What does it mean to be all girl?

For Autumn, it means she loves pink, chocolate, cats, getting dirty in the garden, chocolate milk, painting, aikido, her octopus shirt, her "best friend" Tyler, school, music, Little Einsteins and Belle.



She is tough and silly and always wants bandaids. She is right handed but kicks a ball and dribbles with her left side. She likes to look at herself in the mirror and, lately, shadow boxes with her reflection in the oven.

Like her papa, she can be a little anti-social and usually needs some time to warm up to a crowd or a new person. And like her mama, she loves a party and can be very opinionated. Her mama wanted to give her a princess party this year, but this year, she asked for a Little Einsteins party. She wanted a cake.


And ice cream and juice.


She wanted Little Einstein plates and napkin, party hats...


and blowers.


She wanted friends both from church


and from school.




And so it was.

Happy birthday to our spunky, funky, silly, slightly high strung, strange mix of tough and delicate, busy, lively, doesn't-fit-in-a-box little monkey!

Autumn has an announcement:

So, there you go...baby name! We've known for a while but kept forgetting to video her saying the name, haha. The story is that we were keeping a shared Google doc with boy names we liked. Mike kind of wanted something nature-y but, really, it's hard to find nature names for a boy if one is not a hippie or Native American. And the one name we did like, Ashe or Asher, just didn't sound right with Colley. Well, one night, Tamara and I were looking at names and she mentioned Garrett. I liked it and added it to the list. Long story short, have some chat logs:

Mike: Did you put down "Garrett" as a name?

me: yes. is that one you like? or don't like?

Mike: I was about to put that down.

me: oh, cool

what made you think of it?

Mike: I'm going through the list of all the names in my mail server.

And the next day:
me: is garrett your favorite name right now?

Mike: Kinda mebee?

me: i don't remember if it means anything

Mike: Rule of Spear

me: other than, "it sounds nice with colley"rule of spear? well, that's a very kali name

Mike: Mighty with a spearme: i can dig it

Couple more days and conversations later, we added Michael (Autumn's middle name is Rose which is also my middle name) and voila! Baby name! And it was way, way easier than I was expecting it to be.

Today was our 3d ultrasound and...it was weird. :) We brought Autumn and she did great although she's still trying to figure out how some gel and a wand made pictures on the screen. She took one of the pictures and put it in a magnetic frame on the fridge that Penny gave her about a month ago. We didn't get a 3d with Autumn so this was a totally new experience. It's crazy because it's so vivid but at the same time we are now afraid he might be ugly, LOL. In a couple of the pictures, he looks like a creepy old man with a freakishly large schnozz. But in a few of the photos, he looks like me or Donnie. Mike took one look at the first face shot and said, "that's your family's nose." Hahahaha. He's right. But, Autumn had a very my side of the family nose when she was born and it seems to be okay so maybe baby Garrett won't be grossly out of proportion. And if he is, we'll just make sure he's confident and dresses well. :P Anyway, have the least disturbing photo of the bunch:


Ok, that one's pretty cute. Also cute? He kept sticking his tongue out at us.

So, that's all the good stuff. We do have a couple of prayer requests. Because of Autumn's growth restriction issues, they have been keeping a vague eye on this baby's weight. The general consensus has been that there's unlikely to be an issue since his umbilical cord is fine (hers only had two vessels) but if there's any kind of history like that, they check just to be safe. Last time, he was in the 36th percentile. This time he was at the 23rd. They aren't crazy concerned that he's small because, seriously, I'm not exactly a big person but the doctor does want to make sure that he's not on a steady downward decline, as opposed to it being a normal fluctuation. I will go back in two weeks for another weight check and then they'll decide what to do from there, depending on the results.

Autumn, covered in spaghetti sauce and practicing her skills on baby Hudson.


Another thing they'll be checking in on is a cyst in the placenta. The doctor said she genuinely has no idea what it might be, if anything, but she doesn't seem too worried. It might resolve itself like the one on the umbilical cord from early in the pregnancy. If it's still there in two weeks, she's going to send me over to the high risk doc I saw with Autumn just to check it out and make sure it isn't causing any problems.

All in all, though, things are looking good! Couple of little blips but so far nothing too crazy. I'll update everyone after the next ultrasound in 2 weeks.

Next post: party pics!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day!

We had a fun, if unusually non-Mother's Day-y Mother's Day weekend. Yesterday we had Autumn's birthday party at the Children's Museum. We had a blast and I have a lot of photos to post soon but, oh, man, I am soooo swollen from being on my feet and not drinking enough water. By the time we took this pic, we were all wilting. And Autumn had begun to go feral, ha.


By the way, when I was looking for photos of Autumn with her various mothers, I came across this one of me right before I found out I was pregnant. DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN I LOOKED LIKE THIS? T_T Seriously. I hope my children appreciate the blow to my vanity I am enduring and have endured for them (yes, yes, I'm totally vain, I know!)

From October 2010

:) Don't worry, I'll be okay. I know it is worth it.

Aaaanyway, today we went to church and then got to hang out with Mike's family. Mike went to play golf. He hadn't played in a while and his texts were pretty entertaining:

3:21 pm: 3rd hole and I've lost 4 balls so far. Brutal...

3:28: Man I'm out [of balls]. Gotta hunt for some more. This could be terrible...

From me to Mike: Are they about to die laughing? How's the heat?

3:47 pm: I'm spending a lot of time under trees so the shade is nice.

He did end up calling me at one point to tell me he had made it an entire hole with the same ball and hit par.

While Mike was entertaining the golfers, Autumn slept at Lainey's while I went home to put my feet up. It was very nice. Also very nice is that Lainey managed to take Autumn to Paint a Piece to make me a present and do it in such a way that Autumn never said a word to me. Autumn can't keep quiet about anything, haha. I'll ask her about her day at school and she'll be all, "I played at the gym but I was busy with the ball and didn't hear Miss Courtney so I sat in time out." I was genuinely surprised!

On the other hand, Mike has yet to tell me Happy Mother's Day. We're going to Bahama Breeze later this week which is what I wanted but this morning when I reminded him it was Mother's Day (I tend not to hint or wait to see if he'll remember, haha), he told me he was going to tell me when I was least expecting it. It's aboouuuut 10:43 and we've been teasing him all day that he's going to wake me up at like 11:59pm to tell me or something.

Autumn made me a gift at school that I loved. Her teachers did a questionnaire asking her questions about her mama. Autumn loves me because we make brownies together and her favorite thing to do with me is cook. She says her favorite thing for me to wear is a beautiful dress and pretty shoes, and she likes it when we play princess. My job is to teach the kids and cook. :) I decided to do something similar for nanny and lainey. I didn't do my mom's yet because I knew we wouldn't see her until later this week but I'll report those results, too. Here's a cute picture of my mom and Autumn from yesterday.


Autumn loves Lainey because she likes to spend the night with her. She likes to go to Sonic with her and likes to make Easter eggs with Lainey. Autumn likes it when Lainey wears a grey shirt and says what Lainey always does for her is help her write her name and all the letters. Autumn says that Lainey's job is to "look out the window and bring me breakfast." No one has any idea what that actually means, hahaha. Also, I need more pictures of Lainey and Autumn together.


Autumn loves Nanny because "she helps when people look at me." Autumn likes to touch flowers with Nanny and her favorite place to go with her is trick or treating. Her favorite thing for Nanny to wear is blue. Autumn says that Nanny always gives her cookies and that Nanny's job is making muffins. Also, Nanny calls Autumn stinkerpot.


I've been blessed with some pretty awesome moms through Mike's family! I probably don't say it enough and, to be honest, I haven't the slightest idea how I could ever say it enough, but Nanny and Lainey are the best mother/grandmother in law ever and I appreciate and love them for their roles in making Mike who he is, for accepting me into the family, and for being so amazing and supportive of Autumn. Mike and I say all the time that we hope that we do half as well as his parents and grandparents and that one day our legacy will be as rich and fulfilling as theirs. :D


(our legacy likely won't involve this many children, hahahaha)