Rain, Rain, Go Away!

Tropical Storm Fay dumped a ton of rain on us in the past couple of days. No severe weather in our city, but the heavy rains left a lot of debris in our neighborhood. We live in an older neighborhood with lots of huge trees, including several big pines in our yard. We awoke this morning to find this:


It fell perilously close to my prized Hydrangea, talk about tragedy avoided:
We are just so thankful that it did not hit the house, would have only caused minor damage, but still not something we want to deal with right now. Basically it fell in the one place that it could have to do no further damage. Now we'll have to have someone out to cut the broken branch down from the tree and cut it up and haul it off...cause we needed another project in our lives two weeks before baby comes:)

Go Hawai'i!!!

Congrats to the U.S. Women's Volleyball team who won the Silver Medal at the Olympics! The four women pictured above are all former University of Hawai'i players, including my former student Kim Willoughby (far right).
Also, watch for Hawai'i to play in the Little League World Series. The team from Waipi'o will play Mexico for the Championship tomorrow afternoon.

Happy Anniversary, Baby. Got You On My Mind...

That's a nice Little River Band tune that will be stuck in my head all day! August 14, 2004 is the day Jason and I got married, which makes today our big 4th anniversary. Eli is staying with my folks today and I am treating myself to some swimming, a pedicure, and lazing around. Tonight Jason and I will go out for a nice dinner at either our fave locale, Sinclair's in Old Cloverdale or another great place, Bonefish Grill. Then we'll come home and watch our wedding video. I make Jason endure this every anniversary (but since it's just once a year I think he really enjoys it too). We either watch the wedding or the Friday night reception, then the next year we'll watch the other. They both last about an hour. This is the year for us to watch the reception video from the night before our wedding. We had a party at the Officer's Club at Maxwell.
But above all else, my favorite anniversary tradition is one Jason surprised me with on our 1st anniversary. He maintains a day planner for his work, mostly filled with work meetings, appointments, etc. However, he also will add in snipits of things going on in our lives. So, tonight he will have composed a list of all the meaningful things that happened to us the past year. From little things to big things. Most of which I haven't thought about until he reads his list. I'll cry, of course and we'll both enjoy remembering all the things that happened in our lives the past year.
As for gifts, I just got a new 6-seater breakfast table for our kitchen. We've all been squeezing around our small 4-seater table for too long and now that the 5 of us is about to turn into 6 it was time to expand our table! So, although the 5th anniversary is traditionally the gift of wood, I got my wood (table) this year. As for Jason, he's getting a custom made driver (that's a golf club for those not in the know:)
So, here's to another spectacular year for us. Somehow each year keeps getting better and better. Amazing.

Enjoy this walk down memory lane. Some pictures from our wedding and honeymoon:

Jason's dad was his best man and his 3 brothers and my brother were groomsmen:
How about this for a beautiful array of women! My bridesmaids:
Hugh & Grant were 4 & 5 when we got married, now they're 8 & 9. Our photographer liked this pic so much he uses it in his display book:
We had such a pretty wedding cake:
Jason and the groomsmen:

The flower girls are my friend April's daughter, MaryEsther and our niece Bailey:

My mother is in the yellow, Jason's mom is in the purple:
I've always thought this was a really fun shot:
Jason singing "Brown Eyed Girl" with the band at our honeymoon resort in Mexico:
Two babies in two years later, I wonder if I'll ever see my bellybutton again:
Love this pic, our resort had beds on the beach:

The First Buzz

We took Eli to get his hair cut today. I've been waiting on him to get thick curly hair like his Daddy, but alas that ain't happening. So, we went and got the shaggy pieces snipped off.

Here's Eli with Robin before getting his new do, she does mine and Jason's hair and goes to church with us.
Eli sat on his Daddy's lap for the cut.
In typical Eli form he was all smiles and giggles during the cut.

Here's his new big boy hairdo:
And here's his new fun boy hairdo!!!

Funny Baby Pictures

Eli is determined to climb up onto the coffee table. No luck yet:


He's begging me for something here:

Not getting his way about something:
Just a goofy face:

He discovered the case of Cokes on the floor and went through them one by one looking for an open can:
And here's our sleepy puppy waiting for the Olympics parade of athletes to finish so we can all go to bed:

Gearing up for college football

Yesterday Eli and I went to Auburn to have lunch with my girlfriend Verona and her son Jake. V and I had a great visit. She has started graduate school at Auburn, studying Community Planning. After our visit I stopped by Tiger Surprise!, the neat gift shop owned by my cousins Larry & Sherrie. Visit their website at www.tigersurprise.com. Of course I couldn't leave the shop without getting Eli and Margaret an Auburn t-shirt to wear for the upcoming football season - first game is August 30! Here's a pic of the two new shirts. Eli's shirt looks really big in the pic, it isn't. The reality is that Margaret's newborn shirt is teeny-tiny!

Body Heat

It's been a long, hot summer. For those of you who have never experienced a summer in the Deep South, let me describe it for you. On any given day the temps are in the upper 90s. Now, before all of you folks in the southwest get uppity and think your 110 temps are hotter, consider our humidity. In rain or shine here in the southland, humidity is always high and once you factor the humidity into the temperatures, it is not unusual for us to see the heat index in the 100s. Hot, sticky, and miserable. And no nice tradewinds like my friends in Hawai'i enjoy. No, we have the kind of heat that hits you like a brick wall when you walk outside. The kind of heat that literally makes it hard to breath. The kind of heat that makes your air conditioner run all day and still not cool things off.
It's hot. You get the point.
So, add to this searing heat a woman who is pregnant by 8 months and change. When we began announcing to folks last February that I was pregnant I heard - ad nauseum - how tough it would be to endure the summer. It got on my nerves. I grew up in the Alabama summer heat and I can deal with it. Plus, I've never been one to sweat (after all, we southern ladies don't sweat -- we glisten). Well, I am experiencing levels of heat and misery I never thought possible. This summer I am sweating...I wake up covered in sweat, I sweat when I get out of the shower, I sweat when I walk outside. I've also never been one to care for much ice in my drinks, usually preferring no ice at all. At this point there's not enough ice in the city of Montgomery to satisfy my needs. (How about those Icees that the Krystal is doing this summer? Tried one? A banana icee is a good thing for a hot, pregnant woman.)
I try to stay home in the cool house as much as possible, but when there are errands to run I have no choice. So, I load up the kids and we hit the hot streets. One day last week Hugh, Grant, Eli and I were out enduring the heat to get some things done for the family. At some point Eli decided to pee through his diaper, through his outfit, onto the floor of the store we were in. So there I was down on all fours wiping up the mess wondering how it all came to this. And, being the usually unprepared mother I am, I didn't have another outfit to change Eli into - (thank goodness I had a fresh diaper!) So, in classic white trash form, I stripped Eli down to his new diaper and we pressed on with our errands. Can you picture it? The big, hot pregnant woman, two little boys in tow, toting a little naked baby wearing nothing but a diaper. (Do I hear someone humming If They Could See Me Now? Or perhaps the theme from Deliverance?) Then, just today I had to pop into the grocery to pick up a few items. As we were pushing our buggy to the car, I passed this man in the parking lot and we exchanged hellos. Then I proceeded to get Eli into the car, get him strapped in, get the groceries loaded, untie the balloon from the buggy that Walt the stockboy gave Eli, then push the buggy across the way to the return stall. As I was returning to my car I passed the exact same man I passed on the way in. We had to laugh. Yes, not only am I burning up hot, but I am slow as molasses.
So to all of my girlfriends out there still considering motherhood, let me encourage you on one point: No matter how alluring your man looks against the twinkle of the Christmas lights and the glow of the fireplace. No matter how giddy the eggnog makes you. No matter how caught up you are in the spirit of the season -- DON'T GET PREGNANT AT CHRISTMAS TIME!
And to all those women out there who have babies with September birthdays - Here's to YOU! And here's to never doing it again!!!

Three Very Cute Things

Three new things Eli has been doing the past few weeks:
1. He kisses. When I'm holding him I'll say "Eli Kiss" and he'll press his cheek up against mine then turn his head and press his lips against my cheek and make that "mmmmwaaaa" kissing sound. Way cute.
2. He knows "where the baby is". I'll ask him "Eli, where is the baby?" and he'll lift up my shirt, pat my pregnant belly and say "baby". Margaret is going to be a tough name for him to learn, we'll work on that soon, for now she's "baby".
3. He prays. We are not sure where he picked this up, because none of us taught it to him. But, when we put Eli in his high chair and get ready to feed him, he clasps his hands and says "pray". Then we pray and after we say "Amen" he claps and giggles excitedly. Amazing.

Here's a picture of Eli praying. The other two new cute things really have to be seen in person!