Help Me Please!!!!!

You may notice there are not many pictures of me on the blog. There is a reason for that. I can't take a picture without closing my eyes to save my life!!! It is pathetic. I really can't do it. Every single time I try to take a picture my eyes are closed.

I need some suggestions from all your really photogenic people and photographers out there. What can I do so that all my pictures don't look like this? It is sad when the 3 year old and 5 month look good but the mommy looks awful!!

Keeps Us Laughing!

Ben has been cracking us up these days! He says the funniest things. Here are a couple of "funnies" from the last week...

We were playing the game "Loaded Questions" with my parents last weekend. The question was "What mythical creature do you think could most likely really exist?" We were all busy writing down our answers. Ben, who was just sitting listening, responded in the most serious voice - "Ghosts." We all cracked up. How does he know about ghosts? How did he even understand the question that was asked? He is so funny!!

Every night when I am nursing Kate before she goes to bed, Matt and Ben come in and say good night to her. Ben has started saying "night-night" prayers for Kate. The other night he was going through his list and he said "Thank you God for Zaxbys." Then he got quiet for a minute and said "Please God help Kate be able to eat Zaxbys soon." It was all we could do to keep from busting out laughing. He felt so bad that Kate couldn't eat Zaxbys!!

What A Big Girl

Sweet baby Kate is doing so many new things these days! She is turning into such a big girl. I can't believe how fast she is growing!!

I love this picture! It really shows how big she is getting. She LOVES to stand up. That is all she wants to do these days. She can stand up by herself as long as you hold one of her little fingers. So big!! She has done awesome the last 2 nights sleeping. She is going to bed at 8 and sleeping until 5:45 without a single peep!! I have actually woke up the past 2 nights at 3:30 panicking thinking something was wrong because I hadn't heard her all night!


She is also asking some big questions these days...

Daddy told her no it didn't! She has started rolling over from back to tummy. She can roll just about wherever she wants to go. The other day I heard her "talking" loudly and I went to find her. She had rolled under the chair in the living room. She was stuck halfway under. So funny

She is really getting interested in toys and playing. She started standing in the exersaucer the other day and loves it!!

Such a sweetie!!!

I wanted to brag on my husband for a minute. I have had to work late several days over the last couple of weeks. He has been amazing. When I get home dinner is cooking and the kids are happy! He does a great job of coming in from work and taking care of things. I am so appreciative of him and all he does!! Love you!!

In a totally unrelated note - I went shopping today with my friend Jessica. We went in 4 stores and I bought something in all 4 stores. All of you who know me know I NEVER buy anything when I am out shopping. I was so proud of myself. I bought a new sweater, some lip gloss, a shirt and a beach bag!!

Breakthrough

This picture may not seem like much but it represents a major breakthrough at our house!!

Ben and Kate were actually playing together!! Up until this point Ben has had nothing to do with Miss Kate. I think he has held her for a grand total of 1 minute (only when I made him for a picture). He has never been mean to her but he has had no interest in her at all. Now she thinks Ben is great. When he is in the room she only has eyes for him.

I walked into the living room today and Ben was stacking these blocks for Kate to knock over. He would stack them and then she was hit them. They would both laugh. It was the sweetest sight! I know they will be great friends one day very soon (and also be each others worst enemy at the same time).

"Stormy" Weekend

I put the stormy in the title of the post in quotes because it was supposed to be a super stormy weekend. The weathermen had been predicting this huge storm since about Tuesday of last week. It always cracks me up when they do that. I know they know that things could be bad but they make it out to be that it will be bad. I know in some places it was rough but here we got a little rain and about 3 bolts of lightening. Needless to say the "storm of the century" turned out to be a dud around here. Because of that all sorts of things around town were cancelled and everyone had a low key weekend. We had a great weekend in spite of the storms.

Friday I had to go down to Birmingham for work. It was an all day work day for me. I don't have those to often and when I do it makes me really appreciate the fact that I work part time. I don't have it together enough to work full time! It was a good trip down to B'ham. I did what I needed to do. The kids did great at school (Ben) and with my mom (Kate).



Friday night we went to our friend Ryan's "No Mo Chemo" party! I wrote about him back in the fall and the fight he was going through with lymphoma. We got to celebrate Friday night the amazing healing of God and the fact that he is cancer free!! It was a great party and a great time of celebration. We took the kids with us and they had a blast playing.



Saturday was low key because of the "storms." We got lots done around the house and also did some relaxing which was great. It is crazy that we don't have more Saturdays where we can do some relaxing. We all took a nap which was great!!



Today was church this morning. We had a great sermon on work and working for the Lord. Kate did amazing in the nursery!!!!!! It was the first time in 2 months that I haven't gotten called to come get her. She just had a good time with the ladies today. Maybe we have turned a corner! This afternoon we planted some flowers outside and enjoyed the nice weather. Our yard is really starting to look good!

The wisteria around the entry way is about to bloom this week. It is going to be beautiful. We live in a neighborhood where lots of the houses look the same so I knew I wanted to do something to make ours look different. We planted the wisteria a couple of years ago and it has really done well. It makes our house unique. If you read the books on gardening they say to never plant wisteria near your house because it will take over. We knew what we were getting into. It has taken over. Matt has to trim it back at least once a week to keep it from totally taking over the house!

Some of the new flowers we planted today!



Couldn't have a post without some pictures of the kiddos! Can I just say that I have the 2 best kids in the world. They are so much fun and I enjoy every minute of being their mom!

Hope you all had a great weekend! We are looking forward to another wonderful week.

Mr. Putter and Tabby Pour the Tea

One of our favorite set of books to read is the Mr. Putter and Tabby books. They are about an old man who adopts a cat. The books follow them as they have different adventures. My mom the librarian introduced them to Ben. He loves them. His favorite is the very first one called Mr. Putter and Tabby Pour the Tea. In it the cat, Tabby, and Mr. Putter have tea everyday.

Kate got a tea set for Easter and Ben had been dying to open it and "have tea." So recently I opened it and he has had a blast having tea with any and everyone. He pretends to be Tabby and whoever is with him has to be Mr. Putter. It is so much fun to watch him play tea. Ok I know Matt is going to kill me for posting this and it may not seem "boyish." But I think it is teaching him good manners. Plus he does it with Kate and it is one of the few things they can "play" together at this point. And it is just fun!! Enjoy some pictures of Ben and Kate's tea party today.

Hurry Scurry

This blog post is not going to turn out like it was originally intended. I had planned to talk about a busy hurried day and all I was going to have accomplished today. But as life has a way of doing it turned out a little different.

Wednesdays and Fridays Ben goes to school so those mornings are rushed. We are busy trying to get out the door on time. This morning was no exception. I spent my time trying to hurry Ben along while he was eating his breakfast - to no avail. He was on Ben time!

Had to get Miss Kate dressed! Ben wanted me to take a picture of the milk in the fridge. So I did and figured I would post it on the blog.
We hurried and scurried out the door and made it to school on time. Dropped Ben off and had a list of errands to run. I was excited about getting some things done. That is where the day went downhill. The first stop was at the Honda dealership to get the oil changed. The van needed more work than just an oil change and they said it would be 2-3 hours. I was not going to wait with a baby for that long so we left without getting that done.
Then it was on to several stores to get some things for a project. No one had what I needed. Mostly what I needed was a Target. I am just about "over" Target and the fact that they never restock. They are always out of what I need! So Kate and I totally bombed out on all our errands! We were able to pick up her 3 month pictures that are beautiful! I was trying to buy frames so I can get them up on the wall but not today! I guess we will be making a trip to the other Target as I need matching frames to the ones I have for Ben's pictures. We then picked Ben up from school. All was well. I was over the bad errand running. We came home and Ben was playing. Kate was happy in her bumbo. So I decided to bake a pie that I was going to take with a meal to some friends who had a baby. Halfway through the pie Ben comes walking into the kitchen with no pants on. He went poopy all over our bed and couch!!!! Lovely. Needless to say I was not happy to have to clean that up. I guess it just goes with being mommy. He finally fell asleep 10 minutes ago. I guess I will let him nap for a few minutes. So my hurry scurry day where I was going to get so much done didn't really happen. Instead I ended up with none of my errands complete. But hey now I have a freshly washed bedspread and sheets! I must look on the positive side. I did manage to make some homemade guacamole for dinner so that will make it all better!

To quote one Miss Scarlet O'hara - "Tomorrow is another day!"

Thank you Lord that your mercies are new every morning! I will hold on to that!

You Know You are a Mom When...

This box shows up at your door and you get excited...

Yep I made my first order with diapers.com last week. I was so excited. I got a great deal on some diapers. I am a bit of a diaper snob when my babies are really little. I like Pampers Swaddlers diapers only. It is hard to find them on sale at all times. I noticed last week that I was down to my last box of diapers (from all the ones we were given when Kate was born - yep I haven't had to buy any at all). I got 182 diapers for $40 (22 cents a diaper - yes I do the math). I really liked how easy diapers.com was. They were delivered to my door in 2 days. Let me know if you are interested and I can give you a code to get $10 off your order.
Because the post would be boring without pictures of the kids. Here are some pictures from today...

Ben had a blast playing with his Spiderman kite.

And blowing bubbles
Kate blew some bubbles of her own!

Springtime in Auburn

I mentioned in my last post how much I love Auburn in the Spring. It is just beautiful with all of the flowers in bloom. I remember in college going for long walks just to enjoy the flowers (and avoid studying). Probably the best date Matt and I ever went on was a walk through the Arboretum on campus one April. It was just beautiful.

My aunt and uncle have an amazing yard with some of the most beautiful flowers you have ever seen. I enjoyed taking some pictures on Saturday. These pictures are not nearly as good as my friend Jess' (see her blog on the side - The Gordon Family) but I thought they turned out pretty.

It brings back such great memories of an amazing 4 years in Auburn!

A Weekend in Auburn

We decided early in the week last week that we were going to take a weekend trip down to Auburn. There is no where on earth as wonderful as Auburn in the Spring!! The weather is wonderful and the flowers are gorgeous. It was the annual A Day game so we could also throw in some football! What could be better?? My mom was already heading down that way so she rode with us which was great to have an extra set of hands. I have lots of family that live in the Auburn area so it is great to get to see everyone. Here is our weekend...

We headed down after work on Friday. Good car trip. It is so wonderful to have 2 kids that don't mind to travel. We spent Friday night hanging out with my grandmother (GG to Ben and Kate) in Lafayette. Ben loves GG!! When I told him on Friday we were going to her house he got so excited! He cried when I picked him up from school and we didn't go to GG's house right then.

On Saturday morning we got up and headed into Auburn. Kate got to finally meet my grandmother.

We ate a great lunch with at my Aunt Susan's house. They have the most beautiful yard. They even have chickens. Ben loved the chickens.

Kate with Aunt Susan
Granna and Ben running in the garden.

A family picture. Those don't happen very often. We were all dressed in our Auburn clothes so we needed a picture.

My cutie!

Matt, Ben and I then headed over to campus to go to the A Day game. We first stopped by the new basketball arena. It is super cool!

We met up with our friends the Wellers for a little while. They were also exploring campus before the game.

Ben was dying to get into the game so we went on into the stadium. We learned very quickly that we are not hot weather football fans. If you remember we went to a game back in the fall and it was freezing. Ben loved every minute of it. We stayed for the entire game even though it was below freezing and late at night. We made it through 1/2 of the first quarter on Saturday before we were all too hot. Needless to say we will be doing late October or November games from now on!

Some of the action. Don't really know what went on with the game. Did I mention it was hot?

So we headed out. It was still fun to go to the game for a little bit and just enjoy some fun time around campus.

Kate was smart and stayed at my aunt's nice a cool house. She looked super cute in her Auburn dress (thanks Brad & LeeAnn)!

After the game, we went and visited with my college roommate, Jamye, for a little while. Jamye is wonderful! She and I lived together for 4 years during college. Needless to say we got to know each other really well! She is expecting her first baby is a couple of weeks so we got to go see her new house and Miss Morgan's room. So that was a super fun stop.

It was a great weekend of family, friends and football. Really nothing better than that is there?