Dentist and some ramblings

I have no pictures, I forgot my camera but then once I got in I didn't even think to pull out my phone to snap a quick picture....But just for the record.  Collier went to the dentist for the first time today.  It was an awesome experience and he did amazing.  He loved that he got to squirt the water gun and he got to suck water out of a cup using 'Mr. Thirsty', I have no idea what that thing is called, but the thing that sucks everything out of your mouth after it is cleaned!!  Anyway.  He let the hygienist do everything that she asked.  He got to do it all on Momma first and then she did it to him.  He was all cleared with a good report and no cavities but we certainly were told that we need to get rid of the passey....although that is not a surprise!  Brushing our teeth is certainly not the high point of our evenings and I was glad to hear that there were no cavities.
If you are in Birmingham and need an amazing pediatric dentist please let me know.  We went to Austin Powell (who is from Dothan a few years younger than me and went to Alabama with Justin) but he and his partner were more than wonderful.  Some of the nicest people and made the visit absolutely wonderful!

Monday I went to the doctor for my routine appointment and everything was great.  It was quick and easy and he said that I was measuring just perfectly.  I had some back pain last week that must have been related to sciatic nerve issues and a sore throat for one day which was related to who knows what.  Bottom line is that I've feel awesome this week with no complaints at all!  I am thankful and grateful.  This baby girl is certainly active and busy in my tummy.  Just can't wait to meet her in 4 more months!

I have been a bit scatter brained today...was crazy busy with work, which is awesome, but add Christmas thoughts to a crazy work day and you get crazy preggo woman.  I held my drinking cup (that I was carrying to refill) to my ear after I had dialed a number on my phone in my other hand.  And then I almost couldn't remember my phone number to give the lady at the checkout at Lifeway.

I am counting down the minutes until we get our tree [tomorrow after work] and Christmas stuff out.  Hope to have it all done by Sunday! Tomorrow marks the first day of Advent and we will start our calendar and a little elf will be arriving to meet and greet Collier!  Merry Christmas yall!

Thanksgiving 2011

Our trip south for Thanksgiving was fabulous.  We got a little time with almost everyone, not to mention we had the most delicious food that anyone could ask for!  After time with Justin's family we headed to the lake for time with my family and more yummy food.   Mom and I actually decided to change the pace and cook Arabic food (kibbie, grapeleaves and arabic rice) for our Thanksgiving meal.  After having the traditional (yet yummy) turkey, dressing, dumplings, etc it is nice to have something completely different for the weekend, so it was really fun to have the food that would be traditional if my grandmother was still alive!  And those left overs are just as good as the turkey!

I only took a few of the kiddo's all together and I didn't take any pictures while we were in Dothan...shame on me!

 Chris and I are both in mixed marriages (auburn vs. alabama) and so all of our children are doomed to be completely confused.  Collier is in a sweater because I was trying to get a good Christmas card picture on the dock and mom wanted one with all three of them and sadly this was as good as we could get.  Good news is that they really do have a good time together, but their expressions just don't show it here.

Do you see this precious hat?  It has turkey legs on the side (the brown paper sacks)...and the middle said "Collier the Turkey".  All of the kids wore them as they ate their thanksgiving lunch at school.  They were so precious and most of them actually wore their hate the entire time for lunch.  It was really so funny and very cute.  Collier has great teachers!

We really are over flowing with blessings and have so much to be thankful for! God's love, grace and mercies are abundant and I am every so thankful!

My Little Dancer

Last night at CBS the children's program sang for us.  It is just precious and I am so thankful for our children's teachers and all that they do for our children and especially instilling in them God's word and truth.  This was Collier's first time to ever be on a stage [of sorts] and in front of a large crowd.  He only gets into one song but isn't short of moves and playing air guitar.  Some of the camera shaking is me laughing.  I was so proud of him for not running to me as soon as he saw me,but he did really good to just stay up there and sort of participate, sway and even yawn.  He just cracks me up and I think that he certainly entertained others as well with his dancing and jamming out!
WARNING: THIS IS 6minutes LONG...MOSTLY FOR MY RECORD AND FAMILY TO SEE THE LITTLE MAN!  Please don't feel obligated to watch it all :)


Few notes:
-When the little girl crawls in front of CH, he was stomping his boot at her and I was terrified he was about to kick her.  We had a long conversation about that when we got home.
-Toward the end when he is clapping, he points to me and he was telling me to clap too!

Random

Friday Collier and I ran all over town and I have no idea what I actually accomplished except to get him good and tired and made it home just in time for him to get in a long afternoon nap.  We even saw Santa at the Galleria and there was not a single person in line or around.  So, we went to see what Collier would do and all he would do was hop around and dance in front of Santa.  He wouldn't talk to him, he did manage to give him a high-five as we were walking away.  Justin built two awesome fires last week that almost ran us out of the house they were so stink'n hot...but that is how we like it.  Funny that we have to actually open our front door to cool things off sometimes, but we still love it. Too bad it is already back in the upper 70's so no fires this week!  I did manage to make The Pioneer Woman's cinnamon roll's this weekend.  YUM and I'll be taking a few to share with family over the weekend.

Saturday night I participated in a burger cook-off (it is an annual thing that my work peps do and for some reason I got wrapped into it this year )  I did not win.  I did have fun ... but I made 8LB's worth of burgers.  I dreamed of raw hamburger mean Saturday night, even that Justin and I were sleeping in a pan of raw meat.  Gross.  Needless to say I do not want burgers for a very long time.  I have never mixed, squashed or worked with that much meat and I don't plan to do it again any time soon.  Not sure if it is the pregnancy or if that much meat is just too much for one person to deal with.  Clearly I am not cut out to be a chef.

I am a little closer to my advent calendar being complete.

I have not even thought about a Christmas card picture...I need to do that in the new few days so that I can find/order cards.  I am seriously thinking about doing new year cards to reduce stress and my lack of being prepared this year!  I have been horrible about taking pictures lately.  I will do better this week, I don't have a choice if I plan to get a Christmas card done.

I am really excited that next week we'll start really decorating for Christmas.  I am not sure that Collier understands it all but I really want him to learn the importance of Christmas and the real reason that we celebrate the Birth of Christ.  We will be home for Christmas for the first time since we've been married and I am so excited.  Collier is at a great age where we can start traditions and instilling in him what Christmas really means.  I asked him the other day whose Birthday that we celebrate at Christmas and he said 'Tollier's'.  Well not exactly baby we will celebrate yours in April.  Before that we'll have a big party for the birth of Jesus.  Just praying that this will set into his heart!

Projects....

I think that I've started to many!  I love crafting but I honestly am not best at it, I want to be crafty but pulling it off is not my strong point.  Insert PINTEREST!  My solution!  It is awesome and addicting.  I love that I can normally find a how-to to projects and ideas that I love.

Part of the reason for these projects is that I am breaking a huge rule of my own...at the request of my husband [aka my Christmas Elf].  And that is that he is ready to decorate and be in full Christmas mode.  For him that means lights, Christmas decor and Christmas village. I am usually a huge advocate for 'do not decorate until after Thanksgiving..one holiday at a time please'.  He rubbed off on me a little with the Christmas music he has been blaring since last week [thanks to 96.9].  I'll try and actually take pictures of my finished products but here is what we worked on a little this weekend...

 painting to make these for my centerpiece

unpacking...I did get this done!  Hooray.

My advent calendar.  I started working on this three years [yes YEARS] ago.  My ideas have changed over time and I decided that it will be done and ready for Dec. 1st this year.  If I don't hurry and it get done I'll change my mind again.  This is what I spent the majority of the weekend working on.  I am almost done and I will be oh so glad when it is!  So will Justin since he is sick and tired of felt being all of our house!

I have also been working to teach myself/remind myself from the few lesson's had I from my grandmother how to crochet around a blanket.  My Gran made the best blankets and it was always her staple baby gift and everyone loved them.  As she aged she slowed down due to arthritis in her fingers and her stock pile quickly was eliminated.  I did a small blanket to get me started and finished it in about a week.  I am about to start on my next which will be a bit bigger. I think that I figured it out and it is not perfect but close to how hers looked!   

Next on my mind is Christmas shopping!  Let the fun begin.

Tampa

Saturday Collier and I flew to Tampa to meet up with Justin and visit with some of our favorite cousins.  We had so much fun.  I was excited and nervous about flying with Collier by myself (Justin was already down in Orlando for his sales meetings and just drove over to Tampa for the weekend).  We have talked about it and read books about every detail of security, the plane, the noise, and the do's and don'ts. And he did awesome and really really loved the whole thing.

Now the fun part of this adventure was getting time with the Crews family.  Oh my goodness did we have a blast.  It was low key and just right to get to spend this time with them all together in their new home! I wished that we had a few more days though, but we'll do it again for sure!  

Collier and Emmie played so well together (Steph and I both had a few sharing reminder conversations but over all they did really good) Emmie wanted to play house and grocery store and Collier wanted to play with their monster trucks and football. They each compromised a few times and played very sweet. Although they mastered playing with the hair dryers and the play dough which were both a huge hit!  They have a park that we could walk to which was the perfect outlet for some energy draining.  Collier was also very fond of Emmie's scooter!

Collier and Emmie both sported their boots and were so stink'n cute in them.  They even wore them to the park and had a blast! We miss them so much already!

Cheese!  Oh goodness.  Collier has always loved cheese and goes through stages of what kind (shredded, sticks, squares)of cheese he likes.  Right now it is the shredded cheese.  I have to control his portions because it it was left up to him he would eat the entire bag.  I had given him a little, at his request, and then he asked for more!  Aunt Stephanie stepped up and was more than generous with her portion...he told her 'wow that a lot'.  I came back inside and he was scooping that cheese in as quick as possible.  Needless to say I had to stop the cheese fest before we created a major bathroom issue!

Thankfully he eats enough grapes to counter act the cheese!
Look at all that cheese!  Gracious, but it did keep him occupied and happy for about 20 minutes.  Then the dogs had a blast on clean up duty :)This is a perfect example of the difference between Mommy to 4 vs. Mommy to1..... go with it vs. very cautious!

The fun with having 3 big boys and specifically these Crews boys...they are INTO football!  They are a football family.  All three boys play on different teams which means that they spend a lot of time at the football complex.  I was sad that we missed their games and season, but we did get to go to part of their awards day.  We got to see Landon get his trophy.  Collier was napping during Baylor's and was ready to go before Corbin's awards were handed out.  But all of that to say Collier was one happy little boy to have boys to play football with him. He was right in the middle of all of their tackling and jumping and just being boy stuff!

All of that football and tea party and activity between 4 kids certainly wore out my little man! We love these kids and Collier adores the heck out of each and every one of them.  I always love and cherish my time with Stephanie and Toby.   The entire family means more to us than words can describe. Justin and Toby even got an afternoon of golf.  They were so gracious to have us and feed us and entertain us!  

We love you Crews family and thank you so much for all of the fun over the long weekend!  We miss yall.

Trick or Treat'n Cowboy

Our very first trick or treat outing was really awesome. We have some good friends who live in a very child-friendly and family oriented neighborhood/community.  They did a hay ride and were oh so kind to invite us.  I totally enjoyed the time with sweet friends and it helped to have experienced trick or treaters to show Collier the way.  All that I had to say was 'hay ride' and Collier was ALL IN!  I had a very hard time getting him to keep his hat on and so I told him that if he didn't wear his hat he couldn't get candy and that did the trick.  Since he had older girls to follow he didn't have to exactly say trick or treat.  I personally like the people who actually give out the candy verses the ones who let the kids dip into the bucket and pick out their candy.  I am sure the kids prefer the later.  But Collier would dip in as long as anyone would allow him.  And at one house who was actually giving the candy he had already received his candy and he continued to stand there holding his pumpkin open waiting for more.  He would then very loudly tell them bye as he walked down the side walk.  He was all about the candy.  I was very glad it was dark and he really couldn't see how much was actually in there.

The Hay Ride was awesome and took us to various streets.  We rode around and saw some crazy crowded houses and streets and would stop anytime we were ready for more adventure, go to a few houses and then back on the hay ride.  It was really fabulous and a great way to do Halloween.  Collier and William (the Big Bad Wolf and his sister was dressed as little red ridding hood....how cute is that?) are about a month a part and I just know hope that they will grow up to be big buddies! They certainly are two cute little men.

Going through these pictures I just realized I also forgot to put on his bandanna!  Oh well, I was glad he kept the gun, holder and hat on!  I know that we will have many more fun and memorable Halloween's in the future.  

One other side note that I was NOT prepared for:  All of the other families on the hay ride with us brought sweet goodies specifically for the kids on the hay ride.  As in really good sweets such as sugar cookies and s'mores packages.  I showed up empty handed and will make a note for next year to do something special specifically for those we trick or treat with!  Oh well, call me the rookie trick or treat'r!

Thank you Joel and Alison for having us and including us in your fun Hay Ride.  It sure was a great treat!