the blog with a surprise ending....

gosh a lot has happened since I last updated... let's see, Miss Harlan celebrated her 2nd birthday on November 21 and raised the roof at her party at mimi & papa's house on the following Saturday. her Mimi & papa got her a swing set and we managed to hide it, even during the 2 days it took all the blood sweat and tears out of her daddy & papa to get it up. the look on her face when we finally unveiled it was priceless and as of now, she's a pro at all the elements on the thing, especially the slide. fast forward to December where we celebrated Christmas ( as most everyone does) and it was so exciting (for me & her her daddy) to see her cute little tired face as she saw what all Santa had left her. it takes her awhile to get going when she wakes up, so we may have rushed her a little because at first she just looked a little dazed and confused at what was going on, but once she woke up, man she was excited. that covers all of the major holidays for now...
my best gal pal Kathy & her husband Nathan (yes, the same couple who we joined for their wedding in St. Lucia a year ago) welcomed their first baby boy, Jackson Tyler Stockberger, on April 25 and I could not be more excited for them. This is all she's ever wanted and I am so happy that all of her dreams are coming true! and speaking of babies... we invited my Dad & Mom & sisters Ann & Haley and brother Jay over to the in-laws for Easter lunch to unveil the news that... drum roll please... baby #2 is officially cooking in this oven. It's kind of nutty too because the due date of this little kumquat is 2 days after Miss Harlan's birthday (PLEASE let it come sooner so they don't have to share their special day... and also because as most of you reading this may know, I am not very fond of the actual being pregnant part, if I could pop this puppy into a microwave belly of sorts and speed up the process, I would do it in a second) Needless to say, i will have much more to talk about now that there is another person growing inside of me, so stayed tuned for more updates. Now, let's see who all actually reads this because not many people actually know the big news as of yet... so surprise! hee hee

well Halloween came and went...

I was really looking forward to taking Harlan on her very first trick or treating expedition, even though she never knew one way or another, but unfortunately, she had been really sick all week prior and was not up to par by the time trick-or-treat time rolled around :( sooo, I finally convinced her to put her costume on this weekend for a photo opp, and as you can probably tell from the photo... she was not happy. Oh well, there's always next year, and she's still my favorite little stinker ;) enjoy!

is it just me or....

has time really flown by in the last 2 years? I mean, the summer months always fly by for me, but I was looking at my sassy little one yesterday and she's almost 2 years old. it seems like just yesterday I was moaning and groaning about being pregnant and I remember how much I could not wait for her to finally be here. well she's here and has been for almost 2 full years. it really is funny how all of the parental sayings that I never paid much attention to, really are true. time does fly by, they grow up way too fast and before you know it, they'll be gone and there you'll be... in your empty nest. I know, I know, I've got plenty of mommy years ahead of me before the nest becomes empty. and as I type this, I can picture myself remembering me type that very statement... as I sit in my empty nest. maybe it's time for another one so I can start the clock over and have 18 more fun-filled years ahead of me, instead of only 10 :)

That time we went out of the country...

OK. So Ross and I recently returned from St. Lucia and our honeymoon we never had/my best friends wedding and the only word I can think of to describe the trip and it's happenings is "wow".
So we left Birmingham for Atlanta shortly after work on a Wednesday and ended up in St. Lucia by way of Miami at around 3:30pm on Thursday, which is 32 hours after we had woken up on Wednesday morning. Did we sleep at all you ask? Why of course not. Needless to say, we were out of our minds exhausted. We then took the 1.5 hour roller coaster ride to our hotel. You see, St. Lucian's apparently do not believe in speed limits, stop signs or traffic lights, throw all of that together on a very mountainous island with very curvy 2-lane roads and add complete disregard for other drivers/pedestrians/animals on the road and you've got one helluva ride... better not be one prone to car-sickness! wow.
After a much needed nap, we were able to begin and enjoy our stay. The surroundings were really quite beautiful, albeit, not what I expected, but so nice and quaint. The weather was awesome, and the people were mostly accommodating. When I say not what I expected, it's because I didn't do my homework before we left so I didn't realize how poor the island was. Now I'm not really sure if "poor" is the appropriate word, to explain, the locals live in very modest homes in the mountains, grow their own fruits & veggies, use public transportation to get around (see above) and thrive on the tourism to make ends meet. Everywhere you go, someone was trying to sell you something, anything from the freshest possible coconut water (juice inside of a coconut)to trinkets made out of wire right there on the spot. Still, I couldn't quite shake the feeling that they didn't really like us that much. I felt like I could hear their thoughts, "stupid Americans". Maybe it was just my imagination, I don't know, but it sure felt like we were annoying them.
Now for the best part. It's a very rare occurrence when you throw a group of random people together and there's not ONE that sticks out as the annoying one, or the rude one, or the obnoxious one, etc. There was not a single one of those in the list of wedding guests. I have never been around such a great group of people that all got along so well and were able to have such a terrific time together no matter what we did. As most beach trips can go, I kept waiting for that one that got too drunk and acted a fool or the one that had enough and went off on another for no reason, but it never happened. It was SO nice.
And it occurred to me... how phenomenal these 2 people must be to have such an awesome group of people surrounding them. And the truth is, they are phenomenal, and then some. The friends, siblings & parents were all this temporary little happy family and we were all here for the same reason and for the same 2 people and that made it all beautiful. Truth be told, I had been waiting for this day since I first met the bride. She is one of the greatest people I have ever met and has always deserved the best there is. She had waited so long and so patiently to find it, and it was purely magical to be able to be there and literally watch all of her dreams come true. The smile on her face was priceless and her happiness that weekend is something I will never ever forget. wow.

Coming home was bittersweet. We were leaving paradise and coming "back to reality" and the everyday headaches of life... and it actually felt really good. The experience as a whole made us both appreciate what we had lost sight of, and that is how blessed we are, with our humble little home and modest lifestyle and most importantly, the love of both of our lives, Harlan.

wow.

welcome to our world...

Let me first start by saying, thank you Ericka. without your genius idea to create a new blog for your family, I never could have stolen the idea for myself :) xoxo
I hope to keep everyone updated on us and our lives without us ever having to know that you even took a peek :) pictures will have to suffice for those first few months without the time, ability or knowledge of how to blog, so I'll begin with present time... because there is no time like the present :)

now to begin... well, where do I begin?? At this date and time, our sweet Harlan Charisse is approximately 16 months & 18 days old and growing like babies do, too fast. She is talking in her very own jibber-jabber language that only her poppa & Mr. T understand and walking her little pigeon-toed self everywhere she can get. yes, I believe she has a slight bow-leggedness about her that my mom says she'll grow out of and if not, they make a brace for. if I am not mistaken, I think I may have had the same problem when I was a little one, and I didn't have to have a brace... or did I? either way, she's still the cutest thing ever, pigeon toed or not, and I am sure she will walk on out of it eventually.

we've run into a recent problem with her biting though. it was one thing when she was just biting me, whether it was because she likes the way her sweet momma tastes or just knew she could get away with it with me and not her daddy, she was taking chomps out of my finger almost daily. it is quite another story when she bites the kids at school though. I never thought I'd have a biter. in the 2 summers that I worked in a daycare while in college, the "biters" were the bad kids. I remember one little vampire specifically that I would watch like hawk, just waiting for her to chomp on some poor unsuspecting toddler. she even got dirty looks from me at times simply because she was a biter. just who did she think she was?? did her parents not teach her that biting was wrong? or did they simply go around their house each night biting each other for fun? either way, she was a bad girl and undoubtedly got different treatment from me because of it.

and now. here I am. the parent of a biter.

For the past 2 consecutive days at school, she has been sent home with a note that she has bitten another child. I'm not sure if it's because she gets too excited as she is known to do or if it's her temper that has been surfacing lately. However, I can assure you all that we do NOT condone this behaviour at home. as a matter of fact, we have tried a lot of different avenues - from talking to her, to smacking her little hand with a "no no" to follow, to even biting her back, which by the way, she laughs at and thinks it's a game.
where in the heck is Supernanny when I need her??