Happy 100th Post!

For my 100th post, I thought I would try to do something fun. My idea was to think of something fun or special that happened in each month of 2007. Some of them were easier than others since most of the summer was a blur of hospitals and a new baby.


My List of Thanksgiving for 2007

• January - we found out that baby #3 would be a boy; quite a change from our two girls!
• February - S and I celebrated 6 years of marriage and had a wonderful, child-free weekend away, courtesy of Gran
• March - we made our last trip to visit Nana, Papa, and PJ before H was born
• April - got the nursery ready for a boy (even though he wasn't due until June, I was nesting like, well, an expectant mother)
• May - H was born
• June - the girls took their first trip away from home without their parents (they spent a week with Nana, Papa, and PJ)
• July - K turned 5 and had her first big birthday party; L turned 3
• August - K started Kindergarten and L went to school for the very first time
• September - my best friend visited for some girl time
• October - visits from all the grandparents
• November - my birthday!
• December - Christmas with the attack of the brined turkey

I hope that you will find this list both humorous and sweet. 2007 has been quite a year, including 3, yes 3, ER visits for me, and my very first ride in an ambulance. It's a shame I don't remember most of the ride. I'm so thankful for all I've been given. We are very blessed!

What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?

Tonight, I'll be watching my beloved Auburn Tigers take on those other tigers from Clemson. I have plans to lounge around for awhile and watch this one last game of Auburn's 2007 football season. I really hate this time of year, when football season is over. It's just such a sad time. But before I know it, it will be September, K, L, and H will be a year older and I'll be gearing up for the start of the 2008 season.

Happy New Year (and a hearty War Eagle)!

And Now for Something Completely Different

Anyone tired of me talking about Christmas? Yeah, me too. So on to another subject.

(I actually can't believe I forgot to mention this little gem earlier but I've had a lot on my mind, I guess. That, or I'm getting old.)

A couple of days ago, I was doing some housework and K was looking for something to do. So I asked her to get me a drink out of the fridge in our garage. Both girls like to do this kind of thing because it gets them out of having to clean up. Within seconds she was back saying that there was a cat in our garage. I went out there to look but saw nothing and heard nothing so I assumed the cat had gone out without K seeing it. Our neighbor has 3 cats and all 3 at one time or another has been seen in our garage.

About an hour later our neighbor came by and S answered the door. I was in our room with a mound of laundry and went to see who was at the door. I heard her say, "Well, if you see her, please let me know." I knew immediately she was talking about her cat so I informed her that K had seen one in our garage. All of us went back to the garage and started looking for the cat. Again. When our neighbor called for her cat, we heard a faint meow. Coming from the car. Coming from inside the car. Knowing that none of the doors had been open, I knew that the cat must be tucked up in the engine.

We open the hood and look around for a few moments when we see two golden eyes staring back at us. The cat, smart creature that it is, must have gotten in our garage the night before through the side door and, searching for a warm place to sleep, found the car. Only she was stuck and couldn't figure out how to get out. Cats, they are smart little things.

With only a little coaxing and, thankfully, no clawing, S and I were able to turn her around so that she could get out the way she came in. I'm just thankful that we didn't need the car that morning, otherwise there would be a real mess to clean up.

This should serve as a good warning to all of you to make sure that your garage doors are closed up tight.

New Christmas Music

Even though Christmas has come and gone, I promised to blog about my experience with the new Michael W. Smith album, It's A Wonderful Christmas. Well, I was finally able to listen to the entire album even though I wasn't doing something Christmas-y (I don't think folding laundry is considered a Christmas activity). I will say that I love his previous Christmas albums (appropriately titled Christmas and Christmastime) and if you haven't listened to them, I highly recommend them. There is always a great combination of traditional music and new songs, a little something for everyone. I am all about good Christmas music.

So, onto my "review." This is a great album. For the first several days after listening to it, I couldn't get the first song, Christmas Angels, out of my head. I would describe it as an unexpected song because it starts out instrumental and the chord progression is not what you'd expect. There were some songs that I could hear in a movie. I could just picture a wide shot, sweeping the snow-covered landscape, exploring, in great detail, God's creation. Or little children sneaking down the stairs to peek at what Santa left under the tree.

If you are at all inclined to purchase new Christmas music after the holiday, please add this to your list. It's worth it!

What Did You Get for Christmas?

There are several things that would be on the list of favorite gifts this year (see post below for mine and S's). But the best thing the kids got was the Cootie game. I remember playing this years ago and it was kind of boring. The girls, however, are having a blast with it. K and L love playing it and it forces us to play with them. Usually, I'm not a game-player but for some reason, this one has been really fun. I've enjoyed getting to play with them and see their personalities erupt. They even played it with a friend yesterday afternoon.

One note to the makers of Cootie: could you please, in your next redesign of this game, include two girl-colored Cooties? Also, if you would, please include two girl-type accessories for the Cootie? You see, right now there's only one hair bow, one set of eyes with eyelashes, and only one pink Cootie (although the box shows a purple one. But that's neither here nor there. Pink will suffice). It would save a lot of hassle and fighting for my little girls (and my hair would be ever-so-grateful to you as there would be much less pulling out of the hair over said fighting).

But we really are enjoying it!

Something I've Never Done Before

So, ask me what I did on Wednesday. Seriously. Go ahead and ask. Okay! Stop pressuring me! I'll tell you. I went with S and the kids and ordered our new car. YES! A brand new car. I've never had a brand new car much less ordered one to my exact specifications. I was blessed to be given a car when I turned 16. I drove that until S and I purchased something a little more family-friendly about 7 months after we married. I still drive that one so a brand new car is a foreign concept to me.

Oh, y'all, I'm so excited/scared/elated/in a world of "what have I done?". I'll give all the details when we actually get said car. It's a beauty!

Making New Memories

I must say that Christmas 2007 has to be one for the books. So many fun and funny things happened that I don't know that I can include it all in one blog. I'm going to do my best so just bear with me.

First, on Christmas Eve, Papa, PJ, S and I enjoyed a meal of wine and cheese. It's become a little tradition of ours to do this on Christmas Eve when they are with us. It was delightful until I tried to cut the end of my thumb off with a very sharp knife. No trip to the ER was necessary (I've had enough ER visits for this year, thank you very much!) but there was blood and I had a large bandage on my thumb for opening presents on Christmas morning.

Christmas morning saw grandparents up before grandchildren. I didn't really think this was possible on Christmas but it was. The girls didn't get up until almost 8. We ate breakfast, then H demanded his breakfast. Since I'm the only one who can do that for him right now, I excused myself to take care of that business.

As I was sitting on my bed nursing H, S came in and said that he'd had an accident. That's not something I want to hear coming from him. He comes around the corner and I see that his shirt is soaking wet. You see, S likes to brine his turkeys. They are the best turkeys you've ever put in your mouth, moist and delicious, never dry. Well, in order to brine them, he puts the brine and the turkey in a trash bag, then into a cooler for the night. As he was lifting the turkey out of the cooler, the bag split, sending all the liquid and the 13-pound turkey splashing back into the cooler. Brine went everywhere: on the floor, on the counter, on S, on the windowsill, on the dishwasher door, on the living room floor, on the ceiling (I kid you not). So Papa, PJ and S spent the next 20-30 minutes getting all the brine (which includes a good deal of spices) off the surfaces it did not belong on.

The presents were fun to open, the meal was delicious and filling and tiring all at the same time. Stockings were opened and S even got to build a fire, which made it feel even more like Christmas. We spent Christmas night playing a game that K got. At one point, K, L, H and I were on the floor playing this game while S doted on the fire and Papa and PJ were playing with their presents (Sudoku for PJ; a WWII book for Papa). It was the perfect picture of a cozy Christmas night, all that I'd ever dreamed for my kids. This is a memory I never want to forget.

By the way, the turkey was delicious!