first shoes

he's on the move...

and very happy about it!

car for sale

i can't believe i'm actually doing this. letting go of my dream car. but, if there is a buyer out there, i think it is the wise thing to do. if anyone's interested, please post a comment on this blog or contact me otherwise if you have my information. please note - it might be a few weeks before it is ready to sell. we are replacing the tint on the passenger side window.





2005 Toyota Celica GT
59,000 miles
air conditioning
dual front airbags
power windows, door locks
am/fm stereo, single cd player
cruise control
tilt wheel

Good Condition - according to Kelly Blue Book's rating system

$11,000

bye-bye playpen

on tuesday, i had to accept the fact that there will be no more playpen time. this was a sacred period of about 15 - 25 minutes every morning (almost) when will would play in his pack and play while i cleaned up the kitchen (wash dishes from night before) or started laundry or ate breakfast - whatever. now, he is almost 11 months old, and becoming very mobile. bye-bye playpen. hello kitchen cabinets!

"my one outfit"

i know we've all heard stories like this before, but i know i always need a reminder - a good dose of reality to recognize a need vs. a want.

"Esther Dania, 52, single mother of six, lives with her children in a 12 foot tent the International Red Cross gave her last September. Hurricane Gustav and other storm-related floods killed more than 800 Haitians and left over 1 million homeless. Today the tent is her only possession, along with the clothes she is wearing. 'When my one outfit is dirty, I take it off to wash it and then wear it again.' Dania said."

World Magazine

Ludacris

on our road trip this past weekend to visit some of my old friends from college days, lee tells me, "so, i was listening to (mumbled a band's name) the other day". "Ludacris?" i say, because i think that's what i heard. "no, hahaha," says lee. "i said Black Crows. i can't get Round Here out of my head". i am very confused. "do you mean Counting Crows??" "yes" he says.

a week of will

reading sweetly in the front yard (granted this precious moment only lasted for a minute or two - but i'll take it!)

last tuesday he figured out he could stand in his crib. this is him wondering if this means he will not have to take naps anymore. nice try. we went through 3 or 4 trying days of lots of crying during naptime. look at that tired face. he was also cutting his fifth tooth at the time. we're doing a lot better this week!

will LOVES bathtime. except i'm bad about getting soap in his eyes. any tricks? right now i have to lay him down in the tub on his big sponge to rinse the soap out of his hair.

hey, look at us! this was yesterday. we met daddy at the park for lunch.

will's crawl

will has become very mobile in the past 7 days. this video was taken about a week ago. he still crawls like this, he's just faster now. he prefers cruising along anything he can hold onto, including walls and unstable rocking chairs.

i love you through and through

will really does love books. (aren't you proud, grandma brown?) he loves pictures. you can see him flipping the pages for me in this video. lately, he's gotten very serious about his job of flipping pages that he doesn't give me time to read what's on the page.

baby einstein joy

will gets so excited everytime he hears the baby einstein jingle and sees that caterpillar move across the screen to smile at him.

will loves his naps - NOT!

this is how i found will yesterday during his morning nap. at least he was sleeping. yesterday afternoon, he figured out how to stand in his crib - no sleeping then, but there was lots of crying!

mommy's day

my first mother's day - see me with my chunky monkey standing behind my first mother's day gift - a 12 ft. long picnic table built by my dear hubby. how am I gonna top that on father's day? we had some family over for a spaghetti picnic. the weather was gorgeous. nothing like eating on china outdoors - makes the food taste so much better.

he decided to start moving a little. he liked it.

this is one of will's funny grins - just love it.

life is beautiful

a few nights ago, lee and i watched Life is Beautiful. we didn't know much about it before watching it. i don't want to spoil it if you want to watch it yourself. what a movie

it's interesting because we watched half of it one night and the last half the next night. it was like watching two different movies. i laughed the first night. the second night i could not stop crying. i almost could not finish the movie i was that upset. i came so close to walking out of the room. i don't think i've ever cried so hard in my life.

this movie made me realize how good i have it and how spoiled i am. it is a reminder of the evil of the holocaust and a great picture of sacrifice and love. get your kleenex for the last half.

mmm...books

Will loves to "read".

Apparently, he likes to eat books too.

those teeth are sharp.

my little ham

these are my favorite will pictures to date.
we had fun outside today in our front yard.
i love the way he smiles for the camera in the last shot - he's my little ham.

My Hair is Freakin' Short!

Nathan, Jr.

last night i had a dream that i gave birth to another son. i was so confused. i was trying to do the math thinking, but will is only 9 months and 3 weeks old! how did this happen?
he looked just like will. we named him nathan.
on sunday, lee and i watched Raising Arizona, and the baby's name in that movie is nathan, jr. i also just met a neighbor yesterday and her husband's name is nathan. hahaha. so funny how your brain puts together dreams.
i just can't imagine having two babies 9 months and 3 weeks apart!!! i guess it's possible.

braided bread

i made bread this week - YUM! my mom got this recipe from a friend and taught me how to do it. we grew up eating this homemade bread on special occasions. i used to help punch the dough once it had risen and i would braid the bread for mom. when i got married i started making it on my own. love it - this recipe does not use a bread machine. just a big spoon and some muscle.

will has a mouth

will has a mouth.

he enjoys putting things in his mouth.

confessions of a mommy - part I

i know i post a lot of smiley will and smiley mommy pictures on this blog, and we do smile a lot, but i want to be real about the other side of motherhood. dun dun dun.

one thing i hate about motherhood - i can't sleep whenever i want to.

this is so huge for me. even though will is sleeping through the night and takes two naps a day, i still struggle with this. it never fails, if i am really sleepy one afternoon, i will lie down right after i put him down for his nap - that will be the day it takes him 20 minutes to go to sleep. can you tell i'm a little bitter? i love my sleep!!!
he is one of those babies who hates to sleep. we went through some major sleep training at four months old (i realize we probably waited too late, but that's water under the bridge now). and now at nine months old, it is VERY rare that i put him down and he does not cry at least a little bit.
anyway, all that to say - being a mom, i can no longer sleep like i used to. i'm subconsciously listening for him, and when i do occasionally hear him cry in the night or early morning, i cringe.

motherhood makes you realize how selfish you are.

Oswald keepin things real

"When God speaks, many of us are like people in a fog, and we give no answer...

Be ready for the sudden surprise visits of God. A ready person never needs to get ready - he is ready. Think of the time we waste trying to get ready once God has called!"

Oswald Chambers - my utmost for his highest

in full bloom

aren't our azaleas awesome??? i wish they stayed this way longer.

last weekend was great, but we did have a few unpleasant events.

lee and i wanted to go out on a lunch date to my favorite mexican restaurant - Sabroso! this place has the BEST salsa of any mexican restaurant i've been to. and i've been to quite a few in the upstate and around atlanta. they also have great refried beans! woodruff road - sabroso - go there.

so, we begin the drive to the restaurant and right as we get out of my parent's driveway, lee notices that the breaks are out! so we turn around and make it back to the house, spilling break fluid everywhere. we did get to go out to lunch by taking my mom's car, but lee spent most of the rest of the weekend fixing the car so we could drive back to atlanta on sunday.

while driving back to atlanta - we witness a car fire on 85. lee says he saw the actual explosion. the car fire is in the right lane and we pass it as flames are blowing towards our car. i think all people were out of the car. i know i can be dramatic sometimes, but this was scary for the second it took me to pass. lee says he couldn't, but i could feel the heat.

easter weekend wasn't all smiles and happiness, but that's life. now i'm craving some sabroso salsa.

i'm watching "you've got mail" while catching up on some ironing. i miss AIM so much! the first form of texting - i don't text, never have, but i could probably become addicted quickly.

ahh, this movie is also reminding me of my dream to open a children's bookstore one day.

Cheerio

this video was taken on will's nine month birthday. isn't he cute scooting the cheerios around? i just recently thought to let him practice picking them up. as you can see, he doesn't quite have his "pincer grasp" yet. i am happy to report that earlier this week he did pick one up himself and put it in his mouth! this is the first time he has ever fed himself - i'm so proud - :0)

Easter 2009

We had a great time in SC. On Good Friday, the weather was a little rough - lots of rain and stormy. A tornado actually went through ben's backyard that day! check out his blog - i just added it to my blog list.
but, as you can see, most of Easter weekend, the weather was absolutely gorgeous, and we even had a happy boy most of the time!

get ready for lots of pics!

my camera is fixed!!! i have been without my camera for 3 months now. my mother in law was nice enough to let me borrow hers for a little while so i got a few pics of will's 7th and 8th month. but, now i am so excited that i have mine back!!! and canon fixed it for free!

i was going to throw it away and then i thought, no, i'll at least try and sell it on craigslist. a very kind soul saw my posting and sent me an email saying that canon should repair it. YES! thank you, thank you!

get ready for lots of pics! here's one of will today. he loves his blue dog.

the will update - 9 months

on tuesday, will turned 9 months old! unfortunately i don't have any pictures, but i do have a video i will upload later. (we saw snowflakes on tuesday - crazy! and today it's supposed to be 70 degrees!)
i took will to the doctor today for his checkup and he now weighs 21 1/2 lbs. he is fairly tall at 29 3/4". he has a big head - 18 1/4".

just to give you an idea this is what he was at 6 months:
he weighs 19 lbs. 14 oz. (82%) (he was 93% at 4 months)
he is 27 inches tall (64%)
head circumference is 17.25 (47%)

he pretty much switched percentiles on the height and weight. pretty soon, he won't be my chunky monkey anymore - sadness!

he is working on his fourth tooth! he has his front two bottom teeth and is working on his dracula teeth up top.

yep, he's a talker

happy after my nap, mommy

tiniest of baby booms

when i was pregnant with will i kept noticing so many pregnant people! and so many magazine headlines talked about all these celebrities having babies. it seemed to be the cool thing to do - have a baby!
i remember telling my mom one day - it seems like everyone is having a baby right now! she said i was just extra sensitive to it because i was about to have one myself.
but, check this out. i just read this in World magazine.
"It's the tiniest of baby booms. This is not an earthquake; it's a slight tremor."
"Fertility researcher S. Philip Morgan of Duke University on the record number of births in the United States during 2007. There were more than 4.3 million births, 40 percent of which were out of wedlock."
i wonder what 2009's stats will be. with the economy not looking so stable, i wonder how people will react. will they think a having a child will fill a void in their lives and help things? will they take birth control more seriously? will they even be able to set aside money for birth control? will they abstain? will they give the marriage relationship a chance?
what do you think?

Spidey