josephine kate

New House

2012-01-22T07:16:00.007-06:00

We closed on a house in Tupelo at the end of December. We've been working (and working and working and working) to get it ready. We've done some really neat stuff with it (mostly new paint) and it's getting there! I tried to take some before/after pictures of the rooms we've done so far so you can get an idea. It's been a lot of work! Now I feel like sitting and enjoying it... for a little while. I'm already making plans in my head for what's next! :)

Nana and Jo in the kitchen - in the middle of its transformation. See how happy she was to be here??? NOT!

Jo cleaning the bonus room. I don't have any more pics of this room as we haven't done much to it but furnish it. Picture this - tv, rug, couch, glider, and ALL Jo's toys. That's what it looks like. It's a great room. Bonus rooms are fabulous - esp if you have children! :)

Don't know why Jo's in this picture, but she was probably demanding to "see Jo" on the camera. She was REALLY REALLY good when we were here working - all day, every day. She's such a good kid...

Here are some BEFORE pictures of the Master Bath:

The plan was to take down the French Country wallpaper and to repaint the top blue. After removing MOST of two layers of wallpaper, we realized this was a battle we weren't going to win. I tried to take a picture in an area where you could see just how many layers there were, and this is the best I could do. We had the French Country wallpaper, next was a floral paper, then another floral paper underneath, then a paper with dots/circles on it. Perhaps more, I'm not sure. We quit with removal. "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" became the theme. We rewallpapered with some paintable wallpaper at Lowe's. It's really cute. Now.

This is the bathroom in the middle of removal of wallpaper. Ugh. I think I spent the first 3 days of owning the home IN this bathroom. I didn't even know we had other rooms.

The AFTER of the Master Bath. Please excuse all our personal effects on the countertop. The bathroom's not really DONE. We've got to get a new vanity and redo the flooring. It's peel and stick laminate right now, but we're going to have tile put down. That will be a project in the future....

This is the BEFORE for Josephine's room. As you can see, there was really old, nasty carpet on the floor. We ripped it up and had new flooring put down. The new carpet is AWESOME. It's very soft and fluffy - and a dark brown. I figured, the darker the color the better in a child's room! I don't know if we have any pics of the new floor - will have to post some later.

Most of the rooms in this house have these really fabulous built ins. This room's built ins are great because we were able to fill it with all of Jo's stuffed animals. She has a lot of animals. Also, you can't tell because the doors are closed, but the bottom cabinets were built custom for record storage. Like, music records. Some of her toys are in between record dividers. Kind of funny. I'm glad Chip and I knew what they were! Haha.

Here's the AFTER for Jo's room. I painted all the canvases on the wall. They actually turned out pretty cute! The large one with the tree on it covers the electrical box which is located in her room. Her room is PURPLE because Jo requested PURPLE. I had every intention of painting it PINK like her last room. It kind of broke my heart to put purple in there. BUT, she's happy. Also, the bed spread and the curtains are a set that I had when I was in college and saved (for whatever reason...). They are GREAT in this room though. She loves them. I won't bother her and tell her they used to be mine...

See all the stuffed animals?????? The shelves are GREAT.

This is a BEFORE of the kitchen. Note the really ugly floors.

This is a picture of the kitchen doors. We sanded them and painted them. During sanding, we noticed that they had SEVERAL layers of paint. These doors have been white, pink, white, green, and white again. The bottom doors have also been blue at some time (don't ask me what that would have looked like with half one color and half another, but they were).

The kitchen AFTER. We ripped up the floors and put down peel and stick laminate. Which I'm normally against, but it was live with the floors above or take them out and put down something attractive temporarily. We ripped the floors out. They were terrible. These floors too had multiple layers. Peel and stick on top of 3 layers of rolled linoleum. Terrific.

The floors actually look pretty good, huh? I did them myself. Well, Chip supervised.

BEFORE pictures of the hall bath. This green is the same green as the green which was in the kitchen. It's kind of hard to tell. This green was not only ugly, but also pretty offensive. I hated it. I am SO glad it is gone. Also, note the ceiling. I have NO idea why that color or style, but we've redone it. It looks SO much better.

(See the ceiling? Eww.)
AFTER for the hall bath! Yay! This we did last weekend. On a Sunday. We primed and painted the ceiling, bottom half of the walls, and the walls. It took a while, but gosh - it's worth it! :)

That's about all for now. The house is coming together. I wish I had taken photos of the outside. It was pretty covered in pine straw and leaves and my Grandfather has had his yard man come out and clean our house. It looks SO good. Thanks Granddad!!!!! We really really appreciate that (as we've spent most of our energy inside!).

November

2011-11-28T12:26:00.004-06:00

Early on in the month, Chip and I went over to Max and Leigh's to babysit while they went down to MSU with my Dad and Winnie to watch the Alabama/MSU football game. We had a fun time with the four girls. They play VERY well together and they are SO easy!

Lilly Grace had recently lost her front tooth - she was VERY proud of that hole!
All 3 of the little girls LOVE Curious George - they would PLAY PLAY PLAY and then one would sit to watch George, and then the others would migrate over that way soon enough.
Here they are - entranced! I took SEVERAL pictures and the flash didn't even phase them!
Emmie watching George - the other three were downstairs with Uncle Chip (see below...)

Here they are putting together a puzzle. Jo LOVES LOVES LOVES puzzles and she and Annie can do them pretty well, but they really need Lilly Grace's help - Jo's daddy decided to step in and help out too!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving at my brother's house. They have an awesome swing set / play set in their backyard and Josephine calls it their "playground". She told us that morning she wanted to go to "Uncle John's playground". It was really cute! She LOVES it on their slide and swings.
First slide of the day! A few days later, she got to go over for the WHOLE day while her Aunt Leigh babysat - Jo said she had a GREAT time playing, but she got a "boo boo" on her "booty" from the slide - so now she says she likes the swings better. Funny girl.
It's hard to get good shots of kids - especially when they're swinging! In this shot, you can REALLY tell how much Jo loves to swing! :)
Annie with her Nana.
Grandma and Grandpa getting some pictures of the children...
Max / Uncle John - FIRST time carving a turkey! He did a great job - although I know he was skeptical being as it seems everyone makes it out to be such a difficult task. No sweat!
My Uncle David brought goodies for the family - one of the treats he brought with him was malted milk balls. The girls got in to them right after dinner. Up until the candy, they had been playing and laughing (and squealing/screaming) and then, all of a sudden, they got really quiet. When we went to go see what they were up to - this was the scene! Two girls stuffing their faces with CANDY!
Annie and Emmie have a hot wheels race track in their room and they were all 3 taking turns and shooting the cars across the room - can you tell Jo enjoyed it?
Annie taking her turn as Emily watches to make sure she does it correctly!
Emmie really wanted to take a picture - she loves looking at herself in photos. What girl doesn't!?

Pumpkin Patch

2011-10-16T07:32:00.006-05:00

On Saturday we went up to Olive Branch to visit Matt and Aimee and their two children, Mikaiyah and Camden. We stayed in during the afternoon to watch the MSU vs. South Carolina game (ugh...) and then decided to go out for the early evening to a pumpkin patch and corn maze which was in between Olive Branch and Collierville. Here are the kids who just got out of the car. They were very excited...
Kaiyah showing Jo how to throw grass and dirt. Fun!
This was such a cute little area for pictures - they kids obliged!
Matt, Aimee, and Camden (you can barely see his little head, but he hung with us the whole time - albeit asleep). We're on the tractor ride to the corn maze here. It was not very far from the house, so this part was fun enough for the kids, but not uncomfortably long. Jo didn't even flinch about the tractor or the hay or anything. Jo's really good about doing EVERYTHING if Kaiyah does it...
Here is a picture of the corn maze. We decided - being the intelligent people we are - to solve the maze BEFORE we went in AS WELL as take a picture of it to have on our camera. This SAVED us.

We had a map of the maze which could only be revealed by red glasses - and certain parts of the maze had "checkpoints" where you could look at the map under red plastic. At one point, we got to a checkpoint - and since we were there, we decided to check ourselves. We knew we were mostly through the maze, but wanted to go ahead and see what the map said. Turns out - the map they printed to give to people was WRONG. Like, VERY wrong. We kept trying and trying to figure it out. Up until this point, I had been navigating using the picture on the camera. I eventually told our group we were just going to keep going using OUR own picture, not the one on the paper. LUCKILY, the picture we took was correct and we got in and out of the maze in about 45 minutes - only going the wrong way ONCE. (The maze isn't small - it was 8 acres - but certainly didn't feel that big when we were in there.)
Here are our brave warriors entering the corn maze.

We kept passing a large family (in numbers, not size) who had been in the maze for untold amounts of time. In fact, they were attempting to exit the entrance when we were coming in and then turned around. When we passed this family AGAIN near the end (they were a row over, but could see us through the corn), we heard a comment from one of the adults, "Let's follow the Mississippi State people..." I didn't really realize until later that his comment was probably a backhanded insult - being that we were in a corn maze and apparently Mississippi State people are comfortable there.... (maybe it's true - we did get through the maze quickly...). Anyway - those people cut through the corn and followed us out. Cheaters. We're pretty sure they were Ole Miss fans as well - being as one of their sons was wearing a Giants jersey and named "Eli". Perfect.
Dancing... they STILL had energy even after all the romping through the corn.
Look how BIG they are!

Family!
There were several "cornhole" games laid out at the fun zone. There was also a place to grind corn, play in the sand, there was a slide into a huge trough of corn, saddles on bales of hay, a place where you could practice "roping" hay cows, an area where you pumped water and raced little ducks, and a pumpkin patch behind all of that. There was SO much to do - and most of it would have been appropriate for the girls to both do. We really enjoyed our time there.
Teaching Jo how to play the game, she wanted to climb up the board and drop it in. Cheater!
They got their pumpkins! Jo also picked out a pumpkin for Camden... Sweet girls! :)

August 2011

2011-10-03T17:11:00.003-05:00

Sorry - these pictures are a bit out of order, but they'll tell the story just the same...

We took Josephine to her 4th football game ever - she has been to at least one each year since she was born and this was the first year where she really enjoyed the experience. She LOVED the fly over and the fireworks. She also enjoyed the bugs in the lights at the stadium. We got to campus around 4:00 pm (for a 6 pm kickoff) and we got home around 9:30 (we left early...) and she STILL wanted to stay up and play. She's a bit of a night owl!

Here's a pic of us from the LA Tech game:

Neither of these pictures are especially great - oh the joys of taking a photo of a 2 year old. You either get THESE faces - or you get that really fake smile where they squish up their face and just show their teeth. It's cute, but not as cute as their REAL smiles!
Caught in the middle of something - I actually got a cute smirk out of her. We had to go "walk" around campus before the game so she could DO something. She was not fond of sitting and watching football on TV when there were SO many places to go. Here we are at the Vietnam Memorial on MSU's campus. It is also the "free speech" zone on campus - there's some history for ya...
Here we are - probably playing with leaves or sticks or something equally exciting. How cute is she in her little jeans and her maroon shirt? ("JUST like MOMMY," she says...)
Josephine and Daddy outside the Union.
A few weekends ago we took Jo to a local park. It's a really nice area - the playground is used by the elementary school next door - there are also tennis courts, softball fields, and the community pool. As of yet, we've only utilized the playground. Josephine LOVES it - not only does it have slides and stairs and ladders, but it has SWINGS! She could swing for HOURS it we'd let her.
Getting ready to slide...
What a BIG girl! :)
Sliding!
SEE? The squished-my-face-so-I-just-show-my-teeth smile. Cute, but not AS cute as her real smile...
Her school photos were last Friday. I'll be QUITE interested in seeing how they turned out. We dressed her in such a cute little jumper with a white long sleeve t-shirt underneath and had plans to put on her nice brown shoes. NOPE. She wore her Dora tennis shoes with her dress. Oh well. I hope the photos are from the waist up... :)

How Big!

2011-09-06T16:57:00.005-05:00

Here we are at LG's dance recital (back in April/May). It's been a while since we've had a pic of all three of us... decided to share...
Some of our best friends, Matt and Aimee, had a NEW baby boy last Wednesday. We went up to visit them and meet little Camden. Jo and Matt & Aimee's oldest daughter, Mikaiya, played the WHOLE time. Mikaiya is 6 and Jo is 2 and although they're very far apart in age, their personalities are very similar. They played with blocks, colored, and Mikaiya read Jo books on top of her very cool lofted bed. We stopped afterwards for dinner before heading back.

A tired 2 year old with a full belly is a 2 year old who will sleep during the trip home!

Here she is enjoying her chips and salsa. She LOVES chips and salsa - heat does not bother her. Wonder where she gets that from? :)
Jo and Daddy...
She has recently discovered painting. We have recently discovered that this is an activity which will sustain her for hours and she's actually pretty good at it. Below she's telling me, "gentle, gentle Mommy - you have to tap tap tap..." We're working on watercolor skills - she's actually a pretty good little artist. I should take some pics of her painting book, but my camera died today - it's charging...
She also LOVES getting everything off her bed and bringing it to us. Here she is getting her blanket... See how BIG she is in her little girl jeans? I couldn't believe how OLD she looked this morning when Chip dressed her. What a BIG little girl! :)
This last picture is a photo of her right after surgery on her right eye. She had surgery on Tuesday and stayed home (with her Nana) on Wednesday and half of Thursday - she went back to school on Friday. She was really a trooper - had no idea why she wasn't at school. I am very thankful for all the thoughts and prayers for her that day. It is definitely a scary situation when your child goes in for surgery - even if it is a minor one. We are especially grateful for the doctors and nurses at LeBonheur East. Her doctor is Dr. Pandya-Lipman who is a pediatric opthamologist in Southaven. She is wonderful! She's quite knowledgeable and is great at explaining all the little details. We are lucky to have such wonderful doctors!
ALL BETTER!

Yesterday, Chip asked Jo how old she was. Her response - "Too old." Yes, Jo - you are two YEARS old. We'll work on that! :)

July 4th...

2011-07-12T16:57:00.004-05:00

Josephine has grown so much recently - not just UP but matured a lot. She is quite the talker and comes up with her own ideas which she willingly shares. We're working on learning names of people (i.e. Mommy is Wendy, Daddy is Chip, etc...). The other day, I asked her what Papa's name is (John). She thought for a minute and said, "His naaaaaammmme...... BIG BOY." Haha! I have NO idea where she got that from, but it did not seem out of the realm of possibilities for that to be my dad's name. Funny kid!

Speaking of "Big Boy", he and Winnie bought Jo a toy golf set. One afternoon, we put her down for her nap and when we went back in to check on her, this is what we found:

I guess she just had such a good time playing, she fell asleep right in the middle of the action! :)

Jo's Self Portrait.

We went out to the Tupelo Country Club to watch fireworks the Friday before July 4th. These were Jo's 1st fireworks to go and watch. I was nervous because I thought she might be scared - they are quite loud! She LOVED them. Above is my brother's family watching the fireworks. All 3 of his girls were quite entertained by the show.
Another picture of my brother holding (I think) Lilly Grace, his oldest.
Jo watched the fireworks with her "sunglassies" on. I guess she's so cool she wears sunglasses at night.... (Note the glow necklace around her neck. My dad supplies these to the country club every year. When the cracked them and gave them out to all the kids, I was with Lilly Grace. She got so excited when she saw all the necklaces, she turned to me and exclaimed, "WHERE did they GET all those NECKLACES?!?" To which I laughed and replied, "I have no idea... maybe you should ask your daddy. ")

Jo and Daddy before July 4th.
Jo showing off for the camera.
I was showing her how to show her teeth. I like this photo!
Jo and Mommy.

Busy Summer so Far...

2011-06-08T17:40:00.005-05:00

It has been a busy summer - but a great one. We've gone down to Starkville for a friend's going away party, to Meridian for a family member's wedding (of which I took no photos - but take my word for it, it was a wonderful weekend and a beautiful wedding), and up to Memphis to visit Chip's best friend, Matt and his family.

I had to put this picture in because it is so telling of who Josephine is. She's wearing her pink "princess" dress and her dad's tennis shoes. Mixing styles already!

Chip and I together - married for 4 years now! (Can you believe it??? :) )

For Memorial Day, my dad invited my family and my brother's family to the Tupelo Country Club for a true Memorial Day buffet (BBQ, wings, slaw, potato salad, etc.). Afterwards, we went outside to let the kids run together a little bit.

ALMOST all the grandbabies. Mary Frances is out of the country - but Jo still talks about her. She refers to her as "Many" and points to the calendar of Mary Frances's pictures my dad has in his house (as if that's where Mary is always and forever... haha).

Here Jo is ready to go to the zoo in Memphis - she had her sun "glassies" and her hat (seen in a later photo). She LOVED the zoo. Below are more pictures of our Saturday adventure:

Here we are in the reptile house (there's a scientific name for it, but I'm not sure what it is... it had snakes and turtles and stuff... an "herbarium" or something??) There was a step that Mikaiah and Jo could stand on to see the animals better - Jo had a blast. I look impatient in this photo - I'm not, I promise. We were watching all the snakes and alligators and such, our friend Matt and his wife Aimee were waiting to see the giant python be fed a rabbit. There was a large group of people waiting for that and I KNEW my 2 year old wouldn't wait for something like that.

There were several photo op places in the zoo. This one is inside the Panda area at the zoo.

There were also a few places to go inside and get cooled down (as you can see in the photo - Jo's about as red as a beet...). There was a coloring station and a tangrams station and a puzzle station. Neat - until kids about 15 years old came in and also wanted to play. We left shortly after. We're not going to compete!
I think the Komodo dragon was the first exhibit we came to where Jo was that close to the animals - she thought he was very cool - and Aimee had her pointing out the dragon's eyes, ears, etc.

Jo and her daddy!
I didn't know this picture even existed until I sat down to do the blog. This must have been Mikaiah's ONLY moment of weakness all weekend - both she and Jo were troopers and neither had a break down. Amazing! They are very good playmates.
Jo with her "Uncle" Matt.

Most of the exhibits had rails too tall for her to see over, but this one she could see through (this is in the China area of the zoo...). So funny!

After the zoo, we went downtown to the Peabody to see the ducks (what? Peabody AFTER the zoo??? Yes... the Peabody's an experience... AND we went to eat Rendezvous after the Peabody, so it was something to kill some time before we went and ate dinner).

Our Memphis trip was SO fun - we had a blast.

Chip kept Jo home from "school" today to have a father/daughter play date. After a morning of watching Dora, he took her to the park this morning for about an hour, we went out to lunch, he took her home for a nap, and then took her to a local kids museum called Healthworks.

She had such a good day with her daddy. I'm sure she doesn't want to go back to school tomorrow. She does want to go see her friends today. At lunch, she was telling us how much she liked all her friends and listed every one of them! She's very very sweet and really enjoys being around people. (I think she gets this from her Grandma Carolyn...)

BIG girl.

2011-05-19T19:09:00.002-05:00

Josephine LOVES the camera now. This morning I had to take three photos before I could convince her to get out of the house. She was standing up showing me the outfit she picked out. At least all the color matched...
This picture is just to appease her... to get her into the car... (whatever it takes). She LOVES taking pictures, only for the sole purpose of seeing herself on the camera. She is cute though, huh?
We went out to eat for Chip's birthday (thanks Grandma and Grandpa for the b-day money!!!). Chip had steak and chicken. Jo had chicken and ketchup. Which is now her new favorite food... see below:

She's getting very big now. She's using the potty on a somewhat regular basis. She can count to 5, say parts of her ABCs, and can now do a somersault all by herself! I can't believe how much she knows!

Today she had a "boo boo" on her knee. We were talking about it and she told me, "I boo boo on my knee..." I asked her what happened and she told me, "I fell in de dirt... I ok now..." SO sweet! :)

Easter Egg Hunt

2011-04-18T17:10:00.002-05:00

My mom's church had their annual Easter egg hunt this past Saturday out at a farm south of Tupelo. Mom invited my sister-in-law, Leigh, and her three girls (Lilly, Emily, and Annie), Josephine, and myself to go with her out to the farm. They had games for kids, horse rides, cake, etc. It was a real blow out!

The kids were split into different age groups - the youngest group was 2-3 yrs so Jo got to go with her twin cousins, Emily and Annie. She was very interested in picking up eggs - not so much because she knew what was going on, but because the eggs did NOT belong on the ground, so she thought it was a game of "clean up" and put eggs in the basket so they're not all over the yard. Haha.

The girls with all their LOOT. They were allowed to each get 12 eggs. (Parents were supposed to be keeping count.) I think the only one of the three who actually got 12 was Emily. Jo and Annie realized before they got to 12 that there was something IN the eggs...

Jo figuring out the eggs... she was so excited to see that there was candy - but even MORE excited to see the chocolate! Here she is eating her FIRST candy from the eggs she "hunted" (or "cleaned up").

You could probably tell that Jo was wearing an adult sized jacket. It was SO cold outside that day. The temp was about 60, but the wind was blowing SO much - it was pretty chilly. Below is what Jo looked like all afternoon - she kind of looks like a monk. Too cute!

Family!

2011-03-22T19:03:00.002-05:00

We have had an unusual set of circumstances this past week/week and a half. We ended up finding a fantastic family for our dog, Lincoln, to live with. I suppose he's having a great time - 4 kids and 5 acres of land. Wow! Our cat, Tony, was going back home to live on Lakes Blvd. with all the neighbors... he jumped out of the car before we made it home. No joke... we were on Whitfield and he JUMPED OUT OF THE CAR. I've never seen a cat do that. Hopefully, he's fine and he found his way back home!

We were on our way back to Starkville this weekend to get our home ready for an open house this weekend. It was going very well - we got to go out to see our friends on Saturday night and spend time at our home (just the three of us...).

Chip got a call Sat. night (late) that his aunt Jessie was diagnosed with breast cancer and the doctors had given her 48 hrs and sent her home with hospice care. Chip and I got up early Sunday morning and cleaned the house, hoping to get out of town and see his aunt before she passed. Chip got a call on Sunday morning from his mom that she'd passed in the night on Saturday. It was very quick.

The visitation was Monday and the funeral was on Tuesday (today). We got to go by his aunt Jessie's home on Monday morning and look at some of her personal "stuff". His aunt was 75 and she was very attached to her family. She kept any and all newspaper clippings from all of her family. We found a lot of stuff about Chip's dad at her home (in and amongst all kind of other family records). It was very cool to find such unique things that Chip didn't even know existed. What a nice surprise! We have a yearbook from the school he was teaching at when he passed, pictures from his high school days, and his bible from college with some personal notes written in. It is very very neat and I know Chip is so pleased to have all of those things now. His aunt Jessie was very special to him. She opened up her home and her heart to him and she rejoiced in his happiness just like a parent/grandparent would. She was very special to me, as well. I did not know her for very long, but she was always so kind and welcoming. She loved unconditionally and it didn't matter to her where you came from, what you were, or who you were - if you were part of the family, she loved you. She really got a lot of joy out of Josephine also and she saw Chip's dad in Jo - which was very special to me. I know that Jo brings a lot of happiness to Chip's "Frazier" side of the family. She DOES have a lot of facial expressions and mannerisms that are very like her "Grandpa Glynn". Nature vs. Nurture??? Nature... definitely in THIS case! :)

We were very lucky to have this time to go down to Meridian and see Chip's family. Jo LOVED spending time with her Mamaw, Papaw, and great-Grandma. She had a great time taking them around on walks. She also got to see her aunts and uncles and her cousin Davis. Family is a wonderful thing and I'm so thankful that Jo has so many loving relatives. We couldn't be more blessed! :)

It's Been a While

2011-03-12T14:36:00.002-06:00

Sorry it's been so long. We've had a lot go on.

I quit my job... then we moved some stuff up to Tupelo... got Jo into a daycare here... started working again... and now we're kind of stable!

Today we went to Creative Cakes on E. Main and ordered Jo's birthday cake (her birthday is April 1st... party will be April 2nd at 2:00... I will get the invites out soon...). On our way back in to town (East Tupelo is technically part of Tupelo, but it's a VERY different part of Tupelo...) we stopped at Elvis Presley's Birthplace. I haven't been there in a while - last time I went to actually take in a visit, it was not very busy, there was just his house and the memorial chapel and small museum. The city has done a great job expanding the area. They have added an "Elvis Walk" with dates from his life and what he was doing at that time, there's a statue of him from about the time when he moved from Tupelo to Memphis, and the city has moved Elvis's boyhood church from WHEREVER it was to the site near his home. It's very nice and the weather today was pretty perfect for being outside. We let Jo run around - she had a blast. I took some pictures from my phone, but right now I don't have our laptop up in Tupelo and there's not a bluetooth connection here... I'll have to tranfer those later.

After the Elvis side trip, we went to Vincent Boot and Shoe and bought some on-sale shoes (12 bucks for mine!!!), then to PartyWorks, then we had to stop for some lunch - we went to Newks. I don't know what sandwich I got, but it was AWESOME. I think it was called the "Q"?? I'm not sure, but it's got chicken, cheese, bacon, and white vinegar sauce. The white vinegar sauce was SO good. I totally recommend that sandwich.

We went then to Hobby Lobby where we got invitations and monkey stickers. Jo LOVES her "monkey paper" and "monkey tickters". She also got to go to TJ Maxx where we bought her a Curious George story book - yay!

Right now, she's at Ballard Park with her three cousins (Lilly, Annie, and Emily), her Nana, and her Aunt Leigh. She will have a great time.

I will TRY to update with some pictures soon, but don't hold your breath!!!! :)

Ending One Thing, Starting Another.

2011-02-04T08:38:00.002-06:00

Today was a "snow day". As you can see below, there's not much snow here. Actually, the roads were probably in worse condition yesterday as there was ice on the roads where water had accumulated. Today, it's just wet. So - we are all at home watching things on our DVR that we haven't had time to watch this week. It's a nice day to spend with the family, but I'm not looking forward to making these days up! :)

Jo's having a fabulous time at home with her mommy and her daddy. She has gone back to her "pacy" to help with her teething pain. This was a mistake! She's had it since Christmas - we had totally broken her of it, but we pulled it out again just so she would have something to teeth on. She will give it up in the morning, but she is insistent that she have it to go to bed and sometimes in the morning. TEETH! I'm glad she has them, but they REALLY need to come in quickly. She's on her final two to come through for a while. Thank goodness. She's been teething nonstop since about 7 1/2 months old.

One of the funniest things is when she wants to read her pop-up book that Papa and Winnie got her for Christmas, she will run up to us and request, "BIG!" She calls this book her "big" because of the big pictures that pop up. It's really funny and I'm glad she enjoys all her books.

She also really enjoys the sticker books that she got for Christmas and will ask us, "uder ticker" (which means, "another sticker"). The amount that she says and what she understands is really neat. She want to tell us all about what she sees and it's neat what kinds of things she is recognizing and we did not teach her. She also likes to say goodbye to everyone in her class in the afternoon. She'll go through each one individually, "bye bye josh, bye bye lake, bye bye ginger, bye bye joel." Then, she'll look at us as we're walking out and go, "I Jo." I guess if she addressed everyone else, she felt left out. Haha. I love it when she tells us, "I Jo." As if we didn't know.

She is still very anal and likes all her things "just so". She likes the leather love seat empty so she can play "night night" on it. Yesterday, I put my jacket on the love seat and the first thing she did when she saw it was to throw it off the love seat. She does not like other people's things on her stuff. She will also "hide" her pacifier in the morning - she puts it in between her bed and the wall - I guess so no one else will take it, but who knows? She likes to put on coats, and always wants them zipped up! (Even if she's inside and she's already warm!) We have to hide a lot of things from her now because she will become obsessed. Shoes, coats, pacifiers, etc. all have to be hidden or else she will want them on!

She only wants to sit in big people chairs now - she does not want to sit in baby chairs. A lot of the time, she doesn't want you sitting on the same furniture. About the only time she'll share the couch with me is if she's pretending to go "night night" and I pretend with her. Otherwise, she thinks the couch should be all hers.

If there is a big person spoon and her spoon, she will use the big person spoon all the time! She's decided that she's old enough. :) She's starting to show interest in the potty as well. It's fine that mommy and daddy use it, and she'll sit on her little potty, but only as a seat - not as a potty. She will not sit down and try to use it. She does NOT like that. Haha. The other day, she was sitting on her potty reading one of her books. I wish I had gotten a picture of that.

As the title of the post says, we're ending one thing and starting another. Chip and I have had a really difficult year this year. (Well, we've had difficult YEARS, but I think we're finally over being gluttons for punishment...) Anyway, we have told our higher ups that we will not be coming back next year. That was a weight lifted off of our shoulders. The night we sat down and decided, we really did have a celebration at the Frazier household. We are very happy we will not be returning, but it is hard to get up each day and love what you do when you know you won't be back. We are doing the best we can.

We will be moving to Tupelo - so we had to put our house on the market. That is surreal. It's very odd to see your house on the internet, with pictures and all that stuff too! We hope we will sell quickly and be able to purchase in Tupelo soon. We have patience and some wonderful people helping us.

I am so thankful for my family and the fact that they are able to have me come and work for them. I am looking forward to this career change and I know that Chip is also looking forward to what's ahead. I'm asking everyone to keep us in your thoughts/prayers. This year has been very difficult and we have about 13 weeks left. We appreciate everyone's support this year - a lot of you have been behind us and very kind and helpful even when you did not know what was going on. Some of you still do not know the full extent of what we go through/have gone through, but you still have been there for us. For that we are very grateful.

As I said before, we are REALLY looking forward to the future. We're just ready for the future to be the PRESENT! :)

Christmas Break (so far...)

2010-12-31T08:56:00.003-06:00

It might be easier to describe our Christmas break going day by day, but I'm not sure I can even do that! It's been a very busy Christmas break. We are very lucky that we both have jobs that give us a few weeks off during this time of year. It has given us the ability to do a lot and see ALL our family during this holiday.

We got out of school on Friday and we had a relaxing night at home - our last for while. On Saturday (Dec. 18th), we woke up early-ish (we were on the road by 8) and drove to Meridian, where we picked up Chip's dad's truck and his brother-in-law's trailer. We drove down to Baton Rouge. My sister is going to be living in HONG KONG for 3 years and was moving out of their home in Baton Rouge. We are going to be storing a lot of their stuff here in Starkville while they're out of the country.

This was the first time Jo was really able to "play" with her cousin Mary. Mary is a year and a half older than Jo and Jo's always been too little to really enjoy doing stuff with her cousins. They did lots of really cute things the two days we were down there. SOME of them I got on camera...

Here they are "sharing" the laptop - I think they were watching an episode of Super Why. Thank GOODNESS for Netflix. It was a chore to move stuff with two little ones underfoot, but the TV always stopped them in their tracks and kept their attention. We had a lot of discussion about "sharing" the TV - neither of them really wanted to (both being only children), but they did OK. It was funny for them to slowly ease their way in front of the computer and completely in the way of the other one. We thought it was cute - they did NOT.

Uncle Chip was MOST POPULAR among the children. He got to be the jungle gym and play toy for both of him. He was EXHAUSTED when we left, but he had a good time with the kids.

Here's Mary on the first day we were there. She was trying to interact with Jo like Jo was a fellow 3 year old. Jo had no idea what Mary was doing, but she was interested.

Mary told Jo, "Show me your silly face. Here - put your fingers in your mouth and stick out your tongue. This is your silly face. Look!"

We brought a lot of Elizabeth's stuff back to Starkville and the next day packed up the trailer with a table and chair set that is now at Max and Leigh's. We left Jo with our good friend Brittany (Aunt BEE BEE, as Jo calls her) who is expecting their first child in September! We had a nice, relaxing 25 minute lunch break at Chic-Fil-A (YUM.) and we were back on the road.

The NEXT day Elizabeth and Mary came up to spend the night with us and drop off some more things for us and to store. Elizabeth and I got up on Christmas Eve and made cookies. It's a family tradition to make cut out cookies and desserts for Christmas - something that my mother has always had us do. Whether we really want to or not, it's just not Christmas without a lot of baking. (Mmm... one thing that we did NOT do this Christmas was sausage balls.... I thought of that later, but it will definitely be on my list next year.)

Elizabeth went on up to Tupelo on the 24th and we stayed in Starkville. We went over to Brittany and Jim's house to help them install their Christmas present to each other (a 55" flat screen TV). Jim made a steak dinner - it was excellent!

On Christmas morning we woke up to find that it was SNOWING! We had a WHITE CHRISTMAS in MISSISSIPPI! The roads were fine though and so we had no problems traveling to Tupelo for the Prince family Christmas. If it has to snow (I'm not really one for winter...) that's the kind I like - it's pretty and doesn't make travel dangerous.

We had a great time at Papa John's house for Christmas. Jo was spoiled beyond belief this Christmas. I don't know if she knew what all was going on, but she liked it. Winnie had a great spread of food - pork tenderloin, ham, croissants, salami, cheese, chips, dips, desserts, and apple cider. Yum. (I can surely say we did NOT starve this Christmas!)

Jo got to play all day with all her cousins - Emily and Annie (who are both 16 months older), Mary (18 months older), and Lilly Grace (who turned 6 in October). Lilly Grace is such a sweet child and has a very gentle demeanor. She loves little children and is especially excited to see her cousin, "Baby Jo." Jo's cousins WORE HER OUT! She had a great time though.

On Sunday (Dec. 26th) we got up and had a good morning with Papa and Winnie and then hit the road. Again. We arrived in Meridian at lunch time and spent Christmas with the Frazier side of the family. Chip does not have a lot of surviving older relatives on his dad's side, but his Aunt Jessie has always hosted the family for the holiday events and we get to see all of Chip's cousins and Jo's second cousins. They showered Josephine with gifts - and she was so thrilled to be there!

AFTER lunch, we went to Chip's home and celebrated with his mom, step-dad, sister, grandmother, brother-in-law, nephew, aunt, and uncle. We had a great afternoon/evening talking. It was very relaxed and was good to have that relaxed atmosphere after so much traveling. I have to put this on the blog, because I'm still thinking about it days later, but Chip's mother had the most AWESOME dish which I ate for dinner AND lunch the next day. It was a white chili. Oh my goodness - it was fabulous. Josephine also thought so and probably could have eaten her weight in it if either Chip or I had let her.

On the 27th - it was finally time to go home. FOR GOOD! We first had to make a stop. I have long wanted Chip and I to go visit the cemetery where his dad is buried. (If you don't already know - I really LOVE cemeteries... I know, it's probably unusual, but I love all the history of the grave markers and the incriptions on them. It's a very moving display of love for those who have passed on before and it's heartening to know that people will remember you when you are gone - even complete strangers passing by in the cemetery.) Anyway - we took Jo and wandered around for a while before we finally found what we were looking for. We got a few pictures and this one was SO cute - Jo sat straight down and smiled for the camera!

We told Jo that it was her daddy's daddy and why we were there and showed her the grave marker. The sweetest thing happened when we left. As we were walking away, Jo turned around, waved, and said "bye bye." Isn't that so sweet?

----------------------------

Ok, that's enough with the stories of the travel! We've been home now for a few days and we got to visit yesterday for a while with Chip's best friend Matt, his wife, and their 5 year old. That was great. They live in Kansas and we hardly ever get to see them, except for when they come home for holidays. They are trying to move back to Mississippi - please pray for Matt and that he might find a job that is closer! He's been looking for a while for something that is both close and that he will be happy with. We know he'll find it, it's just a matter of something opening up!

Tonight we are going to the Starkville Country Club for their New Years Eve party. Nana and Lilly Grace are coming down to babysit Josephine. She will have a wonderful time, no doubt.

Ok, I know I haven't posted in a LONG time - is this enough information for ya?! Ha!

My 25th Birthday!

2010-11-15T12:37:00.003-06:00

I had a wonderful birthday and I wanted to thank everyone for their kind thoughts on my birthday. Chip and Jo and I had a great weekend and Jo helped her Daddy celebrate my birthday by singing to me on Sunday morning. Chip was singing "Happy Birthday" and Jo was going "No... Daddy... No..." (She didn't want him to sing.)

Chip got me a phone for my birthday, my mom got me a Kindle, Elizabeth purchased me a book in a series I've been reading (and a GIANT box of Hot Tamales), Max and Leigh got me a gift card to Harvey's (which we used Saturday night), and my grandparents are always great to give money! Even with all these gifts, I think that the time I got to spend with my family and relax this weekend was appreciated just as much.

I can't believe I'm 25!!! And Chip's going to be 30 in May! Oh my goodness! :)

Leigh's 30th Birthday and the Pumpkin Patch

2010-10-23T10:31:00.004-05:00

Last Saturday we went up to Tupelo for Jo's aunt's 30th birthday party. After the party, we went to the pumpkin patch at the Buffalo Park. Jo LOVED the goats. She thought they were great!
She was not so sure about the calf. We tried to get her to say "moo" and I showed her that the baby cow was very sweet, but I think it was a little too large for her. She watched, but didn't touch!

Here she is with her daddy and the goats again. I think she would have taken one of them home.

With her Nana and cousin Emily - trying to share Nana's lap.

Leigh's mom made a really great banner for her birthday. We had a wonderful lunch and really enjoyed watching all of Leigh's friends and children play together. Even Jo got in on the action!

The birthday cake...

Lilly Grace was a great big cousin and gave Jo a whole tour of the country club.

Here they are again, holding hands about to go on a walk.

We did have a great time seeing my side of the family and celebrating birthdays. It was a wonderful weekend, but it made Sunday come so much sooner!!!!!!!!!!! NO!!!!

Today's homecoming at MSU and we're looking forward to taking Jo. I'm not sure how long she'll make it, but we'll try to keep her up as long as we can. I'm sure sno cones and chicken tenders will work on her for a while!

Whoa - 18 Months!

2010-10-03T09:29:00.006-05:00

I can't believe it's been 18 months! We've been very busy over the last month and, I admit, I haven't been very good about taking pictures. I tried my best in the last few days to make up for it!
Thursday Chip and I took off with Jo to take her to the doctor. She had her 18 month check up and we wanted him to look at her wrist because she hurt it playing Wednesday night. She was fine, which made us happy, and she's in the 75th percentile of both height and weight. We kept her home with us and took a walk that afternoon. The weather was perfect.

She was putting leaves in the bird bath. Trying to clean up the patio area in our neighborhood. That's my daughter!

She had to have a snack. She LOVES cheese sticks. So does Stella... it's quite tempting to have something the dog loves so close to her nose. They often fight over whose cheese stick it is.

She got a whoe box of clothes from her Aunt Leigh last weekend. One of the items in there was a pair of baby legs.... they're kind of like tights without a part to go over the diaper. She's been wearing them EVERY DAY when she comes home from daycare... it doesn't matter if she's already got something on her legs or not. She picked out this WHOLE outfit.

She also really enjoys feeding herself. We give her plenty of opportunities. She's getting pretty good with the spoon. Yogurt and applesauce are some of her favorite snacks.

She got stuck in the cabinet. Chip caught it on camera. I guess she grew some since the last time she had been in the cabinet. She hasn't tried to get in since.

She likes her little TV, but it hasn't been used much in a while. If she does sit still enough to watch it, she sits there for a while.

This particular day she couldn't be bothered!One of the little dresses Winnie got her! It's finally been cool enough in the mornings to put her in something long sleeved or something with pants. Who would have thought that day would come??? It's been SO pleasant lately. Jo, I guess, had forgotten what sleeves were. She looked at those when I put them on and was pointing and trying to get them off! She got used to them though.

Jo's ready to go to the game! We had a bow to put in her hair, but it was the first time she'd worn it and it was pulling on her little hairs. She did NOT like the bow, but she really did want to wear something on her head, so I let her wear one of my headbands to the game. She kept it on almost all day.

Here she is checking out her bag with Papa John. She had a great time at the game.

Before the game... checking out the stadium seats.

Jo with Daddy at the game.
Our little bulldog!

After the game. She was TIRED. She woke up at 7, went to City Bagel at 8 for breakfast, got to campus around 9:45 and she walked and walked and walked around campus - she did NOT want to be held. We left at the beginning of the 4th quarter and she was still in a pretty good mood. You could tell she was sleepy. By the time we got home, she had fallen asleep in the car and wouldn't be woken up FOR ANYTHING. She had a great time... so did we! :)

More pics from Wyatt's birthday

2010-09-03T08:15:00.003-05:00

She did NOT like the slide!
They had a blast together, but it was SO HOT - Chip wasn't wet from the sprinklers - that was sweat. I was too hot and did not want to get dirty - I was inside with the little baby! (Our friend Brecken's baby, Bella, who is 9 mos.)

Aren't they just too cute?

This weekend will be the first MSU football game. We are very much looking forward to going out and visiting with friends we haven't seen in a long time. We're also looking forward to going tailgating! I think Chip is most excited about the football game, but cowbells are a close second! :)

Have a GREAT Labor Day weekend...

August

2010-09-01T18:37:00.002-05:00

Beautiful Jo! This is our desktop background. She had a blast in the sprinklers at Lisa's house. This was Wyatt's 2nd birthday. It was HOT that day - Jo and her daddy spent most of the day near the water. Her mommy spent most of the day inside with the itty bitty babies! This is a picture that the lady who owns Dandy Doodlez took... actually, she took all the pictures on this blog...

Here she is... deciding she likes the sprinkler.

Another pic of Jo in the sprinkler.

This is the first pic of us at the sprinkler...I didn't klnow I was being photographed!!! Jo always looks cute!

This weekend is the first STATE ballgame. We're really looking forward to going out and tailgating. I'll try to remember and charge/bring my camera.

Silly Jo!

2010-07-18T18:47:00.004-05:00

We have been having a great time lounging around the house lately... doing NOTHING. I think it's our only time this year to have a real break. (Even in our real break, we've been busy up at school... ugh.) We've been catching up on TV shows with our new subscription to Netflix (instant streaming). It is so cool - I think they invented this for college students and teachers during the summer - to give us something to do! :)

This past Saturday we took Jo out for a walk in the neighborhood. She really enjoyed it. Every time we thought she was getting tired, we'd pick her up and she'd protest loudly. She probably could have stayed outside ALL day. It wasn't too hot yesterday and we got a great afternoon rain after our walk.

I put Jo's shorts on her head to be silly with her. Yesterday afternoon, she put them on top of her own head. Now she thinks this is where they should go. HAHA! (Side note about her shoes, these are hand-me-downs and we put them on her yesterday b/c she's outgrown her other sandals... she wouldn't take them OFF! She wore them until BEDTIME! She LOVES shoes.)

Here she is with my headband on her head. She likes to put it on herself... and this is how she chooses to wear it.

Isn't this such a cute picture?Showing us her NOSE.

Showing us her EARS.

And, her favorite... showing us her BABY BELLY. (She calls it beby bebee!)

Here she is playing with coasters. She likes to "count" them... even though every coaster is "two"... we're constantly hearing her (off by herself)... "two.... two... two... two...."

Reading a book with Daddy - one of her favorite things in the world is to read a book. This book she received at her well-baby checkup. She thinks it's great and she always gives the baby a kiss at the end. THEN we read it AGAIN.

Jo eating one of my chocolate truffle bites... she just ate the chocolate out of the center. It was so satisfying for her!

I don't think we're in Kansas anymore...

2010-06-23T13:57:00.006-05:00

So - if you can't already tell - we went to St. Louis on our way to Kansas. My uncle, David, lives there and Chip and I have never been. He took us to the arch and on a nice scenic driving tour of the city. Who knew the city was that pretty?? We also ate dinner at an awesome restaurant called the Smoked Duck. VERY tasty. Their smoked THEN fried chicken wings were awesome.
Chip, Jo, and Uncle David at the base of the arch. I walked down some of the stairs to take a photo of the plaque which shows the 1993 flood line. It was a beautiful day that day!

Jo and I at the base of the arch... Yes, we're both representin' MSU! Go Bulldogs!

At the base of the arch they have a museum about the west and the exploration of the land, first settlements, and the general history associated with St. Louis/the gateway to the west. Jo (below) is showing you what she knows about Indians... doing an indian call I guess. We try to teach her to be sensitive to other cultures. :)

We did NOT get in the capsule to go to the top. This is one they've set up at the bottom (I guess so people don't freak out when they get in there). Chip's not a big fan of heights and I'm not a big fan of confined spaces. We did get in JUST for the photo op.

I love this picture of Jo. It's at Matt and Aimee's rehearsal. She found Chip's tie box and that kept her quite entertained until we went to dinner. This is her cousin Mary's dress that she's wearing. We are quite thankful for all the hand-me-downs!

Matt and Chip at Matt's wedding reception.

Jo spent a good time before the wedding walking around the church. On the left is Aimee's daughter, Mikaya. She's 4 1/2 and she LOVES baby Jo. She wanted so badly for Jo to play with her, but Jo's not quite that advanced yet. Maybe one day... Mikaya is a really smart and sweet little girl. We really enjoyed spending time with her!

Here we are on the campus of Kansas University. It's a lot more hilly than you would think Kansas would be. We drove around a little bit on campus, this is one of the taller hills on campus and you're overlooking the stadium. Anyway, it's beautiful there. I just had to take a picture to prove it. I don't think that people think "beautiful" when someone says "Kansas."

I LOVE this photo. I think I'm going to send it in to the newspaper for their summer photos page. We're also going to blow it up and put it in the house. The tower behind Jo is KU's memorial tower to KU students who died during WWII. It sits on the top of that very large hill overlooking the stadium and plays music every hour - with REAL bells. It's beautiful.

This is the Mississippi River in Cape Girardeau, MO. It's in flood stage right now. You can kind of see from this photo. Just a few hundred yards down, the levee doors are closed because the water is too high for them to be open. VERY cool!

Here we are in the B&B. Jo was watching Curious George. She was SO good on vacation. I think she really enjoyed all the stuff we did, but... who knows. We enjoyed it. We had a wonderful time!

Beginning of Summer

2010-06-06T09:02:00.002-05:00

Busy Busy Busy.

We've been out of school for about two weeks, and we've already gone back to work! Chip and I are working a summer camp for the school district during the month of June. It's pretty interesting. That's about all we can say. We're having a good time though. The people we're working with are pretty cool.

Last weekend we went to Baton Rouge to visit Elizabeth, Joe, and Mary. I forgot my camera, but Elizabeth got some good pictures on her camera. I'll have to get her to send them to me. We went to the zoo and to the mall. We had a great time!

We're planning on going to the pool this afternoon and taking the baby. So exciting! Chip's going to meet up with some of his friends and play golf. I'm going to lay out and take Jo in the pool.

In about two weeks, we're going to be off to Kansas. KANSAS! We're going for one of Chip's best friend's wedding. Not looking forward to all the driving, but I am looking forward to the wedding. It will be our "vacation" this year. We're stopping off in Missouri to stay a few days and check out what they have there.

I'll try to remember my camera!

Spring Days and Lounging Around the House

2010-04-11T14:07:00.003-05:00

I've published several updates today. If you're looking at the time stamp, you'll realize that they've all been published during the Sunday session of the Masters. I really have no desire/care in the world to watch the Masters, but Chip's enjoying it. I thought I'd take this time to update the blog.

Jo loves the beads that her Aunt E brought to her from Mardi Gras. She will play with these for hours. She started stacking them on and just didn't stop.
I had to stop her to get this picture, but she was pretty tangled up in them when she was finished. She started to crawl away with all the beads on, it really didn't work very well though.Below is Jo's first taste of Hot Tamales. She liked them. She loves anything with cinnamon. I thought these would be too hot, but she didn't seem to mind.

Here she is trying to get some out for herself. Her chubby hands could grab the Hot Tamales in the box, but she couldn't pull her hand out without losing the candy. It was altogether frustrating for the baby.

Here she is trying to "get" the camera.

One of her new faces is the one below. She must have learned it at daycare, because we didn't get her to start doing it. When she does the face below we just LAUGH because it is SO funny. She laughs and then she'll do it again. She's such a ham! She loves to entertain us. (The shirt she's wearing is from daycare. She made a mess on the shirt we sent her in and all her extra clothes were long sleeved - the shirt she's wearing is a 4T and way too big on her, but she was so cute in that extra large shirt!)

Here's Jo sitting in the chair Papa and Winnie got for her. She's trying to be an Indian - I guess...

She loves her chair. She reclines and rocks in it. Chip and I will put her in the chair early in the mornings before she goes to school so she can drink her milk and watch Curious George. She LOVES to see what trouble George gets in to!

That's our chunky monkey!!

Jo's FIRST BIRTHDAY!

2010-04-11T14:01:00.002-05:00

We had her birthday party on April 3rd. Chip and I spent a lot of time preparing for the party. You know you really only do it for the adults, but it's just so fun for us and one day she'll look back and enjoy it. Here she is checking out her happy birthday sign - she really liked the butterflies we cut out of scrapbooking paper.
Jo with Mommy!

Jo with Daddy!

Those are the only pictures we have from her birthday party! I was so busy trying to make sure stuff was in order and everyone was happy, I guess I didn't really think about taking any more pictures. I did get a lot of video tape of us singing her "Happy Birthday" and her eating her first birthday cupcake, I also got the whole gift unwrapping escapade on tape. I still haven't played with my video camera enough to see how to upload and edit video, so that'll just be something you'll have to come to our house if you want to see it!!

Pre-Birthday Fun

2010-04-11T13:54:00.003-05:00

I wanted to make a cake for Jo's birthday with a silicone cake mold I got for Christmas. It didn't turn out as I expected, but I thought the cake would be good practice for Jo for her first birthday. She made much more of a mess with this cake than she did with her real birthday cupcakes!
She was trying to share some with me! How generous.

I had to get a good shot of her hands. She was FILTHY. She did NOT want me to clean her off either - that was her icing and she worked hard to get it all over herself! :)

A cute shot of the aftermath.

Spring Break

2010-03-18T16:09:00.004-05:00

This week is our spring break. Jo's still going to day care and it's allowed Chip and I to do a lot of needed things around the house (and some not-so-needed things).

Today was a beautiful day in Starkville. I'm guessing around 70 degrees and slightly breezy. Anyway, we felt like going outside to catch the sunshine, so we picked Jo up at day care around 2:30 (after her nap) and took her to campus.
She and Stella had the best time hanging out. She spent most of the time in her stroller, but we pulled her out to take photos at different stops on our walk.

Again, we're outside - exploring campus - and Jo's much more interested in the thing that came FROM HOME. They're best friends though - she had a blast.

Checking out the engraving on the seat bench near President Lee.

Mom, baby Jo, and President Lee. It's not quite exam time yet, so we did not give him the obligatory salute! (We'll go back in May...)

Josephine had a wonderful time exploring leaves and grass. To my knowledge, she's never crawled around on grass until today. She really liked the leaves and pulling them apart - and only tried to eat them twice.

Here I am with my first two babies!

Again, like I said, she's never really crawled on grass before, so she was skeptical at first, but I think she really enjoyed it when she figured it out. She did whine when we took her and put her back in the stroller. She wanted to stay and play with her leaves! The grass was a little wet, and although she didn't put enough pressure on the grass to soak up any residual moisture from the rain a few days ago - I did. I had a wet spot on my rear end the rest of our walk.

Here's Jo giving you her best BULLDOG face. They look alike in the cheeks, huh?

At home earlier this week.

She's started to watch TV - we'll put on Dora or Diego - or any cartoon movie Chip has recorded. He's good about picking out good movies. He's recorded The Land Before Time and the Veggie Tales movies for her and she's really enjoyed those.

Jo loved shaking my Hot Tamales box, then it ran out... and it wasn't so fun anymore. But here she is while it lasted. I'm in the background (do not pay attention to how I look - it's SPRING BREAK). I'm reading aloud in this picture. I checked out a copy of The Giver from our school library. It's one of my favorite books ever, but Chip's never read it, so we're reading it as a family this week. Even Jo's getting to hear it, although I know it doesn't mean anything to her now. She mainly serves as a distraction, but I enjoy the family time.

Here she is with her big puppy dog. It's multifunctional. It serves as a body pillow for her, as well as a toy, something to climb on - you name it! This night she was being especially silly. Singing and dancing - she was so fun!

Jo is often generous to the dog. Here Jo is eating and Stella's hoping for a snack. We're trying to train Jo NOT to feed her, but Jo gets such enjoyment out of Stella's reaction - it's going to be hard to break!

Here she is eating CHICKEN! By far, one of her favorite meals is chicken nuggets. We gave her mac-n-cheese yesterday and she enjoyed that too. There's not a lot that goes in and comes back out with this child. She is much like her father and mainly just enjoys eating.

We are so thankful for her - she's added so much to our family and made life so much more fulfilling. She's strenghtened my relationship with Chip and helped us find mutual enjoyment in so many things. Now that she's almost a year, and each day seems to get more and more exciting - I can't wait to see what's in store. I've never enjoyed something so much as having my family! I love being a mom and a wife and I know Chip really enjoys his role as father and husband - he's wonderful at both!

AMS Spring Musical

2010-02-19T08:03:00.003-06:00

Well, we've been working since January (almost every day) on this musical, and now it's here. We had our first performance on Thursday morning for AMS and it went really well and I think all of the kids really enjoyed it!

We've had a fabulous time, and I just wanted to post a few pictures that we took...

And the link to the news article: http://www.starkvilledailynews.com/content/view/200508/60/ (There's a misprint - the Saturday performance is NOT at 6, it's at 7 like the Friday performance.)

We will be FINISHED on MONDAY!!! I can't wait. What a relief! The kids are great and have worked so hard, but I'm wiped out. :)

Update

2010-01-28T18:20:00.002-06:00

Sorry it's been weeks since updating... Chip and I are kind of swamped right now with work and extra curricular stuff.

I have been working with 20 kids after school every day on the musical. The children are wonderful - I could not have asked for a better group of kids. They impress me every day and they are such sweet hearts - I'm really enjoying the time I get to spend with them. It is, however, a time committment and something I've never done before, so I'm quite overwhelmed.

Chip is also working hard after school tutoring for Project Assets. He is busy until 5 and I'm busy until 5:30 - poor Jo gets picked up at 4:30 and taken to play practice until all the kids get picked up.

Jo is growing a TON! She's been quite sick this past week. (I think just with the weather changing - all the kids at school have it too.) She's trying to pull up to stand, although she really doesn't trust objects - she only wants to pull up on us. She's been cruising a bit on the furniture, especially if there's something nearby she wants to get to. She is also saying different words and trying to repeat us, which is really cute.

The other day I got her to stand on her own, but as soon as she realized that she was all alone, she sat down. Falling on her booty is not as traumatic as it once was, she kind of looks around and tries to get back up. She's rolling over from her belly to her back and can sit from both positions. She has a mind to go now and will cry if we change her plans. She's very easy going, but here lately she's been quite stubborn. (Dang, why'd she have to get that from me?)

She's also getting very tall... wearing a lot of 18 month things. I can't believe she's so big! She'll be 10 months old on Monday. Does that even seem right??

Sorry no pictures (Joe, you're just going to have to get over it...). My camera's been kind of tricky lately and really needs to be replaced. I'll try to post some from this weekend. My mother is coming down to visit Jo and has promised to bring Lilly Grace. I'm looking forward to it.

Until then...

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

2010-01-03T16:17:00.004-06:00

Baby Jo had a really bad cold which led to a double ear infection over Christmas. We propped her up in her pack and play so she could sleep more comfortably, and this is how she ended up... she's getting too long to sleep sideways! :)

Here's a picture of Jo on her first Christmas! We were at Papa John's house...

Annie did not have any pants on because she sat in the cat's water... it did not seem to bother her in the least.

Here's Em climbing up and down the stairs... one of her favorite things to do.

Lilly Grace got an umbrella like Fancy Nancy... I think this is her favorite toy from Papa John and Winnie.

Jo's Aunt Bonnie got her this hat (and a set of matching mittens). I could only get one mitten on her, but the hat she really enjoyed.

HAPPY NEW YEAR - 2010!!!

We hung out at home on New Years Day... here's Jo with some ribbon she found tied around one of my teacher gifts.
Isn't she cute!??
Sorry I didn't have more pictures from Christmas. There are NONE of me! I posted almost every picture I took... I was too busy enjoying it to take photos!

Beginning of the Christmas Season

2009-12-13T18:16:00.002-06:00

Chip and I are approaching exams... they start tomorrow! I can't believe that an ENTIRE semester has gone by. This year has FLOWN by so fast. I'm taking it easy on my kids this semester for their exams. Being an exploratory class, I don't want to stress them with my exam AND I've worked their butts off this nine weeks with all the stuff they've done. They've really learned to meet my expectations and done a great job meeting deadlines, too. This week we're going to have fun after their exams watching Christmas classics like The Polar Express, It's A Wonderful Life, and Home Alone...

This past Friday we went to eat breakfast with Santa (at the CLC). Jo had no real interest in Santa when she had her photo taken, she was most interested in his beard. I'm pretty sure the photographer got NO good pictures of her with Santa, but we've got them for proof. One day she'll want to see her first photo with Santa...

Today I made some treats for us to enjoy. Between Jo, Chip, and myself, we've gone through 1 1/2 custard pies today!!! Jo LOVED custard pie and ate an entire piece herself. (It was a small piece.) I also made cocoons for our "team" Christmas party at work. I just realized that our faculty gathering is Tuesday. Still haven't worked out whether we'll be able to go or not. Chip tutors on Tuesdays at the family school in Starkville, so our schedules may not allow us to go.

Earlier today, when we were in the kitchen baking/cleaning, Jo was on the ground scooting around in the living room and when we looked around, she had made it all the way into the kitchen with us! Chip walked her back to her area with her toys, and she proceeded to scoot right back into the kitchen. She's getting around really well and starting to get up on her knees. It's so exciting. We've really got to baby proof. All the stuff on her level is safe, but we've got to get outlet covers and baby gates SOON!

Sooner than later, we'll be Christmasing with Chip's family and up in Tupelo with mine. And then, before we know it - it'll be 2010 and I'll be back at work!

Oh my.

Thanksgiving and a visit to Papa John's

2009-12-07T20:07:00.003-06:00

This past weekend Chip had class in Tupelo for his administration thing. He normally rides with another guy, but it didn't work out this weekend. Jo and I accompanied him up to Tupelo. We visited with Papa John and Winnie Saturday - we went shopping for furniture!! Jo loves shopping!!!
She has a great time with regular household products (as all kids do). Anyway, we had a blast together and it was nice to spend a long day with my dad (and Jo's grandpa). She loves Papa John and Winnie!
Note in the picture below - the tshirt is an 18 month shirt and the overalls are 12 month... and the overalls are almost too small. She's an Amazon Baby. And quite a work out to carry around furniture stores - especially when you have to sit in every couch there.

Josephine really liked her cousin Stephanie's cheesecake. It was Key Lime cheesecake. She liked it, but that tang suprised her every time! This is the best photo I got. She was scooting around when we were feeding her.

Jo and her second cousin, Asher. Asher turned one about a week before Thanksgiving. They're about 4 months apart. They had a great time together. Jo was interested in EVERYTHING Asher did.

Jo and I - getting ready to go to family Thanksgiving. She discovered that the nuts can was a great drum! (We were in Meridian with Chip's family for Thanksgiving. His whole mom's side of the family gathered at the church to eat - it was wonderful!)

We did informal Christmas pics this year in front of our new tree. Jo was not all that excited to be in a dress just for pictures, but she was a good sport.

Family Christmas photo. Sorry we're not perfectly color coordinated! (It's not really our style...) For my siblings... this pic will be your Christmas present. Happy early Christmas! :)

Birthday

2009-11-12T10:35:00.002-06:00

WAAAAHH!!! I'm getting old! My birthday's on Saturday. I'm not really thinking about it (quite honestly, I have too much on my mind... tryouts for our musical are Tuesday and Wednesday, we have a field trip to Meridian Monday, and I'm tutoring this afternoon...). Chip bought me two books for my birthday about the Kennedys. (I'm partially obsessed.) One book is about the male Kennedys through the generations and the other is Rose Kennedy's memoir. The latter is an original printing and he got it at a used book store here in town. I LOVE the smell of old books.

Some of my friends have Kindles and they're obsessed, but I still like to carry the book around with me and dog ear my pages. It's just not the same on the Kindle. The nice thing about those things is that books are significantly cheaper. Sometimes I'm just not about the technology.

In JOSEPHINE news, she cut her first tooth! I found it last Saturday. Since then, she's been drooling on EVERYTHING. She's so cute when she smiles and that one tooth sticks out! She's also starting to turn circles when you put her on her belly. She can turn circles and creep backwards. I'm sure she'll be crawling soon.

We will be traveling to Tupelo for my birthday this weekend. We're celebrating with a party on Friday at my mom's. Saturday morning Chip and I are going to Ballard Park to watch our girls comptete in a soccer tournament. We also plan to go to the Flea Market. Chip and I are getting a new TV for ourselves for Christmas, so we're going to try and find a good deal. Perhaps we'll be buying that the day after Thanksgiving, but we're going to look anyway. Saturday night is the Alabama game and, thankfully, we're not going to be in town. I promise - Starkville is NOT build for an extra 90 - 100 thousand people. I hope we win. I hate Alabama. Hate is not a strong enough word for how Chip feels about Alabama. I'll pull for Bama when they're playing Ole Miss... Chip won't watch the game.

Well... it's time for children again. I'll post some updated pictures that we have of Josephine soon.

2009-11-05T14:39:00.002-06:00

We're using digital photography to create stop-motion music videos in class. I never assign a project without having done it myself. I think that's a good rule of thumb as a teacher. I've never given a test I haven't taken and I've never asked kids to do something I can't do... so here's my music video. It took about a day and a half, and I worked on it during the day (so you may see some students in the background). They're doing such an awesome job, but the cameras we have use AA batteries and we're burning through those faster than 7th graders lose pencils!

Hope this works... I'm at school and it may take the rest of the day for this to upload!

2009-10-27T17:18:00.004-05:00

Here's Jo's "friendly" fall costume. I didn't know what First Baptist's daycare was referring to as "friendly" and a Baptist friend of mine told me as long as she didn't go as a witch or a devil, she was fine. Pumpkin, apparently, is friendly. Here's Jo sitting in her costume. We're probably going to put her in some black sweatpants and a long sleeved black shirt that she has. And she won't wear the bib... but, you get the idea. This is just such a funny picture!

This picture reminds me of "fat guy in a little coat." Wonder why?

This was the day of the Georgia Tech game. Jo had on an MSU shirt, but you can't see it because of the bib. She was rooting - hard! Oh well.

She and Daddy did try to listen to the game to make sure they weren't missing anything! I think this is so cute. It looks like she's listening intently, but, really, she's just trying to reach for the mp3 player.

She tries to stand, but falls over most of the time! I think this picture is sweet though.

My birthday's in two and a half weeks. Chip's getting ready for that now. Wonder what he'll get me...

And since my birthday's coming up, we all know Christmas is right around the corner. Seems like we're frantically making plans. We have over 8 weeks. If I can teach the Civil War and Reconstruction in 8 weeks, I think our family can plan a Christmas get together! :) Looking forward to seeing everyone... for my birthday AND for Christmas!

Octibbidy.

2009-10-13T15:09:00.003-05:00

These past few weeks have gone by VERY quickly. Chip and I both have a head cold (mine's spreading into my chest) and poor Jo was the only one who felt well this past weekend. But she's going through a growth spurt, so she's up a couple times at night to eat.

She's started eating real food at daycare. Yesterday I sent her with sweet peas and I told Mrs. Susan good luck. I think sweet peas are DISGUSTING! Jo ate all of them. She's SO Chip's baby.

We've had such a busy week at school. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow in the morning we've been doing MCT2 style testing. It's thrown our schedule off, which has been challenging, but we've got to do what we've got to do. The school district hired a new PEAK teacher and they gave her my PEAK class and gave me some VIVA art kids. It's been hard to lose my kids, but I can only do so much.

The musical is getting underway. We're having an interest meeting next Thursday. I can't believe it's here already!!! OH MY GOSH!!! Life is going to FLY by the next few months. I know it.

Thursday night we're having birthday parties for all of our "Octibbidy" birthdays. It'll be fun to take Jo up to Tupelo and show her off. Papa John's seen her most recently -but she's trying to sit up now and Chip's been putting her on her belly and watching her try to scoot around. What a mess! I gave her applesauce yesterday - she HATED it. Chip thought she was going to throw up. Poor thing.

Well... I just felt like I should update the blog... it's been a little while. I'm still alive!!!

Jo's First MSU Game

2009-09-30T17:13:00.004-05:00

Well, I guess we picked a good game for Jo to go to. It was the LSU game and, although we didn't win, it was a really good football game - not like the usual clobbering that we receive from LSU. Here she is with Papa John. Winnie and Papa John got to pass her around a little bit during the game. She was quite entertained with Winnie's phone and her glasses case. She had a wonderful time watching people and was in a really good mood - despite all of the rain that morning. We were soaked... she was pretty dry.

She just hung out. We got a lot of compliments from people sitting around us about how good she was. She was wonderful. She loves being outside and LOVES being around people.

I was worried about what we'd do when naptime came around. Chip tried to get her to nap in his lap, but Jo wouldn't take it. I held her and kept the pacifier in and she went right to sleep. That child slept through touchdowns and interceptions. Even with the crowd yelling, cheering, and ringing their cowbells. She slept through most of the 2nd quarter and she woke up right before half time.

She was a trooper that day. She went to the game, sat through the weather, napped through the cheers, and then went to Old Venice and let us eat a nice dinner. We are so lucky! (I promise, she's not that patient at home...)

Well. One nine weeks will be over next week. It seems like school just started and we're already 1/4 of the way through. Amazing.

MSU, sitting, and more...

2009-09-22T16:53:00.000-05:00

One of my friends at school brought me her son's seat because he's walking now. We're trying it out on Jo to see how she likes it. She likes it ok, but she's just not convinced. To be honest, she does pretty well sitting and playing by herself. She'll tump over every once in a while, but she can sit by herself some!Chip was feeding the baby the other night and she fell asleep. Sweet things. I love it when babies fall asleep on you!

She's had a cold here the last few days, but it really hasn't affected her too much. She's so funny!

This was Chip the other day holding his two babies. Jo's trying to hide her face and Stella's trying to lick it. They love each other. Up until now, Stella's been pretty much the winner - getting her licks in when she wants. Now, Jo's learned how to reach out, grab, and PULL Stella's ears. Stella does not like that at all!

Jo in her MSU outfit. She wore it to our first football game vs. Jackson State. It was a "Maroon Out." They had MSU day at daycare too - this was also her outfit. She has other MSU stuff, but none of it fits yet. And she's also got a maroon bow - but I think we'll have to wait a while longer until some hair comes in. She's finally lost all her newborn hair.

That's our chunky baby! She's getting SO big and she's eating veggies and fruits now. She prefers veggies, but I've tried to get her to like bananas and peaches. No go. She really really liked sweet potatoes. Mmmm Mmm.

Wallpaper

2009-09-06T10:30:00.000-05:00

I made a new wallpaper for my desktop background. I'm attaching it to this post. If you click on it, you can see the new collage of baby Jo. I have brand new pictures of the baby in her MSU outfit, but I haven't uploaded them to my computer yet. I'll have to remember to do it this week.

We had a wonderful week this week. It was quite full. Chip took Wednesday off to meet a plumber at our house to fix a leak (it was an easy fix, thank goodness). Friday we met some friends from work after school and hung out and for dinner Chip's best friend (who lives in Kansas) met us at the Grill with his girlfriend, Aimee, and her daughter, Makaiya. We had a wonderful Friday night.

Saturday we got up early (even earlier than the baby) and woke her up to go eat breakfast at City Bagel. We stopped by the farmer's market that they've started and looked around, but I was not in the mood to spend any more money - so we came home empty handed. It's a kind of neat thing for a Saturday morning though.

Saturday around lunch we went up to campus to walk around and show baby Jo the tailgating scene. It was SO HUMID though. I did not enjoy it, but she had a good time. I think the heat took a lot out of her because she slept almost the rest of the day. We got to see the Jackson State band on our way back to the car - she was not too impressed. I think she was on "sensory overload." We came home and watched the game on the TV - thank goodness MSU won. Chip's parents came over after the game and we ate pizza together. We were really glad to see them and thankful they got to come over.

Don't know what the rest of the weekend has in store, but we're having a relaxing 3 day weekend. I'm telling you, I could go teach on Monday. Normally by this time in the year I'm worn out and I need that extra day, but this year is going so well I'm sad when the weekend rolls around.

Jo's started to reach for stuff now. I gave her my rings the other day and she reached out to grab them... and then tried to stick them in her mouth! She's most interested in the remote and will almost fight you for it when you're trying to change the channel. She's getting SO BIG and she's so much fun! We're having a great time.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Baby Jo!

2009-08-31T19:38:00.000-05:00

Mom wanted to see some more pics of the baby... here she is!!!

I think this was last Saturday morning. Jo and I and Stella were all too comfy on the couch and Chip had to capture it on camera. Excuse the glasses, pjs, and bed head.

We took this picture today. If I look tired, it's because I am! School is wonderful, but it's exhausting. And today I went to WalMart and Kroger after school. Ugh.

It's baby Jo's 5th month birthday. I am having such a great time with her. She's becoming so much more fun to be around. She loves day care and is still adjusting somewhat, but she's doing so well. This is the beginning of her 4th week in day care. They do art projects with them and schedule activities. Some days her activities are Bible stories, others are music-based, and sometimes their activities are "bubbles." Here's my first art project from my daughter. I'm laminating it tomorrow at school and putting it up by my desk. Definitely a future artist... I can tell! (Just kidding...)

She's started to eat baby food now. We started her on bananas and she gags when she eats them. I moved her to peaches when she finished her round of bananas and she gagged on those too. I'm with her. Baby food is nasty. I think the only thing that is excited is Stella. She gets to clean up!

I took a short video the other day of Jo laughing. Chip can really get her going, but if I take a really long video, I'm sitting here for hours trying to get it to upload. Anyway... here's the baby...

Lovely Baby

2009-08-18T18:24:00.000-05:00

Jo with Mommy... she's so sweet!

I still say that Jo looks like her daddy... and this is why! Aren't they so cute together???

Ahhhh ha ha ha ha!!!!!!!!!!! She's recently started squealing with delight. It's hilarious. This isn't the best example, but I'm quickly learning that as soon as a child does something worth capturing on video, they'll stop doing is as soon as you get the camera. :)

Pictures!

2009-08-15T08:06:00.001-05:00

I love this. I put Jo down on the floor this morning and Stella laid down next to her... at first I was upset that she was in the picture, but when she rolled onto her back and turned towards Jo - it was just too cute!

She's rolling over all the time now and I was trying to get a good picture of her on her tummy (see below) but I only got one before she was on her back. She does NOT like to be on her tummy!!

You can kind of see her leaning to roll over in this picture. Oh well... it's still cute!

I love this picture of her. Her smiles are so frequent now and she'll smile for almost anything.

A cute picture with Nana. I took this picture a few weeks ago when we went up to Tupelo so Chip could play in a golf tourney with Dad. Jo got to spend a lot of time with Nana!

Picture of us at the dinner at TCC. Can you tell Chip forgot sunscreen?

Dad and Winnie. She does not like her picture to be taken, but I like this photo. I think it's cute!

I love my dad and this night it was his 55th birthday! I think he looks much younger than 55... We had a wonderful time that night. There was dinner and dancing... and it was really nice to have an adult night out with my husband and to hang out with my dad.

School!

2009-08-09T08:21:00.001-05:00

All three of us started school this week. Josephine is still adjusting, but her reports have gotten consistently better and she got all smiley faces Friday!

We're still in transition about starting school and the numbers of students that we have are changing daily (as they do the first days of school). On Wednesday (before students arrived) I taught 7 classes of Viva Drama. When I got to school on Thursday (1st day back for students) I was teaching a class of Viva Art, 5 classes of Viva Drama, and one class of Peak (intellectually gifted). Quite different. I think that the Peak class is going to be the most challenging class to plan for, but the most rewarding class to have. I really am enjoying all my kids. They're such neat kids and I'm trying to adjust to being the teacher where the kids don't want to leave. Teaching history - they're not to enthused about the subject matter, but in Viva they LOVE having the freedom they're given.

Chip is having a pretty good year too. He says he likes his kids more this year, but it's taking its toll on him because the first two days of school he missed his planning period (meetings). Teaching/being on your feet all day straight is exhausting.

We're still trying to get on our own schedule here at home. Seeing what works best for us to get ourselves ready and Josephine ready to go to daycare. I have to drop off Jo at 7:30 and get to school at 7:30 also. Impossible. I'm just a few minutes late to my classroom, but class doesn't start until 7:45. Luckily, my next door neighbor in my building teaches Viva Art (my 1st period class) so we teach it together (well, I facilitate). All my students report to her room. It helps a whole lot with my schedule and dropping the baby off.

My first project for my Peak class is for them to get to know themselves. We're doing a lot of assessments of self (brain dominance, multiple intelligences, sensory perception, etc.) and they're going to create a presentation of themselves. Our first unit is going to be a psychology unit and discuss their development. I think they'll really find this interesting. Still thinking about what our next three units will be, but they all want to do something where we build something. I'll have to research that. In Viva Drama, we're going to do a presentation on the history of Theatre (they can take any direction they want) and we're going to begin this nine weeks with monologues/character development. The one thing I've heard a lot of from these kids is that they want to do a lot more acting. We played Charades on Friday. Where in a regular classroom can you play Charades as part of your curriculum?? I LOVE my new job. Challenging, but incredibly rewarding!! :)

Sleeping

2009-07-30T09:37:00.000-05:00

Sorry... I know I've posted a lot lately - but there's a lot going on!!

Just wanted to add this picture of Josephine asleep in my new classroom. Attached to the back of the classroom is a storage closet and Chip and I had to move some last minute things over and I had to put the room together, so while he was moving and I was cleaning/straightening up Jo took a nap. I'm sure she's going to use this against us one day and tell us we were bad parents, but she slept really well and it's a very quiet storage room!! She actually slept really well there - she took a 2 1/2 hour nap.

Also, just to let everyone know - Josephine is sleeping through the night. She goes to bed around 9 and wakes up around 6. That's about how I sleep when school's going on! :)

Traveling

2009-07-29T08:47:00.001-05:00

Chip had to go to Jackson yesterday to get his defibrillator checked so Jo and I went along for the ride. Chip loved the fact that she was sleeping with her hands on her knees. She's getting to be quite the little road warrior. After going to Jackson, we took her up to school to help pass out schedules to incoming 7th graders. We're training her to be a workoholic early. :)

I'm going to go up to school today and take pictures of my new classroom. Will post later!

School is a few days away!

2009-07-27T19:23:00.000-05:00

Seems like the summer has flown by, but actually it's been a long time since we let our kids go in May. Today was the first day that I could get into my new room at school because they've been waxing the floors in the Viva building. We're not able to get into our school after school hours - if you're there before they lock the doors, you can stay, but you can't get in after the principals leave. Chip has been doing hours up at school for his administration license, so this morning he moved a lot of my school stuff from my old room to my new room.

This afternoon after Jo got up from her morning nap, we went to school to my new room so I could start arranging it how I wanted. Let me explain to everyone how new classrooms go: you don't have anything you need, you have too much of stuff you don't want, it's dusty and nasty, nothing is in the order that you want, and everything's been pushed up against a wall so they can clean over the summer. And we have to get all this into a somewhat attractive, functional classroom before students come in August 6th. And decorate. Yuck. I'm a very organized person and even more organized when it comes to my classroom because - well - I have to be. It's very hard to swap classrooms and start all over again.

Jo was great while we were up at school playing on her mat and talking to her frog and then it was nap time, so I sent her and her father home for her nap. When she woke up, she came back up to school and Chip and I moved stuff around in the classroom. I ought to take pictures of it and post them, but I have to tell you I have a TON of stuff in there. I have 4 risers which Chip and I have made into a stage, 5 tables, a teacher desk, a student desk, a student computer, a teacher computer, a bookshelf, refrigerator, sink/cabinets, TV and VCR on a cart, and two massive storage rooms - one was empty (now my things are in there) and one full of musical supplies. Anyway, there's a lot. I'm quite lucky to have so much and I'm trying to take everything from my classroom to this new one.

For those of you who aren't teachers, I'm just going to tell you - when you first get a job in a school you will have NOTHING you want in your classroom because whoever was there before took anything worth taking with them when they moved to a new classroom and in between their move and your moving in, other teachers came and took whatever wasn't worth taking. You start with NOTHING. I've been very lucky to have Chip there before me and some really great teachers who have given me extra things they haven't needed. I'm trying to remember what it was like, so I'm leaving a chair, desk, computer desk, a laptop, projector, and SmartBoard. Lucky person to get my room!! (Chip asked who I thought was going to come in and steal the projector and SmartBoard from the new person...)

If you have anything in your home that you're thinking is useless and you really don't want - take it to your local school and drop it off. I promise some school teacher will want it. I don't really care what the item is - some school teacher will want it. I had a broken fan that I didn't want in my classroom anymore because, well, it was BROKEN - I took it down to the teacher's lounge and in literally 20 minutes, it was gone. His first year teaching, Chip had some ugly lamps in his apartment that he'd had from college, we took them up to school to clear some stuff out and those went too. Some teacher has ugly house lamps in their classroom. Whether they're using them or not, we don't know, but we didn't have to find a home for them - which was great.

One man's trash is another man's treasure.

Vacation Pics/Home

2009-07-23T17:14:00.001-05:00

Jo... all tuckered out from her vacation to the beach. She slept most of the way home, although not enough for her liking... I don't think she got very good sleep in her carseat.

We had to get a family pic of the beach in the backround before we left. So fun!

The second night there we stayed in and the big group went out to eat. Don't we look geeky with our glasses??

Josephine's one and only trip down to the beach. It was really too hot and she had no idea why we were going down to the beach. We got some cute pics though.

Now that Jo has pretty good head control, we've tried putting her in her exersaucer and letting her go. She really really likes it. She unintentionally rotates around in the toy and there are always new things for her to see and touch. She's just started grabbing stuff now and you should see the look on her face when she grabs something that makes noise. She's quite interested and it's very entertaining for us. (Not to mention liberating... although we love holding her, she's got to have somewhere to go when we have things we need two hands for.) She's not quite large enough for the toy, so we've shoved some blankets around her mid section so she doesn't bobble around so much. She's so cute!

Beach and Shopping

2009-07-21T19:00:00.001-05:00

We've had a lazy few days hanging out at the beach. The place we're staying is amazing. It's a 6 bedroom, 5 1/2 bath home directly on the beach. Plenty big enough for the family, although we do fill it completely!

I'm not much for the beach, but I've gotten out there a few times in the past few days to throw the frisbee and lay out. I prefer the pool much more. We played categories with Chip's nieces and nephews and his brother in law the other day, then we all decided to go to the shallow end and play Marco Polo. We had a blast. Did I mention that Chip's neices and nephews are all his age or older?

Last night we went to Foley to eat at Lambert's. I've never been there before, but I've now experienced the "throwed rolls." Chip's nephew Delaney was questioning the grammatical correctness of the restaurant, but it just wouldn't be the same if it were correct. I completely filled up and had enough to eat today as well. Even Chip couldn't finish his meal (granted he ate 2 or 3 rolls and a ton of fried okra before the meal came and he did order a POUND of hamburger steak).

Today we had a lazy day and after lunch someone suggested we all go to Foley to shop. I LOVE shopping and we decided to take Jo as well. We loaded her up in the car with her stroller and spent the majority of the afternoon shopping. She was so good! She had a cat nap while we walked, but she stayed up and was so happy. It was really fun. I could have stayed longer, but we pretty much spent the amount of money I had budgeted. I felt like a kid at the arcade who had run out of tokens. :( We got several nice shirts and two pair of pants at the outlet. You know you're frugal when you go and look for the CLEARANCE rack at the OUTLET mall. (Frugal or cheap... either one.)

Although it's been fun to be on vacation, I am kind of ready to get back and get home. I wouldn't be so ready, but I'm just thinking about all the stuff I've got to move out of my room at school!! Unfortunately, no one will do that for me. I've got to get the ball rolling or I'll be teaching in the hallway come August 6th.

Jo has grown by leaps and bounds and come a long way from what she was. She's really becoming so much more interactive. Also, she's sleeping in her crib every night and it doesn't take anything to put her down anymore. We just put her down on her side, put the pacifier in her mouth and turn on her sound machine and she is OUT. Thank goodness they get easier. :)

Beach!

2009-07-18T10:04:00.000-05:00

We're at the beach! The picture below is us leaving (getting ready). You can't tell in the picture, but I'm so nervous about taking the baby on a 5+ hour drive. It was fine though, she was so great. We stopped at a park in Meridian on the way down to feed Jo, let Stella out, and eat lunch. It was really pleasant. We got to Foley and everything was fine - then we hit vacation traffic and it took us about an hour and a half to get from Foley to the beach house.

Here's Josephine at the beach. She was completely unimpressed. Poor thing did not nap very much on the way down, but she caught up for it last night!

The house we're staying at is directly on the beach... if you look hard enough you can see the gulf in the background.

The biggest fan of the beach so far has been STELLA. She did not know what to think of the sand at first, and when she finally figured it out she RAN and RAN and RAN and RAN. Her tongue was hanging out the side of her mouth. The waves caught her by suprise, but she figured those out. She DID NOT want to be wet.

Where has summer gone?

2009-07-15T08:28:00.000-05:00

I was just talking to ateacher friend of mine the other day. We did the math. 2 1/2 more weeks until work starts. Where has this summer gone??? I guess I know. I taught summer school, Chip took summer school, and now he's busy getting in some intern hours up at AMS. I'm being transferred from history to gifted (Viva Drama). Very exciting, but now I have to move all of my stuff. I kept a lot of my kids' projects because I wanted to show any future classes what I want when we repeat projects and things. Now that I'm not teaching history next year (or for a while, hopefully) I'm weeding out what I should take with me and what's garbage now. Some things I'm willing over to future teachers and those who have been there, and a lot I'm taking with me in case I ever teach history again (which is quite possible). I think Chip and Jo spent an hour with me in my classroom yesterday. I just organized what I wanted to take out to the Viva building, but haven't actually moved anything yet. It wouldn't be so bad moving if my classroom were down the hall or downstairs or in the next building, but my new classroom is out near the football field (past the gym and across the gravel parking lot...). Moving will keep me busy for the next few weeks.

We're about to go on vacation to the beach. I'm really excited about going on vacation, but I'm also terrified about how the baby's going to travel. Really, her longest trip so far has been to Tupelo. We're traveling down to Meridian first and staying the night, then going to the beach. From Meridian, it's about a 4 hour drive. Hopefully she won't notice...

On a really positive note, Jo's been sleeping in her crib for the past 2 nights. I just got her down for her nap in her crib a few minutes ago. Because she's had such a bad time with acid reflux, she's been sleeping in her bouncer since she was about 2 weeks old. Now that she's on medicine that helps control it, she's doing much better and we're able to put her flat to sleep.

I'll post some pictures I've taken since we've been back in town, but I have to go get the camera and load them onto the computer first!

Lincoln

2009-07-06T16:56:00.000-05:00

We're finally back in town and just when we wanted to catch up with our friends... they're out of town! We had a lazy Saturday and Sunday and we've had an eventful Monday so far.

Friday I noticed that Lincoln had a sore on one of his ears, but I wasn't so concerned with it because - he's a dog and they get sores. Chip noticed it again Sunday and that it was swollen and Lincoln wouldn't let us touch it. We scheduled a vet appointment for this morning. Turns out that flies have been eating his ears. I've never even heard of that. Also, and more importantly, he showed up positive for heartworm. We caught it early though and he'll start getting treatment as soon as we get back from the beach. We have to keep him inside and calm for 30 days after his first treatement and 30 days after his second treatment. I'm not sure our vet has met Lincoln... that will be a feat. Wow - what a full house. Chip, Stella, Josephine, Lincoln, and myself!

Poor dog. He's so sweet. He got so many compliments when he was at the vet from the vet techs about what a sweet and good dog he was. He may not know many commands, but he's got a good heart (even with the worms). We're doing whatever we need in order to keep him healthy and on this earth as long as possible.

The last week at Nana's

2009-06-29T10:34:00.000-05:00

We've been at my mom's for the past two weeks and this week is our final week in Tupelo. I've been saying that I'd get down to see my grandparents, my dad, and my brother and his family since I've been here. Now that it's our last week, I really have to make good on those promises! I expect that the next few nights will be quite busy for us. I'd really like to have spent more time with my family this week, but unfortunately, it's the weeks before July 4th and those are always the busiest with the company, so we've been hanging out at home.

It's been fun (mostly) being at home with the baby. She's gotten herself on a pretty good schedule. Although, sometimes she strays from that and it makes it really hard on me to get anything done (a shower is always celebrated when I can enjoy it during her naps). She's getting SO big. We've been giving her a little cereal in her bottles and have attempted to feed her cereal from a spoon. She's just not sure what to think of that. I've got some pictures of her first cereal feeding, but I can't post those right now.

I just realized that we'll get back to Starkville for about two weeks, then go to the beach, then it'll be almost time for school to start! We really were busy this summer. It's been a very productive summer for the both of us though. I taught summer school and Chip is taking school and we've both gotten to spend our fair share of time with the baby! We've promised each other that these next few weeks Chip will go play golf and I'll go to the pool and we'll swap off with the baby. We've got to enjoy this summer vacation while we have it!

Congrats to my brother-in-law Joe for finishing his Doctorate at LSU. I know they're thrilled. And also, please remember my niece Annie and her family while she goes up to Nashville next week for a check up. Praying all goes well!!

1st Week at Nana's

2009-06-16T17:10:00.000-05:00

Getting ready to go to Nana's...
Chip left on Sunday night and took Lincoln with him, so he left Stella's breakfast in her bowl on the kitchen table for Monday morning. That poor dog sat at the table forever waiting on her breakfast... she didn't know. She's cute though.
This past weekend we put Jo in her boppies to help her sit without our assistance. She kind of looks like the Godfather reclining in her chair or something. That baby belly kind of adds to the effect too.

At Nana's on Tuesday afternoon we put Jo on her belly for tummy time. She really doesn't like tummy time, but she's getting more interested in it. Today she pushed up (see the picture at the end) and pushed herself over. She rolled over! I thought it was an accident, so I put her back on her belly and she rolled over again! I put her on her belly a third time and she got really upset... as I said, she doesn't like tummy time and she had just gotten to the point where she could see everyone - she did NOT want to be on her belly again. I was ruining her plans. So sorry Jo. It's not the first time your mom's going to annoy you and get in the way of your plans, I promise.

Here she is rolling over...

And you can see how much she enjoys tummy time. She's telling us about it here. She says this is a horrible idea.

We are in Tupelo for the next few weeks because Chip is taking classes in Fulton to become an administrator. He'll take classes at ICC, then take two classes over the next year, complete an internship at AMS, and take his administrator's test in order to get his license. Then he can be a principal! I can't decide which I'd least like to do: be a principal or teach math to 7th graders. He's a saint.

Another pic and video.

2009-06-07T17:51:00.000-05:00

Here's another picture of the car. It's so pretty. I'm still surprised every time I leave a location to go to my car - I really don't think it's mine! We're lucky to have gotten such a good car for such a good price. It was the easiest purchase of a large item I've ever made! I think secretly Chip's jealous, but he'll get to drive it a lot too!

Jo - standing up! She just really wants to be active. I know she's her father's daughter!!! She always wants to know what's going on and to be invovled. She LOVES being able to sit up or stand up. If you hold her hands, she'll stand for such a long time. She's so happy!

A New Car and Jo's First Trip!

2009-06-07T17:35:00.000-05:00

Here's our new car at our new home. It's a V70 and we drove almost all the way to Nashville to get it! It's my new car and I LOVE it! It's great because it has enough room for all of our stuff and it's got a liner in the back for our puppy Lincoln. Wonderful!

We went to Tupelo to visit with family and on Saturday drove to get our car. Saturday night the twins came over and we got to bathe them. Since they didn't have nighties, we dressed them in adult small shirts. They were a little big, but I rigged them so the twins didn't trip when they walked. Emily had the best time! She's so cute! :)

Here are the twins from the back (showing how their shirts were rigged). They toddled around in those for a while before it was time to go home.

Here's a picture of Jo smiling. I was entertaining her this afternoon and she was just smiling away! Chip didn't get a really good picture of her smiling, but this one is so cute. She was so entertained - go figure.

And another picture of our entertained baby! She was so happy this afternoon.

We went to go visit Grandma and Grandpa for a while this afternoon and Jo had the best time looking all around while Grandma held her. She got kind of fussy, but she was very tired. We kept her up for a little while when we got home and then we put her in the bath. After the bath she passed out and she's still down!

I'll try to post another picture of the car and a video of Josephine pushing up. She's trying to stand now and she's doing a really good job of it, although she's pretty young to be doing that. Whatever keeps her entertained... :)

Week 9 and the beginning of Summer School

2009-06-02T18:47:00.001-05:00

Jo with her daddy. He's such a good daddy! SO patient! :)

She really enjoys her swing - as long as the duck mobile continues to rotate, she's entertained.

Babyzilla!!! She's starting to push up and stand for periods of time... I'm so impressed!

Chip was taking the picture, but here's 1/2 the family... (Tony and Lincoln are not allowed in our bedroom for obvious reasons).

Trying to get a picture of a smile, but she wouldn't give it up. Poor thing still feels bad, but it's getting better.

I began teaching summer school yesterday. It's... different. I'm in it for another 10 days, then I'll be finished with that! It pays well though, so... I'll take it.

Jo went to the doctor on Monday. She's progressing very well - at 12 lbs, 22 1/2 inches (although Chip said he thinks she's longer because the nurse didn't extend her leg all the way when she measured). She's got some problems with acid reflux and that's really hurting her, so we were sent home with some medicine which has seemed to help. She'll get there.

I'm a Celebrity... Get me Outta Here! is on, and that's a guilty pleasure. I love that show! It seems like every moment with Spencer/Heidi could be a "Soup" moment. "I'm too rich and too famous to be here with these people." WHAT?

First Week of Summer

2009-05-28T11:57:00.001-05:00

Jo did not like me fixing her hair in the bathtub. I think it's kind of cute, she did not appreciate it.

She does, however, enjoy this part of bathtime. Go figure.

Here she is practicing her "Dog Pound Rock" for football season. She's getting it, although I'm not sure she knows what she's doing. It's just born in her - that's what I get for having a baby with Chip!

No, we don't smile like this normally. We went to the dentist today and got our teeth cleaned. We were just so proud we didn't have any cavities!

As you can see, Chip has set our bedroom up like a home theatre. I have plans for the wall with the projector (Chip got me a piece of art for mother's day that I was planning on putting above the bed). My plans will, obviously, have to wait because Chip's enjoying our big screen. (We've even made up the bed the opposite way for optimum viewing!)

I'll start summer school on Monday - so long to all these lazy days. I told the dentist yesterday I was thankful for summer and it was embarassing, but really nice, to have to set my alarm for an 11:00 appointment. (What? We get up before the sun every other day in the year, we deserve to sleep in during the summer!)

Jo's so strong!

2009-05-24T08:01:00.000-05:00

Chip told me I had to quit taking pictures/videos of everything. I told him I didn't want Jo to think we didn't care about her, that one day these videos would be important to her, and that because she is my daughter she'll want pictures of everything she ever did.

Anyway, below is a video of her sitting on Chip's lap - he'll pull her to sitting position. Most of the time she sits up and holds her head really well (as you can see at the end of the video). This is how we play. What else are you supposed to do with a 7 week old?? :)

Our last week of work for 08-09!

2009-05-24T07:37:00.000-05:00

Chip and I had one last week at school for the 2008-2009 school year. (It was exam week, so really, we were reviewing and scrambling to get all our grades in.) This was definitely a year - and we were glad to see it come to an end. Unfortunately, my kids are going to the high school so I won't see them next year. I think next year I'll be teaching 7th graders, so pray for me! :) I posted this picture mainly because no one has seen how LONG Jo is. You can really tell in this pic! She's definitely not sitting up yet, but she tries (and does a pretty good job until she starts slinking down - as you can see.)

Here she is after bath time. I really need to get a picture of her during bath time for her baby book, but I always forget the camera. She's so cute in those hooded towels! She really likes the bath now and enjoys the time after bath where she can hang out naked! (You can't make that time too long or you'll have a mess to clean up.)

Here's Nana putting the finishing touches on Jo's bumper for her crib. Nana made the bumper and the quilt for Jo's crib and it is so cute in her room. Jo LOVES looking at it. All that contrast keeps her attention. We have to keep turning her head to the left because she's flattening out the right side from looking at the crib so much. Chip and I have decided we're just going to have to turn her around.

I realized no one knows what her nursery looks like since we've finished it - Here's a picture of one side (while Nana was finishing the bumper). Isn't the comforter cute?

Photos (as promised)

2009-05-17T11:46:00.000-05:00

We tried putting Jo on her play mat and allowing her to have "tummy time." She did not understand it and was ok for a few minutes, but eventually wore out and got cranky. If you can see the inchworm next to her, we measured and she's about 24" long. (Assuming the inchworm toy is accurate.) She's quite long, that's for sure. We have no idea what she weighs. Less than Stella.

Here's our baby relaxing while Chip watches TV (see below). She's pretty comfortable sitting up and in your lap. She really doesn't like to be left alone (except to sleep).

Here she is trying to figure out "tummy time." This is not her idea, but she did enjoy chewing on the baby boppy. She'll get there.

Chip sat and watched TV (I think this was last Saturday) and Jo sat and watched her daddy. She loves him... he's so entertaining!

Like I said, my battery was dying on my camera. It's upstairs charging now. I'll get some pictures of Jo with her grandmothers this week and post them later. She has no idea how much they love her, but she will!

I'm also posting a short video which shows her doing what she does... lying around. Not a whole lot to it, but I figured I'd post it anyway.

Back to work.

2009-05-16T08:18:00.000-05:00

I went back to work on Monday. Man, those children have a lot of energy! It was wonderful to be back though. I felt much more human doing my daily duties (even those I don't like so much).

The students were glad to see me back, but not too bad. On my 1st day back they had a test to take. They were also testing for the MCT this week. Three days of tests and each one took an hour and a half - two hours. Poor children! On Friday we had awards day in the morning and one of my students cleaned up the awards - she was an outstanding math student, my history winner for the year, honor role, etc. Also, one of my students received the citizenship award for the school. I love my kids - they're such great people. We reviewed for exams and took all our kids to the library that afternoon to watch a movie. I voted we watch Cool Runnings. None of the kids had ever seen it and many of them were unfamiliar with bobsledding. I think that was a cultural experience they couldn't miss. :) They had a great time. Monday begins exam week and their last day is Thursday. Our last day is Friday and then it's time for summer! Sort of excited, but genuinely nervous about what next year holds.

Josephine's grandmothers (and great-grandmother) came to babysit this week. They'll be here next week too. Sorry I have no pictures - my camera died and I've got to charge the battery. I will get pictures next week and post them.

Jo is growing so much! She's really awake and interacting a lot more. She's able to see so much more and is really enjoying her play mats (thanks Tracy and Winnie). Now, if we can just get here to sleep from 2-3 until we wake up at 6 or 6:30, we'll be set! She (for whatever reason) thinks that 4 am is a perfect time to rise and shine. Um, no. I probably wouldn't mind that wake time if I slept all day too.

Rainy Days...

2009-05-10T09:50:00.000-05:00

Chip and I were going to take Josephine to Lowe's the other day to get a few things for the yard, but it rained. I'm not crazy, I'm not going to take this baby out in the rain! Then, this morning, I was going to go to the grocery store (a long overdue trip) and - it's raining. I'll brave the weather soon, but when will these storms stop!?

The good thing is that, with all the storms lately, the baby doesn't mind the thunder. Thank goodness! Stella's more upset about the storms than she is.

I go back to work tomorrow. I'm excited about seeing all my other children again. So sad... I've been with these kids for two years. They're about to leave and go to the high school! I know they have to grow up sometime...

Josephine will have a wonderful two weeks at home with Mamaw and Nana. Good luck, grandmas! :)

Happy Baby!

2009-05-06T18:29:00.000-05:00

Josephine and Stella spent a good part of the morning watching daytime television. I can't remember if this is College Jeopardy or the Today show. Wait, they're pretty interested... must've been College Jeopardy. Josephine knew all the answers in the presidents category. Well, I helped a little.

This IS Chip's daughter. Here's a picture of her mid-bottle. Chip gets that same look on his face when he's eating!! (Love you Chip.)

Teenie weenie Josephinie has really enjoyed her baths as of late. This afternoon we spent a good 15-20 minutes in the bathtub... she's getting so BIG and OLD. I know people who aren't with her everyday think I'm crazy when I say that, but she's grown SO much.

Now, if I could only explain to her that Mommy has to go back to work Monday and that there are about 30 + projects I still have to grade. She has excellent timing, and by excellent, I mean that she cries every time I sit down with a project! I think this is the way it will go for some time though.

We're having a great time! Babies are so fun!

Pictures of Elizabeth's Birthday

2009-05-05T09:29:00.000-05:00

This is the best picture we could manage of all the grandchildren. Emily was not all that concerned that the bouncer was already occupied. After this picture, Emily threw her leg up to get in and knocked poor little Jo in the head. No damage done though. I'm convinced Emily's going to be a stunt woman... she's just practicing.
There's a picture somewhere of Lilly Grace holding Jo. She is very good with babies and really enjoys them (as you can see by the picture above).

Mary is always on the go. I guess she did not want to be held in this photo. There was too much going on! She had a really good time with the cousins!

Here's Lilly Grace after her first cupcake. I know Max and Leigh wanted to limit her sugar... but she loves desserts so much! I thought she should have one of each cupcake... and some jelly beans.

Annie mid-dinner. She likes to eat, but I don't think anyone can compete with her twin, Emily!

What a good picture of Emily! She's very content here... I think dinner was over, but she wasn't finished eating. Shortly after this picture she found Grandma who was handing out chocolate cupcake!!

All my nieces are so cute and Chip and I had such a great time hosting them. Their little personalities are all so unique. We can't wait until Jo gets older and we can see what she's like. So exciting!

What a week!

2009-05-04T13:00:00.001-05:00

This past week was especially busy with cousin Mary and Aunt E coming in town. They stayed Tuesday night - Sunday morning and were a huge help to me! I think Elizabeth really enjoyed holding a new baby and I much enjoyed being able to play with her baby. Mary is quite interacitve and very busy - so different than my little one!

On Saturday the rest of the family came in town to celebrate Elizabeth's 30th birthday at our house. Josephine was really pretty good when everyone was there. She was passed around a lot, but it didn't seem to affect her at all (well, maybe not until that night... she had had enough by the time we took her up to put her to bed!)

The birthday party was wonderful. Grandma and Grandpa arrived first (a little before three) and then Kirby, Max, Leigh, Lilly Grace, Emily, Annie, Aunt Therese, Uncle Terry, Evan and Lisa. (Nana came down Friday night.) Nana did a wonderful job with the menu. We had fruit and dip, salad (tons of it), Stromboli's, and some awesome cupcakes. I really really like desserts and I'm going to have to get the recipe for this dessert - it was SO GOOD! My mom made whipped cream pound cake into cupcakes and frosted them with buttercream icing. YUM! Fortunately or unfortunately everyone left us with most of the leftover food. We have TONS of Stromboli's. Chip and I have been munching away all weekend. So much for fitting into the rest of my clothes. Sometimes it's worth it though, you know?

Josephine was up a lot last night, so I thought she would sleep a good deal today - but no. Babies never do what you want them to do. Anyway, she's been wide awake since around 11:00 so I took that opportunity to bathe her. She didn't originally like baths, but she's getting much better about them. It's almost enjoyable!

She's finally drifted off to sleep which means that I am now allowed to eat lunch and clean up this mess around the house. Maybe I can get a nap too... oh, wait, it'll be time for her to eat again in about 45 minutes.

No rest for the weary.

I'll post pictures of the birthday party soon... when Josephine gives me another hour or two of good, solid sleep! :)

My day with the baby!

2009-04-28T11:10:00.000-05:00

Monday was what I thought it was going to be... she did not sleep well the night before and I did not sleep well and yesterday we were both upset all day. That's why God gives you partners to do this with. When Chip came home from work he relieved me and I was able to eat (finally), shower, and pick up the house a little bit.

Today is MUCH better (it would have to be for me to spend all this time on the internet). In between feedings and wanting to be held, I've been here on the computer trying to get this blog set up. My mom has requested it (as well as more pictures) so she can keep up with her granddaughter.
She's sleeping as I'm working on this. Notice the hand coming out of her swaddler... she's Houdini, I promise. You wrap her up as tight as you can and in the middle of the night she's escaped! Also, Chip and I have this thing called the "Bed Buddy" which is draped across her middle. It's for aches and pains - you microwave it and it provides "moist heat." Anyway, we've been calling it the "Baby Buddy" because Josephine calms down within minutes of it being put across her belly. I highly recommend it!

Josephine is in the foreground and the computer station that I've been typing on is in the back. I'll get a little done and then the phone will ring, Josephine will stir, Stella will need to go out, I'll need to eat, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I can't wait to go back to work where EVERYTHING is on a schedule. I'm dying!

Here' s how interested Stella is in my blogging. She's thrown in the towel and, by the looks of things, has resigned to the fact that she's a dog. This can only last so long though - I know she'll be begging to get in my lap in about 5 minutes. As I'm typing she's moved from the floor to the chair next to me. Predictable.

A week of Mom, Dad, and baby

2009-04-28T10:58:00.001-05:00

So, after my mom came and Chip's mom came, we had a week to do it alone. It was really great to have Chip home with me all day. We had a really good time playing with the baby and it gave Chip a chance to get a lot of yard work done... in between feedings.

In case you guys were wondering... this is Stella's baby. We normally don't put Jo on the floor, but the other day she was so good we just put her down and let her look at the fan. (All babies love fans... thank goodness we have a fan in every room!) Anyway, Stella decided that not only did Jo taste good but she would make a wonderful pillow.

Get used to it, Jo. Stella's a sucker for a lap... even your tiny one!

This is how Josephine sleeps when she's not swaddled. Her arms cannot stay down. We've tried. Every time those arms go up we'll push them down... only for her to raise them again. I pray for her circulation, although it must be pretty good.

What a horrible photo... but, when else can you take a picture of your child taking a poop? It's funny... really. Poor thing. I have another picture of her where her face matches our couch but I think one picture of her straining is enough.

Sometimes she just wants to be held... not a lot... but sometimes. This is one of those rare occurences and, thankfully, Chip was here to take the picture. She's in her MSU hat (and you can't see her feet, but they have on MSU socks too).

I think the Sunday before Chip went to work was the most terrifying day for me. Monday would be the first day that I was going to stay home with her and it was just going to be the two of us. Although I know I can take care of her, I'm not sure I can take care of her and me!

First weeks...

2009-04-28T09:05:00.000-05:00

Do I look tired? I feel tired. Babies get up a lot during the night. Most of the time you can get right to them and be with them, but sometimes it takes an act of God to get you out of the bed.

This is the last day Nana was here. She insisted on getting pictures with her two girls and I insisted that I put on normal clothes and some makeup. Yes, those are regular jeans! I'm so sick of maternity pants! In my refusal to wear anything maternity, I've raided Chip's supply of athletic pants. I don't know if it ought to make me feel better to wear my husband's large athletic pants or not. I like athletic pants. Every day I try on another pair of my regular clothes. Most of the time they fit. The ones that don't I'm choosing to ignore. I'll get there!

Nana will be back on Friday to visit with Jo's cousin Mary and her Aunt E. She'll be suprised at how much our little bean has grown! When we went for her two week checkup she was up to 7 lbs, 10 oz (I think she's stored those 7 oz in her cheeks!) and 20 1/4". No wonder she sleeps all the time.

Easter Monday

2009-04-28T08:55:00.000-05:00

We would have dressed her up for Easter Sunday, but somehow that day came and went and we were unaware. (Do you blame new parents?) So, on Monday, we got a shower and dressed the baby in her newborn outfit for Easter. That outfit did not last much longer than the pictures and Jo was ok wearing it, but she really does not like to be undressed. (Her dad says that's ok... he'd like her to keep it that way until she's about 30. Keep it on, Josephine!)
First family picture... and it would have been really cute if Stella hadn't been in it. But, we can't leave her out!

Josephine in her crib. This is one of a handful of times she's been in it... somehow her nursery seems too far away to leave her in there to sleep! She'll get there eventually. She might be 10.

I said eventually...

She can't sit up yet... that'll be a few months, but we were able to prop her up... sort of. That's her Easter basket from Nana. I think the cookie is bigger than her head. Chip has enjoyed the jelly beans and Easter candy for Jo. She'll have to wait a while on that too.

At home... finally

2009-04-28T08:40:00.000-05:00

We got to go home on Friday morning and by Saturday we had Nana, Uncle John, Lilly Grace, Papa John, and Winnie all come to see her.

Lilly Grace has a lot of experience holding babies. You'd have to ask her if that's a good thing or a bad thing. She was very good with the baby and, unfortunately, Jo slept the whole time they were here. She kept asking, "When is the baby going to wake up?" Sorry Lilly - maybe next time!

Dad and Winnie's 1st visit... Jo was very good this visit (not so much the second time Papa came down). Babies... what are you going to do?

First Visitors

2009-04-28T08:31:00.000-05:00

The two days they keep you in the hospital do not seem long enough. I was ready to go home, but I couldn't believe that it had already been that long! (By the way, you do NOT sleep at the hospital... the nurses are wonderful, but they check on you an awful lot.)

Chip spent the night with me at the hospital and I'm really suprised he survived the first night. I was burning up and the room was set at 60 degrees. I was so warm and Chip was a popsicle. The next night we bumped it up a little bit! What a reversal of roles - I'm usually the one under all the blankets!

Josephine Kate with Mamaw in the hospital. Isn't her bow cute? We lost it somewhere between the hospital and the house... too bad.

And here's Papaw holding her... even though Mamaw didn't want to give her up! :)

1st Blog

2009-04-28T08:20:00.001-05:00

Not that this is my first blog ever, just my first blog on here... about my 1st baby!

I'll try to back up and go from the beginning with the baby.

This is the first picture of mom and baby. I hate that "just given birth" look, but I think every mom has this picture somewhere! (As you can see, the baby is NOT happy... poor thing was in pain from the vacuum suction they used.)

This is Chip's first picture with Jo. He is so thrilled. I can't even tell you how happy he was to have her here. Especially after waiting so long for her to be here!

She arrived at 5:26 pm, weighing in at 7 lbs, 3 oz and standing 19 1/4" high.

She was so little!