Friday Favorites!

    I'm linking up with Narci and Erica (who I got to meet last night!) for Friday Favorites!                  

                                     

Of course, THIS GUY, who turned 7 MONTHS this past week is my FAVORITE.....

I am just LOVING this stage! This little guy is FULL of personality and has the sweetest smile. And a little bit of his Daddy's mischief. Hmmmm...

Last weekend, we made our rounds to Lowe's, Home Depot, etc, to finish choosing stuff for the house. Afterwards, we took a lunch break at at a cafe called Seabreeze. I had read they served fresh lobster rolls! And they were DELICIOUS! Just as good or better than the ones we had in Maine.....which is where we were on vacation exactly a year ago!  Lunch dates with my boys are a FAVORITE!

Last night, Jeremie put the babe to bed and mama went out! I hit up a jewelry "party" at a new store that opened in Dallas called Accessory Concierge.  It was hosted by one of my favorite bloggers, Sheaffer, and I also got to meet a few of my other favorites, Narci  and Erika. AC had a store full of DARLING jewelry! It was like over stimulation for a girl! (I wonder if that's how Greyson feels while playing in his exersaucer?) Anyway, I limited myself to a few pieces that I'm sure will be FAVORITES!

                                           

                      

 And last but CERTAINLY not least, a FAVORITE moment of mine was walking in the house yesterday and seeing about 20 people WORKIN. There were people laying bricks for the chimney. There was a guy laying tile. There was another laying wood floors. Praise the Lord! We are HOPING to move in next week. Here's a quick pic J snapped of our kitchen floors that I'm IN LOVE WITH!

                                           

CAN'T WAIT to see the final product and finally be reunited with home after 7 months!!!!  

Hope everyone has a great Friday!

Show and Tell Tuesday: Momfessional Moments

So just pretend it's Tuesday and that I'm linking up with Andrea to share my "Momfessional Moments"....



Let's be honest, I'm a first time Mom; I had NO IDEA what to do with this child after I left the hospital. I envisioned I would be at home wrapping my little cherub up in a blanket and rocking him in my cozy brown glider while lullabys played in the background. I DID NOT envision getting my hair literally pulled out, being peed on 72 times a day, having my face scratched with his RAZOR nails, NUCLEAR blowouts, or him sucking on my chin with his baby shark teeth. The list goes on.

Nevertheless, in these moments of chaos I have had more "Momfessional Moments" than I care to admit. In fact, I'm not gonna admit all of them, but I'll try to be as honest as I can without ya'll taking me to court.

1) So first of all, in all the bundles of things people told me I "NEEDED" as a new mom, no one told me I needed to put a full size trash can in my car. As we are out and about, Lil G obviously needs diaper changes. If we were on a stroll or a place where a trash can was not near, I'd throw his lil pampers in the bottom of the stroller and then into the trunk when we got to the car. Let's just say I've forgotten/neglected to clean out the trunk a couple times. This earned me a couple lectures from J. To quote my BFF Meg: "Ain't nobody got time for that!"

2) New to me also was the car seat prep before taking off with my little one in the back. Multiple times we've been out and about and I've unstrapped Lil G from his carseat to change his diaper or something. When I'd get home,  I'd see that I forgot to buckle him back in! (I know, both my mom and mother in law are gasping and shaking their finger at me right now! I'm sorry!) I literally teared up the first time this happened and after a couple more times, I finally taped a BRIGHT orange sign on my steering wheel that says: "Is Greyson strapped in?" Hasn't happened since.

3) Now that I am usually always in tow with the babe, I feel like I'm almost ALWAYS bouncing with him, swaying, or even rolling the grocery buggy back and forth to keep him soothed/distracted, etc. (Really, why is that, if someone did that to me I think I'd be sick to my stomach all day!) Anyway, Jeremie noticed one night as I was talking to him AFTER Greyson was in bed that I was justa bouncing back and forth like I had a ghost baby on my hip. We laughed so hard! Since then, I've also noticed that I was rolling the buggy back and forth when Greyson wasn't with me! Ha! I'm sure I got some weird looks, but I'm sure I got an Amen from all the mamas in the house. Speaking of  grocery buggy shenanigans, I actually did stop in an aisle the other night, walk to the shelf to grab something, put it in my buggy and kept rolling. Except it wasn't my buggy. Girlfriend had to trot down the aisle and catch me as I rolled away with her purse and groceries!  Ha!

4) Greyson has started to eat some solids, which I have to say has been super fun! At our 4 month check up, the pediatrician said when I was ready I could start with some whole grain cereal.  My mom brain heard whole wheat cereal and the next day after Greyson pooped FOUR TIMES IN A ROW, I thought something might be wrong. So I called the nurse. And she straightened me out. The bad news is that Greyson really shouldn't have had whole wheat until about 9 months. The good news is that now we know he's not allergic to wheat.

5) Greyson LOVES to ride. We learned early that a good car ride or stroll will put our little cherub to sleep.  Better believe that in the shivering days of winter I moved furniture and we "strolled" every day in a circle around the dining room and kitchen. #anythingforanap #strollforthewin

6) About a month ago, Greyson was NOT sleeping well (like up every 3 hours again) and on top of it he got a cold and ear infection back to back. Mama was TIRED. Mama need a few minutes to herself. So after Jeremie got home one afternoon, I headed to the pharmacy to pick up his antibiotics. There was a cupcake store on the way. And I swerved in that thing with smoke behind my tires. The nice fella behind the counter asked what I needed. I told him (in a very threatening voice probably) that I needed a chocolate cupcake and I needed to eat it ALONE in my car. I sat back, took a big breath, and enjoyed my 3 minutes of solitude while I ate my cupcake.

So that's it! Like I said, there's probably way more that I'm not willing to own up to or I have already forgotten about.  That's the good thing about mommy mistakes. You hate making them, but you're so tired, you forget about them so quickly that it doesn't bother you for very long! Ha!

Weekend Fun!

This weekend was pretty fantastic! It was my first Mother's Day and Jeremie and I celebrated our SIX YEAR anniversary! 

Nona Cate showed up on Friday and I'm pretty sure I didn't hold Greyson until she left on Monday.  These two had a ball together.......

When Jeremie has a good gift to give he CANNOT WAIT another moment to exchange gifts. He wanted Greyson to be a part of the exchange and almost woke him up from his morning nap because he couldn't wait any longer. Too bad I threatened his life if he woke up my sleeping baby. The MOMENT Greyson opened his eyes, we got the party started. The gift was a gorgeous necklace from Tiffany's!!! Now I see why he was so excited. Daddy did good. He said it was a joint anniversary/mother's day gift from him and Greyson. Greyson seems pretty invested in the exchange, doesn't he?

Anyway, if I would've known that J was about to gift me with Tiffany's, I would've made a little more effort with my outfit selection. But we were about to run around town to hardware stores....so, really. 

I did manage to clean myself up a little bit that night for dinner! Grandmothers in town means DATE NIGHT!!!! We gorged ourselves on delicious steaks at Bob's Steakhouse. 

No, we did NOT plan our outfits, but really......we NAILED it....

We are knee deep in picking out everything for the house (FINALLY) so we took our 67th trip to Nebraska Furniture Mart the next day to finalize our granite and pick out back splash. This store seriously showed up right on time for us!!! They have great prices and we've picked almost everything for the house from there! (I mean, it's 10 acres of store, what don't they have?!) They even have a darling little nursing/mother's room, so taking Greyson is not a problem!

Greyson picked out a chair.

Nona bought Greyson an exersaucer and thanks to Amazon Prime, it showed up at the door within 2 hours. I think this was as much of a gift to me as it was to him......hands free entertainment for at least 25-35 minutes! 

And for a little anniversary fun....I made this slideshow LAST year for our five year anniversary and always meant to put it on YouTube.....hmmmm...better late than never right!?  Just pretend it's a year later and there's lots of pictures of Greyson.....geez....that's a whole 'nother slide show!!!

You can view our slideshow and share in our sweet 5 years of memories here!

HAPPY FRIDAY!

Show & Tell Tuesday: Favorite Party

Today I'm linking up with Andrea and Shay on the Favorite Party I've hosted!

I LOVE to host a good party! It's really hard for me to pick ONE, there are different things I love about them all, so I'll give a few highlights from my favorites!

One of my favorite parties we hosted was our 2011 New Year's Eve Party. We were living on "the farm" at the time, so we had plenty of room to shoot fireworks and burn our Christmas tree. Jeremie and I even wrapped my exercise ball in trash bags and Christmas lights and did a ball drop from the balcony! It was nothing fancy-I think I served taco soup and had a hot chocolate bar...... but we had SUCH a blast! We moved to Dallas 3 months later, so this was a very special memory!







Another favorite party that I've hosted is the Ugly Sweater Christmas Party. We've done one in Dallas and been a part of 2 in Tallahassee. I feel like all inhibitions are immediately left at the door when everyone walks in looking absolutely ridiculous. I would highly recommend an Ugly Sweater Party if you want an assured good time!

Jeremie's outfit was inspired by Cousin Eddie from National Lampoon. 

SADLY, I do not have any photos of another fun party I hosted! In Tallahassee, we had a Ladies Ministry that did monthly dinners. The host would choose an ingredient and we'd all bring a dish with that ingredient in it! (For example, we did pumpkin, apples, etc.) So when my turn to host came around, they asked what ingredient I wanted, and I said DUH....CHOCOLATE! My month was was May, so we called it "Chocolate in May". Listen. It was the closest thing I can think of to heaven. There was fondue, pies, bars, cakes......everything chocolate!!!! It was so much fun!

Another favorite party that I did not host, but was on the "planning committee" was our Miss America party.  I'm from the South. Lord knows I love a pageant. I will not argue with you on whether these are morally degrading, right, or ethic.  I just love a pretty dress and big hair. And on stage interview questions.

Anyway, so a group of girlfriends hosted a watch party and everything was Miss America themed, down to our food. (For example, I brought 'Lil Smokies and called them "And the Wiener Is".) We even printed out judging sheets. There were crowns, sashes, and lots of laughs.







And last but certainly not least, my most recent favorite party was our Gender Reveal party back in June.  I have NO IDEA how people don't find out their gender OR know it and not tell anybody. I was busting at the seams to let the world know our little nugget was a BOY. You can read the full post here.







Looking VERY forward to hosting many more parties when we move back in to our home!!!!

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!