SICKIES--again!

As Knox and I hang out at the house today with yet ANOTHER case of the sickies, I thought I'd write a little note to self:

When feeding sweet baby boy a jelly biscuit...

put a top on the biscuit. :)

I haven't felt up-to-par to recap our great day visit to Chattaboogie for Sweet Jill's 30th birthday party, but she has lots of pictures I took posted on her site. Our only down side of the visit was getting hit head on (at only about 15mph, THANKFULLY) and just ONE HOUSE from Jill's. We're so very thankful we were in the SUV, but sad since we've only had that vehicle since late March. Oh well, at least it was only cosmetic damage to the vehicle and NO ONE WAS HURT--praise God!

Great Play Date

Knox and I were invited to have a play date over at Ada & Laura Beth's house today.  The kids played relatively well together, given their ages, but I think the play date might have been more for the benefit of the mommies.  :)  I guess everyone wins here!

There were no huge arguments between the two sweet little toddlers, but some slobber was exchanged in the sharing of sippy cups--at least no one is sick.  You can see in the pics that Ada loves Knox's green cup, and Knox the same for Ada's blue one.  So funny!  We had a wonderful time playing in general, and Knox only did his screech money impressionation (sp?) about four times, so that was great.  He played so well with Ada's toys, I guess since they are new to him.  They didn't try to take each other's toys but a few times.  The only "fight" they got in was when Knox scared Ada by knocking her down trying to give her hugs.  Sweet boy just doesn't know his own strength, especially when it comes to petite little Miss Ada!  :)

Thanks Ada and Laura Beth, for having us over!  We'll have to do that more often.  Knox was asleep before we hit the main road, and slept for 2 1/2 hours--unheard of in this household!

Mandy's Maternity Session

So, I had the best time doing my first photo session!  I was actually quite nervous beforehand, but it was such an amazing experience, and I'm glad I was able to do it with Mandy.  She was a great model, with a beautiful pregnant belly.  I think we were able to make the other feel more at ease and joked constantly.  

We're also both super excited because we've realized that we only live 7 minutes apart!  Take a look at a few of our end results...

I wanted to play on the phrase, "Barefoot & Pregnant," and I thought it turned out super cute!  Had to add this one, Mandy!

I monogrammed the onesie for Nolan--I want to take pictures of him IN it once he's born.

Random Happenings

Before I let you in on all the good stuff that will be happening this weekend, let me inform you of a few things that have taken place the past few days.

I found out that my "magic" machine, is in fact, NOT magic.  I guess I jinxed myself with the last post, and Knox has NOT slept well at all the past two days.  BOO!  Up at 5:30 the past two days and only an hour long nap today!  I'm grasping for straws here, but I guess it's still his poor little teeth.  About the only thing making him feel better, besides the frequent doses of Motrin, is watching WIggles DVDs over and over again.  I know I'm a horrible mother for letting him watch so much TV, but isn't it better that I keep what sanity I have left?

Speaking of sanity, baby number two is not in the plans for the immediate future, but hopefully in the next year or so.  With this in mind, I have already planned to collect ovulation and pregnancy tests with coupons and sales, since last time we tried to get pregnant we probably spent a pretty penny on those things.  So today I got a notification that I can get $5 a $20 total sale at Rite Aid.  Rite Aid is normally my last go-to store in regards to couponing and sales.  I got on www.couponmom.com to check out the deals for this week, since they are almost up.  I saw they had EPT test on sale and there was a current coupon.  Rite Aid also had some cereal, which we have none of.  I also remembered at the last minute that I had a gift card for $10 for spending $50 there during the month of December in qualifying products.  Once there, I knew my total before taxes would be a penny short so I grabbed two individual rolls of paper towels on sale.  I had coupons for them but not with me--boo.  Anywho,  I saved $20.50 in coupons/gift card alone--and only spent $1.39--YEP!  ONE DOLLAR and THIRTY NINE CENTS!  That was for a pack of two pregnancy tests that retail at $17.99 (they don't expire until December of 2010), two boxes of Smart Start Cereal and two rolls of Bounty!!!  Yay me!

Back to Knox for a second.  I bought a pair of official hair cutting scissors from Sally's Beauty Supply so I can start cutting Knox's hair at home.  His hair has already grown a baby mullet since mid-December.  I did pretty decent for my first time cutting a toddler's hair.  Keith kept him distracted in his high chair, but he still kept turning his head to see what the heck I was doing to him.  I cut his hair at all one length from his scalp, which isn't the best option for those of you tempting the thought of the same.  Because I didn't keep his hair longer on the top, his sweet blonde-white hair sticks straight out from the crown on his head!  At least the cotton ball look is cute on one-year-olds! :)

Looking at the upcoming weekend, I'm super excited and the tiniest nervous, but for a good reason.  Tomorrow will be my first paid photography session, with me behind the lense!  I'm so excited that Mandy Hyde has decided to let me document this time in her, and her husband's life.  Mandy is about 8 months pregnant with their first baby, and I'm doing a maternity photo shoot with her.  I have so many great ideas, I just hope they transfer through the lense.  I'm heading over to her house Saturday afternoon, with a reprise visit on Sunday afternoon so her hubs can get his mug captured too!  After the photo session with Mandy, she's following me to our house for a mini-potluck with Natalie and Kaylie (and Knox).  Us girls and kids are kicking Daddy out of the house for the night, but he's not complaining.  He's going to see a silly movie I'd prefer not to see--everybody wins!  The great thing is that I get to see where Mandy lives, since it's only about 5 minutes away--a friend that lives close!  AND Knox gets to love on his girlfriend, Kaylie.  He has ALWAYS loved that girl, and think she reciprocates!  Anywho, Sunday I think we're going to get back to church after a two week hiatus with 2/3 of us having colds.

Wish me luck tomorrow!  Hopefully this can blossom into something a little more!!!

I'm in love...

with a camera!  

Keith is an up and coming photographer (if you've ever been to our house, the pictures in Knox's bathroom were taken by him), so he decided to purchase a nice SLR camera with money he will be receiving at Christmas.  I was supporting his decision 110%!  I love that we now have a hobby we can do together, and share knowledge of how to take better photographs--and now I can be IN more photos! ;)

So we ordered the Canon 40D, that came with a 28-135mm lens, and ordered an additional 50mm, 1.8f lens (after doing some serious homework about what type we wanted--thank you Tracy) so that we could take some fabulous pictures of Knox's second Christmas.  We both were so excited the night we ordered it, we both had dreams of using our new camera!  I know, we're both crazy!  So, the camera was delivered today to Fresh.  Keith was going to use it for their holiday lunch, but after checking it out, realized he didn't know where the memory card went nor had time to figure out how to even take a picture.  I had the privilege to take Keith the old PowerShot, and I got my sticky paws on the fabulous new camera!  Torture was waiting on the battery to charge, but I got a little reading done on where all my settings were.  (P.S.  We found out through Holly, who also has a SLR, that we needed a different size memory card, so Knox and I went to Sam's with no luck, then to BrandSmart where we lucked up!)

So check out a few of my faves from our "learning" session!