Wordless Wednesday

 

Justin is at home with Carter today and sent me this.  That would be Henry, his giraffe, stretched over the back of his neck (he’s face down in this pic).  How does he fall asleep like this?!?!?!?

Halloween Festivities

Yesterday was a busy day for us Morrises! Justin finished up his three day race with a 20 mile run at Oak Mountain. Once he was done, he came back home and showered and the three of us took a golf cart ride over to Ross Bridge for the family Hometown Fair event. It was WIIIIIIINNNNNDDDDDYYYY!!!

You know it’s a golf cart community when there’s golf cart parking at events like this!

Carter and Mom and Dad are going to enjoy the heck out of this when he’s older. This is a kid and adult zipline!

All kinds of carnival rides for the kiddos!

That face owns me. Period.

After we were done with the fair, we went back home, changed our little Boo Boo into his Halloween outfit, took a few pictures in the front yard and then headed to the church for the trunk or treat.

My boy is adorable :)

We met up with the twins to try to get some good pictures of the three of them together. Naturally none of them looked at the camera at the same time, but I think I’m done trying to get that to happen. Carter’s 10 months and the girls are 14 months. It’s going to be a while before I can get a picture of all three of them looking at me!

Cynthia was confused by Carter’s hood…she kept trying to take it off!

Cynthia thought something was worth of a round of applause!!

This was our first year at our church’s Trunk or Treat. The lower parking lot was dedicated to the trunks and it wasn’t just candy in the trunk. Everyone was dressed up and lots of the trunks were heavily decorated! So cool!!! And the top of the parking lot was dedicated to games and blow up slides. Again, something Boo Boo will enjoy when he’s a bit older.

Brother and sister and their babies!

Carter was quite interested in my hot chocolate

Again, hard to get a good picture when everyone was looking. We were all riding the hayride. A truck had a trailer hitched to it that was full of hay and doing circles around the church. Carter loved it!

I’m sure we’ll have more Halloween pictures since it’s not even Halloween yet!  Our neighborhood is having a trick or treat party in the culdesac on our street.  Everyone is putting signs on their door that say “The _______’s (insert last name) candy is at the culdesac”.  We’ll all be at the end of the street eating pizza and passing out candy.  It’s gonna be so much fun!!!

Carter - Ten Months

Diapers

Still wearing 3’s.

Shoe Size

3 1/2 wide.  He only has one pair of shoes and he wears them all the time.  This is why I got brown shoes.  They go with everything!

Clothes

6-9 month tops (even though most 9 month ones are still a little big on him), 6 month pants and 9 month sleepers (and all of the sleepers are big on him, but the 6 month ones are too small)

Feeding

We are rocking the homemade foods!!  Carter loves it all and eats it all.  If he doesn’t eat it, it’s usually because he’s not hungry, not because he doesn’t like it.  The only thing I’ve found that I really think he doesn’t like is cantaloupe and it’s because it’s kind of runny.  It’s such a pain to make and with it being as runny as it is, it’s difficult for him to eat with a spoon.  I stopped making it after the first batch I made!  This month, I started making combination meals for him.  Such as chicken with brown rice and green peas and sweet potatoes with turkey.  But it’s still all blended together in baby food form.  He needs protein though so we’re starting to give him  meats.

Sleep

No issues on the sleep front.  Still 12+ hours at night and two naps during the day that last anywhere from 1 hour to 2 1/2 hours.

Waketime

No changes.  Outside is his favorite still.

Mother’s Day Out

The teachers have told me how much of a joy he is at MDO now that his two top teeth have popped through.  He still only takes a 20-45 minute nap, but the teachers say that’s all he needs.  They tell me that he isn’t fussy or anything, he just naps then wakes up and plays some more until Justin or Debbie come get him.  He really doesn’t like missing anything which I’m sure is why he takes such a short nap.  I’m so glad he has gotten adjusted to being in school!  The only time he gets somewhat “fussy” is right when he’s dropped off and he knows we’re gone, but it’s a 50/50 shot on whether he cries or not when we leave.  Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn’t.  He did get sent home one day this month because he was sick.  See below for info on that.

Justin’s Travel

October wasn’t too bad.  Justin was out of town 3 of 5 weeks and those weeks he was home on Thursdays instead of Fridays.  The two weeks that he was in town, he played stay-at-home dad because his dad was out of town so he didn’t have to work.  It does suck that Justin travels as much as he does, but weeks like those where he is with Carter all day while I’m at work make up for it and they happen on average about once a month. 

Statistics

No 10 month appointment, but at 10 months, I measured him at roughly 28.5 inches (40th %) and weighed him at 19.7 lbs (24th %).  So still a pretty small little boy.  Next pediatrician appointment isn’t until he’s one year old, but he does have to go in this Friday to get his flu booster.

Abilities

The biggest thing he learned this month was to say “dada” and “nana”.  He said “dada” for the first time on October 6th after Justin and I had gotten back in town.  We went to the Auburn vs. Arkansas game that day in Auburn and my mom was keeping him for us.  When we got back in town we picked him up and brought him home and then went on a golf cart ride to the playground and played in the swing.  Justin said that he thought he heard him say it on the way back to the house, but I didn’t hear anything.  I was giving him his bath before bedtime and he said it over and over again!  He’s been saying it non-stop since then.  He has also learned how to say “nana” and says it about as frequently as he says dada.  He’s said “baba” a couple of times and did say “mama” one day, but I haven’t heard him say it since.  These are all words he is learning to vocalize.  He doesn’t necessarily understand yet that dada is Justin, mama is me and nana is his grandmother (or a banana, depending on what he’s doing while saying it).  That will come with time and more practice :)  Right now we’re working on saying “mama” and on clapping (and of course walking).  Oh and speaking of walking….little sucker walks FAST with his little walker.  Good lord it is hard to keep up with him once he gets a hold of that thing.  Justin and I joke that he’s going to skip walking and go straight for running!

Teething

HOLY TEETH.  So remember in Carter’s 9 month post where I said month 9 was AWFUL because he was getting his top two teeth?  Well they finally poked through at the end of September (and even now they’re still growing  and pushing through) so I thought “wow that was a pretty fussy month for two lousy teeth”.  Oh no.  Boo Boo literally has FIVE teeth coming through (yes we call him Boo Boo sometimes - like from Yogi Bear).  He has those top two teeth and also has two on both sides of those top teeth as well as one additional one on the bottom.  I see now why he was so fussy.  One tooth is bad but I can’t imagine five!  So now we’re up to a grand total of seven teeth!!

Discipline

My mother in law told me one day that Carter definitely knows what “no” means and he obeys it for everything…except jewelry.  He LOVES to play with jewelry and won’t stop even if you say no.  I guess there are worse things for him to continue doing when told no.  He hasn’t done anything major yet for disciplinary purposes.  He has tried to go out Gizmo’s doggy door in our back porch and that is NOT going to be one of those things that we let him figure out when he hurts himself.  There are brick steps that he would fall down if he was able to get out that door.  This is why we watch him INTENSELY when he’s in the kitchen. 

He still pulls up on the cabinets in the kitchen, which I’m ok with him doing, but I’m not ok with him opening the cabinets, which is something he’s learning how to do.  He hasn’t quite figured out how to go through the things in the cabinets and I’d prefer he not get to that point.  Any time he opens a cabinet, even if it’s accidentally, we tell him “no”.  He also still tries to stand up in the bathtub sometimes, but when he does that I really only have to look at him and point at him and then he sits back down.  No “no” necessary :) 

The only other time, other than jewelry, that I have noticed him ignoring my “no” is when he’s about to take a bath.  I usually let him stand up on the floor holding on to the tub while I take his clothes off.  He loves to walk towards the bottom of the tub where the shampoo and conditioner sit on the edge and knock them into the water.  I have told him no repeatedly on this and he still does it.  It’s pretty frustrating.

Other Notable Things

We got our first high-grade fever this month.  Carter was sent home from Mother’s Day Out on October 23rd because he was fussy and they assumed he had a fever because his head was hot.  My MIL picked him up and brought him home.  She said he was happier to be at her house but she could tell he just didn’t feel good, but she didn’t have a baby thermometer at her house to take his temp.  When I went to pick him up after work he had just woken up from a 3 hour nap (I know a lot of babies have sleep issues when they are sick or teething, but Carter is the COMPLETE opposite.  He sleeps like a log when he’s sick or doesn’t feel good).  I could also tell he just wasn’t happy because he whined a lot.  Not so much crying, but a constant unhappy whining.  I touched his head and it was ON FIRE.  So I took him home to take his temperature. 

He does NOT like having his temp taken in his ear.  He moved his head so much and I couldn’t get a good reading but the first reading I got was 101.5.  So I stripped him down to a diaper and gave him some juice.  I propped him up in his bouncy seat in front of the TV and let him watch back to back episodes of Baby Einstein, which I NEVER do.  He loves Baby Einstein, but I’m trying to limit his TV time so he only watches one episode a few times a week.  But I could tell he hurt so bad and I wanted to help him forget the pain, so I let him watch a couple of episodes.  

Once he was sitting down and glued to the TV, I took his temp again since he wasn’t moving as much.  Three times in a row (and in both ears) it was over 102, the max being 102.5.  My heart hurt for my baby.  I also called the after hours pediatrician.  I knew 102 wasn’t worthy of emergency room, but I didn’t know where that line was that I should do something, so I called.  Shockingly, they say not to take a baby to the ER unless they have over a 105 fever.  If I had a 105 fever I would be dead.  Seriously.  But babies temps are different than ours.  They can handle more than we can.  Anyway, the doc said it was most likely a cold and told me to do the things I was already doing. 

After watching some episodes, I fed him his dinner (carrots and green beans) and he ate all of it.  I was grateful because I know they tend to not eat when they’re sick.  After dinner we got a bath and I made it a lukewarm bath in hopes to help the fever break.  I put him straight to bed after a bottle (which he barely drank from) and he was out cold by 7:30pm.  He didn’t wake up the next day until 8am.  I needed to go to work, but I didn’t want to wake him.  And if he still had a fever I was going to stay home anyway, so I just let him sleep.  Luckily, his fever broke and he was fine the next morning. 

Likes

Carter still likes everything I’ve put in this section in the past several months (golf cart rides, being outside, Baby Einstein, puffs and mums, etc.) so I won’t repeat all of them, but will just list the new likes or the likes that seemed the most prevalent this month:

• Having his teeth brushed.  He smiles SO big when he sees that brush!
• The swing at the playground
• Walking with his walker
• Teething pacifier.  Yes, my child that has REFUSED a pacifier for 10 months now actually likes chewing on the teething pacifier.  But he will still throw a normal paci away, he only likes the teething ones because of the texture:

• Walking around things like a coffee table or toy while still holding on to it
• Watching older kids move and play
• Doors.  This is a new one.  He LOVES to play with our bedroom door.  He likes closing it and opening it and the sound the door makes when banged against the stopper.  I’m scared he’s going to lock me out of our room one day.  A couple of weeks ago, I was in the kitchen making dinner and he crawled into the bedroom and all I heard was the door slam.  I was freaking out hoping that the door wasn’t locked.  Luckily it wasn’t.  He just likes the sound of the door closing for some reason.
• When daddy says “UH OH!”.  I don’t really know why, but he thinks it’s hilarious.

Dislikes

• Falling.  He is experimenting more and more with walking and I can’t catch him every time he falls.  But needless to say, he gets upset when he falls and bangs his head on something.  Usually picking him up and walking outside cures those tears though.

Advice

I need some advice from the momma’s out there.  I’m trying to transition Carter to the sippy cup.  We introduced it a month ago but it was very casual.  We didn’t force it and most of the time we just let  him play with it so that he could get used to holding it.  Well, now I really want him to start drinking from it.  And he won’t.  I use to put apple juice in it and he wouldn’t drink that, so I thought it was the sippy cup and put the juice in his bottle but he still wouldn’t drink it, so I thought it may just be the juice he doesn’t like.  So then, I tried to put his formula in the sippy cup and he refused it.  I put it back in a bottle and he sucked it dry.  How do I get him to drink from the cup??  Anyone have this problem??

Flashback Friday

Since I haven’t done one of these posts in years….

Found this ole gem on youtube the other day.  I have a channel that I upload videos to constantly so now, I have over 120 videos.  The other day I started looking through them and saw this.  Oh the good ole days.  I was a freshman in high school in this video and it was at the UDA competition at the University of Alabama in 1997.  15 years ago.  Wow.  And apologies that my mom felt the need to zoom in on me every chance she got.  Kinda makes seeing the whole dance hard.  Can we talk for just a minute about those socks???  I mean…WOW.

This is at least a little more recent (yet still about 11 years old).  I was a senior in this one.  You can’t miss me.  I’m the one with the BLEACH blonde hair.  What was I thinking??  As I went back to watch these and it hit 4:43, I thought to myself “wow…pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to have another kid if I had to do that again”.  I took a lot of pride in how our team did during our senior year fieldshow because I helped choreograph it.  Even the flag parts, and I was AWFUL at flags.  Ugh.  Again, apologies for the constant zooming in by the madre.

I’ve only discussed dance team twice during my blog and they were both flashback friday posts.  You can see the other one with more pictures and videos here.  This is interesting to me because dance was pretty much my life from 5th grade all the way to college.  But then life happens and the real world sets in and you just don’t have time for those fun things anymore :(

On an unrelated note, I am officially in party planning mode.  That’s right.  I am now planning my son’s first birthday party.  I remember when I was pregnant and thinking that there was no way I was going to be one of those mom’s that has a huge production party for every birthday.  Well, that was then, and this is now and I am SO excited for what I’m planning for his party.  Not giving anything away yet, but it’s going to be so cute and SO fun.  Usually party invitations for birthday parties and such go out about 2 weeks in advance, but since Carter’s birthday is around Christmas, I think I’m going to send them out before Thanksgiving (his party is on December 15th).  I know there’s numerous Christmas parties for work and friends and families and I want to try to get his party on people’s calendar as early as possible!  But at the same time, I understand that his birthday is at a time of year when people are so busy so I will understand if a bunch of people don’t make it.  It’s just the nature of a  December birthday :)

First School Picture

Carter isn’t even one yet and we already have his very first school picture.  I just can’t believe it!  I don’t technically consider going to Mother’s Day Out twice a week for 4 hours each day “school”, but pretty much everyone else does, so I’ll just roll with it and try to remember that he’s 1, not 5. 

I put the label under Carter - 9 months because he was almost 9 months when the picture was taken.  I plan to buy a package of his pictures for every school picture he ever has between now and high school.  I’m not sure what exactly I plan to do with them, but I do intend to make some kind of collage out of them when he’s older.  Maybe have them all printed on a blanket or something and give him the blanket when he graduates high school.  Something like that.

Almost There…

We are so close with walking!  Has anyone experienced a walker before a stander?  Carter still can’t stand for long periods on his own.  I’m still working with him on that too.  But he walks very well with his walker and with holding on to furniture or me or Justin.  Of course I got a video recently.  Please excuse my loud voice…he likes it when I cheer him on.  It makes him feel accomplished and more likely to do whatever he was doing again. 

Also, you may notice he is in a bad mood in this video.  This was taken two nights ago when I first started wondering if he was getting sick because of the way he was acting.  This was confirmed when they sent him home from MDO yesterday because he was fussy and appeared to have a fever.  My MIL picked him up and took him to her house but she didn’t have a thermometer to check.  When I picked him up after work, I took him home and took his temp.  I took several readings to make sure and 3 in a row were over 102, peaking at 102.5.  POOR BABY!

This is the first time Carter has had a high-grade fever.  I stripped him down to a diaper and gave him some juice.  I propped him up in his bouncy seat in front of the TV and let him watch back to back episodes of Baby Einstein, which I NEVER do.  He loves Baby Einstein, but I’m trying to limit his TV time so he only watches one episode a few times a week.  But I could tell he hurt so bad and I wanted to help him forget the pain, so I let him watch a couple of episodes. 

He slept all night and didn’t wake up until 8am this morning.  My plan was to take his temp when he woke up and if he still had a fever or was acting fussy, I was going to stay home with him today.  But he was acting ok when he woke up.  Fever was gone and even though his nose was still like Niagara Falls, he was much better than the night before.  So I took him to my MIL’s today.  I just called to check on him and she said she can tell that he is still not 100%, but she doesn’t think he has a fever either.  He ate all of his dinner last night (the solids) but barely ate any of his bottle before bed.  He also barely ate his bottle this morning.  I imagine that trying to eat from a bottle while your nose is stopped up is hard.  But he did eat his cereal with some avocados so at least he’s eating something.

Please just say a prayer for my Boo Boo that he feels better soon and will start eating a little bit better.  He’s already small for his age!!

#28 and Carter Goes to the Petting Zoo

This weekend was a pretty low key, yet still busy weekend in the Morris household.  Justin came back from Walton, NY (no idea where that is) on Thursday.  On Friday, he kept Carter while I worked because his mom was out of town and my mom had to work.  I ended up leaving work a bit early to take over baby duty so that he could help our friends Tiffany and Trevor move into their new house.  He was there most of the night and didn’t get home until late so it was just me and C-man Friday night. 

Saturday morning I had to wake up early to run the Race for the Cure.  Running this race and NOT breaking any bones was number 28 on my list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days.  I should further explain for my new readers.  See, I run the Race for the Cure every year...well, I have for the past 5 years anyway.  This is with the exception to last year when I was about 7 months pregnant, so I walked the race instead of running.  See picture below of me and Tiff during that race (don’t think I ever posted this).  I was 7 months pregnant and she may have been about 7 weeks…I didn’t even know she was pregnant at the time!!

In 2010, while I was running, I fell.  A bad fall too.  I ended up fracturing my ankle bone in a couple of places as well as my elbow.  You can read about it and see pictures of me in the hospital here.  Needless to say, this explains the “NOT break any bones” part of the goal.  

I was actually supposed to run this race with about 5 girlfriends but all of them ended up having conflicts so I ran all by my lonesome.  Over 14,000 people ran and I got there late so I was in the BACK…and I mean BACK of the line…like it took a good 2 minutes for me to cross the start line.  My watch was messing up so I don’t have an exact time, but when I finished, the clock said 32:43 and like I said, I know it was at least 2 minutes before I even crossed the starting line so I’m very confident I did the 3.11 miles somewhere between 30 and 31 minutes.  It may have been even less if I didn’t have to dodge in and out of people at the beginning…seriously guys if you intend to walk a race that big, get in the back of the line.  Let the runners through!! 

Regardless, I am extremely happy with my time.  Mommas out there know how hard it is to find time to exercise even as a stay at home mom, but add on top of that a mom that works full time AND  a mom whose husband is out of town almost every week leaving me to do all the childcare and house cleanup and cooking without help.  It’s no wonder I have no time to go for a run!  In the past three weeks, I ran one time around my neighborhood and it ended up being a 1.85 mile run.  During the race, I did had to walk one time, but it was only for about 30 seconds.  But most importantly, I didn’t fall and break any bones :)

The Giz wanted in the picture :)  Oh and fun side note - You can’t really see it in the picture but there’s a huge whole in the right knee of the pants I’m wearing.  That’s from that fantastic spill I took back in 2010.  I figured I should wear the same pants to represent!  And if you like my bright as crap shoes, they’re called Newtons.  Justin and I love these shoes.  LOVE them.  If you’re a runner, invest in a pair.  The ones I’m wearing are all terrain shoes, but they also make some for just street running and just trail running.

Moving on.

So after I got home from running, Justin went to go run at Oak Mountain.  He’s training for a 3 day race that is this weekend.  It’s about 20 miles each day.  One day is at Ruffner Mountain, one day is at Red Mountain and the last day is at Oak Mountain.  While he was running, he called me and asked me if I wanted to bring Carter up there and we could all meet up at the petting zoo in the park.  Now, this petting zoo ain’t nothing special.  Just a bunch of donkeys and goats that you can pet.  There are sheep too, but they rarely let you pet them.  We’ve taken Carter to the zoo before but he couldn’t see the animals when they were that far away so we figured he may like the petting zoo better.  And he did.

He really like the donkeys.  He thought it was so funny!

I did figure out how to make the video take up the whole screen, I just have to take the video on my phone sideways, which I’ve been doing.  I just forgot this time.  Sorry!

LOVE my family :)

Carter loves to take people’s sunglasses off their head.  He finds it hilarious for some reason.  And excuse the dot in his right eye.  When Boo Boo sucks his thumb (his right thumb) his right index finger usually stays straight which means he ends up scratching his eye and leaving cuts there.  I’m having to stay on top of the nail cutting because of this.

Love my boy.  And maybe it’s just our family that sees him all the time, but myself along with Justin and my MIL that keeps Carter on a daily basis all feel like he has grown so much over the past month.  He truly looks like SUCH a big boy now and no long my sweet baby :(  Saddens this momma.

And I couldn’t write another Carter post without putting up a funny picture of his sleeping habits.  The way he sleeps truly cracks us up.  Justin sent me this picture while I was at the grocery store on Saturday.  I can’t imagine that is comfortable on his neck, but he seems to like this strange position!

i-Phone Dump and Carter Update

I feel like now that I’ve got this fabulous phone, I never take pictures with  my actual camera anymore.  I must work on this!  Here’s the i-phone dump from last week/weekend:

Seriously he can NEVER make it home from Mother’s Day Out.  He is still only taking 20-30 minute naps while at the church which means that as soon as someone comes to get him, he is out like a light when he gets put in the car.  I’m starting to think those naps are just going to stay like that.  The ladies say that he’s not fussy or anything, he just doesn’t sleep long because he doesn’t want to miss anything. 

We had people over to our house to watch the games this weekend and I decided to make some fun cupcakes.  They aren’t beautiful by any means…I had a hard time making the spider webs perfect on such a small plane.  But they were still pretty yummy!

Daddy was helping him do some baby pull ups in the garage.  Check out that form!!!  Pointed toes and all!  I told my friend Tiffany this week that I wanted to take some pictures of us and our friends this weekend because now that we’ve all had babies, it seems like all of our pictures are of them and we never take pictures with our friends anymore.  That said…I didn’t take one single picture.  Failure, I know.  Maybe next time.

Now this cracks me up.  I looked at the monitor and had enough time to snap this picture before he moved to another position.  How weird is this?!?!  His left hand is bent backwards touching his back.  Kid sleeps weird.  For real.

Couple of videos of my sweet laughing baby boy:

My husband posted this on facebook so if you’re friends with him, you’ve probably already seen it, but here’s a video of him laughing at the Giz.  She was playing with a sock and Carter LOVES watching her play with things.

Another swinging video.  I have no idea why he laughs so hard while swinging, but it cracks me up!!!

Quick update on Carter.  He not only says “dada”, but now he says “nana” and “baba”.  I’m anxiously waiting to hear that first “mama”.  I’m trying so hard with him.  I am doing my best to understand that the other words are easier for babies to say than “m”s are, but it still hurts a little inside that he’s saying several words now but “mama” isn’t one of them :(  He originally said “nana” on Saturday when I was feeding him bananas.  But I know his Nana (Justin’s mom) has been practicing with him on saying it so I don’t know if he thinks Nana is related to her or to the bananas.  He just randomly started saying “baba” on Sunday.  That’s what we call his bottle.  But he’s said it before when he wasn’t around a bottle, so I’m not sure he associates the two together yet.

We also need a baby gate now.  Carter has never showed interest in the stairs before but yesterday while I was folding laundry in the laundry room, Carter was in the floor playing with Gizmo and several seconds passed before I realized I hadn’t heard either of them make noise so I came out of the laundry room and Carter was standing on the first step and leaning his hands onto the second step.  Of course I told him no and removed him.  I mentioned in my baby proofing post that I would not baby proof my entire house, but I do feel that a baby gate on the steps is necessary.  He could get seriously injured if he fell, so I’ll have to go get a gate this week.  It is worth noting that even though he was on the step, Gizmo was at the base of the stairs watching him as if saying “I got this mom, I’ll take care of him if he falls”.  Love those two together.

Carter truly understands what the head shaking back and forth saying “no” means.  He knows that when he’s doing something and I say “No Carter” that I will also be shaking my head back and forth while saying it.  The past several days during meal times if he is done eating and gets full, he shakes his head back forth when I try to put a bite in his mouth.  He’s telling me he’s done and doesn’t want anymore.  I’m loving that he is figuring out how to communicate with me!!

Carter Says Dada

This is such a better video of him saying it than what I tried to get before. My mother in law sent me this video this week:




God I love that kid.

10 Things Linking

I've seen this before on some blogs and I thought now would be a good time to do it.  I've picked up some new followers since having Carter join our family and I know most of them don't know very much about me, hence this post.  Here are 10 things you may not know about me (non-baby related) along with a link to a previous blog post explaining it:

1. I am currently in the process of reading the Bible front to finish.  I started out reading random books but then decided to go chronologically.  I literally finished I Samuel this morning and will start II Samuel tomorrow.  I read a chapter every day before work.  No link to this one by the way.  It’s on my 101 list to read 33 books of the Bible so until I get to 33 there won’t be a post for it.
2. Almost 10 years ago, I should have lost my life.  I was in an extremely bad car accident on the interstate and my car flipped 6-8 times (per the police report - this is what witnesses said; I was unconscious and don't remember).  My entire car was absolutely destroyed as was everything inside the car, except for me and my cross hanging from the rearview mirror that was still on the mirror and perfectly intact.  Totally a God thing.  From that day in 2004, my life changed forever and I rededicated my life to Christ because He spared me.  I blogged about it here. 
3. My hair has been every color under the sun, I assure you.   Again, no link for this one.  My hair experimenting days were during college and pictures weren’t taken using digital cameras until the end of college so I don’t really have anything I can link to.
4. I don't really drink.   Not because I'm against it per se, but I really and truly don't like many alcohols at all.  Even though there are some that I like, I still just don't really drink.  Every now and again I'll have a Smirnoff Ice or some equally fruity drink but it really is a blue moon when that happens.  I am forever a DD :)  No link for this one either.  Not sure what I would link to with this one anyway.
5. I make a to-do list for everything.  I think it’s the accountant in me.  I can’t do the simplest of functions without a to-do list.  Again, no linking…clearly I should have picked different items to put on this top 10 list.
6. I’m a dancer at heart.  I took dance when I was a kid, but the true dancer in me didn’t come out until middle school.  I became obsessed with it.  I was on my middle school dance team, my high school dance team and my college dance team.  I still love dancing to this day, but don’t do it as much as I’d like.  I also did a “Flashback Friday” post on dance team (I should really pick those posts back up again).  You can see pictures and even videos here.
7. I don’t think there’s anyone in the world that loves Christmas as much as me.  Seriously.  I listen to Christmas music on pandora almost year round.  The second that 96.5 starts playing Christmas music on the radio, it is permanently on that station in my car.  I start decorating right before Thanksgiving and always go crazy on presents.  My co-workers ALWAYS make fun of me because of my Christmas obsession.  When I was pregnant with Carter, I even had a Christmas themed baby shower.  See that post here.   
8. My husband and I are intense travelers.  Travel has slowed a bit due to Carter, but we’re still travelers.  One day Carter will come places like this with us and we are so looking forward to that.  We usually always have some big trip planned (we’re big planners) at any given time.  Right now, we are planning something for next December.  Carter will be 2 and I’ll feel a lot more comfortable leaving him for longer than a couple of days.  We’re thinking of going back to Europe to hit up some places we’ve always wanted to go like Barcelona, Sweden and Paris.  But then again, we both really want to go to Australia too.  We’ll figure it out closer to time.  Here’s my favorites trips:
1. Africa - we went to climb Mount Kilimanjaro and go on a safari in the Serengeti
2. Rome/London trip (I was 7 weeks pregnant during this trip, so for me it was MISERABLE - It was planned before we knew we were pregnant)
3. Amsterdam (this was actually part of the Africa trip, but since it’s a separate city and we LOVED Amsterdam, it get’s its own number in the top 5)
4. Hawaii - I mean, I can’t even explain how much fun we had on our honeymoon to Hawaii.  It was incredible.  Enough said.  See the posts for all the things we did.
5. Cozumel - we went on a cruse with 2 other couples and it was SO MUCH FUN!!!
9. I look at my blog stats pretty frequently.  Obviously you can’t see who is looking at your profile, but you can see what posts are getting the most views.  For some reason, the post on my blog that has gotten the absolute most views BY FAR is this one.  I have no idea why.  Nothing at all whatsover significant about it.  But it has almost 800 views as of today.  This is a good 200 views ahead of 2nd place, which is my labor and delivery pictures post, which shockingly gets a good 15-20 views a day.  Weird.
10. When I whistle, I inhale instead of exhale.  I had no idea most people exhaled until I was in college.  I’ve tried numerous times to whistle that way, but I’ve never been able to.  This has come up in conversation a lot ever since that “Whistle” song by Flo-Rida came out.  Obviously no linking for this one either, just a fun fact.

So there you go.  That’s just a little bit about me that new followers may not have known :)

Ashley’s Bachelorette Party in Nashville

Yes, I’m blogging a lot today.  I’ve been slacking because I’ve been slammed at work and I still am, but I’ve been slowly updating things in my very little downtime.  Today’s been the first day where I’m kind of in a holding pattern waiting on others, so I’ve been doing the blog posts I’ve been meaning to do for a while.

Two weekends ago one of my very good and long time friends, Ashley Matherson, had her bachelorette party in Nashville. Ashley is marrying Brad in December. This is yet another one of my match-making products. I’ve known Ashley since I was in 6th grade and Brad and I worked together at my firm (though he left us a year ago to work for another company). They are so incredibly perfect for each other it’s insane. I love seeing them together.

Anyway, we had such a blast over the weekend. Ashley’s maid of honor, Allyson, planned so much for us to do. Some of you may remember that I lived in Nashville for two years before I moved back to Birmingham to be with Justin. I love the city just as much as I did back then, I just didn’t love it more than my future husband, so I moved back home. Allyson planned two tours for us to do that I had never done in the two years I lived there. It’s really true that when you live in a tourist city, you never do the touristy things that the city has to offer. See pictures below for our fun weekend!!!

We did a Sites & Bites tour which was INCREDIBLE!  We walked around downtown and went to numerous places to get little bites of food and to learn about the history of the places.  Such a cool tour and I suggest it to anyone in Nashville.

Ash trying some Pralines

Ashley and one of the bridesmaids Wendy

There was some kind of dragon boat race on the Cumberland.  It was a huge event…lots of vendors and people bringing their kids and pets to attend.

Our tour was teaching us some history on the Cumberland River

I can’t remember the name of this restaurant, but it’s Gavin DeGraw’s restaurant.  They are known for their hamburgers.  And they were EXCELLENT hamburgers!!  We also got a taster of beer.  I gave it to someone else.  I’m not a big drinker.

We actually went to this place twice.  First for the Sites & Bites tour and then again on the Haunted Sites tour.  It’s called Past Perfect.

There was a putt putt course upstairs…not really a course though.  Just one hole.

Allyson (matron of honor), Erin and Wendy

Me and Ash at Past Perfect

They were known for their infusion drinks.  I can’t remember what this one was, but it was delicious!

And what trip to Nashville is complete without a picture with Elvis??  The other random people in this picture are from the Sites & Bites tour…we did a whole picture of everyone.

This is at the Ryman Auditorium.  Loved hearing the history of that place!

This was our last stop and I can’t remember the name of the place, but it was so cool.  It was a candy store….and I have NEVER seen a candy store so big and full of candy!!!

Now this is on the Haunted Tour.  Again, can’t remember the name of the place (clearly I need to pay better attention) but it used to be a house where a woman was killed by being pushed down the stairs.  You can’t see the stairs but they’re underneath that Montana jersey.  The owners of the bar tell women to be careful upstairs because there have been reports of women being pushed down these stairs when no one is behind them.  People also have taken pictures and seen an “orb” in the photo.  No orb in my photo.  Boo.  Fun side note - this is the Alabama Fan bar in Nashville.  RTR.

Same bar - there’s also reports of an “entity” as the tour guide continued to call it, showing up in pictures behind the bar.  We took a pic of Ash hoping to see said entity in the picture.  No such luck.

We had the actual lingerie shower in the hotel room on Saturday night.  I won’t show pics of her gifts, but I will share these fun pics:

I told Allyson ahead of time that we should play this game.  We played it at my bachelorette party and Allyson and Ashley were both there and thought it was fun (see my bachelorette party post here).  Allyson asked Brad several question before the party and Ashley had to answer those same questions the way Brad would have answered.  If she got any answers different that what he gave, she had to put a marshmallow in her mouth (not swallow, just keep it in there).  Lucky for her, Brad’s responses were truthful so she got a ton of them right and even the ones she got wrong she didn’t really get wrong, it just depended on how you looked at the question.  When Justin was asked questions for my game, he purposely answered them with the most off the wall answers to try to get me to fail.  He succeeded.

Anyway, it was an awesome weekend.  Ashley and I drove back together and went to church at Cross Point (see post below).  I intended to meet up with my friend Lillian and meet her baby girl Maggie, but our schedules weren’t working out.  They just recently sold their house and had to find another house ASAP, so they were house hunting with the realtor the majority of the day on Saturday, which was the only day I was available to meet up with them.  I’ll have to go up there to see her again soon.  Meeting Maggie is on my 101 list.