Excavation

This past trip back home to Alabama I started working on my closet in my childhood room.  It's been sort of cleaned out a few times and it's been taken over with lots of clothes and other things.  I came across a few things as I did my excavation of the ancient closet.  As I dug through old CDs, prom dresses, wedding shoes, old concert tickets and pictures I found some pretty neat stuff.  Some of it took me back to high school and beyond. 

As I made my way through the closet I found some of the neatest things.  I found my AGD Bid-Day cup!  How fun!  I feel so old.  I started college in 2001.  TIme is flying by too quickly!

I also found my practice bouquet from our rehearsal for the wedding:

As I sat flipping through an old calendar from 1999 I found this:

Right there in the middle of "Research paper due, Beta Club, National Honor Society Induction, Key Club Meeting, and LSU: Go to Tuscaloosa" sits mine and Jordan's history.  If you can't see the picture clearly it says: Mary and Jordan 2 Months!!  I had to chuckle at this as I sat in my old childhood closet going through mounds of stuff.  I laughed at first because I knew that one month later we broke up, but the more I looked at it I became more sentimental about it. I think it is unique (especially nowadays) to marry your high school sweetheart.  It just really took me back to a different day when we were still so young.  We had no mortgage, no baby, no car payments or jobs to worry about.  The most important thing we had going was high school stuff and thinking about what movie we would go see together on Saturday night.  Ah, the good old days.  As I sat there pondering all of these things with so much going through my head about the almost 10 years we've been together and all the roads we've been down, our precious, precious baby boy woke up from his nap in my old childhood bedroom in the crib used by myself and my brothers and then life became a little more real as I left my piles of "keep" "maybe keep" or "salvation army" and went and looked into those baby blue eyes and I got a little teary-eyed at our very own miracle.  Yep, I'm so glad that my very best friend totally betrayed my trust and told Jordan that I liked him oh so many years ago.  The End.

Verse O' the Day:

For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.

James 2:26

Playgroup!

I finally got to host playgroup at our house a while back.  I was so afraid that the "big" kids wouldn't have anything interesting to do here because all we have are baby toys.  The big kids did well and found lots of fun things to play with that were in the 6-9 month old range.  Thanks to grandparents at Christmastime, we have so many toys for John Michael, so there were plenty for all.  I bought dino-shaped chicken nuggets, goldfish, and I even learned to cut grapes in half so that toddlers don't choke.  I'm learning so much!

Jessica and Braxton

Neely in the jumperoo

Alex and Emily

Guess who?!

And here's what these two thought about our fun day of playgroup:

[caption id="attachment_663" align="alignnone" width="225" caption="Jack and his buddy"][/caption]

Jackson was banished to doggy daycare for the afternoon, but he has a wonderful time and loves going!  By the time he got home from daycare he was pooped!  He slept most of the day!  We had a grea time and I was so glad to have everyone over to our house!

Verse O' the Day;

The LORD bless you, and keep you; The LORD make His face shine on you, and be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance on you, and give you peace.

Numbers 6:24-26

Gymboree and a Prank

We recently signed up for Gymboree music and I have loved taking John Michael.  He really is musically inclined.  He likes to shake things and move his bootay up and down while standing at his learning table listening to music!  Jordan's mom went with us and took some pictures of the fun. 

Hey, who's taking my picture?!

I'm really glad that we signed up for Gymboree.  We have such a good time and John Michael really, really likes when they bring out the big box full of instruments!  He wants to steal the whole whole box and go through it and take out all of the instruments!

After we came out from Gymboree look at the monstrosety that was on my car:

BOOOO.  War Eagle my butt!  Gross.  I had to immediately take that sign off of my car (of course after we had a good chuckle!)   Go ahead and fess up if that was you!  It did bring a laugh to our day! 

Verse O' the Day:   I LOVE this verse!

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Jeremiah 29:

 

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

What a beautiful, warm day we had in Alabama today!  It was a wonderful day mainly because I finally got my hair cut and colored (yay!) and we took John Michael to a park.  I'm feeling so much better with a little color on my hair.  Some of you may know that I refuse to get my hair cut and colored by anyone else but my lady here in Alabama.  I've had it cut once by someone else in the almost 3 years I've lived in Arkansas.  I'm not sure why, but I can't bring myself to leave my hair to someone who could possibly mess it up.  I may never get over this fear of having someone mess up my hair!

On to the park!  This was JM's first visit to a real park and although we're sad that Daddy couldn't go with us, we all had a great time.  My brother, Judd went with us, as well as Gran and Gamps!

I promise he liked it...sort of.

[caption id="attachment_626" align="alignnone" width="225" caption="Uncle Judd is fun to slide with!"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_627" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Go Gram!"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_628" align="alignnone" width="225" caption="This little guy walked ALL over that park!"][/caption]

Now, Noccalula Falls is the name of this park and anyone who is from Etowah County grew up going to the Falls.  There was a lot of water going over the falls today so it was quite pretty.  There weren't as many ducks as I remember from childhood.  It was always fun to take bread to feed the ducks!

[caption id="attachment_629" align="alignnone" width="225" caption="Noccalula herself."][/caption]

The Falls are named for an old legend of an Indian princess named Noccalula.  Noccalula was the Indian chief's daughter and she was in love with another member of her tribe.  The chief refused to listen to his daughter and ordered her to marry another, more wealthy member of the tribe.  As legend has it, "one leap and her troubles were over."  Noccalula lept to her death with a broken heart.  Uplifting legend, huh?  It IS pretty, though!

Daffoldils+John Michael=precious, precious, precious

[caption id="attachment_637" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Oh, I haven't been on a swing in ages!!!"][/caption]

And, of course, we had to go across the parking lot to Jack's and get some sweet tea and a little burger.  They used to have grape ice cream, but not anymore.  So sad.  It's really hard to find nowadays.  JM did great a Jack's!  He ate his little Cheerios and played and looked so precious.

Verse O' the Day:

The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.

Exodus 14:14

Happy Valentine's Day...again!

Last week with Jordan's mom and Nat up for a visit we were able to celebrate Valentine's Day for reals.  John Michael stayed at home and played with them while we headed to a surprise dinner date!  I love surprises so I was curious to see where we were going!  We headed to downtown Rogers and ended up at Belle Arti.  It was a quiet, old-style Italian restaurant.  We had a great time!  There were few people there so we took our time and had great conversation and ate some really great food.

Before leaving our little guy

We ate some seriously yummy crab cakes with a creamy shrimp sauce.  They were served on a pile of greens and were quite good!

I ordered eggplant parmesean and there was enough for two to split!  Jordan got sausage-stuffed manicotti and it was also great.

Since we were celebrating Valentine's Day and all....I ordered my very own dessert.  I told Jordan that I did not want to split a dessert with him.  I'll take my very own, thankyouverymuch.  Heaven most definitely is tiramisu with a coffee.  I added whipped cream and chocolate from my tiramisu into my coffee and it was extra YUM.  And, might I mention that I believe the tiramisu is homemade at Belle Arti.  It tastes like it is homemade and they told me that it was, so I believe them.  We thought all of our food was very good, so I think we'll be back

The restaurant was in a neat part of downtown.  It's so rare to find cool downtown restaurants anymore.  I thought the restaurant was very pretty and unique inside.  We had a great time!  Thanks, baby, for taking me on a surprise date!

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On a whim I decided to make the trip back home with Jordan's family.  They were set to leave us and head back home to Alabama and I thought John Michael and I would hitch a ride and come for a quick visit!  We are now home and we actually had a really great 12 hour car trip.  I always dread the trip with a baby but it turned out OK today!  I'm not sure what all kinds of trouble we'll get into while we're here, but I'm sure I'll be posting pictures along the way!  It will be so nice to visit with family!

Verse O' the Day:

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

1 John 4:10