Food, Family, and a Funeral

FInal farewells bid to a beloved family member

John Michael meeting Uncle John for the first time back in November!

Uncle John was a Fantastic fellow, husband, father, uncle, and Christian man.  Oh yeah, and Crimson Tide Fan!

With Furrowed brows we say our  farwells,

Full-well knowing it's not the "true" end, as we'll see each other in the forever.

But, with a fussy baby at funeral visitation,

Go figure, we did not fare so well!

Who me?! Fuss at a funeral?!

Fine family visits, some for the first time.

Fun family time with favorite uncles!

Southern family feeds your soul with first-class desserts after funerals.

Do we have enough dessert for everyone?

Finest fried Southern fare you've ever stuffed your face with!

Fantastic!

Five-star famous food from City Cafe; had to go to get my college-food fix!  All this under five dollars, not a lot to fork out!

And yes....

[caption id="attachment_720" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="I had to take two pictures because the food wouldn't fit in one picture."][/caption]

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Papaw and John Michael rocking.

[caption id="attachment_723" align="alignnone" width="225" caption="Grandmother holding John Michael...and no, my child would not like a whole plate of ham!"][/caption]

Family is so important.  It shapes our lives and makes us who we are.  As we all get older we do start to think of all those good-byes that are in our futures.  The one fantastically great part about knowing Jesus Christ and being saved by HIM is that it's not so sad or scary anymore.  We are promised a beautiful forever.  A forever where we'll sit by Jesus everyday and there will be no more sorrow, pain, or hurt.  What a faithful promise that we have!  If that doesn't make you smile, I don't know what will.

P.S.  WOW, there's a lot of food in this post!

Guess Who?!

Guess Who?!  It's me and I'm not dead or in a coma!  I've just had NO internet for almost a week and I'm about to go crazy!  I think I have an internet addiction.  Every night Jordan has been reading all of MckMama's updates on Baby Stellan to me over the phone...I'm that desperate!

The reason we're gone is last Saturday night we found out my mom's uncle passed away Saturday afternoon while washing the car in the driveway.  I've got more on that in another post but I just thought I'd post a quick update now that I'm back at "home" in Alabama with internet access! 

We have played and played and John Michael has been throughly spoiled by both great-grandparents, grandparents, uncles, and numerous family members.  Lots of spoiling going on here in Alabama!  We have (unfortunately) had a few sleepless nights due to John Michael being forced into sleeping in a pack 'n play but I'm hopeful our old sleep problems will resolve themselves when we get back to our crib.

We've also enjoyed some great Spring weather and fantastic Southern food but we are ready to get back home and no offense to our family, but we've made so many trips to Alabama in the last month, I don't think we're heading back this way for at least a few months!

Seriously?

Seriously, this little dog is driving me crazy.  I don't want to sound mean but I don't know what's gotten into this little fluff:

Who knows if it's Spring Fever, or that his "humping pillow" got left behind in Alabama or the fact that he misses all the attention that he got for THREE whole weeks while we had grandparents around?  Anyway, he is constantly in my lap, or yipping for me to hold him, or licking behind my ears, or my feet or my cheek.  He is sleeping with us now and of course he sleeps on my side of the bed and he makes me SOO hot at night.  Last night he wouldn't settle down and go to sleep. He is starting to get up and get water or eat during the night, so of course he wants out to potty in the middle of the night.  

After having a baby that didn't sleep through the night for 5 months I am seriously not thrilled with getting up to let the dog out.  After his atrocious and annoying behavior trying to get him to go to sleep last night I told Jordan (at around 6 AM) he had better take Jackson to doggy day care on his way to work.  Since Jack started licking me around 5 or 6 and walking up me like a mountain and jumping on and off the bed I knew I had had enough and he would not be spending the day here with John Michael and myself.  No way. He is currently at daycare and he will spend the whole day there and then when he comes home tonight he will be SOO dog tired he'll sleep awesome!  It might be time to look into doggy prozac.  I think we've got major doggy anxiety problems going on.  Eh.

"Nat, pleeeease come get me and take me to Alabama where there are no babies to steal the attention from me!"

On another note, John Michael finally broke his fever and started feeling better late Wednesday afternoon.  He was one sick guy.  He sat with his head on my chest for most of Tuesday and Wednesday.  Although I felt bad for him I was totally eating it up.  I can count on one hand how many times this child has let me just sit and rock him and hold him and put his head on my chest.  He's obviously not a snuggler and that's fine, but I was enjoying being able to just hold him!  He's doing well except he is starting to sound a bit wheezy which is weird because I thought he had the stomach bug.  Those two things aren't really connected.  I think that I hear a bit of inspiratory stridor/wheezing so I made an appointment for this afternoon to get his lungs checked out.  Let's hope he checks out all right!  He's the little booger reading the paper on Sunday!

Where are the sale papers?

And here's John Michael walking around the front sidewalk on Sunday afternoon!

"When can I walk all on my own?"

I hope everyone has a happy Friday!  Fridays are great because that means the weekend is on its way!

Verse O' the Day:

Do not worry beforehand about what to say. Just say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit.

Mark 13:11

Finally!

Better late than never.  After nearly 3 years of being married I finally got my bridal portrait framed.  Yes, finally.  It's done.  It's pretty darn big and it didn't fit on the wall that I thought it would so it now resides above our fireplace.

Can you see John Michael's electric piano to the left of the fireplace?  Reeeal classy.  I now have to figure out a way to decorate my mantle.  I seriously don't love what's up there right now.  I know I have a sense of style but I don't always know how to get there!  I'm working on it.

We would be outside on this beautiful day but John Michael had a fever when we got home from Bible Study this afternoon.  He's sleeping now so I hope that when he wakes up he will feel better.  Here are some pictures of the fun we had yesterday at our neighborhood park! 

And here's Jackson after our big day of visiting two parks and taking a walk:

If you'll notice he is no longer insanely long and hairy.  He's been to the groomer and is looking nice and spiffy with his close cut!

Verse O' the Day:

I know, O Lord, that a man’s life is not his own; it is not for man to direct his steps. Correct me, Lord, but only with justice—not in your anger, lest you reduce me to nothing.

Jeremiah 10:23-24

Ginger's Shower!

Last week we had a Sunday School shower for Ginger, who is expecting a baby boy this spring!  Big sister Alex will have to contend with all the camo and blue things that Ginger got for Kade.  We have some very generous people at our church because once again, there were tons of gifts for Ginger to open! 

Ginger's sister offered her home and we had a "sweets" shower chock full of chocolate and sweet treats!

That's a table full of yum right there.

For this shower I made chocolate covered prezels.  I did the little pretzels and pretzel sticks.  I thought the white chocolate ones turned out great!  I put red and white sprinkles on the pretzels for Razorbacks, although in my head I reasoned that it could also be Alabama colors!

Yummy punch!

[caption id="attachment_681" align="alignnone" width="225" caption="TONS of gifts for Baby Kade!"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_682" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Ginger opening a very special gift."][/caption]

Once again, it was a great shower and it's our last for at least a few months.  We'll be back in action this summer, though!  Now we just have to sit around and wait for these precious babies to arrive!

Verse O' the Day:

The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps.

Proverbs 16:9

The Clapper

Last Sunday John Michael turned 10 months old!  We were back home with family to celebrate with, so I decided to get a little cookie cake to mark the occasion!  I know I say it every month, but I still just can't believe that almost a whole year has flown by since JM was born.  It seems so surreal to think that in 2 months we will be celebrating our big boy's first birthday!

John Michael learned to clap on his 10 month birthday!  He just spontaneously started clapping at dinner.  He loves to do it now and he is so proud of himself!  He can "pat" and "clap" and "wave" (usually) on command now.

This is what happened when we tried to get a picture of him beside his "birthday" cookie:

This child knew he wanted him some icing right then and there.  Oh yes, he most definitely IS my child!

Lord only knows what this child's first birthday first-ever-cake-eating pictures will look like!  I'm kind of getting excited about his birthday in May! I'm already thinking about themes and ideas.  We're not doing anything too big but I still want it to be cute, cute, cute.  You only get one first birthday!  I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend.  I know we are!

Verse O' the Day:

But whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him.

1 John 2:5

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