Christmas is Here!

We are in Augusta right now for Christmas and it's been so nice and relaxing. We got here late Wednesday night and will be here through Christmas Eve. Last night we went on a hayride to look at a big Christmas lights display. One problem is that it started raining on our ride and we all got pretty wet. It was a fun experience though. We had a nice dinner afterwards of country fried steak, rice and gravy, green beans, and biscuits. It was delicious! Then Allen and I went out to see the new Will Smith movie, The Pursuit of Happyness. It was very sad and hard to watch at times because of the struggle of the movie but it was very good too. I think it was especially touching thinking about Everett.

Here are a few photos of us before the hayride...before getting drenched:

Here we are after the rain...very soaked!

Lindsay's Wedding

Lindsay's wedding was wonderful this weekend. Everything went really well. The ceremony was beautiful and so was Lindsay. We had a lot of fun at the reception too. Allen and I are exhausted after all of the events though! Since we were both in the wedding and had Everett tagging along with us we were running around a lot. It was fun though and we're so happy for Michael and Lindsay. They will make an incredible team! Here are a few photos:

Thanksgiving

We had a great time at Thanksgiving in Augusta. We went to Allen's grandmother's house for lunch with about 35 of his relatives. It's a big group! The day after Thanksgiving Allen and his sister's finace, Michael, left for Michael's bachelor weekend. They went caving and rock climbing and saw the new 007 movie! The day after Thanksgiving Allen's mom (Deb), his sister (Lindsay) and I all went shopping at 7am! We had an adventure of our own, a more girlie adventure though. We found some good deals at Target and at the mall. It was a lot of fun. Then on Saturday we had a family wedding shower for Lindsay. Afterwards Everett and I drove back to Atlanta to meet up with Allen.

On Sunday we started hanging up our Christmas decorations and more than half of our lights weren't working. Major frustration. Today I went to Target to buy more and one of the strands I bought wasn't working. More frustration. Needless to say, the house is looking good and we're planning to get our Christmas tree tonight. Hopefully this will make it feel more like Christmas because right now I'm not really into it. Could be because it's still November?

Christmas is getting more and more rushed each year. What's up with that? While Allen was stringing up the lights on our trees outside he said, "I'm only doing this for Jesus." It was funny, but it did make me wonder why we really do all of this. I picked up our Advent devotional from Church on Sunday and hopefully Allen and I can go through it together so it can give us some perspective.

The Park

We had a great time at the park today despite the cold weather. We went with our neighbor Rasa and her daugther, Aura, who is almost 1 year old. She and Everett get along great and always have a lot of fun together. It's nice because they live in our neighborhood, just up the street. Everett is sleeping very soundly now after playing so much this afternoon. It was a lot of fun and I got some pretty cute photos...




We are heading to Augusta this week for Thanksgiving...I'm really looking forward to the break.

Our Weekend

We had a very busy, fun-filled weekend. We went to visit Santa at Lenox Mall Friday night and we also rode the Pink Pig. Everett did suprisingly well with Santa. He cried when we first handed him over but calmed down very quickly. It was fun. I know it was early to visit Santa, but it was so nice because there was no line whatsoever. We went with a big group of friends, which made it a lot of fun.

Saturday we were up early to run the Children's Healthcare of Atlanta 5K. It started and ended at Turner Field, which was really cool. We ran with a lot of folks from our Young Couples class at church. We had a team of 24 runners. This was Everett's first race. Allen pushed him in the stroller. Neither Allen nor I trained whatsoever for the race so we were a little nervous. It wasn't too bad though. Allen finished in 35 min. with the stroller and with staying with me for the 1st mile and I finished in 39 min. Sad that I used to run 5Ks in around 27-28 min., but I was still happy with my post-baby time. :)

We then drove down to Columbus, GA, for my nephew's 2nd birthday party. It was a fun party and we stayed in Columbus for the day. We got back late that night. It was a long day and Allen and I were pretty sore getting out of the car after we got home. I guess that's the price we pay for not training for the race.

There are tons of new photos on our flickr page of all of these events...but here are some of my favorites:

Happy Halloween

Everett's 2nd Halloween was much more eventful than his first. :) He was a lion this year which was adorable! We were surprised that he really didn't mind wearing his costume, although he did not enjoy having his face painted. We went to our neighborhood party and he actually won the ribbon for the best costume. He did look pretty cute and since he was the youngest one dressed up, I think he was a shoe-in. We discovered that he really likes m&m's...but what kid doesn't? He had chocolate dripping down his costume by the end of the night. We took him trick or treating to two houses and that about did him in. I think he had the most fun watching the other kids run around at the party. We all joked about how tame of a lion he was because most of the time he sat there sucking his thumb just taking it all in. We should have made him a lamb. :)

Here are some photos:

Pumpkins

Allen's sister, Lindsay and her finance, Michael, came over yesterday to visit. Allen and I were working out in the yard...mowing, planting panies, weeding, transplanting day lilies...etc. when they arrived. The yard looked incredibly better once we were done. I'm so glad to get that out of the way. Afterwards we ordered pizza and did some pumpkin carving. I thought the pumpkins turned out pretty well. It was fun, but by the end we were all glad we were done. I roasted some seeds this morning. None of them liked the thought of eating pumpkin seeds, but we always did that growing up and I love the tradition of it. If you're interested, here's what you do:

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds
Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Rinse and drain pumpkin seeds. Dry on paper towels. Spread onto an ungreased cookie sheet and salt. Roast for 2 hours stirring every 30 minutes.

Here are a few photos of our pumpkins:

Joiner News

We went to Columbus this past Saturday. It was a good visit. This was one of the pictures we took on a playground there. It was a beautiful day and a good visit with my mom.

Everett has started taking more and more steps on his own...finally! On Sunday he took the most consecutive steps ever, across the kitchen with Allen and me both watching. It was about 5-6 steps. Since then he's been doing about the same. This morning he had his eye surgery, for his blocked tear ducts. While we were in the waiting area another mom asked Allen, "How long has he been walking?" It was pretty funny, because we still don't consider him a walker. It's a lot less paramount than I thought it would be. Even though many of my friends have told me this, I still expected him to take his first step and then no longer crawl from that point on. I don't know why this was my expectation...everything else with babies is a progression, especially with my son. So, I guess Everett is walking now, although he's still also crawling a lot too. :)

His eye surgery went really well. It was tough watching him go under anesthesia, but everything was fine. I'm glad it's over. He's taking a good nap this morning and should be since we had to get him up at 5:30am this morning!

Boys will be Boys

I know boys and girls are different, but it sure is funny once you have your own. My two friends with girls Everett's age were talking about how they are just now having to use the word "no." I was suprised because that's a word Everett is quite aquainted with. Like now for instance, as he pulls all our books and cds off the bookshelf while I type this blog. :) I think boys are just more exploratory and like to test limits a little more. Like today at playgroup as my son climbs in and begins to stand up in a bouncy seat to which my friend (who has a girl) says, "Wow, he's such a climber...my daughter would never try anything like that."

Everett and I were just playing outside and I snapped some cute photos that I think demonstrate what boys this age are like.

Preparing my attack...

On guard...

On the move

Everett has really started to love his walker the past two days. Once I get him going he takes off until he hits a wall or the coffee table or a toy, etc and I redirect him. He will go back and forth across the room at least 10 or more times. Hopefully this will help him in the walking department. Our friends lent us an outdoor ride on toy that he is really loving too.

Even though he's not walking yet, we just put a pair of overalls on him and let him crawl around outside. He's got the cutest crawl, with his left knee tucked in and dragging, he uses is right leg and left hand to scoot around. We sure that the left knee in his overalls will be completely worn out very soon, but they were only $3 at a consignment sale...so who cares! We've been putting shoes on him a lot more now that the weather is getting cooler. He's still not too fond of them, but they sure look cute. He spends all his time trying to get them off and once they're off, he loves chewing on them. He's very interested in shoes in general now.

This weekend was great. We went to the Duluth Fall Festival. We all split a funnel cake...yum. You just can't beat it. Then we went to Eats in Midtown for dinner. All that good food for cheap...you can't beat that either. Sunday we spent the whole day mowing, fertilizing and reseeding our yard, as well as planting some hostas. It was a lot of work, but Everett cooperated and slept almost the whole time. It felt really good to get all of that done.