Show & Tell Tuesday: Names!

Okay, so I'm actually a week late with this Show & Tell, but hey......better late than never!  I'm linking up with Andrea at Momfessionals to discuss "Names"....

So we'll start with the Mister. Jeremie's full name is actually Thomas Jeremie Wells, and as we all know, he goes by Jeremie, or for ease, "J" in all my text, emails and blogs. (Poor guy, I have stripped him of all his identity except one letter.) So Thomas is a family name and when I asked his mom what inspired his first name she said "We couldn't agree on Rocky". HAHAHAHA!!! I have to say, if Jeremie's name would've been Rocky, he would have TOTALLY lived up to it. He still loves to tie stuff around his head and scream "ADRIAN!!!!!"  You see any similarities here????.......

A legend in his own mind.

Anyway.....even Jeremie's mom agreed that calling him by his middle name probably made for more complicated paperwork over all these years. My dad also goes by his middle name; he's Liston Lee Taylor. So when J and I were naming Greyson, we kept this in mind. 

My name is a conglomeration. Kathryn Elizabeth Taylor was my name before we got married. My mom wanted to totally name me "Katie Beth" but my dad thought that sounded like a nickname. (My mom and a few select friends still call me this though.) So they both like Kathryn; my dad was "inspired" by the very popular actress, Kathryn Hepburn. (I watched one of her movies a long time ago and was not so inspired.) But I did Google her for purposes of this blog and saw a couple of inspiring quotes....

Then I noticed through Google-ing that she was an atheist, so we definitely do not share in that area. 

Two of my great grandmothers were both named Elizabeth, which was a very popular name then. But my parents didn't want me to be "Elizabeth Taylor", so they stuck that name in the middle. Personally, I probably wouldn't have minded being Elizabeth Taylor.....

Unfortunately, I do not have a comparative picture to add like J's Rocky picture above. 

For Greyson's name, I was so afraid we'd NEVER agree, because J and I were all over the map!  I was supposed to be "Andrew" if were a boy, so I really liked this name for a boy. But J didn't. Jeremie liked the name Josiah, which I just didn't think was right either. We knew we wanted to keep the family name "Thomas" in the middle, so the first name had to sound right with that.  I borrowed the "Book of 100,000 Names" from my friend Mary and after a complete search, I found 2 names I liked: Emerson and Ramsey. (I guess I overlooked "Greyson".)  Jeremie didn't like either and after our gender sonogram, I just didn't feel like either name fit our baby. (I know, at that point, he was the size of a coke can, but it just wasn't right. We both liked "Wyatt", but really.....try to say "Wyatt Wells" three times fast. (I had a speech impediment as a child, so I'm not even going there.) My dad had an especially good time harassing suggesting appropriate names for our child. About three weeks after we found out it was a boy, J and I were eating dinner and tossing around names. For some reason, I just said, "what about Greyson?" and J liked it. The spelling makes it a little different but it's easy to pronounce and sounds good with "Thomas". We quickly looked up the meaning in our Book of 100,000 Names, and it said "Son of a gray-haired man". That wasn't too inspiring, but we didn't really care.  (And after these past 6 months, this meaning has probably come true anyway.) 

So that was that, Greyson Thomas Wells it was. I LOVE his name. And I feel like it fits him perfectly! 

And coming up on Show and Tell Tuesdays....

Hoppy Easter!

Our First Easter weekend with our little munchkin was so fun! Our Auntie Amy drove all the way from Mississippi to see us, so that was extra special....

That's right....just look how pretty she is....

                             

So Greyson, me and Auntie Amy hopped around town shopping, ordering Bridesmaid dresses and such. We also did our own little Easter photo shoot with 'Lil G. (Since this was a homemade photo shoot this DOES NOT count towards the 4 photo shoots per year I get as mentioned in previous post.)

We had a great time, but honestly, I don't know how newborn/baby photographers do it. Greyson was a moving target but we got some great shots. (These are unedited. If I waited until I edited photos, Greyson would be 21.)

I just wanna caption this: "I don't always take Easter photos, but when I do, I hold a stuffed lamb."

Easter day was actually chilly and rainy. Trying to get all three of us dressy-dressed and out the door to church was like a four alarm fire drill. We snapped this pic on the way out the door and it's not our greatest. But I slapped a filter on it and "softened" it up a little bit. Hopefully we are more successful next year. But I doubt it. Greyson will be one and a half and probably running around like a banshee refusing to even wear pants, much less a bowtie.

I snapped this at church.  My boys looked SO HANDSOME! 

Hope you Easter was a Hoppy One!!! 

Friday Favorites

Today I'm linking up with Erika for Friday Favorites!!! Here are some of my random favorite moments from this week!

ONE

Nothing kicks of a good blog post like some darlin' baby photos, right? Here are a few of my favorite snapshots this week! 

Greyson was very excited that his Daddy was on the way home. (My dramatic rendition of Ole McDonald had a Farm probably also had something to do with it....)

Greyson was "helping" me fold clothes. He looks guilty because he had just pulled down a stack of bibs. 

And this might be an all time favorite. We were at a play date on Thursday and I loved G's outfit, so told my friend, Jorie to snap a picture. She was desperately trying to make him laugh/smile, so she made this hilarious pig noise and it obviously worked. Thank you Aunt Jorie for sacrificing your dignity to get my child to smile.

TWO
Speaking of photos of the babe, my sister and I did a DARLING Easter photo shoot of Greyson. (That's a whole 'nother post!) So Jeremie was telling me on the way home from church on Sunday that he's gonna train Greyson to hate taking pictures. I quickly made my stand for photo shoots. I argued that as much POOP, PEE and other bodily fluids that I clean up for that babe should earn me at LEAST 4 photo shoots per year: Christmas, Easter, Birthday, and a Wild Card. (This of course does not include random cell phone pics.) Jeremie still thinks this is ridiculous but I'm holding my ground. 

THREE
My favorite mommy moment is actually a chaotic moment that I'm laughing about now but wasn't laughing about then! Even though my little guy looks like a sweet cherub in the above pictures, he did give mommy dearest somewhat of a hard time this week. Child decided he was gonna skip his afternoon naps ALL WEEK even though he was a HOT MESS in need of an afternoon nap! It wore me out! Anyway, riding in the car does make him sleep, so during Wednesday's hissy fit, I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone and load him up to go pick up Manny from doggy daycare. Sure enough, the little mister fell asleep and I figured I'd milk the nap as long as I could, so I went to Sonic to waste some time and get a Strawberry Limeade. I was pretty much planning on getting my drink, and perhaps even leaning my seat back and enjoying a few quiet moments before the witching hour. Well, the Sonic boy skated up to my window with such ferver that it sent Manny into panic mode and he started barking like crazy. Cue Greyson and his wailing. I just wanted to cry at that moment. Now I laugh.

FOUR
. Listen. I've had stressful full time jobs. But as a mom, there’s something about that moment at the end of the day when you're watching a SLEEPING baby on the monitor and you finally get to sit back, relax, and have a moment all to yourself! I celebrate this small victory every night with a yummy treat. Most nights, it's a Swiss Miss K-cup.  This week has been caramel Cadbury eggs, and tonight were these YUMMY mini-pies from Trader Joes! HELLO.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Show and Tell Tuesday: Favorite Vacation Ever!

Today I'm linking up again with Mix and Match Mama and Momfessionals to share my favorite vacation ever!!!  

My hubby and I LOOOVE to travel! Other than our honeymoon and a mission trip to Nicaragua, we haven't done too many trips outside of the US. There are several overseas places I wanna see, but I feel like there are SO many amazing and beautiful places within good ole America too!  Jeremie and I also like to pack up for the weekend and go on small getaways to places that are close to home. (Well, we did PRE-baby....I'm sure they will increase once Greyson gets a little more mobile and a little less dependent on 3,541 contraptions that we have to take with us. Look-I know there's some people out there who throw the baby in the car and go..more power to ya. But listen.....when you need the Rock-n-play, the pack-n-play, the enormous infant stroller, the pump, the activity gym....packing for a weekend getaway takes longer than being at our actual destination.)

Anyway-there are different parts of each trip that are my "favorite". The trip to Nicaragua was the most humbling. The garlic rolls at this pizza place in Gatlinburg were probably the yummiest thing I've ever eaten. The Biltmore was the most beautiful home I've ever seen and the charm of Maine is unmatched!

But I think my favorite vacation overall/in general was our 2013 vacation to Wyoming. This trip was broken up into 3 parts: Jackson Hole, Yellowstone National Park, and The Grand Tetons. (Full blog in links.)  I loved this vacation so much because it was SOOO relaxing. (Like, our cell phones would barely work.) Since there is SO much to see up there, I definitely did LOTS of research about how to break our trip up and where to stay, but other than that, everything else was really off the cuff. (I usually have a pretty detailed itinerary including restaurants we will eat at!) We landed, rented a car, and pretty much drove around for an entire week seeing the beauty of the surroundings. We actually put 1,000 miles on the rental car!

Jackson Hole was darling and had some AMAZING places to eat, Yellowstone was breathtaking and so were the Grand Tetons. In the Grand Tetons, we stayed on a horse ranch and our room was right next to this precious little cafe. We ate BLT's with this view.

Here are some more of my favorites......

So you get it.....it was amazing and a perfect trip for us during that time of our lives. Excited to see what our next vacation has in store!

No Joke: Today I Met the Man I'm Gonna Marry.....

TEN YEARS ago that is. That's right, 10 years ago today, on April Fool's Day 2005 I met Jeremie. (And he says EVERY TIME "And it's been a joke ever since"...) 

I was 20 years old when I met J, which put him at 25 which I quickly told him was OLD. Good first impression right? Geez, you can say anything when you're 20.....Or maybe you're just much braver at 20 than the rest of your life. When I met Jeremie, I clearly had NO idea or intention he would be my future husband. If you had told us that day: "You're gonna marry each other", we probably would've laughed.  Not for any particular reason; both of us just didn't really think much of our chance meeting. Well low and behold, we kept running into each other and Jeremie decided he wasn't too old for me and kept asking my roomate (who he grew up with) for my number. (He will deny all this, but this is MY blog and I will report the TRUTH!) I kept brushing it off until one night he straight up cornered me and I spouted out my number so fast I thought surely he wouldn't remember it. Homeboy did. He was smarter than I thought. (Duh, he married me, remember?) And I'll never forget our first phone call. Late one night, I was changing my safari themed sheets (ya'll KNOW giraffes were totally IN circa 2004-2006) and we chatted for over an hour. I hung up and thought: Now that boy actually has a personality....and is interesting....and I loved the sound of his laugh.

The glory days with my darlin'

What started out as a great friendship turned into a love. I knew I loved Jeremie very quickly. But listen. Our "courtship" wasn't the easiest or quickest. After he whisked away to Costa Rica for the summer then New York for a 6 month internship there were lots of tears, tough conversations and long months! But those times strengthened us and finally one day in the Fall of 2006 he told me he wanted to take me RING SHOPPING! I casually agreed while I mentally picked out the perfect ring shopping outfit and immediately called Meg and Mary to SCREAM this news to them over the phone. How I wish I could replay those days like a movie!

So here we are! A few moves and a baby later! Who know April Fool's Day would be one of the BEST days of my life!