Birthday and Silence

Today was my mom's birthday! She and I went shopping for awhile this morning and let Brayden ride on the little mall rides. Then this evening we had a family dinner at Ruth's Chris. She LOVES their bread pudding (pictured below)! Happy birthday Momma!

And of course, a picture of my little ham. He loves oranges...

Tomorrow, beginning at midnight, I'm participating in a day of blogging silence for Cohen. Won't you join me? All of the information and how to participate is listed below:

Click Here to Participate.

What: Moment of Silence for Cohen

When: Thursday July 1st from midnight to 11:59 pm.

How: Bloggers participating will post the Cohen banner (below) or simply post Cohen’s name in large letters on their blog.

Why: July 1st Megan and Brent will be holding Cohen’s memorial service. The moment of silence is an opportunity for Megan’s blog community to stand behind her and support her on this difficult day. Linking up will give Megan a chance to see the support at a glance.

Fun with Friends!

I've been realllllly wanting some tomato soup, chicken salad and an orange roll from a local tearoom that is closing tomorrow (they will thankfully be reopening in a new location in August though!) and Sara, Lilly and Reid came out to meet B and I for some food and fun!

A picture (a BAD picture taken with my terrible phone camera) of the yumminess that I devoured:

After that, we headed over to the mall for a little shopping and to let the kids play in the fountain. Sara and I may or may not have cooled our feet in it too! Ha!

I had to steal all these pics from Sara's blog because (gasp!) I left my camera at home. Here is cutie pie Reid:
Lilly and Brayden splashing around:
And then the cutest moment of the day...Lilly and Brayden holding hands (this was like 2 seconds after he slapped her on the rear...). So sweet! I hope Matt doesn't mind! Haha!

It was such a fun day with fabulous friends!

Just for fun...#FF

(First, a quick note. If you have a child who suffered from a rash/chemical burn like Brayden did, you can file a claim with the Consumer Product Safety Commission by clicking here. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, click here.)

I heart Twitter.

And since I have never actually participated in Follow Friday (it's when people give a shout out to their favorite tweeters), and since it's Monday and I'd feel a little silly doing a #FF on Twitter, I thought I'd do it here.

There are some people on Twitter who really make my day. They keep me laughing or are really sweet. I'm not going to list every single one on this post, but I want to share 5 with you. That way, if you're on twitter it'll be easy for you to search out 5 names instead of 50!

In no particular order...

@_grits She totally cracks me up and I look forward to her tweets everyday!

@xoxo_trina I got to meet Trina on my Atlanta trip and I love her! She is so sweet and I love her tweets, especially the recent ones about nail polish! Ha!

@Bethenny This is Bethenny from the RHofNYC. Enough said!!!

@BlueEyedBride I met Erin in Atlanta as well and she is so sweet! I love talking about her adorable son H with her! She also plans and throws the BEST parties so if you need inspiration, she's awesome.

@lovebrunch She totally cracks me up with her funny and sometimes random tweets! Love it!

So that is my #FF for this Monday! Ha! There are so many of you who I love following and tweeting with, I just didn't want to list an overwhelmingly large about of names on one post! I'll have to do another one with more!

4 Wheelin' It

Today my mom and I headed to Babies R Us. I was going there to check out the Chicco Together stroller, which is the double version of the Chicco Cortina that I have and love (and HIGHLY recommend) for B. Well, the internet said they had it but apparently it lies, because they do not have it in the store I went to. But a trip to BRU is never wasted...

On the way we got B a happy meal of chicken nuggets. For the very first time, he ate the WHOLE THING! He's polishing off the last nugget here...shoving it into his mouth. And why yes! Those are HUGGIES in my cart!

Check out this John Deere tractor and trailer. I think when B is older, we might have to get this for him.
But for now...he will just play on his new 4 wheeler!
Grammy got him this adorable 4 wheeler today. I had sent her and GrandDaddy a picture one day at playgroup when he discovered another little boy's 4 wheeler. He played in their playroom the entire time and sat on it. So they decided he needed one of his own. He LOVES driving it around!

Chickfila Playdate

Today Brayden and I went to two of our favorite things at once...a playdate and Chickfila! If you know me...or follow me on twitter I guess...then you have probably picked up on the fact that I loooove Chickfila. I may or may not be on a first name basis with the lunch crew at my local Chickfila. And they may or may not have asked where I was when I was sick and didn't make a Chickfila run in 3 weeks. Ahem.

Back to the playdate. We go to two different playgroups, one with my friends from church and one with my friends from my MOPS group. I managed to get a picture with all the kiddos except baby Reid below:

Up top is Caedmon and below him from left to right is Lilly, Stella, Brayden and Brody. They seemed to have a good time even though it was super hot!

I never seem to get a pic of the momma's (though I'm not sure anyone minded today because we were all sweating)!

Dr. Appt & a Prayer Request

I realized that it might be a bit of a cliff hanger for me to say "I'm having an appointment on Thursday" and then not give any sort of update!

Soooo...the update is that everything is fine and we have our gender ultrasound scheduled for July 6th!!

Also, please be in prayer for 7 year old Conner and his family. He is at the end of his battle against Cystic Fibrosis and his family could use your prayers. You can visit them by clicking here.

THE Playset.

I can't remember if I blogged about it or just talked about it on Twitter, but my parents bought Brayden this incredible playset. The only problem was it came in approximately 7,223 pieces. Absolutely nothing was preassembled! It takes 16 hours to put together according to the manual. It only took Chris 12, haha!

Brayden absolutely adores it, so it was all worth it!

Last night we broke out the sidewalk chalk for the first time. Look who wrote his name!
Just kidding, Chris actually wrote it, but B added a few special touches.

And lastly, our golden retrievers deserve some face time. Actually, I am putting them on here because we shaved them for the summer (their hair is SO thick) and I think they look cute, ha!

Mossy, who is scared of the camera:
And Old Man, aka Buster who looks precious!

17 Weeks

Since you've all asked me to, I'm going to use the "pregnancy form!"

How Far Along: 17 Weeks

Size of baby: 5 ounces, 5 inches and the size of a turnip.

Total Weight Gain/Loss: I'm still in the negatives at -5lbs.

Maternity Clothes: I wear a combo of maternity and regular clothes. I'm tall but I have no torso, so I have nowhere to go but out, so I need maternity pants sooner than most people.

Gender: ???

Movement: Yes - I felt movement VERY early on (12-13 weeks). Chris has felt him/her move several times as well.

What I miss: Nothing really.

Sleep: I get up about 3-5 times per night.

Symptoms: I still take a Zofran in the morning but other than that I'm okay.

Best Moment this week: I'm guessing it will be my appt on Thursday!

What I am looking forward to: My appt on Thursday!

A Few Things...

I have a few things I keep wanting to touch on but then I get distracted and hit POST before I'm actually done typing!

First, I have a new prayer request for the prayer warriors out there...

Baby Jake had been given a negative prenatal diagnosis but that diagnosis has changed. It is quite involved and I don't want to try and summarize it for fear of not getting things right, but please check out their blog and be in prayer for their family.

Also, please continue to lift up Megan and Brent. Cohen went to be with Jesus last week.

If you have been having trouble commenting on my blog over the last month, I think we've finally got it all fixed! Email or tweet me if you are still having trouble.

Lastly, Brayden is apparently quite computer savvy and deleted a TON of my emails from my blog account. If you've emailed me in the last couple of months and not heard back (this actually happened twice) please resend it! It's not like me to not write back!

Happy Fathers Day!

I'm so blessed to have a wonderful father. We've always had a great relationship and I think as I get older it just gets better! I love you so much Dad - thank you for always being there for me!

Chris is a wonderful daddy to Brayden, and I couldn't ask for a better husband or father for my children. He wants to spend every spare second when he isn't working with us, and looks forward to my calls throughout the day so he can have his little chats with Brayden!

This is us after church today. Brayden had a little bit of a rough time in the nursery - he doesn't like it if we aren't the first ones there to pick him up! It was 100% my fault today, since I finally got to meet Stephanie from If You Say Sew! We've gone to the same church for years, I did a giveaway for her, and we still hadn't met in person until today! It was so nice to finally meet you Stephanie!

After church we had family over for a BBQ. This is Chris' mom Lori and stepdad Charles:
My mom and dad:
And my brother and his girlfriend Kaycee:
And Brayden sees a camera and thinks it is solely meant for taking his picture, so this is one of him:
I hope everyone had a wonderful fathers day!

I know most of you have heard through Twitter, but Brent and Megan's baby Cohen went to be with Jesus. Please keep them in your prayers during this difficult time.

New kinds of crazy...

Edited: I've gotten a ton of emails over the last month saying y'all can't comment anymore. I am pretty sure the problem is now fixed! Let me know if you still are having trouble!

Did anyone else get sucked into the three part Real Housewives of NYC reunion? Was that not a whole new kind of crazy - specifically Kelly?

I've watched every episode of every season of every housewives that there is. Sadly, I just admitted this to you. But the point of that declaration is to say that Kelly is a planet unto herself. I just don't understand her. "I wear fur but I support PETA." Really? Can someone explain how that works?

This was the first season that I actually really liked Alex. She seemed more...real? I don't know if that's the word I'm looking for but it's close enough. The same goes for Ramona; she was different in a good way this season.

Jill...well she's said a couple of times that she was attempting to be snarky like Bethenny. The thing is Bethenny isn't hateful, and Jill was. I think that's why the public opinion of her turned.

Luann, or as Simon calls her, Lulu, was also different this season. Sometimes I liked her, other times, not so much. And it seemed like she wore the same 3 outfits every time she filmed. I'm sure they were all nice and incredibly expensive, but hopefully next season she will mix it up a little bit.

Sonja...when the intro'ed her, I didn't like her. After that first episode however, I did. I think she came off pretentious but then you just realize that how she is is how she is and she doesn't mean any harm.

And finally, Bethenny is just Bethenny, and I've liked her since the first time she opened her mouth. Sometimes she crosses the line, but in general she is just hilarious.

So what did you think of this season of the RHoNYC? Who do you hope comes back next season? Personally I wouldn't shed a tear if Kelly left...!

Part 2 of our trip...

Since we decided not to fly back home (thankfully - we found out that our flight was delayed by several hours!) we ended up taking a road trip down the Mississippi with my parents. B did a lot of this:

And along the way we saw Grant's house:
And this teeny tiny cabin that a family of 8 lived in until the 70's:

And now we are home! I am SO glad to be home! I hope our next trip goes a little more smoothly.

Our Crazy Trip, part one

Sooo, our Chicago trip.

Well, first I should say that is wasn't technically "our" trip. It was supposed to be my parents trip:

We are very lucky to have a SUPER close relationship with my mom and dad. We do everything together, and we all get along. So, when they decided to take a trip without us (we usually go on all our vacations together) I semi-jokingly invited us along. Apparently, my Dad was hoping I'd do that, because he booked us plane tickets! Ha!

Well, my parents decided to drive to Chicago. They love taking car rides. With B, we thought flying was the better option. We were WRONG.

It's about a 90 minute flight to Chicago, one we've made many times without incident. We boarded our plane and we were getting ready to back away from the gate, when a woman in the front row complained that her armrest was broken; permanently stuck in the upright position. Now, it's not like she was sitting next to a stranger, she was sitting with her child. The flight crew decided that our plane just couldn't make it to Chicago with a broken armrest and called maintenance. An HOUR AND A HALF later, they removed the broken armrest. We finally took flight.

Well, that little delay apparently messed up our landing for Chicago. So after circling forever, they landed us in Peoria...where we sat, and sat and sat. This was about 3 hours into the trip. Chris asked if we could get off the plane - we only had carry on's. The pilot who was not very nice ordered him back to his seat. We later found out that this was against the new policy of holding passengers on a grounded flight for more than an hour.

So anyway, over 4 or so hours late, we finally make it to Chicago. We then took the cab ride into the city (oh I should mention that the cab didn't have air conditioning! Oh my WORD!) and decided we were NOT flying back!

B was SO happy to get off that plane! Grammy and GrandDaddy had gotten him his first baseball and glove, and he put it right on his hand like he totally knew what he was doing:

Anyone who knows me knows that I.Love.To.Eat. And Chicago has some of the best food! I took a picture of the way they served tea in a restaurant in our hotel. That's simple syrup in the top:

A Chicago dog, that was freshly made:
And the best little sliders ever. They are made with short ribs! SOOOO GOOD!!!
More to come from our very interesting little trip soon!

Girls Night Out!!

I've got SO much to blog about, but first I've got some catching up to do. If you follow me on twitter, you know that my Chicago trip turned into an ordeal...more on that later. Instead of coming home Sunday, we just got home a few hours ago. We didn't have the computer on this trip either, which is why there were no new blog posts!

So, back to Thursday night...

My friend Sara planned a fun girls night out that started with dinner at Mimi's (and included my personal fave, fried zucchini!) and then we walked around our outdoor mall.

I had my camera on me for once but I was too chicken to ask a stranger to take our pic, but Sara wasn't so we were able to get this one! Ha!

Also, awhile back I asked where I could find footie pj's for an 18 months old and a bunch of you said to check Children's Place. Thank you SO much!! They had them and I was able to get him a new wardrobe of pajamas that fit!!

LOTS more to come!

I'm a Geek. A PSA.

If you follow me on twitter, you've probably figured this out by now. But I'm a geek. I like to read. A lot. And right now, though I swore (well not really) that I wouldn't ever read them....I'm still very much into the Twilight Saga. But you know that already, because I wrote about it here.

Anyway, this is my Public Service Announcement to all the rest of you out there who like me, devour books in your spare time (note: I'm not calling you all geeks, just me. Ha!).

Stephanie Meyer, the author of the series wrote a short novella on the backstory of Bree Tanner, called "The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner." I know a lot of you knew this already, but a lot of you tweeted me that you didn't know, so I should share it here too. Spoiler for Eclipse: Bree is the one who surrenders during the fight.

At first I thought, why on earth would I want to read that? She was the bad guy after all, or at least with the bad guys. But I found a long nap time on my hands with nothing else to do, so I read it.

Oh, by the way, you can read it FOR FREE for a limited time on breetanner.com.

I won't ruin it for you but you really, really need to read it before seeing Eclipse. I know that I am going to see the movie differently having read it. It's a short read, less than 200 pages, and I got through it in about an hour, so it doesn't take a lot of time.

So, that's my PSA for the day. If you read it, let me know what you think!

B's first baseball game

The other night we went out with our friends Sara (and her family) and Sydney (her daughter Stella was there and her husband is one of the announcers for the game) to our first baseball game as a family. We saw our local minor league team play - and I use the word "saw" very loosely. I think I watched maybe 5 minutes of it! We were too busy talking and wrangling kids!

Daddy and B:
Don't judge me too harshly...It was 90+ degrees and I was dying!
B had fun but he was ready for "nigh nigh" early - he kept repeating it over and over in the car. The game didn't start until 7, and he goes to bed at 8 so he was really, really tired! We left early to get him home and I think he slept until almost 10am the next morning! My boy loves his sleepy time!

15 weeks

So here's the 15 week shot. I'm still down 7lbs but I do have a bump now. I feel okay most of the time and when I don't, I take half a Zofran and it usually makes me feel about 80% better. I'm not complaining - when I was pregnant with B, I was sick 24/7 for the first 28 weeks!

I have another appointment in a few weeks and then I think we will be scheduling the gender ultrasound for the first week in July.

I have pictures from B's first baseball game coming soon - originally, I was going to post that first but Blogger wasn't working this morning.

Boys and their toys

The other night when we went to Target Chris decided he needed a water gun. He was spraying our golden's with it (they love it) and Brayden wanted in on the action.

Here he is drenched and totally happy. He LOVED it! He kept running to get in front of it so Chris would spray him.
Grammy and GrandDaddy have this lawnmower at their house and he loves it so I got him one for our backyard:
And Chris was up near our favorite bakery the other day and he picked this up for me, just because! So sweet!

Playin' In the Grass is a Gas...

Baby can you dig it?

(Just a little play on that Grazin' in the Grass song from like the 70's...lest you think I'm crazy!)

First Pool Experience

Today was playgroup at our friend Tracy's house. She has the best backyard! It's so big and there is a ton of room for all the kids to spread out. Today's playgroup was a little different because it was an outdoor pool part (with kiddie pools). B has never been in a pool before so I was excited to see what he would do.

First he played in the sprinklers, which he liked:

Then he found a car she had in the backyard. He kept trying to get it to back up! Haha!
And finally he played in the pool. He really liked standing outside of it and bending over and splashing, but he did get in and had fun with that too.
This was the first time I've used the little swimmers diapers. They were a lot thinner that I expected. So, do they work like regular diapers? I put him in one before we left but now I'm wondering if I should have put it on him right before he got in the water?

Vroom Vroom

We've spent the last couple of nights hanging out in our backyard. B has gotten over his aversion to grass and now LOVES to play outside. Chris brought his little red car outside and he drove it all over the patio. When you say the word "car" he immediately replies, Vroom Vroom!

That weird circle of concrete behind him was a planter box but we took it out and filled it in for B.
He decided he wanted to drive backwards...didn't work out so well for him, but it was still cute!
And in other news I went to Walmart today to grocery shop and bought out the store, or at least that's what it felt like. I've been so sick that I haven't shopped in forever so there was a ton of stuff we needed. And one thing that we didn't really need but I wanted was a kiddie pool for Brayden. Do you know I searched that store top to bottom and couldn't find a single one?! They had a million pool toys and floaties but no pools! I may go to another store when B wakes up!