Wordless Wednesday

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Emery - You Are 2 Years Old!

Emery, you are 2 years old today!

(I'm pretty sure I didn't do this for you turning 1 or for Meyers turning 4 last year. Hopefully y'all won't need therapy!)

6 days old

• You weigh around 32 pounds. We go for your check up later this week, so we will see if that's right.
• You are wearing mostly 2t clothes, 24m bubbles are getting a little short on you.
• You wear a size 6.5 shoe.
• You are in a toddler bed and have been since November (21 months).
• We have a gate on your door at night and until you get settled in for the night, you come and open your door a lot and call for us:) You also play in the pitch dark in your room sometimes. It's not strange for us to find your bed loaded up with toys.
• You still take a nap on "most"days. The days we pick Meyers up from preschool, you normally don't get a nap unless it's a quick one in the car.
• You used to be a pretty adventurous eater, but not so much lately. You really don't eat much at all sometimes. I've been making me smoothies every day for lunch, and you like those a lot. You don't even know that you are eating/drinking fruits and vegetables:)

1 year old

• You have loved "loveys" since you were out of a swaddle. You have a few that you really like - a duck and a bunny (Gran gave you those), but you are really partial to a pink one (Mimi gave it to you), and you will call for it when you can't find it. "Lovey, where are you?" It's about the cutest thing ever. I think it's neat that both your gran and mimi gave you your favorite loveys.
• You still have a binky and you may just go to kindergarten with it. When Meyers was 2, she only got hers in the bed and in the car, and we took it away at 2.5. It just doesn't bother me that you still have it. It kind of keeps you my baby, and you are so intent on trying to be a big girl, that I'll take you having your binky a little longer.
• You do everything big -whether it's having fun, throwing a fit, running around the house, playing, etc. It doesn't matter what you are doing, you throw your big personality into it.
• You can be so rough and tumble - you are not delicate little flower. You fell out of your bed this past week. You cried for a few minutes - you had a huge goose egg on your head, so I know it hurt, but you were just fine after a few minutes. 
• You are so strong, literally. You can climb up anything. You sometimes will shove us when you are trying to get your way, and it actually moves me!

21 months old

• I think you are equally a mama and a daddy's girl:)
• You love your big sister!! It warms my heart to see you run to hug her or to wait for me to get another snack out so you can take Meyers's hers:)
• You go to preschool one day a week, and you LOVE it. You go straight in and hug your teachers. You pitch a HOT MESS fit on the other two days that we drop your sister off for school. You want to be there SO bad!
• You love to swing.
• You love all things Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse (the whole clubhouse, really), Jake, Doc McStuffins, and Sofia.
• You are obsessed with our doctor kit. You are always "checking" people out.
• You love to go anywhere. When I tell you it's time to go, you run to the back door and try to open it.
• You are still on preventative asthma medicine, and we've had very few times lately of needing your rescue inhaler.
• Your language has picked up SO much in the last few months. You have so many new words, and are finally putting words together. You communicate really well, even if it's just you dragging us to the pantry or fridge to tell us that you want something:)

2 years old

Emery -
You wear me out every day with your larger than life personality, but it's the best kind of tired:) You bring so much fun into our lives. I don't want you to grow up any faster (you already think you are a big girl), but I can't wait to see how your personality takes shape as you get older. My prayer is that you will take your headstrong self and use it to do big things. We ALL love you to pieces! Happy 2nd Birthday, sweet girl!!

Emery's 2nd Birthday Party

We had Emery's 2nd birthday party today. Where the last two years have gone, I have no clue! It was a pink and green "theme" because I had a really cute pink and green presents bubble for her to wear. That was the same reason that Meyers had a pink and green "themed" 2nd birthday. The bonus this year was that I found a matching dress for Meyers (that I turned into a shirt) on ebay. You gotta love that! It was really fun doing the same theme for them at 2. I used some of the same decorations and made some new. This was just a family party; I'm thinking next year, we will do a big one for her.

Meyers's 2nd birthday party decorations -2011

We had Memphis Pizza Cafe for lunch (just like we did for Meyers's 2nd) and some other adult and kid friendly foods. My mom made the best cupcakes (I've had 3 total today!!) and John's mom made chocolate covered pretzels - Emery's favorite.

Emery hiding out from Aunt Christie's boyfriend:) 

She gets so shy/hysterical around him. We think it's the beard:)

I thought these pictures were precious - safe in Poppy's arms hiding behind his hat!

Meyers and Brayden

Meyers and Brayden at her 2nd birthday party:)

Uncle Brian, Pop, and John

Tanner, Aunt Christie, Gran, Scott, and Nanny

Brennan - every kid that comes to our house loves our chalkboard!

Briley, Emery, Mimi, and Poppy

Emery showed just about every range of emotion while opening her presents in true "Emery" form.

happy

pretty excited about a Doc McStuffin lab coat

a little unsure about the remote control puppy Nanny got for her

losing her mind over the puppy

still not sure about it

happy about it as long as it's not near her.

Doc Eason

my people:)

our little family of three at Meyers's 2nd birthday party in 2011

my sweet sisters - love that they are holding hands:)

She loved everyone singing to her.

Meyers at her 2nd birthday - very unsure about everybody singing to her:)

clapping for herself after we sang happy birthday

sweet face!!!!

liking Mimi's cupcakes!

Meyers looks 8 in this picture and it really freaks me out!

For some reason, she went in the corner after she ate. She had just pitched a little bit of a fit. I've NEVER put her in the corner (even though she's probably needed it)! Who knows? It was kind of funny, though.

Family parties shouldn't be stressful, but they are sometimes. You're having people over, your house needs to be clean, you're fixing food, etc. but I think this was the most low key and stress free party I've thrown. We had a great day celebrating our little 2 year old, and most importantly, she did too!

Wordless Wednesday

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Fun Weekend

John and I went (as sponsors) to the Passion conference this past weekend. It's a Christian conference for 18-25 year olds. John has been before, but I hadn't. He always came home talking about how amazing it was.

I was excited to get to go this year. John was in North Carolina for work until Friday so he flew into Atlanta Friday evening. So I got to ride on the charter bus (that broke down about an hour and a half in - it's not a church trip unless a bus breaks down!) with the other sponsors and students. Brad, Jenny, David, and Jennifer were the other "adults" so that was fun. David and Jennifer were super sweet to let me be their 3rd wheel until John got there that night:)



Jen and I waiting for the conference to start.

It was at the Phillips Arena, which meant there were 20,000 people there. I've never worshipped with 20,000 people before and that was an amazing experience by itself. It was pretty cool to see David Crowder, Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman, Hillsong United, Christy Nockels, and Kari Jobe leading worship. The speakers were amazing as well! My favorites were Francis Chan and Christine Caine.

It was a great to get away and just be an adult with few responsibilities. John's parents kept the girls at our house and said they were great! The bad part about the weekend was it was so short that the conference schedule was really tight. It went late Friday and Saturday nights, so it was a little rough for the old people:) I'm also not a fan of riding MARTA. I would have been so lost by myself!!



Hanging out on MARTA:)

We left early Sunday morning to come home. We stopped in nowhereville for lunch. The choices were McDonald's and Burger King. We thought the better option was McDonald's. One of the boys that used to be in John's small group tweeted this and it cracked me up. Struggling is exactly what was going on! I'm not a fan of Mickey D's!!


It was a super fun weekend, but
we were so glad to get home to see our girls!!

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Interesting Day

A couple of years ago, a friend (Jennifer - from book club) asked me if I would want to be on a committee she was on for a fundraising event (Generositea) for Lebonheur, our local children's hospital. At the time, I was pregnant with Emery and would be having her within weeks of the tea so I knew that I wouldn't be much help, so I said "no, but would love to help in the future". Last year's tea came around (and she didn't ask me to help!) and Meyers and I went with our group of friends.

I was blown away by the whole event - it was a precious event for moms and daughters, all of the details were perfect. We so enjoyed ourselves. As we were leaving, I told my friend (who asked me to help 2 years ago) to please contact me when it came time to start planning for the next year, not sure if she would even remember.




She did. And I am now on this awesome committee with 7 other fantastic moms. Ironically one of the other moms is the only other Shrimp and Grits Kids rep in our area. Small world. And the other moms - especially the two that started this event are so amazing. This TEA is fantastic because of them; this is their baby. Both of them are moms of heart patients at Lebonheur, and they have amazing stories to tell.

Being a stay-at-home-mom, it's been awesome to have something to "work on" and be involved in. That's the hard part of being a SAHM is going from working and being involved in "something", whatever that something is (for me, it was teaching), to being literally at home and not necessarily using your brain that often:) I LOVE being at home with my girls, but it's the hardest thing I've ever done. I wouldn't trade it though; even on my most exhausting, crazy days - that's still where I want to be. And I'm thankful I can be at home with them.

I've enjoyed being a part of this committee. The TEA is a few weeks away, and I'm so excited to see it all come together.

We (Meyers) have been patients at Lebonheur. Meyers has been to the ER three times with her asthma, one of those times giving us a 3 night stay there. It's a terrible place to be, but THE place you want to be if you have a sick child.

Today, I (along with the other committee members) went to Lebonheur 101 - a tour of the hospital. I was blown away by the tour. I'm thankful for having a children's hospital in our city, but never realized how amazing it is until today, how much they are the leader in technology in so many different areas. I'm SO thankful that our time at Lebonheur has been brief. And thankful to know the amazing facility that is minutes away if (God forbid) we ever needed it. It made me even more excited about the TEA. It was a truly rewarding day.



The committee members that could make it today. Don't we look official in our lab coats?!?! We got a laugh out of this!


We were able to go onto the OR floor to see surgeries (from the hall only), so we had to "suit up"! Ha!








Cute stuff, right?!

At the end of our tour, we got to meet with one of Lebonheur's researchers who is working on asthma of all things! I had plenty of questions for her (since BOTH of the girls have it), and learned some really interesting things.

I am so looking forward to the TEA and so glad to be "using my brain" on this committee:)


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