Grant's 2nd Birthday Party

My little buddy turned 2 on October 30.  Sniff sniff.  For his birthday weekend, we went down to Grammi and Bean's house for a little family birthday party.  We got there Saturday right before lunch, and while the kids took a nap, Bean made us some cocktails.  This is what ensued:

After the kids woke up, we snapped a few pictures of Natalie and Grant on the stairs in their Halloween costumes.  Natalie is an Auburn cheerleader, and Grant is Superman!  Here he is attempting to fly!

Then we took a nice Bailey family picture on the stairs.  Natalie grabbed her props for this one!

After a delicious dinner, we got to enjoy some yummy birthday cake that KK made for Grant!  It's Lightning McQueen!!!  Can you believe she made this?  It's so awesome!  Wish I had talent like this.  Good thing I married into a talented family!

I love the picture below of Grant and his Godmother Nauni. 

We sung happy birthday to Grant, and of course, we only have a really long video and no pictures, but we did snap a few of him devouring his cake.  Double fisting!!! 

Here is a kind of blurry picture of most of the family (minus Nauni, who's taking the picture!) at Grant's birthday feast!  Little buddy was so cute and really loved his cake and ice cream.

After dinner, we opened presents!  Grant really loves this Lightning McQueen car that Seth got him.  Forget the other presents dad, I wanna play with LMQ!!!  The kid has a one track mind, and there's gotta be at least 4 wheels going on that track!

Mommy, Daddy and Sis got him a big loader.  He loves loaders, dump trucks, and tractors.  It's the funniest thing.  I've never seen anything quite like it! 

It was a great 2nd birthday celebration with our wonderful Bailey relatives, who showered baby boy with love, cake and presents!  I hope someday he realizes what a lucky boy he is!

Little girls and lipstick

This is what happens when you let little girls put on their own makeup...

Auburn-Florida Game

War Eagle baby!  Todd and I were lucky enough to have my mom come up and watch the kids for about 48 hours while we went down to Auburn for the Auburn-Florida game.  My besties and I try to do this at least once a year, although this year, we actually went twice, if you consider we all went to the National Championship game back in January.

Me and Ayala on our way to the potty with Jordan Hare in the background.  The bathroom was at the Livestock Arena.  Man, only in the south...

Nice pic of Jordan Hare, and oh, did I mention we are reigning National Champions?

Here we are putting up the tent for the tailgate.  This pic isn't as funny unless you know Todd, Lee and Braxton were just sitting around beneath the other tent, having a drink and watching us work.  Thanks guys.

I can't believe I'm putting this picture on this blog, because really, this just isn't me.  First of all, I hardly drink beer anymore.  Second of all, I most certainly don't shotgun.  Well, at least not in the last 15 years anyway.  But I got called out by the Gator fans, so what's a girl to do?  It was only me and Sherpa representing Auburn and all of the other girls were too chicken to do it.  The Crossfitting competitor in me couldn't let it go. I came in first of the three girls (the other two girls were Gators), but third to last overall, ha ha. 

A bunch of us didn't go to the game.  Kim and Rick, Ayala and Lee, and Sherpa, Todd and I decided to go downtown and watch it at the new bar/restaurant that is located where Buffalo's used to be, not too far from Toomers.  This is what our poor, sad trees look like after that crazy Bama fan poisoned them.  Not so good.  The restaurant was kind of lame, but the waitress was nice, and they had TVs, and it wasn't crazy packed.  And... we won!  17-7!  We worked those silly Gators!

The good thing about being where we were is that we go to go roll Toomer's ONE. LAST. TIME.  For having just beat the Gators, I was pretty sad.  Look how pretty it looks!  Not quite like '94 (what a game!) but I'll take it.

Toomer's Drugstore really needs to be open for post game lemonade! 

One last pic before we went back to the hotel for our 3 hours of sleep.  We had an early morning flight out of Atlanta (hour time change, 2 hour drive, had to return the car, etc.) But here we are, 2010 National Champions baby!  This year, not so much.  But it was fun while it lasted.

Pumpkin carving on a warm fall day

Natalie and Daddy carved a pumpkin together on a nice, warm fall day in early October.  Grant wasn't at all interested.  So I had to chase him around the yard.  Here they are, getting ready to start the pumpkin!  (Note: Natalie had a super cool green fairy band-aid on her leg that Grammi had given her after getting a bug bite at their house).

Here is Grant, wondering if he can break loose from this joint.  It was really warm out, so he had fun just running around and playing with his firetruck and remote controlled car.

He just really liked playing with the remote control.  Never mind actually using it to make the car drive and spin around.  Natalie did a great job of helping daddy scoop out the pumpkin guts!

Todd was trying to get Grant interested in pumpkin carving, but he didn't want any part of anything he couldn't remote control.

I would like to tell you that this is the finished product, below.  However, it was getting late, so after cutting the top off and scooping out the guts, they put the project on hold for dinner, bath and bedtime.  Within a few days, the pumpkin rotted, so Todd had to go buy and carve a second pumpkin!

Scenes from September

Here's a little more of what we did in September.  First, I turned 35.  Booo....  But I was lucky enough to have my parents come up for a visit that weekend!  And I got to eat cake, so of course, that always makes for a good birthday...

While my parents were here, we all (minus the kids) went to the Sox-Rays game.  The Sox won, and it was a little chilly but we all had a good time anyway!  Here we are up on the Budweiser Pavilion.  I like the guy to the right making that creepy face...

One of Todd's co-workers went to Afghanistan for work for a few months.  He brought back presents for everyone, including this interesting hat, which we put on Grant!

Lastly, I caught this cute moment between Todd and Natalie while they were working on putting together a fairy mobile at the dinner table.  They looked so cute working on it together!

Trip to the Cape

Every year, Todd and I make a point to join our friends Cooch and Karen at the Cucci family beach house in Wellfleet for a fun weekend away from the kids.  This year, it happened to coincide with my eye surgery, and this turned out to be a VERY good thing, since I could barely keep my eyes open all weekend.  (Warning: Unattractive sunglasses featured below!)

KK so graciously watched the kids for us while we went to my recovery weekend away.  This is how I spent Saturday.  With a shirt over my head.  Note the sunglasses on TOP of the shirt.  Dude, I'm really white.  More trips to the beach next summer, please!

This is how Todd spent his Saturday.  Practicing handstands on the beach in Wellfleet!  We spent the day at the beach, drinking cold beverages, as prescribed by my eye doctor.

We ate a nice dinner outside on Saturday evening.  Lobstahs, steamers, corn on the cob, yum.  This is me, in my awesome granny glasses trying a steamer for the first time.  Not bad, but kinda chewy. 

Hail hail the gangs all here!  It took everything I had to keep my eyes open in this picture.  Mmm, non paleo corn on the cob!  After dinner, we enjoyed the bonfire, some s'mores, some more drinks, and then I promptly enjoyed 12 hours of sleep!  That is the first time in YEARS that I have slept that much.  It was really good for my eyes.

Sunday, we went after breakfast to pick up the kids at KK's house.  We spent the day there as Todd did some outdoor chores for KK as a thanks for watching the kids.  I kept my eyes closed.  In the evening, we ate outside.  The kids were thrilled to eat outside, especially Natalie.  Then we made s'mores in KK's fire pit.  I thought Natalie would go wild for the s'mores, but not so much.  She hasn't been a huge chocolate fan lately.  Look how big my kiddos look in the picture below with cousin Seth!  So cute in their jammies...

Grant loves ribs

This post reminds me of my Uncle Harry, and how he can perfectly imitate the "It's McRib time at McDonalds!  CHOMP" commercial!

Laser Eye Surgery

I FINALLY had laser eye surgery! 

Long story... After 7 and a half years, I left Dewberry for a position as the Flood Hazard Mapping Coordinator for the state of Massachusetts.  However, before I left, I had about $1700 in my flexible health spending account that had to be used before I left, otherwise it would have been taken from me.  NOT COOL.  Thankfully, the hubs purchased a "Buy With Me" for laser eye surgery with Dr. Leibole at Newton Wellesley Eye Care and Laser Surgery.  Dude was AWESOME.  I mean - I have never quite had the level of customer service ANYWHERE that I have with this place.  His office was amazing, and I thoroughly recommend them!

Here I am saying goodbye to my glasses for the last time!

The surgery was really quick, maybe 2 hours tops from the time I got there to the time I left.  So afterward, we went to Morse Tavern for a Pumpkinhead Ale!  I asked Dr. Leibole about taking Advil or Tylenol, and he said neither of those would do much for me, given I had exposed nerve endings in my eyes!  So I said, "How about whiskey!?!"  And he said, "That is probably the best thing for you!"  Sweet.

It was difficult for me to even keep my eyes open after the surgery.  I had this one beer, an appetizer with Todd, and went home and slept for a few hours!

When you sleep, you have to wear these awesome eye patches.  They are hard plastic, with terribly sticky tape that never comes off of your face.  Plus, you have to take about a million eye drops for many weeks after the surgery.  I was in a good amount of annoyance/irritation after the surgery- not so much pain as it was just generally irritating to the eyes.  I compared it to a cat licking my eyeballs.  Ewwww...

First day of school 2011

Natalie is going to FACE Children's Center again this year, for pre-kindergarten.  She is in the Butterfly class this year, and is in the purple Butterfly subclass.  She loves it!  Grant is still going to Maureen's, but he loves that too.  We did sign him up to go to FACE next year though. 

Here is their first day of school series of pictures.  Grant had a big sippy cup of milk, that we had to take away for the pictures.  So most of the pics are of him with his hands in the air, reaching for the cup that we had just taken away.

Tropical Storm Irene

This Florida girl was just thrilled that we got a tropical storm this far north!  It was a hurricane at landfall, I think, but by the time it got up here to eastern Mass, it was a tropical storm.

This was the day before, courtesy the NHC.  Todd and I actually did some preparation for this because I had been through Hurricane Opal in 1995, which wasn't so awful of a storm by the time it reached Auburn, Alabama, but I still didn't have power for a whole week.  And for a single, college-age girl, wasn't the worst thing ever, but as a mom of two little ones, I was freaked out by the possibility of not having power for an extended period of time.  We had to elevate some of our appliances in the basement (the freezer, and the dehumidifier), and Todd had to go put out plastic on the ground under the only spot around the house that has a gutter... which hadn't been cleaned in years.  But that stopped the small flood that had started in our field stone basement.  :-)

During the storm.  Sorry about the bounce of the flash off of the window.

After the storm I went out and took some pictures.  We had a lot of branches/limbs/leaves down in the driveway.

Same with the backyard.  Much larger branches were down back there toward the far end of the property, out by the fence.

Part of our fence came down, I think due to a branch coming down on it.  Not sure though.

Even the tomato plants were not immune to Irene's "fierce" winds.  In the end, we never really lost power.  We lost it for about an hour in the middle of the night, AFTER the storm was long gone.  Go figure! 

Robb Wolf seminar, aka: Todd's man crush

Todd got to meet (or... um.... meat) his paleo idol, Robb Wolf at an all-day seminar in Boston in August.  I allowed Todd to spend his own money as a birthday present, albeit a little late, to see Robb in one of his last ever live speaking events.

Seriously, he looks deliriously happy in this picture! 

Todd said about this picture:  "We're like brothers!"  Or... since Todd is about a foot taller than Robb, maybe not!  If you ever want to know more about eating Paleo (meat, veggies, eggs, seeds/nuts, fruit), you should check out Robb's website www.robbwolf.com He is a paleo GURU, with great podcasts, blogposts, testimonials, etc.