.  We live in the South where it is hot, humid, and full of mosquitoes in the summer.  E is very allergic to mosquitoes and ends up with huge spots whenever he gets bitten....which happens all the time even with bug spray on.  So, we decided to buy a mosquito magnet because it would definitely help our mosquito problem.  Well, after almost $400 we have caught a grand total of ......1 mosquito!  That's it!!  Needless to say, this useless contraption is going back to the store this weekend!  I think this escapade will move to the top of our bad idea list.