Christmas in Canton

Sunday after church and our regular Sunday naps that afternoon we took a trip to see my best friend Jana in Canton so she could take a few pictures of us and also to see her new house. We arrived on the square and they had everything decorated for Christmas (if you haven't been by to see the City of Lights you should take a drive to the square). So the main purpose for this visit as I said was to take some pictures on the square and here are a few of the results. Jeff of course I had to fight to get him to get dressed and Hayden wasn't any better. First I had to wake the kid up from his nap and like his mama he doesn't like to be woken up at any time. Once we got there though we had a great time, even Jeff started climbing in trees and getting Hayden into the picture taking mood. I was a proud mama!!!

Crossgates Christmas

After the parade in Pisgah yesterday, Jeff and I went to Crossgates Baptist Church for their annual Christmas Program. I will have to say, last year I was interpreting and couldn't watch any of it, but this year I got to be a member of the congregation... it was fantastic. I am always impressed with the set up of everything, from the stage setup, production, lights, dancers, down to the choir's wardrobe. Ballet Magnificat was there, as they usually are, Crossgates Dancers, the Children's Choir, as well as the High School Choir, and of course the Adult Choir. Amazing!!! I was sitting in the section reserved for the deaf, just because that is where we are used to sitting and knew everyone over there, and I got to watch someone else interpret for a change. They sang the song "Little Drummer Boy", of course to a different tune than we are used to. They brought in about 8 of the high school guys to play the drums, and as I was sitting their watching and listening to them play, and the choir sing behing them I couldn't help but think to myself, "I can't imagine not being able to hear this"! We never really know how blessed we are until we have time to stop, and think about things such as this. I am sitting behind all of the deaf watching the interpreter sign the songs, and she is doing a great job drawing out pictures for all of them to really understand the music, but only if they could have heard it. When the program was over one of the men came up to me and said, "I couldn't hear most of it but I could feel a lot of it, it was WONDERFUL" as his eyes lit up with joy. That made my night, knowing that he did get to feel what I felt, and that was the Holy Spirit speaking to them through music as much as it did me.

Butter anyone?

I've always thought my child was a little on the goofy side, but Friday night he proved it to me for sure! I am in the kitchen cooking supper as he is demanding things from me... "mama hold this" (handing me his cup) "mama want more" (using the sign for more) "now" is what followed after that sweet, cute little sign of "more", "awnt cackers" "awnt cookie". As I am pulling out a new stick of butter from the refrigerator he says, "awnt cheeeeeeese" in that long drawn out southern voice (I'm trying to break him of that quickly). I tell him, "Hayden this is not cheese" he persist and says, "awnt cheese noooow" I then explained to him that what I had was butter, so he says, "awnt budda" I told him again for the third time that it was butter that I had and not cheese. The kid is a persistent little pest and says, "awnt cheese now" I give in to the demands and give him a bite of what he is asking for. Two bites of the BUTTER later he wants more!!! I am laughing so hard at him I can't even explain to Jeff why we have two big chunks of butter gone from the new butter stick.

Chick-fil-a

I had my first bad experience ever at Chick-fil-a today and it really wasn't their fault except for the part where they shorted me on my fries and gave me 7 french fries in my meal. I love my fries and do not like to be shorted, but they had at least 40 -50 kids from 2 different schools in there PLUS the parents and a few teachers of these children. The french fry part didn't bother me as much as these parents did. One of the school groups that was there were from UCS, if you're from my area you know exactly what school I'm talking about. So, back to the story, not only was there no walking room in this place today, but there were to many snotty kids with their parents (who were worse than the kids). I had promised Hayden that after he ate then he could play in the play area since it was so nasty outside today. So he was very good and didn't rush or anything to eat his food, finished everything and then ate some of mine. After this he asked to go play so we went to the play area where there was 2 other little girls from UCS in there who were very polite and looked out for Hayden everywhere they went. However, not 5 minutes into his playtime the room is packed. Ok, let me stop and say this, there is a sign on the door that has a line on it and if you are taller than that line you are not supposed to be in there (means you're too big) then there is a little area that is called "the toddler area" and it has a sign before going into it that says the room is reserved for 3 years of age and under. Having said that I'll get back to the story now. I am sitting there watching Hayden and the little girls play and then two other boys come in to play, this is ok after I asked them to please be careful because there is a baby right beside them going up the steps to the slide. After these boys come in to play that were clearly to big to be in there, more of his friends come in. By this time it wasn't crowded in there, but it also wasn't safe for Hayden because they start running around and running up the wrong way on the slide. I told them also that they needed to be careful (and I was actually nice about it believe it or not) since Hayden was playing in there as well. They blew me off of course, but at least I tried, so I over looked that and they all start playing hide and go seek. Ok, if you have seen the play areas in these types of places you know there is no room to play hide and seek, especially not to run full speed in. Hayden is starting to get freaked out by this time and comes and sits by me on the bench while I'm sitting there wondering what all of these parents purposes were for going on that field trip. Whether it's to show off the newest Gucci Bag or to show off the new Ug(ly) boots they had on or to show off their "bling" that they wore (on a field trip). I'm still baffled by this because NONE of them were doing a thing to control THEIR children. A few minutes later a teacher comes in following one of the students and tells them to go sit back down because they haven't eaten anything yet. After this all H(*& breaks loose and the cattle gate opens up to let at least 15 UCS kids in (the smallest area at chick-fil-a) the playroom. I grab Hayden up because it was about to be another Black Friday moment for this mama and I was about to go off on some parents after I got on to ALL of their children. By this time the same teacher (obviously the only one who cared how these children acted) came in again as we were walking out the door and says, "I'm about to take care of this". I left out of the room saying," don't bother we are leaving, I can't even get his jacket on in this madhouse) about this time Hayden is on the ground again after he falls over one kid AND the kids shoes right behind Hayden. I had about had it with all of the parents not taking control of their kids, part of the reason UCS ask them to go on the field trip (to help SUPERVISE) not just to get a day off of work or to get out of the house.

Photo Contest!!!

I entered Hayden into a photo contest through a Jenia Johnson Photography and he won. There were only 8 kids in it, but he still won. So we have a photo shoot with Jenia in January (this is his prize) at the park of our choice or a studio and I'm so excited. I have looked at her work and love her artistic abilities with the camera, she mainly photographs children, but I believe she has started doing some wedding photos as well. You should check her out and I'll let everyone know how the shoot goes.

Terrible Two's

The kid, as most of you know, turned 2 in August and I really haven't felt the blow of the terrible two syndrome yet. However, just until the other day I could say this and be telling the truth. Hayden has gotten this attitude lately and when we/I ask him to do something so simple like pick his toys up and put them in his toy box he says "uh-uh" and boy I am so tired of this. Not only does he do this, but he voluntarily offers to put himself in time out, not only does he put himself in time out, but he has gotten to where he walks over to it and says, "nose in corna". Meaning, he knows the consequences to his actions, or lack of, yet he still chooses to disobey me. This really gets on my nerves, not only does this get on my nerves, but this one little noise he makes really boils my blood. He was sitting in the backseat while Jeff and I were coming back from getting a Christmas tree and he starts taking his socks and shoes off. He knows not to do this, but still does it anyway! So I look back at him (I'm not driving by the way Jeff is) and tell him in my best mommy voice, "Hayden don't take off your socks and put your shoes back on your feet!!!" He continues to begin to pulling off one sock, he doesn't have it off yet, but it is slowly making it's way there. So I look back again and say, "Hayden if you do it again I will spank you" and he knows exactly what that means! He proceeds to make this spoiled wrotten sound, "mmmph!!!" loudly, it's almost as if he knows that I HATE that noise so he does it as loud as he can. I ignore the pout and look out the corner of my eye to see him slowly pulling his socks off so I reach back as fast as I can and pop him on the leg (thanks mom for teaching me all I know now by the way, I have the hand swat down pat) and he lets out this ear piercing screech while his face looks like he just swallowed something awful and his tongue is hanging out of his mouth as if the sound is coming from his tongue itself.
I am over this terrible two phase, but I know it could be a lot worse after seeing some of my friends children his age who stomp around the house after not getting their way. I think that would be the time when I would have to give the kid a reality check. Pray for me during the times of terrible two, but please whatever you do don't pray for patience, just peace and strength!

Black Friday Madness

Guess what... I went shopping on Black Friday. I have only done that once in my life before this past Friday and I swore I would never do it again. Well, I proved myself wrong when I was up at 5:30, still later than what I had told my mom. I told her I would be at Walmart to meet her, unless it rained, at 5:00 Friday morning. Well... that didn't happen, the good thing is she knew that it wouldn't happen, bad thing is I still wasn't there when I said I would be. The other bad thing was, the gift I was planning on getting her was gone by the time I got there at 6:00, good thing is she is taken care of now. Also, I have all of my Christmas shopping done, but one now and I'm so thankful for that. I didn't really have to go through much to get them either. I actually had a good time with my mom and mamaw on Black Friday and there were only two confrontations with people. The ones when I'm still IN the car don't count because they couldn't hear me and I couldn't hear them. It does amaze me that 1. people get so crazy over bargains while shopping and 2. women allow their husbands to go with them on such a crazy day of shopping. Come on ladies, we all know men do not like shopping especially when it starts early in the morning and doesn't end until late in the afternoon. One of the situations where words were passed involved a man, but I totally understood that he was tired and didn't want to be there, however I was tired too and was doing nothing wrong when he opened his mouth at the WRONG time. I was standing in the Cookie Store line waiting to buy a cookie and Dr. P at the end of my day when this man, his wife, and kid (in a stroller) come by. I am turned looking at something else while waiting in line and from behind me I hear, "well, I can't get by", loudly, mind you there is plenty of space to go around the long line that I am at the end of. So I turn around in time to hear the wife say, "it's not her fault" but I didn't wait a minute before I open my big mouth to say, "excuse me would have been more polite" and then his sweet wife (apparently trying to avoid any unneccesary drama) looks at me and says again, "it's not your fault". I felt bad after I got in my car and re-thought the situation, but then I also remembered that she shouldn't have made her husband come along with her. Even if he wanted to come along, she should have asked him to stay home or come along but keep his mouth closed when approaching women who had been awake since early that morning.
That's my Black Friday story, and I probably will not do that again any time soon unless there are some outstanding deals like there was this year.

Good stuff forgetten

I know there are several things I haven't posted about in the past week or so, but I have completely forgotten them, all the good stuff that is. It's nothing good like running out of gas on the side of the road, but it starts off with food as the main topic. So I'll start with Thanksgiving!!! First of all, as I've stated before, I love my family, AND I LOVE food, so Thanksgiving is one of my favorite times of year. Thanksgiving for my family is like a reunion, as far back as I can remember we have had more than 40 people (all family) at one place at the same time. That place was either one of my mamaw's apartment club houses when she managed apts or it was her barn with tables lined all around the inside for people and food (don't worry, this wasn't a barn for the animals, although some would consider us to be such). Now, since she moved 2 years ago it is at her new house, less space, but still a lot of people. We were missing several this year due to living out of town and not being able to get home, or other circumstances such as stubborness (just trust me on that one). However, we still had a good 15-20 people there, nothing like it used to be, but we all grow up and move away. My cousin Boyd was there with his wife Emily and their 2 little boys, Noah and Hayze and Hayden was in Heaven with other little people his age to hang out with and talk to, oh yeah can't forget fix things with. They were so cute walking around with their little tools and brooms to fix things and then clean up their messes with. Hayden had to show them around the yard, showed them where his toys were that he keeps at Mamaw's house and then showed them where all of mamaw's tools and shovels were. After we all ate and snapped several pictures it was time to clean up and go, so Hayden of course helped them do that as well. He helped Noah put the broom back in Mamaw's garage and then helped Hayze put the toy lawnmower up. Such a big boy... don't understand why he can't help me when I ask him to. Oh well!

Photo Contest

Hayden is in a photo contest with a photographer. We need you to vote for him at http://jeniajohnsonphotographyblog.com/2008/11/22/cast-your-vote/ You can vote every day. He is in a tie for first right now, and it's almost over.

Family Day

I know I haven't written in a while so I have to catch up on a couple of things, lets go back to last Sunday.

Sunday was a GREAT day, after filling up the church row with 15 Prevosts and family we had a great sermon on Phillipians 4 about God supplying all of our needs, and He will take care of us as long as we rely on Him. How we shouldn't chase material, worldly things and but spiritual things, how we should still give or not stop giving in this time of economic crisis and depend on God, because there are so many people out there in this world right now that have MUCH less than we do. To not complain about what we don't have, but thank God for what we do have! After this message, it made me want to open up my closets and give away everything I don't use, and that's a lot of stuff!

So after church we made our way to my parent's house where all of the same family from church met up for lunch. It was a good thing that we bought the 25 lbs. turkey at the Case Lot Sale at the base, because we sure did need it with all of those people. After a lunch of Turkey, Ham, Crockpot Dressing, Broccolli Casserole, butterbeans, stuffed celery, deviled eggs, rolls, fruit salad, and 2 desserts we were all stuffed and ready to take a nap. But that didn't happen except for with Little Kinsey, poor thing was wiped out after that long day, so she passed out in Granny's lap while all of the lady's sat around talking and the men played football outside after their lunches settled. Oh, yeah and a quick photo opt with some of the family. This in my opinion, was a great day! I love my family!!!

Mistletoe, Round 2

Friday afternoon I went to the Sit, Eat and Be pretty luncheon at Mistletoe, and I had a change of heart on Mistletoe Marketplace. The Junior Auxilary and Baptist, hosted this luncheon where Bon Ami provided a lite lunch of Spinach Salad, Chicken Salad, honeydew melon and the best part, a chocolate pudding with cream on top (yummy!). Deanna Farve (Brett Farve's wife) was the keynote speaker and spoke on her battle with breast cancer as well as many other struggles in her life being married to a famous football player. She was truly an inspiration, and she probably didn't even realize it, she said she was shy, but you would have never known it, she was great! After she spoke there was a fashion show where the models wore clothes from The Rogue and Coattails, very cute, but expensive. I took a lot of pictures in hopes to find the same items at cheaper places. I know, smart right?!?!? All the while, I was getting to sit with some of the best women that I know, Clarion Ledger's Momslikeme.com gang!!! I left here feeling better about Mistletoe Market place without such a negative outlook, although, when I did go "shopping" (what little I did, I hit up all of the food booths, go figure) I found the GREATEST honey butter. Cowboy Country's Amaretto Pecan Honey Butter, this was the best stuff I have put in my mouth in a long time. As a fellow mom squad member put it, this stuff can make any carbohydrate taste wonderful (not exactly it Nicole, but pretty close) and she's right!!! If you haven't bought any of this in the past, don't plan on getting any in Ms this year, they are from Texas and have done their rounds at Mistletoe for the year so you will have to wait until next year, or hit Nicole up for one of her 15 jars.

Christmas already?

That's right... Christmas is right around the corner but we first have to pass through Thanksgiving! Obviously, the people who set up Mistletoe Marketplace didn't get the same memo as I. This morning after I ran out of gas (read the other post for that story) and dropped Hayden off at MMO I headed to work the momslikeme.com/Clarion Ledger booth. We have T'shirts and books of Marshall Ramsey's (that he is signing) that we are selling. However, if you have ever been to Mistletoe you know they have a ton of Handmade products that are way over priced (in my opinion), very cute and holidayish, but not in my catagory of fun. We were sitting at our booth, myself, Marshall, and another momslikeme.com volunteer, and we were people watching. Yep, that' probably one of my favorite past times, that's also probably why Jeff and I get along so well because we are both people watchers and that means we really don't have to talk to each other (haha, just kidding, or am I?). Anyway, so we are sitting there with our shirts and books, not handmade and not over priced, meaning that people were not really interested at the time so we got to watch and talk... about everyone. When I first arrived, they hadn't let the cattle gates open yet so there were people who wanted to pay EXTRA to get in before the crowd. Mind you, I have never been to Misteltoe Marketplace so I had never seen the "crowd" that comes to this event, and it is truly an event!!! As I'm sitting there watching the first "crowd" I'm thinking, "man this is a lot of people to sit and watch and talk about". There is a girl that walks by with her mom (uh-huh her mom, meaning she needed to be in school) decked out in her winter attire, okay, how cold was it today? It wasn't, that's right, especially at 10:00 in the morning when they were there. Then we see people who are dressed to the nines to go shop, no way would you catch me in some of the garb they had one just to shop, especially on concrete floors, very uncomfortable. I just wish I could've gone to the Gala on opening night last night to see all of that, I'm sure everyone had fun and ate well. After all of this, 11:00 roles around and the REAL crowd comes in. Ain't no way on this earth are you gonna catch me shopping in that. Once I took a break and walked around for a minute I walked straight back to my booth. In that 2 or 3 minutes I had taken maybe 2 or 3 steps away from where I was and ran back for cover. When they asked why I was back so soon, I told them I would take my break at the booth, I can't stand crowds, they really drives me crazy! And they really do, there was no breathing room in that place once everyone else was let in. Needless to say, I am going back tonight to work from 6-9 so if you want to pay $10 to get into a madhouse come see me at the Clarion Ledger booth, otherwise, I'm sure I'll see you soon enough.

Gas... What's that for?

This morning as I am on my way to work at Mistletoe Marketplace I am driving down Liberty Rd/Flowood Dr. and I run out of gas for the first time in my life. Yes, I said I ran out of gas this morning, and yes it was in the middle of the a super busy street, luckily I know how to put my car in Neutral and coast to the Capital Body shop parking lot. Another good thing was that Jeff took off of work today (little did he know it would be to be there to help me out). God knew what he was doing when he had Jeff take off of work, but he failed to remind me that I needed to get gas in the car. So he did remind me I suppose, when the light came on Tuesday night and the lady in my car said, "Low Fuel... STUPID!" Ok, she didn't call me stupid, but she may as well have when I ignored her and kept driving. I'm pretty sure everyone knows that I have a fairly new car, larger than the little "rice burner" Honda that I used to drive. You could drive for days with the light on in that thing, but not the HHR. We kept going on Tuesday night when the warning came on, driving around trying to find a place under $2 trying to get lucky. We didn't find anytihng, so I continued driving saying that I would wait until Wednesday to get gas because as fast as it was going down I'm sure it would be down past $2. Well.... no, it wasn't!!! So the only place I drove yesterday was my mamaw's house and then back home, never thinking to get gas on my way home. So, like I said, this was the ONLY place I drove yesterday, then woke up this morning to take Hayden to Mother's Morning Out with full intensions of getting gas, but before I made it to a gas station I started putting down the road. With my foot on the gas to the floor board I wasn't going anywhere but straight to humility!!! Luckily I was close to Capital Body Shop parking lot so I put it in Neutral and coasted my way in. Embarassed as anything to call Jeff and tell him to come bring me some gas! Being the sweetheart that he is, he did and I was on my merry way! For future reference, don't ever compair a Honda Civic's gas tank to a Chevy HHR's! Although, the Honda would have made it for sure!

I'm over it!

So it all ended (or should I say, it had just begun) on my birthday of all days! On November 4, 2008 I woke up to a wonderful birthday surprise from my mama, a card, candy, MONEY (always a plus), and a bear (later found it wasn't for me) left on my door step, with a wake up call telling me to go outside. After this, Hayden and I went and voted, okay, so I voted Hayden just went. The perfect start to a great birthday! Through out the day I recieved several calls, text, emails and so forth telling me (and singing to me) happy birthday. Jeff came home from work and called Hayden outside, a few minutes later they both come inside and Hayden is dragging a bag behind him, hands it to me and says, "Happy birfay mama" absolutely precious, that kids melts my heart with every word these days. I open the bag up to find a Nintendo DS Lite (I'm such a kid I know, but I know the only way I got it was because my husband is a kid also and will play on it just as much as me), after opening my gift and reading my sweet card from my sweet husband with a personal signature from my 2 year old, Jeff tells me we are going to Biaggi's for dinner. This is a new Italian Restaraunt in Renaissance that I have been waiting to eat at for a while! It was AMAZING!!!!!!! The people, the service, the atmosphere, the food all superb and not expensive at all (in my opinion)! They served homemade bread made with mashed potatoes (probably why I liked them so much) that you could dip in olive oil with cracked black pepper and parmesean cheese mixed in. Then we moved on to an appetizer of crab, shrimp and spinach dip, this is like an artichoke and spinach dip, also to die for! As if we were not already full we still had our entree to go, Jeff ordered Veal Parmesean which he said was great, I couldn't try it just knowing what it was (I have a hard enough time eating red meat sometimes). I ordered Black Fettucine and Lobster! This was great, it had HUGE chunks of lobster in with the pasta and the cream sauce, this was also amazing. Anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE food, so I will pretty much try and eat anything, but this was one of the best meals that I've had in a really long time (besides my own of course). Well... the night ended with having to watch the turn out of the elections! We all pretty much knew the outcome I believe, but hoped and PRAYED for the best. God works miracles everyday and I truly believe he has a plan for us, I just hope that everyone is prayed up and knows Jesus as their Lord and Savior because I think there are plenty of hard times to come and that is the only way to get through them. So that was the end to my night after a wonderful day, and then I had to wake up and hear about it all over the news, peoples blogs, the daily paper, and everywhere else. I'm so over hearing and reading about the "CHANGE". I'm sorry, but when I am having to support someone elses child and the child's mama and daddy out of our hard earned money I will not strive for the "American Dream" (as my husband says) anymore. I will probably be just as content to live in my middle class ways and let someone support me if I can get it out of them, since everyone else is going to be doing the same. Okay, enough of being on the soap box, I'll step down now. But like I said before, I'm so over it!

Future CEO

Ok, I have to start this post by saying that my kid is THE cutest 2 year old on the face of this earth. Take a look at his Halloween picture and you will agree!See, I told you that you would agree and couldn't argue. Thursday was Rankin County's trick or treat night and Hayden went as a Future CEO, he was sporting his briefcase and all. Of course after the night was over his briefcase wasn't full of paper work, but candy, he knows better than to bring his work home with him. We started off going to Winner's Circle Park with our friends Tim and Darla and her daughter Breland. Shortly after being there for about 45 minutes we left because it was entirely to crowded for my comfort level. When the kid wants to ride the train around the park and you walk to find the line and it's a mile long, you have to break your promise immediately and apologize profusely that you "lied" when you said, "I promise we will ride the train before we leave" you know there are TO MANY people there. So, after that, we all left and went to our neighborhood to trick or treat. Breland and Hayden had a blast! There was no stopping these kids from getting their candy. Once Hayden got the hang of everything and realized, "hmmm I get candy in my briefcase and all I have to do is walk up to someone's door and say trick or treat and look absolutely adorable while doing it". We finally had to make the kids stop when all the lights on the houses were turning off because it was getting late. Needless to say, Hayden and Breland got a lot of candy and we got a good workout from walking around the neighborhood. We tried and tried all night to get Hayden and Breland to take a picture together, but Hayden wasn't gonna stand by a girl.

Hadyman!

Looking back...






I miss my baby, but what a little man he has become. Hadyman, is what he likes to call himself, I thought it was cute so I kept it.