Just FYI

In case you were wondering, ladies, it's generally NOT a good idea to stop for gas at a truck stop, while wearing 4-inch heels and a dress.  Even if your gas light has been on for about the last 30 miles, and has started dinging at you very rapidly.  (Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about--I can't be the only one that frequently stretches my luck with an almost empty gas tank).

And what's that?  You're shocked that I ventured away from my daily mommy attire of wokout clothes and/or sweatpants?  Yeah.  Me too.  But my clients probably wouldn't have appreciated my wardrobe choice otherwise.

And now that I think about it, this truck-stop/high heels warning is probably a good little nugget of wisdom for any men out there as well. 

You can thank me later.

Top 10 Reasons This Weekend Was Awesome

1.  AG got her swerve on at our playgroup on Friday.  (John will be mad at me for saying this--when I told him she went on a double-date at playgroup Friday, he was like, REALLY don't. say. that.).

Do you like AG's adorable little outfit?  Unfortunately, she was dressed inappropriately for the weather, as was I.  What girls do for fashion, right?

(Yeah.  It was about 47 degrees outside.  Don't know why I thought sleeveless was okay.  At least AG had a blanket.)

2.  I got to spend time with fabulous friends who are sweet enough to share their mommy wisdom with me on a weekly basis....plus, Betsy made the most delicious salad and cheesecake muffins, and I might have possibly stuffed myself.  And taken some home with me.  Which is totally beside the point.

3. Granddaddy came for a visit with all of us (but let's be honest, mainly Ally Grace) on Friday. We loved having him here!

4.  The weather on Saturday?  A-mazing.  Tricked me into thinking I could go sleeveless that evening.  Quickly realized I couldn't, but still. 

5.  My training run on Saturday?  Tiring, but I had fun running with a friend who kept me from curling up in a ball and screaming, WHY???? motivated. (Did I tell y'all that I went temporarily insane and signed up for the Nashville half-marathon in April?  You can pray for me.)

6.  Watched the Blind Side with John.....how much did you love Sandra Bullock in that movie?

7.  Girls dinner with fun friends at Verde! May or may not have eaten there 3 times in the last week. If you've ever been, you can easily see why.

8.  Spent time with more fun friends at Jen's engagement paty--loved it, and wish that I could've stayed longer!

9.  Ally Grace's first tooth popped through the gum!  OH. MY. WORD.  Is it really already time for this?  She is so big!  I tried to get a photo, but A) it's only barely through the gum and B) girlfriend is a diva and won't let me.

10. In an unprecedented turn of events, I actually folded ALL of our laundry.  This may or may not be the first time it's ever happened. 

11. Sunday afternoon nap with John on the couch. Fantastic.

And apparently this post should've been named Top 11 Reasons This Weekend Was Awesome.....

10 Things

Today on Beth Moore's blog, she did a post  titled 10 Things You Might Not Know....the idea was to leave a comment with ten little-known facts about yourself. Since I am apparently an over-sharer, not to mention, a freakish list-lover, this was right up my alley. Then, I thought--hey, maybe my two friends who read this would do the same on MY blog? THEN I thought, this is perfect, because I have nothing else exciting to write about. And finally, I thought, why the heck am I blogging while AG is actually taking a nap? I should turn into the mommy-tornado and clean my house now, instead of making people read random facts about me that they very likely do not want to know.

Clearly, you can see which urge won out.

1. I hate beans of all shapes, sizes, and kind.
2. I have a sick aversion/weird fascination with snotty boogers.
3. I am a speed-reader. I can seriously read an entire book in less than 3 hours (if I HAVE three hours to read, which is unlikely. And if it's not the Bible. That would probably take a bit longer, like maybe 4 hours).
4. I love stainless steel wipes a little too much. I may or may not follow behind John in the kitchen, wiping his fingerprints off our appliances every time he uses one. He may or may not find this annoying.
5. I love the smell of new leather.
6. My favorite book of all time is Little Women.
7. I hate flying.
8. But I LOVE traveling.
9. I am totally addicted to anything of the marshmallow variety.
10. Sometimes when people are talking to me, I am typing their words on an imaginary keyboard.

Which may or may not be something I should never admit outloud.

What about you? Be brave and tell me your 10 things!

Mmm, Mmm, Good.

Isn't that the McDonald's jingle, by the way? Mmmm, french fries.......reminds me of rice cereal.  Did you like that transition?  Yeah, me too.

(And now I'm realizing that it's not the McDonald's jingle, but maybe the one for Campbell's soup.  But I'm not really sure.  And this is important because?)

(Exactly.  It's not.)



For the future embarassment of AG, AND your viewing enjoyment, here's Ally Grace's very first attempt at rice cereal.  Notice that she already knows how to shake her head "no." 

Wherever did she learn that?

P.S. I didn't realize that my makeup-less self could be seen in the corner of the video.....John fell down on his directorial duties, and ignored my demand suggestion to keep me out of the shot.

P.P.S.  I figured out how to post a video from youtube.  Boo-ya.  That's right.  Boo-ya.

Little Rastafarian (No, this isn't a new show on TLC. Unfortunately.)

I thought you might like to see a picture of our little rastafarian (according to John, anyway.  I got this precious little hat for AG, and even though it was approximately 90 degrees outside, I made her wear it, since this might be our last opportunity.  I was not amused when John saw it and yelled, "Hey mon!"  Nor when he started trying to put her hair in dreadlocks.)

She is understandably exhausted from being pushed around the neighborhood in a stroller.  Speaking as a former baby, it's tough work.

Or maybe it's this "sitting up" business that's tiring. 

(What's that, you say?  We're supposed to buckle her in while we're strolling?

Oh, THAT's what those are for!)

On an exciting note (to us, anyway), we tried rice cereal this weekend......

Can you tell how much she loved it?  Mmmmmm.  Wouldn't you?

(Okay, I'll confess, I was curious and tasted it.  It wasn't nearly as awful as she tried to pretend it was.

Faker.)

Vacation & More

So many things in my mind, so little time.  Proceeding with the least planned out blog post in the history of this blog. 

Which is really saying something.

So, we're back from St. Pete!  And the plane didn't crash!  The oxygen masks didn't deploy!  And I managed to stay calm. This may or may not have been because of a little medical wonder called Xanax.  Thank you, Mr. Xanax Inventor.  I (and my fellow passengers, not to mention my husband) appreciate you.

John is the ultimate face of calm even in the midst of my most annoying serious questions.  Which include:

"What's that noise?"

"What happens if both engines go out?"

"How do you KNOW that birds won't take out the engines?"

"Can turbulence crash the plane?"

"Tell me again how a water landing works?"

"Tell me about the spa treatments I can have if we make it through this alive."  (He, very unfortunately, did not fall for that one.  I was THIS. CLOSE.)

Even though I have flown many, many times, and didn't even develop this little phobia until about 5 years ago, I always seem to have the same fears.  And John always patiently reminds me that, no turbulence cannot crash the plane, and it's just the same as riding down a bumpy road in the car.  To which I always sweetly say, "But honey, my car isn't usually THIRTY THOUSAND FEET IN THE AIR!!!!" 

However.  We survived.  As usual. 

Our little vacation was so fun!  Even though I reminded God that I only had 2 days to lay out, and could He please make it sunny, it rained the entire time.  Which actually ended up being amazing, b/c it gave me an excuse to lay in the bed, watch New Moon for the third time again, and paint my toenails.  And read magazines. And not get spit-up on for 3 days straight. 

It. Was. Fabulous.

Here's John, looking super sexy on the airport tram.

Here's me, looking a little blurry, and awfully doped up on Xanax relieved to still be alive.

Here we are, on our way to eat the BEST curry I have ever had in my life....

....which I thought you needed to see.  (And yes, it's daytime, which means that we not only had it for dinner, we also went back for lunch.  And yes, I may or may not be wearing the exact same thing I had on in the other picture.  Don't judge.)

Thursday night, we had dinner with some friends who moved to Clearwater last year, and Friday night, at their suggestion, went to this French place down the road from the hotel. There was so much food involved that it was c-razy, and I might have possibly needed a flatbed to haul me back to the hotel. 

This is us, on our way to dinner.  I don't want to remember what we looked like after dinner.

(By the way, do you not love our stellar photo composition?  I'll be glad to give a tutorial sometime on how to leave lots of blank space AND dirty shirts in the photo background.  It's a skill, really.)

In fact, it was SUCH an authentic French restaurant, that we couldn't understand one single word our waitress said.  Which unfortunately means that I can't give you any food descriptions (sorry, Jenny), because I'm unsure exactly what I ate. 

Although I don't think it involved snails or anything like that.  I hope.

Saturday, we came home to our little bambina.  I was literally beyond excited to see my girl!  She gets more precious every day.  Except between 6:30 and 7:30 at night, when she turns into a gremlin baby. 

Kidding, kidding...mostly.

Here's our little Presh, in a decidely non-gremlin mood. She loves her new exersaucer!

This week has been another crazy work week, although I've managed to make time for the really important things, like reading blogs, catching up on 16 & Pregnant, and watching the 20/20 Bachelor special: Inside the Rose.  Which I am fairly positive was even more entertaining than the actual Bachelor finale.  I mean, who knew that Bob was king of the hook-ups?  Or that Reid was their top choice for this season of the Bachelor?  (Besides me, because I totally called it last season).   Or that Ali was the ultimate drama queen, thus firmly cementing her status as the next Bachelorette?  (Again, besides me, and probably the rest of America too).

Did anyone else watch?  Thoughts, please.

Say WHAT!?

Excuse me, WHAT?!

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/1027360/woman-aims-to-become-worlds-fattest
I am wondering exactly how alarmed John would be if he heard me say, "I'd love to be 1000lbs."

Not that I haven't thought it.

This and That

So, I have all these good intentions of blogging more than once a week, and then everything goes all to heck.  Plus, I'm just not entirely sure that my life is interesting enough to warrant daily posts.  I'm pretty sure that if I did, I would absolutely bore you to death & my blog would read something like this:

Got up, fed AG.  Changed AG's diaper, let her play with some toys.  Put AG down for a nap.  Morphed into a speed-typist to get some work during her nap.  Guzzled some coffee.  Realized that I hate the word "guzzled."  Ran around my house like a tornado, trying to clean stuff up (just so it can get messy again).  Heard AG crying on the monitor.  Tried to pretend that it wasn't happening Got her up and changed her diaper.  Fed AG.  Turned back into a crazy person champion multi-tasker, all hopped up on caffeine, while AG napped.

Rinse. Repeat.

Wow, were you on the edge of your seat?  Dying to hear more?  Convinced that exciting, blog-worthy things happen to me every day?  Riiiiight.

Last Friday, I DID participate in my first baby playgroup.  The biggest lesson I learned is that these are far more beneficial for the mommies than the babies.  Especially the younger babies who can't quite "play" yet, and prefer to sit, stare, and drool. 

I am only slightly alarmed that AG is all up in Reid's grill.  Girl's gettin' an early start.

Haaaayyyyy.

We also had another Rock Band party.  C-razy.

(I'm not sure, but I think the guys were pretty excited about being rockstars.)

Alright, off to hopefully not die in a plane crash St. Pete for our first vacation sans baby.  I am alternately excited and sad to leave.  The in-laws are house, dog, AND baby-sitting, and I am going to try not to call every five minutes to see how things are going!

Wish me luck.

The Office Baby

Is it weird that I feel like 2 of my friends are having a baby tonight, since Jim and Pam are having their baby on The Office?  Wait, don't answer that. 

I may or may not need to get rid of my tivo. 

(Okay, let's not be rash.)

4(ish) Months

Dear Ally Grace,

You're 4 (okay, almost 5) months old!   I wanted to write you this letter about 3 weeks ago, but every time I tried to do it, you blew up your diaper distracted me with something really smelly adorable.  One day, when you're old my age, I want you to know just what you were like at 4(ish) months. 

(Apparently, I also want you to know that your mommy has a deep love of the strike-through.) 

Anyway, this stage is definitely my favorite so far!  You are 99% smiles and giggles, and only 1% fuss.  Thank you for being so awesome.  The best part of my day is waking you up in the morning, and seeing you smile your biggest, gummiest smile at me.  It melts my heart every. single. time.   We get you out of your swaddle (if you haven't already busted out yourself!), and you stretch REALLY big.  You are such a happy girl!

At your 4-month doctor's appointment, you weighed 12lbs and 5oz, and were 25" long.  You're still in 3-month clothing, although sometimes the length doesn't really work out for ya.  That's okay, I think you're cool with the flood look.  The dr. says you're in the 25th percentile for weight, and the 90th percentile for height.  Mommy is slightly jealous of your stats, girlfriend.  Not to mention your smooth, wrinkle-free baby skin.

(I am also slightly jealous of your Aunt Jenny's smooth, wrinkle-free skin)

Your nicknames include:  AG, Miss Grace, Girlface, Little Presh, bug, bambina, stinkle pants (you're so gonna hate me for that one day), little monster (sorry, grandmama), and probably others that I'm too embarrassed to say forgetting.  You love when people sing to you, especially your silly daddy, who likes to sing that old song, Miss Grace.  Which may or may not be slightly inappropriate when you actually listen to the words. 

You are a phenomenal sleeper.  Seriously, thank you for that.  I'll probably buy you a pony one day out of gratitude. Or, maybe just some candy.  You sleep 12 hours at night, and have been for longer than I want to say, since it might make some people hate me. 

Right now, your favorite toys are your Baby Einstein playmat (LIFESAVER, amen and hallelujah), your little pink rattle ball, and your mini-Jackson.  You're much more interested in your bouncy seat now too, and are starting to get bored with your swing.  Unfortunately. 

Here you are with one of your future boyfriends, Reid, smacking him in the head enjoying your playmat.

Don't worry, Jackson's keeping an eye on things.

You have now rolled over a grand total of 4 times.  Twice front to back, and twice back to front.  I'm not exactly sure why you aren't doing it more often, but it may or may not have something to do with mommy not giving you enough tummy time.  Which may or may not be a result of the murderous screams you inflict on me when I do. 

You also love to imitate me blowing spit bubbles, aka "blowing raspberries," aka "the Bronx cheer."  (Courtesy of wikipedia--because everything on wikipedia is true).  It's the cutest thing ever, and we have long conversations that involve just sticking our tongues out at each other.  I'm pretty sure I will end up regretting this one day, but for now, it's adorable.

You eat 5 times a day, and we'll probably start giving you some rice cereal in the next couple of weeks.  We fully plan on recording this to embarrass you for posterity.  And perhaps posting it here.  (You can thank us later for not posting any bathtub pictures.  Oh wait.)

You have made our lives infinitely more complete, and I really, truly cannot remember a time when you weren't my baby girl.  I don't even WANT to remember a time like that.  I am thankful for every moment of every day with you. 

Even the stinky and fussy ones.