More random things............

I went with about 20 girls from my Sunday School class Tuesday night to see "The Help".  Have you seen it? It was SOOOOO good.  I NEVER read books these days - but this is the only book I've read in the last year or two.  If you haven't seen it - you must! And little Mae Mobley - reminded me SO much of Harper.  It made me love the movie more.  And I read a neat article about the twin girls who played Mae Mobley. 

http://beta.clarionledger.com/article/20110810/NEWS/108100345/1002/news01

All the people I follow on Twitter lately have blown up twitter lately talking about their life planners they got from Erincondren.com.  These planners are awesome.  They are $50 which is WAY more than I would pay but there was a great deal a few weeks ago where you could get it for $25 and there was also a 10% off coupon so it wasn't a bad deal.  I saw the same deal on another website last week.  I have high hopes this is going to get me super organized. Mine came in the mail yesterday and I'm about to sit down with fresh new pens and write out everything I need to.  I have felt so un-organized lately so I'm hoping to get it together.  

If I see another deal - I'll let you know! I'm not getting anything to endorse these planners - I just like to share fun things when I can! (and people on twitter were asking me about them yesterday).

I decided this morning to take Harper for a MUCH needed hair cut. Ya'll know I have been wondering what to do with her hair.  I was hoping for a short bob but her hair is so fine and has curls on the sides - so we just got a good trim.  Harper was so excited all day about her "hair cut".

And she was SOOO good.  We went to a new little place that is especially for kids. They had Disney movies playing on TV's and little cars to sit in and a play room to play in while you wait.  Harper was the best she has ever been. I was SO proud of her.

And this is how her hair looks now! So cute.  She is just growing up so fast.  I find myself wanting to tell her every morning and night.....

"You is Kind, You is Smart, You is Important".    (The Help)

5 months and First Day of School

Hollis - you are FIVE months old!!!!

I'm not totally sure - but you weigh close to 15 lbs.

You wear a size 2 diaper and 3-6 months clothes and some 6 months.

You take one good long nap every morning and usually a semi good nap in the afternoon.

Your sleeping has been off lately - you were doing so good and now you have been getting up every 3 hours again. I think you have been going through a growth spurt.

You are usually so happy but lately - you have been a screamer! You are going through some separation anxiety. I'm trying to remember this is just a short phase and I know you will be back to your sweetness soon.

You are a MOVER! You roll everywhere and you sort of army crawl on the floor. You are busy, busy, busy. If we hold you - you are constantly wiggling and squirming.

You aren't liking much these days. We try you in the exersauser, the swing, the floor with toys, the bouncy seat......... and you are only happy for a few minutes before you get frustrated and mad. You are keeping me very busy!

You really just want to be held 24/7 right now.

Harper is always on the lookout for you. If you are napping or not in sight - she will say "Where's sister?" She calls you "sister" or "sissy" but rarely Hollis.

You have now been to visit both grandparent's houses. You actually slept better at their houses than you do at home.

You are pure joy! You are SO loved! I can't believe you are almost half a year old!

Growing, Growing, Growing

I did all of Harper's monthly pictures with her monogrammed clothes on - so I'm continuing the tradition with Hollis. There is no way we will ever wonder who was in the picture!

Today was Harper's first day of "school". She was excited to go and I know she will love Mrs. Dia! I hope she will have a wonderful year and continue to grow and mature! I know that when I take her "last day" picture in May - she will be SO much bigger and more grown up. I will look back at this picture and think "look how little she was!" But for now - I think she's a pretty big girl!

Just a bunch of crazy stuff from my crazy (and getting crazier every minute) brain

I have just a bunch of random stories, thoughts, info, questions for you today. It's all rolling around in my crazy brain. I feel like I haven't had a complete thought in the last 2.5 years - so excuse the mess.

Last night we had quite a family adventure. It's been SO hot that we just haven't gotten outside much lately but it was fairly nice yesterday so we decided after dinner to go to one of our favorite trails and walk - the whole family. We didn't get there until about 7:45 which is bedtime but hey - it's not a school night. The trail is 2 miles and goes around a little lake. We walked and it was fun until we almost got back to where we parked our car and there was a locked gate that had not been there before. There was no going around it and the only way to our car was to go back the 2 miles. At this point it was 8:45 and dark. Hollis was screaming her head off and Dawson was nearly dead. We put him in the stroller and Scott held Hollis. I had worn sandals and one broke around this point. It was pitch dark - it goes through woods and no lights. I was scared to death even with Scott with us. I prayed out loud almost all the way back. We didn't get home until 9:30. All I could do when we finally got to the car and both girls were crying and Scott and I were both sweaty and tired was just laugh and keep laughing. It's good to have a sense of humor sometimes.

Today was open house for Harper's Mother's Day Out. She starts "school" tomorrow and she can't wait. She thought we were there for school today. She marched in her room and tried to shut the door on me and make me leave! She wasn't happy that she couldn't stay. We were just there to meet her teacher - which luckily is a sister of one of my friends. She's a wonderful teacher so I'm so excited for Harper. Harper was SO excited to see Sarah Kate. I wish they were the same age and could be in the same class. They just hugged and hugged and hugged. Pure sweetness!

Y'all - I am so nuts. In the last couple of months I have burned myself while cooking FIVE times. I have 3 scars just on one hand and then last night I rested my arm on the handle of the pan - do you see this ENORMOUS burn I now have on my arm????? Do you have any ideas on what I can do so this doesn't leave a huge scar? I'm just so distracted all the time. I feel like I've lost my mind.

I'm one of these weird people where I find something I like to eat and I want to eat it every meal until I just can't look at it again. My new obsession are BLT's, salt and vinegar chips and poppyseed dressing with fruit. I could eat this almost every meal and I pretty much have been. And now Scott is addicted to my chips and keeps eating them so I can't keep them stocked.

Oh yeah - and I'm sharing my favorite tailgate recipe on my friend Flint's awesome football website today (if you love the SEC - you need to check it out now that football season is here) -
http://www.holyturf.com/2011/08/tailgating-tuesdays-bob-armstrong-dip/
You need to make this dip this fall - you will thank me!

That's enough craziness for one day!

Everybody Wang Chung tonight

Friday morning the girls and I headed for the weekend to my parent's house. We left Scott at home. He had to work and I knew he wouldn't have a good time at my reunion hanging out with people he didn't know so I let him off the hook.
This was Hollis' first trip to my parents. They made Harper a welcome banner on her first visit so Hollis got one too!

My parents enjoyed spending time with the girls. My aunt and uncle came for dinner and my mom fixed the best dinner complete with fried okra (my fav!) and Harper had so much fun playing with them.

My mom got my old cabbage patch dolls down for her to play with them and she had a lot of fun with them. I went and helped set up with a few friends for our 20th reunion. There were four of us girls who were the class officers (I was treasurer) and we set up the reunion. Actually the other 3 girls all live in town so they did everything - I just showed up and visited.

Hollis and I before we went to the class picnic Saturday. Harper wanted no part of being in the picture.

I was a little sad because only 10 people came to the reunion. I had the BEST time with everyone that came - I just wish the other 40 people would have come. I would have LOVED to have seen everyone else I graduated with. I haven't seen anyone in 20 years.

We got lucky because it's been in the 100's here lately but Saturday was only in the 80's and the weather was perfect for a picnic at the town park. Harper was SO tired because she didn't sleep much the night before so I ended up having to call mom and dad to come get her. Hollis stayed with me and did so great.

Saturday night we had a get together at the school cafeteria. We had lots of year books and pictures to look through. It was fun to talk about old times. I know it's been 20 years but to me everyone looked just the same (minus the big hair) and we could just pick right back up.

This is Tracie - she was one of my closest friends in high school. We were cheerleaders together and always had a lot of fun. I took Hollis with me at night too because she is in a period of separation anxiety. She just can't stand to be away from me and still won't take bottles so it was just easier to take her. And the rest of my class who were there all have older kids and teenagers so I think they liked passing her around.

I had a little fun - I couldn't decide what to wear to the reunion and Scott was no help so I tweeted 3 choices and had all my "tweet" friends pick. (Yes - my poor mirror is cracked - I've got to get a new one). The majority picked dress #3. I ended up not wearing the gold necklace to make it a little more casual. Love twitter! :-)

Here we are that night - all 7 of us who came. I think most reunions end up being just a small group. To me - it's just so fun to get back together! The guy next to me (well - the only guy) was my prom date my junior year. He and I were good friends in school. He's a doctor now. He was always really smart.

How much do you love our prom picture? ha!

While I was at the reunion - Harper had a great time playing with her grandparents. They went on a walk and played with their dog. Harper loves being outside and the country is the perfect place for it.

I love this picture of her

Today we went to church. I always love getting to hear my dad preach. Only I only heard the first few sentences of his sermon because Hollis wasn't having it so I took her out. Oh well - she looked cute.

Mom and the girls. We came home this afternoon after eating lunch at Pizza Hut! I love small town life!

I loved re-connecting with old friends. Did you go to your high school reunions? I'm already hoping we will have a 25th. Maybe I can talk more people into coming!

Show Us Your life - Wedding Showers

SHOW US HOW YOUR LIFE - Wedding Showers

I'm really out of the wedding circles these days. I have only hosted two wedding showers in the last couple of years. I guess I'll have to wait until all my friend's kids start getting married to host anymore.
The last wedding shower I hosted was three years ago for my friend Hillary. Her colors were green and black. Her new last name started with a "B".

Yummy Food

How cute are these petit fours??? I got these for her lingerie shower the night before her wedding. I just think these are TOO cute!
We played a fun game and picked out names for each "nightie" she got and then wrote them all on pieces of paper so on her honeymoon - her husband could choose a "name" and then she would wear the corresponding gown. It was a lot of fun.
I had several really nice showers when I was engaged. This shower was thrown by Scott's home church. It was so nice and different. They had us come up on a Saturday and open all the gifts with just our family. And then the shower was the next afternoon and they laid out all the opened gifts on tables for everyone to look at and then I basically stood in the house and everyone came and spoke to me.
This isn't a very good picture but it was me and the two Judys (our moms) in front of the beautiful table.

This fruit table was amazing!!!

Here are people looking at a table that held our Christmas dishes and some other things.
(Funny story about that sweet old lady in the blue shirt - you know you are in the south when you are at a really nice shower in the fall and a sweet old lady in a pretty outfit and perfect make-up comes up and says "I'm so and so and it's nice to meet you. By the way - we are going to kick the tails off of Alabama this week." I got so tickled!)

My parent's church (that I grew up in) threw me a very nice shower also (you can tell we got married in the fall). This is me, my mom and my mam-ma.
This was the traditional kind where you sit in a circle and open gifts while everyone watches you - very chawing to me!

I'd love to see your showers and get ideas. I'm sure there are a lot of you out there planning showers soon for someone!

Answers!

Okay - WOW - y'all had a lot of questions!

First - I want to say that I am pretty open and honest on my blog. I think if you asked any of my close friends - I'm pretty much the same person in real life as I am on here (at least I hope they would think that). And I'm happy to answer your questions! There are some that I am not going to answer - these are ones that I probably wouldn't discuss with even my close friends and I'm guessing most of you wouldn't either - things like birth control, finances, etc. I have to maintain some boundaries of privacy. (and there were a few questions - I chose to just answer in the comment section. I'm still working on a lot of those - so hopefully I'll get them mostly answered).

Also - there were lots of questions on singleness. This is something near and dear to my heart and I want to dedicate a whole post to that. So in the next week or so - I'll do a whole day just on that topic.

Okay......................here we go:

A lot of you want to know what I did for a job before I quit and will I go back to work?

I graduated with a degree in Finance. I never really did finance. I worked for Wal-Mart at the corporate office as a business analyst/account manager for 8 years. After I got married I went to work for a major power tool company as a sales analyst/category manager. I LOVED what I did and loved working. Staying home is not always easy and there are days that I would LOVE to go to a job and sit in a nice quiet office and be alone with my thoughts and go to meetings but I wouldn't trade being home. I will probably do some kind of job once the girls go to school but my ideal job would be to work for the schools or my church. I don't know that I would go back to the business world but you never know I guess.

I'm laughing that a lot of you ask about my hair. I feel like I always get a lot of questions about my hair and y'all don't realize the love/hate relationship I have with my hair:

Yes - I'm naturally a very dark brunette. Yes - I'm now blond. When I was 22 - I started going gray (runs in my family) and I've been 100% white/gray for probably 7 years now. It's just easier to hide the gray by being blond. The white roots show up so much more on dark hair AND I honestly love being blond. I probably won't go back dark. And it was a very gradual process. It was just a few highlights at first and it just progressed. I'm in the process of growing out my bob/bangs. I'm sure I'll go back to short hair but I'm trying to grow it out. I also have wavy hair so I have to use a round brush and dry it and use a chi to fix it.

Y'all also ask about make-up - I just use bare essentials. I do try to get up and get ready as many days as I can. If I know we are going NO WHERE (which isn't often) - I will stay in pi's and no make-up and shower at night or nap time. But I feel better and more productive if my hair is fixed and make-up is on and I have an outfit on. That's just me.

A lot of you are asking about us having more kids...........

I would say right now - we are very happy with the two wonderful kids we have. Two just seems like the right number for us. Also - I will be 38 in a few months and I just feel like I don't want to have kids on into my 40's. If God surprised us - of COURSE I would be thrilled but I feel like our family is pretty perfect with our two girls.

How did I pick the girls' names and what other names do I like?

Harper is a name I've always liked. My favorite book growing up was "To kill a mockingbird". Before we ever married - we decided on Harper for a girl's name and Hudson for a boy's name. (Hudson is my MIL's maiden name) My middle name is Lee and that was my mam-ma's middle name. I didn't want to have a Harper Lee so I used my Mam-ma's maiden name which was Brown.

I have always liked when family's use the same letter for the kids' names and I had too much monogrammed stuff to not go with the same letters..........I like names that are a little different (although Harper has taken off in popularity since we picked it) and I like last names for first names. I like names that kind of have an old south feel to them. So we picked Hollis. I had several names I liked and Hollis is the one Scott liked too. Barrett is just a name that I liked.

For boys I like Sutton, Sullivan (if I would have several boys - these might have been used), Hudson, Holden (maybe even for a girl).

For girls - I like double names - anything with a Kate. I might have even used Mary Hudson if we'd had another girl.

This is a 3 part Q&A -

A lot of you have asked me why we kept Hollis' birth kind of secret, how was a c-section, and how is it having two.

Obviously I am very open on my blog - but there are some things I just have to keep private about. I try to only blog about us being out of town or going places AFTER we do them. I knew I was having a scheduled c-section with Hollis but my family and I felt it was best to not announce that until after for several reasons. I wasn't trying to be secretive - it was just in the best interest of my family. I would say a scheduled C-Section was wonderful and my recovery was 100 times easier than when I had Harper the normal way. (We had a c-section because of the problems we had during Harper's birth. It was the right decision.)

As far as having two, especially when one is a busy toddler - I am not going to lie. It's harder than I thought it would be. I think the hardest part for me is there is NO down time anymore. I took for granted how much down time I actually had with Harper but now 90% of the time when Harper naps - Hollis will be up and after Harper goes to bed - Hollis is still up so it's usually 9:00 before I sit down for the first time for the day. I can't imagine my life without either of my girls but it's VERY busy. And it's getting busier because Hollis is out of the sleep all the time and will sit still stage. She's rolling all over and won't just lay in a bouncy seat. BUT it's just a season and I'm trying to enjoy it because I know they will be eye rolling teenagers before too long. :-)

I've been asked a lot about how I knew Harper had hearing problems:

Harper had a lot of ear infections in her first year and at 18 months she was not talking a whole lot. I asked her ENT about it and he said we would test her at 2. So at 2 - they tested her and she failed. So they tested her again - and she failed. BUT it's hard to test a busy toddler. So they sent us to our state children's hospital and she failed. So that is when they did a sedated test to get the most accurate results. She talks a LOT - so much so that she doesn't qualify for speech therapy. I'm so thankful for that. We aren't doing sign language with her and don't plan to because she communicates so well verbally. We are going to a play date tonight with other kids and parents who are deaf or having hearing loss. I'm excited for Harper to see other kids with "special ears"!

You are all asking how we got rid of the pacifier:

You can ask my parents. I still don't know how they did it. They kept Harper for a week at their house after Hollis was born and they took it away that week and she has never asked for it since. So I have NO tricks or advice except maybe you could send your kids to my parents for the week! ha!

How do I keep balance and do so much and how do I keep my house so clean:

Two things you need to know - I feel like the most frazzled mom on the planet and I have crazy OCD.

No - I have really tried to limit myself in the last year or two to things I truly, truly love. I have learned to say no. Before kids - I did everything at church I could possibly volunteer for and now I'm stepping back some. I go to a weekly Bible Study with women because it is food for my soul. I'm on our church's women council because I am crazy about women's ministry! This fall I'm going to start teaching 9th grade girls' Sunday school and I'm SO excited. I have felt a pull towards teaching youth for a while and the time is finally right. Other than that - I just do things when I can. I LOVE to serve but with small children - sometimes the best place to serve is in your home. There will be time later in my life to serve more.

As far as my house - I'm crazy about it being neat. It's not always CLEAN. The floors could always use a good mopping and the bathrooms could always be cleaner. I try to give myself one task a day to complete. I always make my bed and I clean the kitchen real good every morning while Harper eats breakfast and Hollis is still sleeping. Other than that - I just constantly pick up during the day. And Harper helps. She loves to sing the "Clean up" song so after we finish playing with one thing - we pick it up before we move onto something else.

What Christian DVD's do I recommend for Kids?

Harper LOVES music so ones we have watched since she was little are Praise Baby, Cedarmont kids and Veggie Tales. You can find those on ebay, amazon or life way.com.

Questions Anyone?

It's rainy (thank you Lord for the rain and cooler weather) and we have mostly been home this week and I'm just kind of in a blog slump.

I know I get lots of questions in email and my comments and I'm not always good at responding to them (sorry I want to badly - but my hands are full with life most days)........but I thought if you had anything you wanted to ask me..............leave it in the comments today and I'll follow back up tomorrow with a post with as many Q&A's as possible. (Within reason - I may not answer everything).

(And I'll go ahead and say I hope this post doesn't seem too full of myself. I feel like it does.
Blah - I'm boring but I know I get a lot of questions that don't get answered so I thought it might be good to do it all at once).

And I Brush and Brush and Brush and Brush My hair......................

We watch "Tangled" on constant repeat at my house which has me thinking a lot about hair (mostly I like to think about how gross Rapunzel's hair must be after being dragged all over the floor). ha!

NO - seriously - I wonder - do you have any tips on how to fix little girl's hair? I'm really struggling with keeping Harper's hair looking nice. She has been pretty good about keeping her bows in lately but it still looks kind of messy. She has this fine/half wavy-half straight hair that is just hard to do.

We wash it every night and blow dry it (In the summer - the girl gets really sweaty - it's SO hot. In the winter we might do every other day) but sometimes in the mornings it looks crazy. I use the clear plastic rubber bands to pull her hair back and then stick in a bow. Sometimes I have been doing dog-ears/pigtails or pony tails. I'm trying to decide if I want to get it cut off into a short bob or let it grow long. I like little girl hair either way (as long as I can put a bow in it).

I'm just curious if y'all have suggestions. Like do you use styling products? The biggest thing is getting the little ball of energy to sit still long enough for me to even comb it much less fix it. I could french braid it but there is NO way she would sit still long enough.

I'd just love tips from all you seasoned girl moms. (Harper has her special ears in for this picture - can you see them?)