Chop chop

So, this is the vainest thing I think I've ever posted. I got my hair chopped off Monday. Not to say that I think that I'm the most beautiful person in the world, but it's amazing what a good haircut will do for one's self esteem. You can also see a little bit of the baby poof going on there in the tummy region, just a little bit, but believe me, it's there!

Christmas!!!!!

I can't believe that it is already over. I love Christmas so much. Here's a run down of our exciting Christmas this year. We started off Christmas eve at my Grandparents house. Food was yummy and the family was great. It is always nice to visit with my cousins and my grandparents. Afterward, we headed home and did our little family Christmas eve rituals, including hot apple cider and "The Night Before Christmas". Then, Santa came, and boy did he deliver. We got way more than we could have asked for and the smile on Kirk's face was the best gift I've ever gotten. After our Christmas morning stuff, we headed down to my parents house for more gifts and sausage balls, my favorite. Again, more great food and family. We got to come home and play with our gifts just until lunch when we went to my other grandparents house for lunch. Yum! Turkey, dressing, vegis, home made banana pudding, and chocolate pie. Oh, and biscuits! I'm salivating just thinking about it. Our food had barely started digesting before we headed down to Iuka for a Williams Family Christmas. Dito on the food and family. I think I ate enough pretzel salad for everyone there. We were running around like crazy, but this has been the most relaxing and happy Christmas I can remember. It has really been all about my family and just enjoying every single moment with everybody. I am so grateful for how blessed our little group has been. We have more than we deserve. I hope everyone else had an equally awesome and fantastic Christmas! Enjoy the pictures!

My favorite picture of the holidays! My boys cheesing it up in their pjs!

Mommy Update....

Sigh, had to go back to the womens center last Thursday. More contractions..... Stayed there for 5 hours and got some good news. No more bed rest! The doctor essentially told me that some ladies just have contractions and that I wasn't going into labor, so no big deal. Plus, it looked like I was going to have them if I was on bed rest or not, so free at last! As soon as I got home, I scooped Kirk up and squished the poor boy as tight as I could. It feels really good to be able to do as I please. I am really super grateful to all my family and friends that helped out so much. Between my mom, Danny, and Gwen, I was alone for about 30min the whole 2 weeks. Plus, my relief society people brought in some delicious food! Danny even took a few days off work (gasp) to take care of me and the kiddo. I have a little over 3 months left and I'm going to try and keep little Joey (tentative name) baking for as long as possible! In the mean time, I'm squeezing Kirk and making (and eating) lots of Christmas goodies!

what a day!

Well, this morning I woke up with, what I thought was, a bad tummy ache. I kept thinking it would get better, but instead it kept getting worse. So, I called my mom nurses for their assesments. They both suggested that I go in and get looked at, just to be sure. But, wouldn't you know it,my doctors office is closed on fridays. Urg. So, I load up to the er in tupelo (45 min away). I get there and thet tell me they can't see me because I'm more than 20 weeks. So, they send me over to the womens hospital. By this point I'm really embarassed because I'm convinced its something like gas and they are going to send me away laughing. So I get all hooked up on monitors and tests start being run. Turns out, I was having contractions every 3 minutes off and on. Great. Also, I had a nice little kidney infection. But, good news is that I was not in labor and it doesn't look like I'm going to be anytime soon. Nontheless, I'm at home, "staying off my feet" for the next little bit. What fun. But, the whole thing made me realize how delicate the whole pregnancy thing is. I am so lucky to have already had one healthy baby boy and am thankful that this other little guy is doing well too. Actually at the moment I think he is using my tummy as a punching bag, what a great feeling. I am also really grateful for all my family and friends that checked in on me. Its nice to feel cared about. So, here's to the start of taking it easy and growing this kid the rest of the way!

Good Ole Days

I'm stealing these pictures from my sisters blog. Old pictures make me crazy happy.

My grandparent's "wedding picture". She was only 16. (She turned 17 three days later, she always includes that fact in this story.)

This isn't an old picture, but this is them about 55 years later (and the Kirk boy), thought you'd like to see.

Mammaw and Pappaw

Pappaw, Mammaw, and my cute Daddy.

This is my grandmother, her sisters and one of her brothers....the two little kids are cousins or something. Mammaw is the one in the dress.

What a beautiful time.

Sorry Mark....

My husband made me post this, as Jimmy so lovingly puts it, molestache.

Question for you moms out there...

It is too cold for the little asthma kid to get out of the house very much. Any suggestions for fun indoor activities that would occupy an 18 month old? I found a bunch of stuff that would be great if he were just a little older. He is super duper hyper ALL THE TIME and he needs something to keep his little hands busy so he doesn't pull over the tree or unload all my cabinets more than once a day.

Drum role please.....

It's A Boy!!!

I guess we beat the odds this time. Every single person we knew said there was a girl in there, but nope, they were all wrong. I am so excited I can hardly stand it. When I found out Kirk was a boy, I thought "What in the world am I ever going to do with a boy?" But, now I know, and I love it. Not that I don't want a girl, I very much do....someday... I am in love with my baby boy now and I am really looking forward to his little brother! Plus, that means I don't have to buy new things for this kid, a major plus, considering we live in a matchbox at the moment. Side note, Danny got transferred to the Movie Gallery in Booneville, which is about 10 minutes away from home!!! (Tupelo was nearly 50) We are very thankful for this little guy that is baking away at the moment and for Kirk. He got to see baby Wyatt this past week and he didn't try to beat him up or anything, so that's a good sign, right?

Dance! Dance!

We cannot get enough of this dancing man! Danny had tears in his eyes from laughing so hard at this.

Thanksgiving!!!!

Thanksgiving was great this year!! Lots of food and lots of family makes for a wonderful time. We started off the day at my grandmothers for Thanksgiving brunch. I ate way too much here, as usual. I went back for seconds and even thirds. I had eaten way more than my daily allowance, and it was only 10:00am! After that, we loaded up and went to the Williams' house. It was packed full of all of our favorite people, and again, I ate way too much. But, hey, isn't that what Thanksgiving is all about? I only took a couple of random pictures from there, but I think the ones from my grandmothers summed up the day, "Let's Eat!". On a more serious note, I have so much to be thankful for. Family, health, and jobs are right there at the top! Can't wait for next year!

Place Your Bets!

We are going for an ultrasound in the next week or so and hopefully we should be able to figure out what kind of baby is in there (aside from human, of course). So, I'd love to get everybody's guesses and bets. Thanks!

Look what I did!

So, I made Kirk a new quilt. This was a major deal for me. I don't like for things not to be exactly perfect, and usually don't finish if I don't anticipate perfection. This thing isn't exactly 100% perfect, but I made it and I am pretty darn proud of it! So, yay for me! :-)

NEMO!!!!

Last Friday, our little family got to go to Nemo On Ice! This was fantastic! We recommend it to anybody that loves the movie. It started off great, and Kirk was way excited to see "Emo". It was all great, until everybody started cheering. My child is scared of life, so he totally freaked out and spent the first half of the show with his head on my chest peeking out to watch the show. But, after intermission, he warmed up and cheered. Since Danny is such an amazing people person and knows everybody, he managed to get us free tickets into the show. Once inside, we decided that they don't make anything off the tickets, its all the stuff for sale inside that makes them the money. We broke down and bought Kirk a snow cone in a Nemo cup, the cheapest thing there. Danny refused to pay $12 for cotton candy or $25 for a stuffed Nemo. Overall, it was a great time and we really enjoyed it!

crazy

Christmas time makes me crazy. Not bad crazy, good crazy. I know its only early November, but it has already started. I would have put my tree up the day after Halloween if Danny would've let me. So far, I've already exceeded what I was planning on getting kirk. I am bad, but in a really exciting gift giving way. I cannot wait to decorate and start wrapping presents!

:-)

It must be nice to have a twin!

My favorite favorites asleep.

Why Moms Shouldn't Get Sick

So, I have some sort of sinus deal going on and I'm not quite 100%. I turn away for a minute and I hear this sound of rattling paper. Kirk dumped an entire bag of cornmeal into the carpet. He was just laughing and playing. Not so much fun for mom to clean up though...love that kid!

Halloween

What a Halloween. We did all the trick or treating around close and then went to the church for trunk or treat. Kirk hated it. The whole holding moms hand thing for 2 hours while dressed up was not very exciting for him. So, we came home early and ate candy! Good enough for me!

note to self:

Do not watch americas next top model before getting ready to go out. Especially if you are pregnant. You will never feel thin enough to leave your bedroom. Stupid models. Blah. :-)

Confession of the day.

Sometimes, when it's late and I'm home alone and I know I'm going to fall asleep watching tv, I turn it to PBS kids sprout, because I know there's no chance they will play scary movie commercials. Halloween is a bad time to be a wimp.

bat boy!

Sweet Aunt Kim picked the boy up this Batman towel. He freaked out. He knows "pah-pah", as he calls Batman, very well. So, after he hopped out of the tub all decked out, he pointed at the mirror and gasped and said "pah-pah, pah-pah". He wore it forever. Now, to work on his enunciation skills....

Getting Spirited!

I love Halloween!!!! We are trying to start a few family holiday traditions of our own, so, we got started last night. It was Danny's day off and we were going to go to the Buffalo Park and pumpkin patch, but there was a 90% chance of rain, so we cancelled those plans (however, it did not rain one drop on us all day, of course!). So, we got our pumpkins the old fashion way, from the grocery store! We started off our night making caramel apples. Wow! This was so much fun, and very delicous. We got all creative and had some good looking apples (until the caramel started sliding off. we put too much on some of them. oh well, we know better next time!). While the apples were setting up, we carved pumpkins. We had a big family pumpkin and Kirk had his own. My favorite part when I was little was de-gutting the pumpkins, so we thought we'd let Kirk help us with that. Dan cut the lid off and I sat Kirk on the table to get a better look. He touched the inside once and was like "No Way!" I tried to help him stick his hand in, and no lie, the boy started gagging. Haha. Danny said "Sorry, I gave him that trait!" (Danny has a very weak tummy) So, he had his own little pumpkin and we gave him some Halloween face paint and let him go to town on it. It was very funny. He ended up with a lot of the paint on himself....and me....and his clothes...and the chair...but it was so fun. We ended the night watching "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" (my VHS from when I was probably 4). It was a great night! Only about a week until we get to have more fun! Yay!

Some of our apples...looking....um..."special"

Seconds before he started gagging....

Kirk and his pumpkin!

Spoiler Alert!!!!!!!

I forgot to blog about something very important. There has been a wedding! I am happy to announce to marriage of......Jim and Pam!!!!! OMG!!! I haven't laughed and cried that way in a long time. We were sure to hook our satellite back up in time to see this episode. We even have it on DVR so we can watch it again. Danny and I have, by the way, decided that we are going to renew our vows at Niagra Falls. LOVE!!!!

What's New?

It seems like a lot has been going on with our little famila lately. Not super exciting things, but we have been staying busy one way or the other. We have been spending our time inside lately because of the non-stop rain. Wow, I've never seen so much of it. It seems like its been constant (give or take a few days) for the past 2 months. I have no grass on the front side of my porch, all mud. It's really yucky. The Dan man and I have had a birthday, number 24 and 23, respectively. We had not 1, not 2, but 3 cakes for the occasion...I am not complaining. Since it was conference weekend, we just kinda visited family for our bday. It was very nice. On the days that is has been nice enough to get out, Kirk has had a blast. He would much rather be outside than in. Most of the time he goes down to my parents house and feeds their goat Katy and visits with their dog and chickens. He love, love, loves it! My mom also taught him about climbing in trees, which he now loves to do. He even helped me make rolls the other night, which was super cute. We have all been sickly in one form or another. Nothing major, just the yuckies. Sinus and cold stuff, ya know, the typical. Kirk has had an ear infection (both ears) for about 2 weeks now that he just can't kick. He has tubes in both ears, so there is some kind of problem somewhere. I am glad to report that I am feeling well. My pregnant sick days are finished, as far as I can tell, so I am trying to get things accomplished before I hit the other uncomfortable months. Yay! Dan is working hard, traveling around a lot training other stores cause he is just so dang awesome. Right now, we are prepping for Halloween, a pretty major holiday. Danny already has his costume and we are working on an idea for Kirk that I'm pretty excited about. I'll keep you updated!

Gross!!!

I saw this on Dr. Oz today. I felt like I needed to share it and get some of the grossness out of my system. The show was on dirty things in your house that you didn't know existed. They got to the bed room and the dirtiest part was the pillow and the mattress. This really didn't surprise me very much. The next statement did. Dr. Oz said that your mattress doubles in weight in 10 years because of the dead bug parts, dead skin, and body secretions that it absorbs. Yuck! I've had my mattress since before Dan and I were married. Thats been at LEAST 6 years. Blah. Also, remote controls evidently have a large amount of feces residue on it and you need to spray it down with some sort of bleach spray every now and again so you don't get sick and die. This is gross. I could totally be a germaphobe if I let myself think about it for too long. Yuck, yuck, gross!

Best of Both Worlds

My dear, sweet, wonderful sister sent me this (her cool points went up by a zillion when I got it.) This is Sylar from Heroes and Dwight from The Office. My 2 favorite shows. My 2 favorite men. haha.

First Picture!

So, we went for our first ultrasound yesterday, and guess what? There is, indeed a baby in there! Good news, huh? They did however push my due date back to April 1st, an April Fools baby! She said "Oh, it's just 2 extra days." Obviously, this woman had never been pregnant. Seconds count when you are 9 months along. But, either way! Isn't he/she so cute in there? And, Danny was wrong, no triplets!

Hulu - Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

This little web show is so dang funny. It's this family's type of comedy. Plus, I pretty much love Neil Patrick Harris! I thought this was just the first few minutes of it, but it's nearly 50 mins long, so you might not want to watch the whole thing. But, try it out.....greatness....!!!

more about "Hulu - Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog", posted with vodpod

It's A Bird, It's A Plane....

Typically, I am not a huge fan of boys in sleeveless shirts, but I've decided to make an exception. I love, love, LOVE it when Danny dresses him for any occasion. Last night, after bath time, Danny went and dressed the boy in his jammies. He always says "Don't come in yet" to me and lets Kirk come out and show my his outfit. He dug out this little number from a drawer, I didn't even remember having it. He got him all dressed and did his hair. He ever flew him around. I love these boys!

Free entertainment

This is how Danny takes care of Kirk. It went on for about an hour, or until Dans arms nearly fell off. Kirk loves it, he just chills out and waves bye-bye everytime he leaves the room. Awesome. Wish I was this small.

Thank Goodness for Modern Life

Wow. The other day, I was hungry. I NEEDED some peaches. But, my dear sweet husband had taken our one and only can-opener to work with him. Would that stop a very hungry pregnant lady from getting peaches? Nay, nay. I got a screw driver and beat the heck out of that can. 15 minutes later, I had some peaches and my life was better. Thank you, guy that invented the can opener, for making my life a little easier.

Cupcake kisses!

Live at the Mark, Tom, and Travis Show!

I am going to blog about something that I am not necessarily proud of, but, it's been on my mind, so, yea. My teenage years, specifically between the ages of 13 and 16 were the hardest years of my life, thus far. I was the epitome of teenage angst. Nobody liked me, especially my family, and I didn't like anybody else. Nobody understood me. Nobody thought, "Hey, maybe she's just having a hard time growing up." It was more like "She's on drugs" (which I was NOT) or "She needs to be institutionalized" (which I didn't). Not one person around me got me. Not one. So, I turned to my music. I could put on a cd and hear somebody singing about exactly what I felt. The hate, the lonelieness, the hopelessness. It was all right there. One band inparticularly did that for me. Blink 182. Yea, yea. I know what you are thinking, "Aren't those the guys that ran around naked all the time?" Yep, those were my boys. They sang about all those things. Wherebeit having fun and partying, relationship issues, depression, family problems. I could relate to those guys. It was explicit, it was awful, and it helped me cope. It by no means made me a better person, but it made me realize that there was a chance to pull through. I realized that other people were mad at the world, but that it would get better. I knew every world of the songs and all about all the singers. They were my family when mine didn't want me (haha, I know my family loved me, I just couldn't feel it at the time). But on the other hand, letting go of them is what "grew me up". When I was 16, I met a nice young man that made me view things a little differently. Danny, unlike most boys I knew, had values and standards. He let me know in no uncertain terms that I did not need to listen to music like that anymore. I slowly let go, and it changed me. I went from scared teenager who could only cope through music to a slightly less scared teeneager that had somebody that was interested in what I had to say. My music, and letting go of it, helped me be me, and I'm ok with that. So, Mark, Tom, Travis, this ones for you! Maybe I'll name a kid after ya, who knows!

Here we go again....

Well, I wanted to keep this a secret for a while, but, has anyone met my husband? Half the world knew within the first 24 hours. I figured the few people that read this know any way, but yea, Kirk is going to be a big brother! We must be out of our minds, but in a good way. We are due March 30. Wow, that's a long time. I don't think anyone really knows how long 9 months is unless they have a baby in them. With Kirk, I was terribly, terribly sick. No fun, at all. I'm trying to avoid that this time. I'm using the never stop eating tactic. I don't know how well this is going. So far, I've had to go restock our food supply twice because I have literally eatten everything we own. Plus, I am still feeling quite yucky. Let me tell you this, there is a fine line between eating enough so you don't get sick and eating too much and making yourself sick. Blah. Danny has been a good boy and keeps running out and getting me whatever I feel like I can eat, which has included fruit, cottage cheese, and chip and dip. Today alone, I've almost eaten a half a bag of ruffle chips with ranch dip. I'm going to be a very obese pregnant lady if I don't watch out. Urg. So I am setting sail on this adventure once more. Trying to keep my house clean and my boys fed. Not an easy task since walking across the room to get a glass of water is enough activity to require a nap and cooking food makes me sick (Kirks had A LOT of pb&j, dan cooks when he's home, poor kids.) I'm trying to behave, pregancy, as I am told, makes me quite evil and a bit of a downer. Hmmm... Wonder why? Anywho, wish us luck. We are SUPER excited and ready for our new little one!

Daning King!

Ok, we have been trying to capture this for months now. Everytime we would pull the camera out, Kirk's nerves would kick in and he would hide. But, finally, we got it. I love this kid. He definately didn't get his moves from his momma, but maybe his music taste.....

My Church Bag!

The past couple of days, I have been feeling kind of crafty. So, I've totally ignored my child (Elmo has been an excellent baby sitter) and gotten together a church bag for Kirk. My kid is just too little to sit through church without a lot of entertainment. He is also too little to go to nursery. Something had to be done because we were only making it on a wing and a prayer (and a lot of fruit snacks). I got the idea from my mother in-law to have a special bag only for Sunday, that way the things inside would be new and more exciting. Months ago, I started cutting out squares for a quilt. I got really angry (I'm not patient enough to cut out a thousand squares) and threw what I had already cut out in the back of my closet. During my craft session, I pulled those squares out and made a little bag especially for church. Its not the best bag ever, but it will do the job. Then I set out to find stuff to put in the bag. I cannot take credit for any of these ideas. I stole them all, 100%. The first thing I made was the match stick parsley shaker deal. I washed out an old parsley container and chopped the heads of a few matches. He can shake out the matches and put them back in over and over again. Then, I made a crayon holder. I put a few more of the ex-quilt squares together and fixed it up. I'm pretty proud of that one. He also has a Dollar Tree folder full of paper. Then we have the picture flip book. I printed out like, maybe 20 pictures, wallet sized. There are pictures of church things, like Jesus and the temple and a little boy praying, then there are pictures of family and friends, and then pictures of his favorite animals. They are all pictures that he can recognize. I laminated those and hole punched them and put them on a key ring. Excellent! We also have a picture book of "Sunday" things. It has things from socks and ties to the sacrament to the church water fountain. It is pretty neat-o. I'm also thinking about making him a quiet book. I'll have to work up bravery for that one. I guess I've said all this to say, if anybody else has any ideas to pacify the mind and hands of a 14 month old for a few minutes, I'd love to hear it. After a few Sundays of coming home wet in sweat and tears (of my own) I'm open to suggestions! We are going to try out the bag at church tomorrow. Danny is going to be on stage singing in the choir, so wish Kirk and me luck!

Fun with Baby, well Toddler.

Sometimes, I feel like I don't engage Kirk in enough things. I mean, yea, we play and do stuff, but sometimes I feel like it's too much like "Go get your toys". Yesterday, I found this website. www.toddlertoddler.com It has lots of fun games and arts and crafts for 1 yr to preschool age. It's got stuff that I can play with him and also stuff that he can do by himself. So, now I don't feel like such a bum mom! :-)

Forth Family Fun!

Wow! What a great Forth of July weekend we've had. We kicked it all off with a fish fry at my Grandparents house. The whole Johnson brood was there and we pigged out. Nothing like good ole fried catfish. After that, we headed over to the beach to meet the Williams/Pendley clan. We got the kids out in the water and had a blast! When we got back to Paul and Gwens house, we took a family picture. I am a picture fanatic, so I loved this. I guess its the thought of looking through pictures with my kids when they are my age and saying look at your family....we were crazy back then too! We had lots of fun, lots of ice cream, and lots of fireworks. I love my family, on both sides and am glad we got to spend time together. I have lots of pictures from the weekend on my facebook page (don't worry family, I excluded most of the beach one), but here are a few!

Evelyn, Madeline, Caitlin, and Allie Grace

Spencer and Kirk

Sweet Madeline

The Girls in their "firework" glasses