Merry Christmas!

Happy Christmas Eve, everyone! I hope everyone is having a great holiday so far. We're wrapping things up here, getting ready for my family to come over tomorrow and for church tonight. I thought I'd post up a some pics and a short video before Christmas. :) First, we had Autumn's Christmas program last week. SO CUTE. At the end of this post, I'll put up the kids singing "Happy Birthday, Jesus." You'll be able to see Autumn in the bottom right from time to time but, really, it's just so darn cute that if you aren't in the Christmas spirit, this will get you there! I've got a couple of shots from that, too. This is day one:


and day 2 where she was a little more visible:


I'm still sick some but I've been feeling good enough that with lots of help from Cherie, my mom, and Lainey and Mike, I've been able to get the house in good shape and all decorated for Christmas. One fun thing is that Autumn is now the proud owner of her Aunt Lauren's pink Christmas tree!


Such a big girl now! We ended up doing our gifts to each other and our stocking stuffers this morning (I got Mike a coffee sampler and he got me a bluetooth earpiece, yay!). We didn't get Autumn much because she has approximately 204849058 family members so we figure she's in good shape, hahaha. I hit the jackpot, though, on my gifts. I got her a Leo from Little Einstiens plush doll. Leo is her imaginary friend, too, so I thought she might like to have him around in person sometimes. :P


They have already started their adventures...they camped in the kitchen, pretended to nap in the dining room, played in the pillow cave on mama and papa's bed, and now they are about to be woken to go to church together.


I hope everyone has a fantastic Christmas. I leave you with this video...special thanks to Aunt Penny for braving the crowd and sitting down front to record.

So...

Here's a shot from our session with Elizabeth Wiggs last month:


Zoom into the book why don't we?


Some of you guys get it but if the responses of the various family members we did the book to is any indication, a few of you miiiight need a little help:


:D

Yep! We're expecting baby number 2 sometime around July 15! How cool is that? It was kind of a long journey, punctuated by things like counseling for me to deal with how rough my delivery of Autumn was and fertility treatments both eastern and western and lots of people have been waiting on this for a long time and it's finally here!

I'm actually only 9 weeks along but a lot of people already know. Of course, our family is huge so like 20 family members have known for about 5 weeks. I also told the people I train with for obvious reasons. We don't want unexpected kicks or punches in less than ideal places, right? So, now we're telling you!

I have a few prayer requests, too. First, please pray for me. I had about 3 weeks of absolutely debilitating morning sickness. I even had to go to the emergency room for IV fluids and medicine. That kind of helped me reboot my body and things have been improving. I also have continued acupuncture which is think is also helping. With the exception of a sinus problem (this crazy weather), I've been doing remarkably well this week. A friend of mine told me yesterday that I'm actually experiencing "normal" morning sickness but that it feels like "good" to me because of the last few weeks and because of how things were with Autumn.

So, you saw that I had an ultrasound, right? Well, apparently, I produce inferior umbilical cords. :) If you remember, Autumn had a 2-vessel cord which was the source of all of our delivery drama--she stopped growing at 34 weeks. Well, this little one has a cyst in his or her umbilical cord. It should go away before the first trimester is over but they still want to do some monitoring. If it's still there in a couple weeks, I'm headed over to the same high risk doctor that I saw with Autumn. Everything else looks super healthy so that's great news.

Last but not least, please keep Mike and Autumn in your prayers. Mike has been so awesome. He's grocery shopping and cleaning and just being generally awesome in addition to his normal job and side jobs. There's a lot of time left so I hope he doesn't burn out!

Here's Miss Autumn:


She's sick today. That was her yesterday after I got her from school. She was running a fever, poor thing. Papa D and Lainey rescued her, though, so she slept on the aikido mat before the kids class while we waited on them to come get her. Autumn sick is truly one of the saddest things in the world because she just kind of lays there and is so, so sweet.

Anyway, that's a lot of updating! I know I haven't been on the blog lately but now you know why! I've seriously been going to bed between 7:30 and 9:30 almost every night but things seem to be normalizing a little bit. How are you guys? Getting ready for some great Christmases, I hope!

Almost the last of the October pics!

Apparently October was a busy month! One thing that went by in blogland unmentioned was our anniversary. Mike hit the gift jackpot this year! He did the one small gift a day thing--a card on our actual anniversary, flowers the next day (for facebookers, that was the same day we found a dead, decomposing chipmunk in the garage), and the big, awesome gift? Tickets to Wicked! I was pretty pumped. I read the book last year and wanted to see the musical (I prefer the musical, much less grim!). Even better, he bought the tickets around my birthday in September and kept it a secret. AND EVEN BETTER, he got the tickets on the front row of the mezzanine so I didn't have to try to look over and around some tall person's head. It never fails. I always end up behind the tall person.


Nanny and Boppa watched Autumn that night. Because great grandparents get to do this, they kept her up until she totally crashed out on the couch. So cute.


Here's a random "Autumn is a cat" shot.


Back to Halloween, Autumn and I usually do a little visiting. This year, our first stop was to see Aunt Penny's unit at Baptist East. Penny actually just won The Daisy Award for Extraordinary Nurses! I am very proud of her and completely not surprised. The person who nominated her was someone that she stopped to help on the side of the road.


Our next stop was to see Stephan's mom. She just loves Autumn so I try to bring Autumn by whenever I can.


Then we went to Ridgeway's Fall Festival which was really great. This was by far Autumn's favorite game. She was totally enraptured by the disk falling down the board...it was actually pretty funny.


Here we are looking somewhat perky. :D


Here's Lainey...


And Boppa...


And look! Mike left the cave and came with us! With almost no fuss!


Funny enough, Autumn was kind of weirded out by the vest that Papa D had to wear to direct traffic. Mr. Shackelford is there in the back. His son Fred was voted vp of the Tennessee Baptist Convention. How cool is that?


And, last but never least, Nanny!


Definitely one of the best halloweens ever!

The First of Many (I hope)

SO! We had a small party, right? This was a great opportunity to do what I love the most (throwing parties) but also gave a push to get some finishing touches on the house. Cheri (who did donnie and Liz's flowers) came over and got our shelves and tabletops looking truly amazing with the stuff I already had...and borrowed from Lainey. :D You'll recognize some of the table decor from Donnie and Liz's rehearsal dinner. Living around the corner from my in laws ftw!!

Here's a picture of one side of the bookcases in our living room. The only thing I changed from what Cheri did was I added the gorgeously illustrated Zen Ghosts book to the bookshelves and took down something Mike wanted in his office instead. I love the how the book looks there so I think I'll switch out for another book in the series when we decorate for Christmas.


Remember this?
Craziness.


The other side. There's also a nice little table setup behind the rock banders that I don't have a photo of. All we need is furniture. Or not! We have a great open space for playing rock band and charades, hahaha.


Here's my first buffet in this house. I didn't make enough savory food but I think it ended up being okay.


See that little black bowl?


There's vampire blood in it. :D It's hand sanitizer that I got for what was going to be Liz's halloween bachelorette party before they moved the wedding up.


This is what the former owners used as a desk. I USE IT FOR CHOCOLATE.


Everything's good with chocolate, right? Well, some things more than others. Every year I adjust and add to the chocolate dipping bar. Last year, the runaway favorite addition was donut holes. Tamara brought those for me this year. The new surprise favorite? Waffles.


I got a little theme happy with the drinks.


I got the printables from Hostess with the Mostess. If you ever have to plan a party and need a theme or ideas, make that site one of your first stops, for real.


I absolutely could not resist these bottles.


Mike's dad got creative with covering up a loose step we have in the front yard. He took this creepy little pumpkin man that my mom got us (she does that a lot. Remember the coconut monkey?) and put a flashlight in it.


Now for some costumes! I was sooooo happy because everyone but my brother came in costume. Seriously. It was so much fun. If we ever have another Halloween party, I want to be sure to install someone at the front door to take pictures of everyone in costume because I didn't get nearly enough photos. But, I got a few cute ones. Penny was a kitty and so was Frank's wife Emily.


Valerie came as a boy (complete with black eye) and brought Miss Roxie as a whoopie cushion. Maaaan. So cute and weird!


Tamara was...guess who? Landon is in the rock band pic above as a zombie. The "braiiiiins" he wrote my dry erase board is still there. XD


We had not one, but TWO Indiana Joneses!


After discovering that Cathy was mostly sure her gun was unloaded, Mike decided he'd rather pose with Annie Oakley in the beginning duel position rather than the ending.


I wish I could photoshop either Mike's real eyes into this or maybe those Pirates of the Caribbean Captain Jack eyes on his eyelids because this is an otherwise great picture.


These guys win for creativity...Matt and Jamie were the Black Eyed Peas. I love it!


I love this picture. Notice Donnie rocking out in the background. Also notice Matt from Kali's (as opposed to the above Matt from community group) cool coat cuff.


Anyway, that was our first real party here at the new house! It even ended on a funny note: our neighbor came by and told us he had called the police to complain about our party noise. The police didn't come into our house because you couldn't actually hear anything from outside. Insisting that it was, in fact, our party making the noise, the neighbor decided to come over himself which I wish he had done in the first place because he would have discovered it wasn't us without dragging the poor police out on a wild goose chase.

Apparently, there was another party in the neighborhood that was very loud. When the neighbor asked if it was our radio that was playing (and I could hear what he was talking about), I was able to tell him no because at that point, the 5 remaining people were standing in the hallways getting ready to leave and we had no more music or rock band going. :D He came over the day to apologize and that was very nice. But it does tell us a little about our neighbors. They are really going to hate our Christmas parties!

Alll righty, this is really long. I'll go ahead and split my post in two, hopefully before Tuesday so I can get caught up! But since this post is noticeably Autumn-light, say hello to Princess Bunny.


:) Every day is Halloween at our house.

Halloween Preview...

So, I was going to do a big halloween post but I had 346 photos on my camera sooooo...this is what you get. :D I loooove Halloween. Dressing up? Candy? Seriously, what could be more awesome?? We started our Halloween activities last week at the Mullins United Methodist Funny Bones Festival where Autumn had her first cotton candy:


We also celebrated in our kids aikido classes by wearing costumes and playing themed games.


Friday we had a Halloween party that will make a great story. :P Those of you who haven't heard will have to wait to hear. Mike and I dressed up as pirates!


And he actually had a good time! Look! Photo evidence:


Tonight, we went out to Ridgeway's Fall Festival and had a really good time. They had an incredible turnout. Autumn played games--she especially looooooved playing their version of Plinko.


We also got to meet a few neighbors later that night when we took Autumn trick or treating to the houses with lights on around us. Afterward, she sorted her haul into piles...it was pretty funny seeing her ask what something was and then decide where she was going to stack it.


:D All in all, this might have been the best halloween ever. Or at least the best one I can remember for a long time! More pics to come!

Warning: Cuteness ahead

It's been a whirlwind week!! I've got a bzillion photos to post so I'm finally getting this wedding posting wound down so I can move along to things like anniversary surprises and train parties. :D

The wedding day was, as all wedding days are, crazy. I had to make an emergency run to Hobby Lobby, the church wouldn't let the catering people (Lainey&co) in until after 10am (for a 1pm wedding!!), and so on. Even Autumn wasn't without her accidents. Literally. she must have been nervous because she hadn't had a potty accident in ages. But, we got there on time and my mom's friend Jacqui did her hair. I even put a little blush on Autumn. And, tell me if that is a Mike face if you ever saw one.


Autumn's been on this kick where she seriously wants to be Cinderella for Halloween. She did want to be a cat but then she got this foofy dress and I talked her into a princess so the dress gets plenty of use. Yes. I know. People keep telling me it seems out of character to encourage the princess thing cause I'm all kick butt or whatever but you can fight and be girly. Or at least I can.


As part of this princess thing, though, she's determined that Mike will be a prince and I will be Belle. :P She was pretty tickled by all the dresses and tuxes. It was like a princess show.


We've been calling Autumn "Little Lindsay" lately because they look a lot alike sometimes. :) Not so much in this picture but how cute are they?


Took me long enough but here's the blushing bride!!


With the maid of honor, her sister Michelle. You guys might remember her wedding just a few weeks back!.


This is kind of fun. Here are the ladies of the bride.


And the ladies of the groom (minus Valerie and Roxie who came in later).


After the wedding, we did family shots outside. It was pretty warm for October, I thought, Autumn agreed. She wandered around like a whiny Christmas doll going, "it's hooooot." You see boppa there in the background? He was looking sharp in his tux as an usher!


So done with it all. :)


So, in case you didn't see earlier, my mom was adorable. Seriously. I have the cutest mom. I'm excited about this because maybe it means that I'll look something like this when I'm 50. Sweet!


Oh, one really cool thing at the wedding was...dippin dots!! Did you know that you can order dippin dots for a party?? That was the one thing that Liz really wanted and it was a huge hit! I managed to grab some and get it for her before she headed out. She said she'd been trying to work her way there but never made it through all the people.


I didn't take many pictures at the reception. And for some reason I have none of me, Mike and Autumn. And the only one of Autumn and me together is terrible. Now that I think about it, I don't have any of Donnie and Liz. :P While I'm complaining, haha, I also wish I got some of them leaving with all the bubbles and stuff but this will have to do. I took a picture of this because I'm proud of myself for mounting the pictures I stole from the photographer's website. Haha. All this non-photo taking means the photographer is probably going to make entirely too much money off of us.


Autumn ended up being a good barometer for the end of the reception. By the time she was wilting (clutching the flowers I gave her off the cake server), things were winding down.


And all that was left were goodbyes and cleanup! The End. Or, rather, The Beginning. :)