Happy Fall!!

I know you are wondering who in the world has seized control of my keyboard with all of these postings!! I finally transferred pictures from my camera to my computer and I now have 204 new pictures to blog about soooo get comfy!!! Don't worry, I'm not really going to make you look at all of those pictures, just a few!!
Last weekend we had our ladies retreat at church. It was a great!! As much as I love her, it was nice not having a three year old swinging from arms, jumping off of my head and making me play webkinz constantly. While I was gone, she and Brian had a date night. She got to choose what she wanted to do. Her choices were The Bee Movie, Toys-R-Us and get a toy, or Chuck E Cheese. Of course she chose Chuck E Cheese! It's her favorite place in the world. Brian was a little sad that she didn't want to go to the movie, but I think he secretly loves skeeball just as much as the movies. Anyway, they won 320 tickets and I now have almost as many little rubber frogs!!!! Oh well, I'm glad they had fun! The retreat was at Brown County State Park. It's a really neat place. Mine and Jill's other two roommates for the night were Sawyer and Jack. It was fun, but hard for me to fully participate with my little bratty-brat. To help us out with this, Brian and Chris came early Saturday morning to take care of the boys. After the retreat was over we stayed and hung out in the park for most of the afternoon. It was such a perfect fall day and we had so much fun! Here are some of our pictures from the afternoon. I wish I would've gotten more, but Addie Grace and my camera (hint, hint Brian!!) were over the photo-op rather quickly!!

one of her favorite past times
my two favorite boysher token pained look
our sweet girl

Halloween

We had a great Halloween, except my digital camera kept messing up. I took alot of pictures with my SLR camera, but I haven't had them developed yet. I'm hoping that I got some better shots of them with it than I did with my digital camera.
Sawyer really didn't mind having his costume on, he just hated being put down to have his picture made (he's a LITTLE (ahem) spoiled). I'm pretty sure that Addie Grace and Sawyer have gotten together and decided on a new theme for their pictures from now on...she smiles but doesn't look at the camera (or looks pained) and he screams and cries...cute huh?? I'm sure this is just a preview of what our Christmas cards will look like...anyway, hope you're Halloween was great!!! Here's my little pumpkin and spider...

stupid, stinking camera...

Okay, so we go to Nashville last week to go to my friend Julie's pumpkin patch, as we have done every year to take cute fall pictures of Addie Grace. I was sooo excited this year about getting to take them with Sawyer too. Well, having them all dressed for the pictures, I grabbed their costumes to get some shots of them dressed up too, prepared for a perfect day of picture taking!! The weather was beautiful, I had 5 great helpers (mom, dad, Mason, Macy and Brian), so I knew we could do it, get it over with and have some fun.
Well....we get there, Addie Grace is already itching to go and do all the fun stuff, but I start taking pictures, promising that I'll be really, really quick (right!!). I take about five and my camera messes up (I think Addie Grace put a hex on it)!!! I fight with it for about 15 minutes, but after Addie Grace whining (understandably) about wanting to go and play, I finally give up. I couldn't get Julie's camera, as she is dealing with an accident with one of the guests, so I just let her go and play. After playing for about an hour, she gets filthy, dirty and is having a ball! Well, another friend comes to the rescue with her camera but by this time though, getting Addie Grace to cooperate with sitting back down and starting the whole photo drama over again was almost impossible. Sawyer was worn out at this point too, so although I got alot of pictures of everyone having fun, I didn't get really cute pumpkin patch pictures. Here is the best one that I got with my camera right before it messed up...

Well, as mad as I was, I at least thought I would get a new camera out of the deal, so I was excited about that. Well, my precious husband fixed the camera a few days later (grrrrr!!)...so no cute pumpkin patch pictures AND no new camera for me!! Stupid, stinking husband!! (I'm only kidding!!)
Here are some of the other random shots from the day!

Addie Grace "milking the cow"














too bad she wasn't smiling OR looking at the camera...would've been one of my favorites!!












playing in the dried corn kernals...I think her favorite part of the whole day!

aren't they cute??? Macy, Sawyer, Addie Grace and Mason






see how happy my children were when I tried to take a few more posed shots before leaving?!?!



Nana and Sawyer











Nana, Pappy and kiddos

A little late...

Well, since Sawyer is going to be 5 months old in a week from tomorrow, I thought that it might be nice for me to post a couple of his THREE month pictures. In my defense, I only got them in the mail a couple of weeks ago and then I headed out of town for 5 days...then I got home and halloween and blah, blah, blah, well, anyway here I am. These are a couple of my favorites.
Believe it or not, I've actually had alot to blog about lately, just no time, so I'm going to do a few more posts to catch up on the last few weeks, so hang onto your pants, you're probably going to get about three posts in two days!!!

Aaaaah home...

Well, after a week in Nashville with my mom and dad, we are finally getting settled back into the Indy routine. It was great to be at home in Nashville and now it's great to be back at home here in Indy with Brian!!
We had so much fun in Nashville visiting with my friends and my family!! I always have such a hard time leaving and I always make excuses to stay just one more day!! I love to watch my mom with Sawyer...something about her just makes him want to talk and talk to her and when she sings to him, he just cackles!! It's so funny!! I guess he just knows that she's his Nana!! Out of all of the pictures that I took when I went home, I don't have ANY pictures of Sawyer and Nana!! Here is the next best thing though... a picture of Sawyer hanging out with his Pappy!!

While we were in Nashville they had a little carnival at church and Addie Grace thought that was just great!! She got to play with all of her friends all day and we all had a great time!

After getting home late Wednesday night, Thursday was open house at Addie Grace's preschool and that was alot of fun. Addie Grace loved being the tour guide and showing us all around...she loves any situation where she gets to be the boss!!
Tonight we went with Jill, Chris and Jack downtown to the canal and just walked around and went out to eat. Indy really does have a neat downtown area and we're all looking forward to going back and doing some of the fun stuff at the canal that we didn't have time to do today.

There really are alot of fun things to do here in Indy that would make a few hours drive worth the trip...and that's not even mentioning the wonderful company that would be included!!! (Are y'all getting the hint to come and visit?!?!)
Well...that's about all going on with us for the week. Sorry that there's not really anything more exciting to share...but that's really all that's going on...I'll try to be more interesting next week!!
(I'm including one more picture of Sawyer so that he doesn't feel slighted by there being two of Addie Grace!!)

I hope you all have a great weekend!!!

Made you do a double-take didn't I??

I know you scanned over my blog expecting to see the same old post, but ta-dah!! Something new! So, I'm a little behind...I've had a few things on my plate! I truly am going to try and be more faithful with this...I'm not a good emailer anymore, and so doing this more frequently really would simplify my life. We'll see how I do!!
Just a FEW things have happened in our lives since my last post in APRIL (for goodness sake!!)! We sold our house...Hooray! We bought a new house...Hooray!! We had a baby...Hooray!! Addie Grace started preschool...Hooray, Hooray!! Lots of fun stuff!
Things are going really well, Sawyer's doing great, Addie Grace is loving school and we're getting a little more settled each and every day. We're all starting to feel a little more at home here and that's good after being in limbo for the last year. Now if we can just finish painting our house and unpacking our last 20 or so boxes (yuck!) we'll be doing great!!
Sawyer will be THREE months old this week and he's becoming more and more fun everyday...we are having a great time with him and so far he is surviving Addie Grace!!
Addie Grace starting preschool was a huge production for us...from her especially requested breakfast of chocolate gravy and biscuits (it's not gross, I promise!!) on her you are special today plate to her first day of preschool cake that night with 10 million pictures in between!!! My favorite picture is of when I picked her up from preschool...she could hardly walk to the car because she was so tired and she could barely hold her head up on the way home. She didn't look quite as together as when she had left home that morning! After pictures of her at dinner on the you are special today plate (AGAIN) and then pictures of her with her cake, she quite understandably told me, "NO MORE PICTURES!!!!" So I reluctantly put my camera away.
Anyway, this is just a post to let you know that I'm back and to share a few pictures. Check back with me soon...I'm going to shock you with my stick-to-it-tiveness with this blog, regardless of how uneventful my life is!!! (And yes, I know that I made stick-to-it-tiveness up).

My life...

This truly is an encounter that occurs about every 3 1/2 minutes at my house!!!

a hodgepodge of events...

Well, it's been a busy few weeks. We've been in Nashville at my parents for the last two weeks. The week before, my neice Hannah came and stayed with us in Indy for the week during her spring break. We have gone to the children's museum, the Louisville zoo, had two birthday parties, spent the day (practically) at Chuck E. Cheese's, stayed with my sister for the weekend, had Gram and Grandaddy in this past weekend...lots and lots of fun stuff!!
And some not so fun stuff...last Wednesday, I started having some vision problems...after going to the opthamologist, I was diagnosed with central serous retinopathy. It's a condition not uncommon during the third trimester of pregnancy. Basically there is a build up of fluid and it causes a blister (essentially) on your retina. Everything looks all crazy out of my left eye. It's driving me nuts. The doctor said that 99% of the time it resolves on its own within a few months after delivery, if not, they would do laser surgery. Fun huh??
Anyway, enough about me...I can't believe that Addie Grace is THREE years old!! It blows my mind! I posted some of the pictures of the last few weeks of her parties and stuff...I'll do more later!!

...and she poops!!!

In the potty that is!!! I had already been inspired to post today, but after my most recent exciting news, it makes the process alot easier for me...I have a topic that I want to shout from the mountain tops!!
Addie Grace has been potty training for awhile, she had the pee-peeing down pat, but REFUSED to poop in the potty. When I would put her big girl panties on (or a pull up for that matter), she would just stop pooping for a few days and it made for a very unpleasant experience for everyone involved...mainly her, so I would feel bad for her, pull out a diaper and resign myself to the fact that I would be the only mother to be changing their thirteen year olds dirty diapers.
Well, this morning I caught her hiding (her pooping ritual) before she had actually started and I begged and pleaded and bribed (just like I've been doing for the last 6 months) for her to go and sit on the potty and guess what?!? SHE DID! AND SHE POOPED! I truly feel like I've just won the lottery. She did do it a couple of times before but it was when I had caught her after the process had begun and just threw her on the potty...training that way never worked for me. I so want her potty trained all the way before Sawyer gets here in June and before her third birthday (April 5), and I feel a small sense of hope today!! I'm going to head out on my errands skipping and whistling today!! Keep your fingers crossed for me that it lasts please!!

Crazy Stalker Man...

If I had a manhole in front of my house, this is a picture of what I would expect to see in the morning when I walked out to get my newspaper (if I in fact got the newspaper on any other day besides Sunday)...why, you might ask???
Well...get comfy. You know we are desperate to sell our house, right? Well, Tuesday, my realtor (Verlyn) called and said that he had a guy that wanted to come and see my house that evening. The guy told Verlyn that he wasn't working with a realtor, had no desire to, but he was preapproved and needed to purchase something fast. Great, right?? Well, my realtor was out of town, so I had to show the house.
Weeeellll, the guy comes (with his wife, baby, and mother-in-law). Goes on and on about how much he loves our house. Wants to know if we would leave the storage unit in the garage, wanted to know if we would consider leaving our washer and dryer. The house does have an alarm, right? Wanted to go and see our pool, so I dig for a flashlight and we spend about 20 minutes out at the pool (this has a point), I answered a million questions about it...upkeep questions, insurance questions, where we keep our floats, who we use to service it...on and on and on.
They stayed for AT LEAST an hour. They stood in my front yard staring at my house for what felt like an eternity...admiring it I naively thought!! Before they left, he asked me if he needed to call me with an offer or my realtor. He also asked if they could come back on a Saturday or Sunday to see everything in the daytime. Told me over and over we LOVE this house!
Okay, so that's Tuesday. Saturday I just started wondering if they had made any decisions, so I get my realtor to call to touch base.
Well...here comes the interesting part...
Verlyn calls and the man says that he never looked at my house!!! Verlyn said, "yes...you know the white house with a long porch...swimming pool??" The guy says, "no, I did look at a house in that neighborhood that was for sale by owner (there is one), but it didn't have a pool. I know what house you are talking about, I tried to call you about it, but could never reach you, so we didn't get to see it." Well at this point my realtor thinks that he might have made a mistake and that maybe he wrote down the wrong name by someone else's info or something. But then Verlyn says are you working with a realtor? The guy says no, he wasn't working with a realtor, had no desire to. Okay, obviously the same guy. Then Verlyn says, are you sure you didn't see the house, this is the same number that I called Tuesday, your name is Greg right?? The guy says, "yes it's Greg, but I never looked at that house". Verlyn just says, "okay, sorry to bother you", and that was that!
Okay...what in the world is that about?!?!?!? I keep going over and over it in my mind, trying to make some sense of it. If he changed his mind, why didn't he just say...if I was interested I would have called...quit bothering me! Why the crazy lies??? I just don't get it!!!
So anyway, when I stupidly thought that they were gazing at the beauty of their soon-to-be acquired home, I now know that they were just casing our house planning on coming back and killing me. They were trying to figure out which window would be the easiest to climb through and going back over the floor plan in their heads trying to etch it into their evil minds!!! Also, remember that he asked if I had an alarm?!?! Again...he was plotting!!! It's a good thing I won't be here anymore by myself...it's back to Indy tomorrow, where hopefully we can be safe from crazy stalker people.
Just wanted to share my crazy encounter...keep praying for the sale of our home PLEASE (and no more crazy potential homebuyers please)!

Our Latest News!!

Well...here's my exciting news for the week...
Lord willing, the McDonald's will have a new family member in June 2007!!! Hooray!
I made Addie Grace this shirt to wear to announce to everyone (including Brian) that we are expecting. It was so funny to watch how long it took for it to click with everyone what her shirt said. It took Brian about 5 minutes to even really look at it...it was driving me crazy!! I didn't want to tell him while he was in Indy, so she greeted him when he got home with her shirt on!! It was fun!
The funniest thing that happened was my Dad, bless his heart. First of all it took FOREVER for mom and dad to even notice her shirt. Then, after they got it, I guess after mulling it over a bit, my Dad said, so you already know that the baby is going to be a sister??? He just didn't get that it is Addie Grace that will be the sister!!! Y'all wonder why I'm so flaky...I get it honest I guess!!!
We also had our small group over on Sunday night, so I put the shirt on her again to see how long it would take for them to notice. It surprised me to see how observant that they were!! I probably never would have noticed!!
I get to do it one more time with all of my neices and nephews this weekend. My sisters already know, but I told them not to tell the kids, so I'm really excited.
Anyway, it was a great weekend!! Keep us in your prayers please!!!

Shark attack!!

Well, apparently there was a shark loose in my bonus room! I was on the phone with Brian and Addie Grace comes and asks me something (I don't remember what), well truly, not 5 minutes later I hear, "Save me, save me!!". I turned around and this is what I saw! I honestly have no idea how she got in there, especially that quickly! Shocked, I demanded, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!", her response...(like I was a moron for not seeing it myself...), "it's a shark mommy, it's dangerous!!" (She wanted to be saved from the shark...not the cabinet).

I laughed, grabbed my camera for posterity's sake, snapped a couple shots, got her down and chewed her out, telling her to never do that again!! (not confusing to a 2 year old I'm sure!!!)

Anyway, if you come to visit me, please beware of the sharks!!

(Don't look at the picture frames on top of my cabinet...they don't match at all, and it drives me crazy!!)

Indy bound!!!

Well, my latest news is that I am Indy bound...no kidding this time. Addie Grace and I leave Monday. After flipping and flopping about it, we have decided to take a leap of faith and go ahead and get an apartment. We still have a couple of months with Merck footing the bill for housing, but after that we are on our own. So, we are going to have faith that either our house will sell in those couple of months or that God will make it crystal clear that He wants us to come back home.
Interestingly enough, Brian was basically offered a job here yesterday out of the blue (forgot to tell you that Holly)...throws more question marks in there for us! It's so hard to know when it is God saying, "Heeeere!!! Go this way!!" or just the devil trying to complicate things. You know?? We prayed for so long to get a pharm job, now we are here, but the job is there...was it God, or what WE wanted???? I felt really confident before that it was Him, but now since NO-ONE has even looked at our house, I wonder. I don't know, I'm just going to keep praying that God will redeem our choices and that He will make it blatantly obvious if He wants to go another way...
In the meantime, keep praying for us please!!

Just playing around

Hey Gena and Holly (I still haven't told anyone else about my blog...too much pressure to keep it up!!)...
Anyway, I was just playing with the flickr site trying to do all of this fancy stuff and so now I have to post to see if it works!!! These are some pictures that I took in Indy. I know that she has on the same shirt that she did in a couple of those other pictures on an earlier post...I promise that she has more than two shirts!!
Gena, I'm not counting this as my real post...I'm still trying to think of something to blog about! How pathetic am I??? Can one of you give me a topic already?!?!?
Love you girls!!!

Here's Addie Grace!!!

Hey Gena,
Here is Addie Grace! I was going through all of my pictures trying to figure out which one to post...I usually always have a recent favorite, favorite picture of her (doting mother I guess!), but I really don't right now!! These are just a few random ones from the past week.
Anyway, just thought I'd share!!!

I have arrived!!

Well, I feel so technologically savvy now!! I have to admit that I don't have alot of faith in myself to actually keep up with this blog site. I'm here simply because I love my friend Gena and I wanted to post a comment on her blogsite...one hour, one anxiety attack (over coming up with a name for my blog and then having 413 (slight exaggeration) of them rejected (because they were taken) AND 10 million questions later (to register) I was finally able to post my comment to her. She had better appreciate my efforts!!
I almost just closed this down after leaving my comment, but since we are moving to Indy soon (maybe a better word is eventually), I figured this would be a good way to stay connected. We'll see how I do!! Wish me luck!!!