Trial Run

Luke spent the night with Nene and Pop last night.  Paul, Katherine and I went to eat at Cheddar's.  It was packed.  We do not eat there often so I forget how busy it stays.  It is so reasonably priced I understand why so many people choose to go there.  I don't really care if we go back any time soon... After supper we decided we wanted to rent a movie.  We went to two different Red Box locations and ended up coming home with Toy Story 3 for Luke!  So, we watched American Pickers and Pawn Stars on the History Channel.  It is slowly taking my favorite channel away from HGTV.  We really do not watch much TV at all but when we do it is usually the History Channel.

I worked today so Paul and Katherine went to the farm.  Work was really busy today so we did not get home until after 3:00.  After an attempt at naps for the kids we gave up and started doing weekend chores around the house.  Mom came over to entertain the kids and she brought supper which was great!  There are several little projects I want completed before Katherine's party. 

I bought a new cupcake pan that I wanted to try out  before I made them for her party.  They are individual 3-D ones that are pretty cool.  Luke helped me out with a trial batch tonight.  As  you can tell they were pretty good!

Splish, Splash....

We normally give both kids a shower since it is so much easier to just bathe them with us.  Tonight we decided to let them both get in the bathtub.  I also was afraid that Luke would not leave Katherine alone, but he did really well.  Katherine loved splashing around in the water and Luke liked playing with all other toys.  This might be our new favorite way to get clean kiddos!

A Trip to the Zoo and Other Sunday Happenings

Cute as can be!

Traveling in style

Luke did not want his picture made with me

He finally cooperated

Sweet girl playing at Nene and Pop's

After church today we decided to go to the zoo.  Luke has been asking to go for a couple of weeks.  We ran home after church to change clothes and get the car loaded up.  Since it was so hot we did not expect it to be that busy -- wrong!  The zoo was so crowded today.  Granted we usually go during the week so we were not used to the big crowd.  We still had fun.  Luke said he wanted to see the elephants and ride the train.  They are in different areas of the zoo but we did it.  He just loves elephants.  They are located next to the giraffes which I think are such beautiful animals.  We also saw the flamingos, monkeys, tigers, alligators and much more.  He was most excited about the new train ride.  For $3 each you get to ride in a little train around a small loop twice.  Paul and I decided we were in the wrong business!  Seriously, they are banking with that train! 

Katherine enjoyed riding in the stroller eating Cheerios most of the time.  The beauty of having a family membership is that you can go, only stay a couple of hours and not feel guilty about "getting your money's worth".  We would not have it any other way.  After about an hour and a half we are all getting antsy to leave.  The heat did not help matters either. 

We came home and attempted to take naps to no avail.  We cleaned up and went to Gallatin to see Nene and Pop.  It was a bit of a belated celebration for Paula's great news.  After nine rounds of chemo her latest scan showed no signs of cancer!  We were all completely overjoyed and thankful for this wonderful news!  God is Good!  She will continue to follow up for regular blood work and scans but we pray everything stays clear.  It has been a long 9 months especially for she and Bill.  We are determined this is all firmly in the past!

Too Cool For School

Both kids were up and at 'em early this morning -- like before 6:00!  Not real sure what was up with that. Luke decided he wanted to wear his rain boots even though there was no rain in sight!  I can't believe he can still wear these.  They were a Christmas gift from Nanny in 2009!  He might be in the market for a new pair come this Christmas...

The kids do well playing with each other for the most part. Luke still does not like to leave Katherine alone but he might be doing a little better...fingers crossed!  He just loves her so much; he talks baby-talk to her, holds her hand and tries to carry her around. 

Tonight was pretty uneventful.  We ate supper at Shoney's of all places.  I get so tired of trying to decide what to cook for supper or where to go eat.  We usually eat out on Friday nights but have grown tired of the same old places.  After that interesting dining experience we drove around for awhile.  It was kind of peaceful.  Luke enjoyed looking out the window trying to determine if we were on the interstate or a "regular road". We stopped for an ice cream cone before coming home for bedtime.

Busy Wednesday

Today was busy.  Both Paul and I ended up being off work.  Our AC had not seemed to be cooling properly so someone came and fixed it.  We did some other errands this morning and I had planned to work on some things for Katherine's birthday party.  But, we decided since we were both off we should go start cleaning out at Mom's.  We spent the afternoon there working in the garages.  We were able to get a lot done.  There were a lot of things that went to the dump and Goodwill.  It is going to be a slow process getting 30 years of accumulated items cleaned out, thrown away, donated and organized!  We picked the kids up and got Luke's hair cut.  Luke helped me plant some perennials I got on clearance and water all the other plants.  Katherine played on the porch while Paul straightened up.  

It was straight to the shower when all that was done. Both kids love the shower!  We usually have to coax Luke in but he loves splashing in the water.  Katherine loves it, too. She loves to bang her hand on the side of the shower and point to all the water bubbles. 

No School, No School!

This is a normal morning ritual.  Luke wakes up, comes running in our room and gets in our bed!  He says he is tired and wants to go back to sleep.  For the record, this NEVER happens.  He is just procrastinating getting ready for school.  He loves school once he is there and settled in and most afternoons I have to fight to get him to leave.  But, for some reason he does not want to go in the mornings.  When we get there he runs the other way or won't even go down the hall to the classroom.  Sometimes it can take 10 minutes to get him in there which is ridiculous!  The teachers try to help but I usually do not want to leave until I know he is ok.  They tell me that within a few minutes of me being gone he is normal self, just playing and laughing.  We were hoping this was a phase but if it is, it is a long one.  This has been going on for three months or more.  He is not the only child that does it so it makes me feel better.  I am thankful Katherine is still at the point that she just smiles and waves when I put her down in her room.  The day will be here all too soon when she does not want to go to school either!

I Can Fix It

Luke is still very much in his tool, tractor, handyman stage.  This morning while I was getting ready for work he decided the little riding toy was broke and he needed to fix it.  We went and hunted up his tools and he went to work.  Katherine took a cat nap on Paul while all this was going on.  Church was great, as usual.  We just really enjoy our pastor and his messages.  He is great at applying practical applications to Biblical teaching!  We kept a three-year old Sunday School class during the 11 o'clock hour.  It was not Luke's room so it was interesting to see how other kids his age behave.  We had fun with it!

This afternoon I had a baby shower for a friend from our previous church in Mt. Juliet.  Katherine went with me while Paul and Luke stayed home.  She did great!  Slept the whole way there and back and was precious during the party!  Everyone thought she was a doll.  There were several babies there so that was nice.  It was so great to see several of my old friends.  We had such a good experience at Hermitage Hills and we miss it often! 

Paul and Luke had fun.  Paul said they played school, colored, built train tracks and enjoyed hanging out.  We think it is so important to have one-on-one time with each child whenever we can.  It was a crazy, busy weekend -- but fun!

Girl's Night Out

View from our hotel window -- Love my hometown!

This weekend Laura, Virginia and I had an overnight Girl's Night!  Due to an unfortunate mishap on a previous stay at the Sheraton Downtown Laura had a free night's stay!  She had enough points to get us a room on the club level with its own restaurant, bar and free breakfast.  We started the evening at Burger Up.  Absolutely fabulous!  I highly recommend this cool burger joint.  It has a neat back story and the decor was cool - totally recycled and repurposed materials were used in the tables, bar, etc. The meat and produce are all locally farmed which is always a plus!  And, the burger was wonderful!  There was a quite a wait but the girls and I enjoyed people watching and chatting about what is going on in our lives.

After that we headed to the hotel were we enjoyed a drink and dessert in the hotel bar.  Always interesting to me what type of people you see and learn about.  Then we retired to our room where stayed up way later than normal, well for Laura and I at least!  We had a great time just talking, laughing and telling stories.  I am so glad we were able to do this -- it is great therapy!

Luke stayed at Mom's and Paul and Katherine had some daddy-daughter time.  Both of them did great!  I worked today so I did not see everyone until late this afternoon.  The kids and I met Mom at some new condominiums being built in the area.  After 30+ years in the same house Mom is beginning to warm to the idea of down-sizing.  We hope and pray that everything works out!

Our Super Duper Fun Day!

All smiles after the dentist!

Not a good pic...

Enjoying the outing with our boys!

He really had more fun than it looks like

Luke and Hunter!

Luke and I had great day today!  We have been planning it for awhile now.  We started by going to the portrait studio to preview Katherine's pictures from last week.  Surprisingly they turned out really well considering she was not in a good mood when they were taken.  I had a hard time choosing!  Luke did so good.  He just played with the toys and kept saying how cute Katherine was.

Next, we headed to see Dr. Barkley for the first time.  Dr. Barkley has been our family dentist since Andrew and I were in elementary school.  I love him and knew Luke would, too.  Normally on a child's first visit they just let them watch the parent have their teeth cleaned.  Luke was doing so well that I asked if they would go ahead and clean his teeth.  He laid in my lap and had all his teeth cleaned and flossed.  The hygienist counted all his teeth and then counted my teeth.  He did not give us any trouble at all.  She and Dr. Barkley agreed that his teeth were in good shape.  They said the fact that he has some space between each tooth while work to his advantage when he starts getting his permanent teeth.  He got to pick something out of the treasure box and got a Cars toothbrush which he loved! 

We made a quick stop by the house before we headed to our next destination.  We met Laura and Hunter at Red Robin for lunch.  The boys were shy at first but quickly warmed up to each other.  Next, we headed to Peek-A-Boo Playtown for the boys to play.  Laura grabbed us a cup of coffee which we enjoyed while the boys entertained themselves.  It was wonderful!  We all decided to make a couple of more stops to some shops before we parted ways. We had a great time with the Boyds!

It was time to pick up Katherine after that then we headed to the seamstress to drop off some fabric.  We had one more stop before we got home around 4:30!  Whew....what a jampacked, but fun day!  I love spending one-on-one time with my little man!

Come Dance with Me Mama!

One thing Luke knows I love to do is dance.  I do not claim to be good, but I do like to get my groove on!  Tonight Luke was watching a Thomas the Train show that had songs in between the episodes.  Every time one would come on he would say "come dance with me Mama".  We would bounce and run around acting silly.  I love that he loves to dance with me!

Low Key Red, White and Blue

This is by far the most boring low-key 4th of July I remember.  I worked this morning while Paul and the kids went to the Troutts. I got home a little while before they did and we all took naps.  We did not have any plans at all.  I insisted that we at least go out to eat.  We went to Cracker Barrel. Sadly, the above picture is the only one I took all day!  After eating we drove around for a while before we ended up at Wal-Mart-- what?  I normally avoid Wal-Mart like the plague but there were not many options.  We ended up being in there for an hour!  We picked up some groceries and other necessities.  The nice thing about not having any plans was that we were able to come home and watch all the different city fireworks shows on TV!

Not Going to Get Us Down

Well, all of our partying last night came to a halt this morning.  Paul was up and down most of the night with a stomach bug.  Luke has had some "bathroom issues" for a week or so now.  It has not seemed to affect his appetite, mood or anything else.  Since we are not entirely sure what is going on with either one of them we stayed home from church and canceled our cookout plans with friends tonight.  The majority of the morning was spent playing and doing chores.  Luke is such a big helper.  Once Katherine was down for a morning nap we organized and cleaned out his toys in the playroom.
We got out a little bit this afternoon and did some errands.

We did decide to go see some fireworks.  Hendersonville's show was tonight so we went up there and set up camp to see them.  Bill and Paula met us there.  Luke had a blast and Katherine did, too.  She fell asleep on the way up there, but woke up when someone's car alarm went off before the show started.  We all laughed when Luke said his favorite thing was watching fireworks and drinking water!  Love that boy...

The show was not over when we got home...the next door neighbors were putting on their own show.  It was so loud!  Luckily, it did not affect Katherine at all.  She went right to sleep and stayed that way.  Luke insisted on staying up to watch the rest of the show. It was another late night for us, but hey, it's a holiday!

Ole' Fashioned Patriotic Celebration

Jon and Katherine coordinated

The spread....

Paula had everything decorated so fun!

Sue, Tony and Paula

Luke enjoyed playing in the pool

Luke had fun with his new friend Addison

Lighting some fireworks

We got together with the Troutts Saturday night.  It was great to see everyone.  We had a big crowd this year.  Tony and Sue came as well as Bobbi, Brandy and Addison.  It is always nice to have family you do not get to see that often.  Everyone enjoyed hearing about Kristen and Jon's honeymoon and watching the kids play.  The food was wonderful.  Everyone brought a couple of dishes. There were lots of fresh fruits and veggies from cucumber salad, squash casserole and corn-on-the-cob.  Luke stayed entertained with the blow up pool Paula picked up for him.  He loved playing with Addison and Addison seemed to enjoy playing with him, too.

The boys (little and big) had fun with the fireworks.  Jim put on a mini-show at the end of the night.  They did not seem to bother Katherine at all.  She took a little cat nap before they all started.  The kids were up way past their bedtime, but it was worth it!

Holiday Weekend Kick-Off

Luke loved running around

We were hoping to get see the Beatys while they were in town for the holiday weekend.  Montee has been telling us how much Mary Lu and Katherine favor.  Mary Lu is a couple of months younger than Katherine.  This is the first time I had the pleasure of meeting the sweet girl.  I missed the annual Christmas Eve breakfast his past year.  For the second time this week Katherine got to enjoy the company of one of our friend's baby girls.  She was pretty quiet today for some reason.  She fell asleep on the way to Gallatin.  We chose Larrievere's because it is big and spacious so Luke could run around.  Paula and Montee came with us which was fun. They enjoyed being with their grandbabies.  Nan and I spent the time trying to fed the girls, eat our breakfast and compare notes.  The girls were sweet together.  They both suck their fingers and/or thumbs and would do so as soon as they had taken a bite of food.  They made a mess!

We were so glad we were able to get together with them.  They Beatys live in North Carolina so we are not able to see them often.  It will be neat to see how the girls grow over the next few years. We have a busy weekend ahead of us and this was the perfect way to start it off!

Fun Wednesday With Friends!

Yesterday was a great day!  I had scheduled Katherine's 9-month pictures.  Seems like I am getting farther and farther behind. But, like the photographer said it is the progression that matters not that it is necessarily right on time.  For some reason Katherine was not in to getting her picture made today.  She had just eaten and had a nap before we left so envisioned the "perfect" photo shoot in my mind.  I should have known something was up when started whining in the car on the way there.  The photographer and I both got a work out trying to get her to smile.  We jumped, danced, clapped and sang to her.  Most of the time she looked at us like we were crazy!  We even took her outside to see if a change of scenery would help.  It was finally decided that we got some shots that would work so we threw in the towel after over an hour.  Of course, once we got home she was the happiest baby in the world...smiling, grinning and laughing.  I think she knew exactly what she was doing...

We were so excited to meet Laura and Mackenzie for lunch at Chef's.  The girls were cute together.  Katherine kept trying to hit Mackenzie with her paper plate.  They even tried to hold hands.  We got the stares and smiles from many onlookers.  It is amazing how different people treat you when you are trying to carry a cute baby, diaper bag, tray of food and so forth.  A very nice gentleman took my tray to the table and Jim got high chairs for both the girls.  The food was excellent as usual.  We lingered longer than we should have but then decided to hit Lizards and Lace before we headed home for naps.  It was so great to visit with Laura.  We hate that we have not seen them more since they have been in Tennessee.

Once we got home Katherine took an extra long nap which allowed me to do a few things around the house.  I actually took a nap myself!  Once we were both up and Paul was done with some yard work we decided to all go pick Luke up from school.  He was so excited to see all of us.  We went to Hobby Lobby and walked around looking for things for Katherine's birthday party!  Paul was thrilled to see they have already started putting their Christmas decorations out. So, was Luke!  His classroom at school is going to celebrate "Christmas in July".  Not sure what all that entails but I know it will be fun for the kids.

We cooked a fun supper at home and enjoyed the rest of our family night!

Katherine at 11 Months

It seems as if this past month has gone by quicker than the others.  I think since there has been so much going on with the wedding, Nanny's party and our wedding anniversary we have not been able to keep everything together!  Katherine is still such a joy to parent!  Most places we go we still hear people comment on what a good, happy, content baby she is.  And, we agree! 

There have not been many major developments with her eating or sleeping.  She still is a good eater with the exception of green vegetables.  One night we enjoyed lima beans with supper, which she loved.  Then, she promptly spit them all back up...yuck!  She is eating more table foods now, but I still pack a ready-to-serve fruit or vegetable when we got out to eat.  She continues to nurse at bedtime around 8 o'clock and wakes by 6:30 most mornings.  She is easing in to a morning and afternoon nap at school, but weekends at home are still erratic. 

Mobility: Katherine is crawling on all fours everywhere now!  She goes from room to room looking for us if we leave her somewhere. She also pulls up on anything she can reach and cruises around it.  She is still so proud of herself when she stands up..she grins from ear to ear.  She is definitely more steady on her feet these days and can hold on with just one had now.  She loves to stand at the kitchen chairs and push them around.  She also does the same thing with her music table.  She is not quiet steady enough to push a rolling toy yet, though.

We continue to enjoy every minute with our sweet girl.  Her personality is as sweet as it always has been.  She loves when you smile and talk to her.  We have noticed a little hint of separation anxiety in the past few weeks though. We know it is common at this age so we are not concerned. 

Date Night - Anniversary Edition

Paul excited about our ride for the evening!

The pavilion at Centennial Park

Since our anniversary was the same day as Nanny's birthday party last weekend Paul and I delayed our celebration.  We always have a hard time deciding what to do anytime we go out.  We finally decided to eat at Stoney River.  Paul has been wanting a good steak and I loved it the last time we went.  Bill had given Paul and I a coupon for Christmas 2009 to use the corvette for a night out.  I hate to admit that we just redeemed his generous offer last night!  We had so much fun in it!  Paul was a little nervous when we would park it somewhere but everything was fine.

After a yummy dinner we went over to Centennial Park.  A band was playing big band music and there were so many people there!  I was surprised at the number of younger people there that were dancing. During the intermissions they offered free dance lessons.  Paul and I did not dance but we enjoyed the music and people watching.  We even found a swing under a big magnolia tree where we sat and talked for awhile.  When we grew tired of the park we headed to BrickTops for drinks and dessert.  I picked the dessert - a yummy cookie baked in a cast iron skillet with ice cream on top!

When we realized the corvette would not make it up our driveway without dragging we decided to return it to Gallatin.  We did not want to take a chance by leaving it on our street all night.  The best, and perhaps strangest, part of the night was coming home to a quiet, empty house.  Katherine spent the night at Nonna's and Luke stayed with Bill and Paula.  It was so nice to not have the baby monitor on or be woken up at 6 o'clock!  We had a great time together and loved the time to ourselves.  It is hard to believe we have been married six years.  A lot has changed in our lives in that time but I am so thankful for our marriage and what Paul means to me and the kids!