HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!

We went trick or treating with some friends tonight. It was so much fun, and thanks to Abram I have seen inside just about every living room on my street. I am so proud of the story of his costume. Here it goes: so Abram was going to be Batman for Halloween. I took him to Party City to try on a costume (this is not the proud part). He freaked out in the dressing room and you would have thought I was beating the child. This was the reason for my procrastination which leads to the story....it was 10:30 last night and I was in Walmart with a really dumb looking scarecrow costume in my cart (all the good ones are gone the night before Halloween apparently). Then I thought-I could make this costume. SO I pulled up my Martha Stewart pants and went to the craft aisle. I got the things I needed and went to the toddler area to find a long sleeve shirt and then I saw them. Superhero p.j.'s....but not the regular kind, they had a new kind out-thick material, full costume look, footie pajamas with capes!! Now Abram won't wear hats, nor will he wear masks so it was perfect and a lot less expensive. Thus we have Batman!!! And he loved it!!

The day started out with pumpkin pancakes shaped like pumpkins and ghosts....


And then this evening a little bit o' trick or treating along with a party we found and crashed.........






And then the kiddos started to get tired.......




And the day ended with some battle wounds from busting it on the sidewalk. Bless his heart....nothing that candy and some hot chocolate didn't fix.


Hope you and yours had a Safe and Happy Halloween!!!!!!!

Pumpkin Carving...

We FINALLY got to carve our pumpkin tonight. Abram was a lot of help, although at the beginning when we opened up the pumpkin he was unsure, and tried to make a run for it. We found a picture on the internet that Kris drew on the pumpkin, I would say it turned out pretty awesome.



After taking a look at what's inside a pumpkin.......


Abram was done, and making a run for it........




SO we counted the seeds, maybe that would help.....




And helped poke holes while Mama gutted the pumpkin.....



Hey! Maybe this isn't so bad,



ya think?



Cheesing for Daddy.......



Starting the "for real" carving.....




Finishing up......




Da da da da da da da (pause, breathe) Da da da da da da da........

14 Weeks.........

FINALLY starting to grow forward instead of outward.......well, at least for a little while anyway.




And lookin' cool while eating mac and cheese......

I'm an Alice!

Thanks Marla for the quiz!!

Take the Quiz and Share Your Results!

See who you are!

Fun With a Puppy......

My friend Windy brought a puppy to play to playgroup today. It's kind of a long story about the puppy, but the kids LOVED it!

Abram and Grayson being silly, I love that they are such good friends....




Abram disappeared for a few minutes, I found him and the puppy in front of the house. The puppy was curled up next to Abram and he was playing with her ears, it was so sweet!!!!

Our Little "Punkin Head"

I went into the hospital October 18th in the evening. I was to be induced the next morning. I had brought in my last meal which was from Ruby Tuesdays, I didn't get to eat it until after it was cold, but if I had known how long it would be until I ate again...I would have scarfed it down. I was too excited to sleep. I had a really grumpy nurse who was working a double and she wasn't too happy that every time she strapped the monitor to me AS SOON AS she would leave the room Abram would move and get off the monitor. She would come in mumbling to herself and strap it even tighter, after the 6th time or so she did this the doctor put an internal monitor-Oh the joy. Kris was wearing his Batman shirt, I asked him if it was for the special occasion-to which he replied excitedly, "Yes, and tomorrow I am wearing my Dare Devil shirt!"

My water broke on it's own at 6ish the next morning. The look on Kris's face was hilarious! He ran out and started screaming to the nurses station "HER WATER IS BREAKING WHAT DO WE DO??!?!?!" The next few hours were very exciting and uncomfortable, I started having really bad contractions and Kris would watch the monitor and say "WHOA, THIS ONE IS GOING TO BE HUGE IT'S GOING OFF THE CHART! WHOA!!" I quickly informed him that I would rather know when it was almost over, than how big it was going to be so I could anticipate the hurt. Then came the epidural-a nurse (who must have been a compulsive liar) told me the I.V. (which hurt)would be worse than the epidural. Everyone left the room, I held onto my favorite nurse's scrub shirt and screamed "Son of a!!!!!" No, I didn't cuss (not out loud anyways). I could feel it wiggle in my back and had to tell the anesthesiologist when it felt right. Oh how I love epidurals....story for a different time about the video we watched in our birthing class....Anyways, after 12 hours of labor and being fully dilated-Abram wasn't getting anywhere and they thought the cord might be wrapped around his neck. I felt so calm about that, like I KNEW he would be okay. My doctor went to look at my contraction sheets, and talk with some others-I started to shake because of the epidural. The anesthesiologist walked in with a HUGE needle and says "I hear we are having a c-section!" My eyes bulged and I replied, "We are?!" and his eyes bulged and he left the room. then all of the sudden it was like an episode of ER all of the doctors and nurses ran into my room and very quickly drugged me, and took me to the operating room. I started to shake more because of the extra drugs-the more I tried to control it, the worse the shaking was. I was so drugged and I kept saying "Where's Kris? Where's Kris?" he finally came in, and by the way-he got his wish the magic "blue curtain" that blocks all vision was placed before him. My eyes were rolling in the back of my head, and doctors kept introducing themselves to me, but all I wanted to do was close my eyes so everything would be still for a minute. I could hear 80's music being played in the operating room (so meant to be) in fact the songs were "I Love Rock n Roll" Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, "Love Shack" the B-52's and "Jack and Diane" John Cougar Mellancamp. The next thing I heard was my doctor say "Well, hello Punkin Head!". Now to back up a bit, I was sure he would have red hair, Kris was sure he would have blond. I heard this thinking he had red hair, but she said it because his head was so big. When the pediatrician held Abram for us to see, we both were surprised to see his very very dark brown hair. The rest of the night and next few weeks were rough with the recovery and being new parents, but our dream had come true-we had our little boy, and that was 2 years ago. I am so blessed to be his mom.

Of course I took a shower and put on make up before this picture was taken, Abram had had a bath too....I don't have those "right after" picture-they didn't allow cameras back there-thank goodness....




This was right before we left the hospital, what a little muffin.....

Abram's 2nd Birthday Party

On Saturday we had Abram's birthday party at a park near our house. The theme was Cars (of course)and we had a great time! My family came in from Tennessee and we had several friends from church there. And yes, I made the cake-thanks to my friend Carrie sending me a recipe, and it turned out perfect. We also made cupcakes that looked like they had a road on them that were super cute, sadly, I didn't get a picture of those. Also, a big thanks to my friend Windy for helping me make Abram's shirt with her mad clip art skills. Here are some highlights from the big day.......


Funny faces with Daddy.....


Thankfully there was no pizza in their bellies yet......




Playing "smoosh" in the car...


Abram's friends....


The CAKE!!!DUN....DUN....DUN......



Abram totally scored on the presents......



Me and My Super Sister (no, she is not taller-those are her shoes)....


The Fam.....


Again...


Kachow!!

After Daddy put his tricycle together....


There are about a thousand more pics, I will try and make a slide show later....

This Made Me Laugh........

LOVE IT!!!!!!!

Tagged AGAIN?!?!?

All righty, my friend Windy tagged me Crazy Eights and I will play along, any excuse to take a break from cleaning.....here goes-

Eight TV Shows I Love to Watch (in no particular order)
1. Heroes
2. Grey's Anatomy
3. LOST
4. Scrubs
5. So You Think You Can Dance!
6. can't think of anymore......
7........
8........

Eight Things That Happened Yesterday
1. Playgroup
2. I lent a friend my copy of Twilight
3. Started the never-ending process of cleaning my house
4. Talked to my mom
5. Talked to my sister
6. Chased Abram around
7. Taught Abram how to dunk oreos
8. Responded to many emails

Eight Favorite Places to Eat (in no particular order, and this is going to make me miss Knoxville!!)
1. Pancho's (South Knoxville)
2. Napoli's (South Knoxville)
3. Pelancho's (Knoxville)
4. Olive Garden (salad only, everything else doesn't taste like it use to)
5. Wasabi
6. Sumo
7. Hibachi Factory (Knoxville)
8. Barley's Taproom and Pizzeria (Knoxville)

Eight Things I'm Looking Forward To
1. Abram's birthday party
2. My family getting here!
3. Twilight
4. Halloween!!
5. Going to Ohio for Christmas
6. Boo at the Zoo
7. My next ultrasound
8. Trick or Treating

Eight Things on My Wish List
1. A big fat nap!
2. Cute maternity clothes
3. Looking good in cute maternity clothes :)
4. Healthy baby
5. A maid
6. A chef
7. A personal trainer
8. Guitar lessons

Funny that the food question was the easiest..........I tag anyone who wants to avoid cleaning their house!!!! You are it!

Well, Bless Her Heart..........

I made a decision last year, I felt inspired, creative, like I could conquer the world! I would make Abram's birthday cake every year! I thought (after reading a friend's blog entry) it would just be really cool and sentimental. So, last year for his first birthday, I decided the theme would be farm animals. I looked and looked for birthday cake ideas and found where there was a lady making a pig cake 3D style out of a pan for a sports ball cake. The pig was so adorable! But I didn't want Abram's first birthday cake to be pink, so I thought surely I could transform it into a cow. The world was against me except for one friend (this is my friend who pumps me and up and encourages me even if it's something she would never do-and might be making fun of me all the while-yes you, Lorinda). I was a little too obsessed about making everything perfect-which if you are a first time mother and you are reading this-don't be as psycho as I was-don't stress out, because he/she is not going to remember and you feel like such a loser afterwards, and if you are like me-you will get so overstressed that you will have brake downs or freak out on innocent bystanders without notice. Back to the story.......... my sister "helped" me make this cake. I use this term loosely because 1)she is very distracting-I didn't add oil or something and the 1st cake was flat so I had to go to kroger at 1 am and re bake another when she went to sleep. 2)She is not the best baker- don't get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE and adore my sister, but she has a hard time making chocolate covered peanuts. Needless to say the chocolate spots were special and she "accidentally" broke the ears, so we had to make adjustments. So there we had it the cow cake-I didn't know how to make a nose out of chocolate but I did find one at party city to put on. Everything was edible except the nose. Then I decided the cow needed legs, so I used twix bars **this is when I freaked out on Kris(innocent bystander)-I asked him to go to the store and buy a plain Twix emphasizing the plain (remember I was on a short fuse, everything had to be perfect) so I melted down and freaked out when he brought a peanut butter twix, because we didn't know if Abram was allergic to peanut better!!! Back to the store he went, then I decided there needed to be grass, which my sister made-the best coconut grass you have ever seen might I say. There you have it-the cow cake. I was SO PROUD of this cake, I had built it up for so long.

I was so embarrassed to bring it out of the car, because as I went to get this awesome, amazing, original cake- all of the sudden it looked like a "well, bless her heart-she tried really hard, didn't she?" cake. So I laughed all the way to Abram's high chair-the kids at the party thought it was cool, and Abram loved it-so that was all that mattered, right?






So here it is a year later-I am not as stressed about the party, or the cake. But I am going to make it again this year, I will be sure to post so you can see what I did. It can't be that hard can it?:) I can't believe my baby is turning 2!!

A Little Taste of the Soundtrack......

Here is one of the songs from the Twilight soundtrack....so maybe I'm a little of a geek-don't judge me until you've read it.

• Jack's Mannequin
• New Music

HOW MANY DAYS UNTIL NOV. 21ST????!!!!!

I don't know how to make it smaller, so this will have to do-I AM SO EXCITED I CAN HARDLY STAND IT!!!!

Jack Be Nimble.....

Just a cute moment from the pumpkin patch, he is getting so big! I think it's cute how proud he looks after he's done.

Go Beth........ It's My Birthday!

SO seriously, I am another year older and I had one of the best days EVER today! First of all let me say, that I am so grateful for the calls, cards, and emails-thank you thank you thank you! It really meant a lot. And I wasn't avoiding calls, I just had one of the busiest days ever. The best part was, that it was everything I wanted to do!!! It started out this morning when I was worried that it was going to rain, I looked out the window and saw a rainbow! Then we met some friends and went to the Grand Ole Pumpkin Patch. Now this isn't just any pumpkin patch, it has everything to overstimulate not just a soon to be 2 year old, but his mother also. And even though Abram had about 12 nervous breakdowns, went boneless 52 times, and only wanted to go where he wanted to, and stayed up 2 1/2 hours past his naptime, it was still SO MUCH FUN!!!!!!!! Maybe I am being a wee bit dramatic, but it is funny at the end of a long day-you don't really remember the feeling of just wanting to let him run off if that's how he was going to be, but you remember instead the huge smiles on the "twactor train" of death ride (I added the death part, I felt like I was on a roller coaster), the 7 times down the scary slides laughing it up and almost peeing my pants, counting pumpkins, the bouncy horse, it was all awesome. As you may recall, when we went to a festival a couple of months after we moved here, I made a donation to charity to buy and arm band to go on the inflatables with Abram. He only wanted to play with his balloon. I decided he needed the experience of the inflatable slide and carried him up a small tunnel bawling his eyes out and although he loved the sliding down part, he wouldn't step near an inflatable again. Well, karma kicked my bum today as he wanted to ride both inflatable slides at least 3 times each! So there is pregnant me, helping him up the wannabe ladders and sliding down only to hear "More?" when we were done. But you know-even though it really wore me out, not to mention shakin' my baby up a bit-it was a blast! Abram and I slept until almost 5:30p.m. then woke up when Kris got home to go eat at a Japanese steakhouse. Here are some highlights :