Last weekend Chris and I had the opportunity to go out for a little while, and enjoy a lovely dinner. We usually choose to celebrate March 1, instead of Valentine's day, which is the anniversary of our first date. We had originally thought that we (I) would find some amazing top notch restaurant and have a really amazing meal, since it's so rare that we go out. We wanted to do an earlier dining time, so we could put the kids down, but in the dining world, anyone that shows up before 7 is pretty much assumed to know squat about food, and treated as such.

Not wanting to be treated in such a way, and having difficulties justifying the money, I turned to restaurant.com. They have a lot of restaurants on there, and you can choose how large a gift certificate you want. Always read the fine print, but most $25 GC require you spend a minimum of $35. So, you would be spending the price of the GC plus the additional $10 or so that you spend at the restaurant. You usually end up saving at least $15. If you go to a nicer restaurant you can save more, and if you sign up for their e-mail sales, you can usually get the GC for less also.

Which is what is going on right now. They are running an 80% off sale on all of their GC. This means $25 GC are now $2. All you have to do is enter the code DINE during the checkout process. These are great for a really nice evening out without the price tag, or just a casual meal out, when you don't want to cook, but also don't want to have to spend much money to eat out. These GC last for a year, and they usually don't do these dramatic of sales very often, so you may want to consider stocking up (b-days, mothers day, anniversaries, etc.).

The sale is only lasting until Sunday, so hurry up!

Here is where we went: http://www.parkcafeduluth.com/

And here is a picture of my favorite dish there, I think next time, I might just order three of these! Fried Green Tomatoes with warm brie, in a bacon balsamic emulsion.

BOY:

We were playing with pipe cleaners, and Josh happened to have a neon pink one in his hands. He messed with it for a little bit, forming his creation, and then proudly told me to "look mommy!" Cool, what is it I asked?

A gun.

In addition to yesterday's great quotes, here is one from this morning:

"Daddy, step away!"

The intonation is what really makes it.

Josh is in the other room playing with the cardboard box my new Wii Fit came in. He keeps saying"oh Billy" (as in Billy Madison quote) and laughing at himself.

That kid cracks me up.

Yesterdays great lines were:

"whatever" with strong emphasis on the last syllable

"for the love" said with great exclamation

The best though, was the other day he was talking to me and asked me:
"Mommy, do you like it when you drive REALLY fast and the drive off the edge and into the water and CRASH and die?" I said a casual no, and he proceeded with an emphatic "well I do".

As a note with that last quote, he has learned to play MarioKart Wii, courtesy of his daddy, and one of is favorite parts of the game is when he drives off the cliffs into the water and crashes.

We have definitely been blessed with humor in our lives courtesy of Josh!

Jack is in the most adorable phase.

In the last couple of weeks he has just been bursting with personality.

As much as there are beginning glimpses of mischief, and screaming at his older brother when he tries to take something from him, it's so much fun to see who he is becoming.

He still seems to be a little more laid back than Josh was, particularly in the area of getting what he wants. But he doesn't seem shy of expressing what it is that he wants either.

You can tell he is just itching to get in on all the fun that daddy and big brother are having, and is known to cheer them on, but he's still content at times to just snuggle in my arms.

If teething isn't taking over, he may quite possible be the most adorable 8 month old around. Even then, he's still adorable, just fussy adorable.

And he just got baby crocs. That just about pushes the cuteness factor over the edge.

Cute Jack moment:

Whenever Jack wakes up and gets out of bed, if Josh isn't already in his room by that point, Jack just stares at the door waiting for him to come in. If Josh does come in he immediately laughs and kicks his legs in excitement. It's so cute to see the admiration for big brother already showing up.

He also has the sounds "mama" and "dada" down, although I'm not quite sure he has quite figured out who to attribute them to. Although it is when he starts fussing that he usually makes the mama sound, and he never makes the dada sound around me, so maybe I'm not giving him as much credit as he deserves.

He also has his two bottom teeth in and is working on his top ones right now.

Other than that we are all well, just going non-stop. We rotate weeks that we lead the small group, and this week was our week, so it feels as though we've had a little more than usual on our plate. Hopefully the weeks that we don't lead will be a little more relaxed.

Hope everyone has a good Valentine's Day. We are doing...nothing! Well, that's not entirely true, we'll have a fun meal here and have chocolate dipped strawberries, but other than that, no plans. Personally I think V-Day is a little bit of a silly holiday. We usually try to go out around March 1, the day we had our first date, and celebrate that, so hopefully within the next week or two we'll go out for a nice meal (that will be better food and not rushed!). Chris did surprise me with two dozen roses delivered though, so that was lovely. I have a great husband!

Enjoy your weekend, hope everyone is having as fabulous weather as we are!

We went to a real salon to get Josh's hair cut today. The first couple of times he needed his hair cut when he was little we tried to go to some of those kids salons. They totally botched it. So I started doing it. While I think I've managed to do a pretty decent job, it has always been a fight, and not having the right tools, or training, I was never able to do the best of jobs. So I got fed up and made an appointment at a real salon. The one I found here (that I love! Hooray for finding a place to get my hair cut, another sign ATL may be home...) is the same one that I get my hair cut, and is an Aveda salon. If you ever need to find a great salon, search for an Aveda salon, their stylists are trained incredibly well.

Anyways, I will never cut Josh's hair again. I walked into the salon expecting to be embarrassed with the scene he would make at a nicer place (thus the 9:00 appointment time). Imagine my surprise when we left the salon about a half an hour later having not heard one peep of whining, crying or complaining. That has to be some sort of record for him! It has most certainly never occurred during a haircut. Not only that, but his hair looks so handsome. I was one proud mommy.

Hope everyone has a SUPER Bowl!

Before:

After:

I put some new pictures up:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=85976&l=e4a48&id=503538528

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=85989&l=d15e5&id=503538528

Here's a little taste:

My dear (and talented!) friend Katie Hillis from one of my favorite families in the whole world took these pictures for us while we were visiting STL.

We're looking forward to this weekend, we're taking Josh to a really neat indoor play area that we have found that is just down the street from us. He's also getting his haircut at a real salon. The kids places usually botch it, and I've been doing it for the past two years. Hopefully that goes well (we're bribing him with the trip to the play area!). This will also be the first time in 3 years that we will be doing something with friends for the Super Bowl! We're having one of the couples we've gotten to know down here over, and we're looking forward to being able to entertain for that celebration again! They have a boy named Crosby who is almost 2, and who Josh enjoys playing with.

Hope everyone enjoys the pictures and has a fun Super Bowl (go Cardinals!).

I've been bad about updating, I'm sorry.

Turns out having a life does make it more difficult to have time for things like blogging. Although I am very thankful to have a life again.

We had a lovely Christmas in STL. Here are the pictures:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=80228&l=534c6&id=503538528
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=80254&l=f73a2&id=503538528
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=80303&l=62610&id=503538528

New pictures up:

From November

From Thanksgiving

Great Josh quotes from the weekend:

"mmm, this is good, what is it?

It's sparkling cider (Chris)

yum, it tastes like beer."


"God is in my tummy, helping it feel better."


(this was while we were painting, and he was painting Jesus)

"I forgot his bum, I need to paint his bum"


Jack was fussing a lot, and jokingly I said I was going to throw him out the window, this was Josh's response:

"NO! don't do that, because then I won't have a brother and Jack will be lost."


I don't know where the kid comes up with this stuff.

A couple cute Josh stories, and new pictures.

Story 1:
We had been running errands and Josh had being rather difficult. I put him in the car, and told him he was going to be in big trouble when we got home. He got in his seat and was rather quiet for a little bit as we headed home. After a minute he piped up and said "mommy, I prayed to God and Jesus and asked them to help me not get in trouble." We had to have a bit of theological discussion after that one.

Story 2:
We were hanging out in the family room, and Josh started talking about his friends. He jabbered on for a little bit about them, and then I asked him who his best friend was. Without hesitation he replied "Jack".

Pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=67101&l=dbe19&id=503538528
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=67351&l=058f5&id=503538528

New pictures up here

We have been so blessed to find an amazing new church that we love! It has so many things about it that we really enjoy, amazing music and worship, very friendly people, awesome teaching from the word that is applicable to the modern day culture, and so much more.
One of the things we have been surprised by is the amount of incredibly creative people they have serving. Every couple of week they produce a video to correspond with the point of the message. Not only are they brilliant, but they are hilarious. See for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPv9sUiD54o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42GDhHR_X3w

I would just like to say that Connecticut's high is going to be Georgia's low. Oh the difference a few months can make!

We still love it here, we have joined a small group at church and are really enjoying that. I found out about a women's bible study through it, that I am going to be joining up with. I am down right giddy with excitement!

Seriously, to think that 2-3 months ago the socialization that we have had in the last week was more than we had nearly the entire 2 years in CT. I am definitely feeling overwhelmed by the blessings God has bestowed upon us all at once.

Crazy to think how different things would have been if we would have pushed ahead with the STL move we wanted a while back. I really feel like our obedience in staying is being rewarded.

In other news, I put up new pics. Enjoy!

Josh's moment of the day:

He knocked a bunch of pictures that I had been organizing off the desk, he stood back and looked at them, put his hands on his hip and said "that is not a good deal". I started to give him a look, and get on to him (since I had been telling him not to play around them) and he looked at me before I had a chance and said "pick those up" talking to himself, and proceeded to pick them all up.

Apparently college football is kind of a big deal down here is the South. Actually that's an understatement. It's pretty much a way of life. People won't talk to neighbors who root for an opposing team, and it seems like every car, mailbox, or front stoop has some sort of sign clearly establishing who they pull for.

Now I consider myself someone who knows quite a bit about sports, and can hang with the boys in conversations dealing with such, but when it comes to this I am a fish out of water. I am going to have to do some educating.

Especially since my husband has decided it's interesting enough to make a 3+ hour drive and stay overnight to have the opportunity to see a University of Georgia game. Apparently you have to go all the way to South Carolina (not all the way, we're only about an hour or so from the border..) to see a game, since they are sold out here for every game, or go for about $150. All I can think about is the seats that we could have at Busch Stadium for that. Hopefully he has fun with the guys, and hopefully Georgia wins (seriously, Bulldogs vs. the Gamecocks???).

Since Georgia is the number 2 ranked team in the nation, the game will be broadcast on CBS, so I think I will watch some of it to brush up on my Georgia knowledge, since I think I am going to have to be jumping on that bandwagon. Until they play Mizzou!

Go 'Dawgs!

New pictures are here!

A terrible thing happened this weekend. To make a long story short, I was fiddling with the controls on the camera and trying to adjust the aperture, and accidentally erased two weeks worth of pictures off of my camera.

Now I know to most of you this may seem like a silly thing to be so upset about, but none the less, I was upset enough to get myself to the verge of tears.

Two weeks at this stage of life for Jack is a lot to miss out on. There are also not a whole lot of pictures that get taken with my boys and I and I had two really good ones on there. Plus Jack had his first round of shots, and I had picture of the little band aids on his legs. They were tweety bird ones. I also had some really cute ones of him grinning, and of Josh holding him.

Plus we went to this festival, Celebrate Freedom, where 18 different singers and bands performed. They had the Chick Fil A cows there, and I had a bunch of pictures of Josh with them, and one of the DJ's let him get on her golf cart with the cows, and we had a picture of that.

It really is very tragic. But, all that to say, if you are feeling a need for pictures, I am sorry, but you will just have to wait until I build up enough to upload again. I also wouldn't recommend asking me about it. It's kind of a sore subject...

Today is Jack's 2 month birthday. Madness.

Crazy to think that we have pretty much officially pulled it all off, having a baby, moving, getting unpacked, getting everything done for the wedding and being there, and the most difficult time period of having a new baby.

I feel most accomplished in that I can get the grocery shopping done with both of them in under an hour!

I was finally able to get the video that I made for Kristin's rehearsal dinner uploaded. So here it is, I think it is my best yet.

I also was able to figure out how to upload the one that I did for Arnold's 50th birthday party (like a year ago). I would have had it up sooner but dumb YouTube doesn't allow videos over 10 minutes. Thankfully facebook Video does, so here is that video too.