Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

It was that time again... Girls Weekend! I LOVE when we all get together and just wish we could do it even more often than we do.  I am so glad that we have all remained such good friends despite distance, children and all the other activities that take over life after college.  We all met up for dinner at our favorite spot, Sweet Magnolia Cafe, which of course did not disappoint.  Their food is absolutely delicious!  We also celebrated Amanda's birthday by surprising her with a Red Velvet Cupcake, complete with a little candle and a rendition of the Happy Birthday song.  After dinner, we all reconvened at Melissa's house for our own little slumber party: pillow fights, junk food, girl talk and a bra freezing pranks.  Okay, well we didn't have the pillow fights or bra freezing but we did have an amazing time.  I appreciate that even though I've known these girls for 10+ years now, I still learn new things about each of them, which makes me appreciate them each even more.  I love that we are all so comfortable with one another we can share what ever is on our minds and don't have to worry about judgement.  We can get advice, sympathy, and encouragement from one another yet we also celebrate eachother's blessings as though they are our own.  I'm glad that God has surrounded me with an amazing group of friends to go through life with! 

Come along to Sesame Street

During our drive home from Birmingham on Sunday, Jamie and I decided very spur of the moment that we should take a little getaway with the boys. Jamie hasn't taken off work since our summer vacay so he was pretty keen on the idea and Sesame Street Live just so happened to be in Huntsville and what better fun that to take the kids! So we decided to do just that, as well as get a room in Huntsville for the night.  Jamie took of work Wednesday through Friday and we were super excited about spending some time together relaxing and enjoying eachother's company... I told him if he would give me and the kids Wednesday and Thursday then he could have Friday and Saturday to play golf... he was perfectly okay with that exchange!  The show was Wednesday morning at the VBC and the kids loved it.  Noah's expression when the show began was priceless! He loved all of the music and dancing. Collier paid attention at times and would clap his hands but he was a little less interested, plus he hadn't had a nap and it was about that time.  All was great until the 15 minute intermission. Once the show started back up, the kids were over it at that point.  They were getting hungry and antsy so we ended up leaving about 15 minutes before it ended... funny thing is everyone I've talked to did the same thing!  We went to Parkway Place mall to grab lunch and do a little shopping.  Collier was so worn out that he actually fell asleep in the stroller, which is very rare.  After shopping, we checked in to our hotel room at the Westin at Bridge Street and the kids and I took 45 minute naps. 

Following our nap, we walked down to PF Changs for dinner... this is where things got a little hairy for us.  All day our kids had behaved wonderfully, so I had to know that they would crack at some point.  That point was dinnertime.  They were hungry and tired and worn out.  Collier wanted to feed himself (his new thing and he gets mad when I try to help him) so he fed himself honey chicken and fried rice, which of course created a huge, sticky mess.  He dropped his cup, his spoon, the chopsticks he was playing with and his toy cell phone no less than 50 times.  Noah wouldn't stay put in his chair.  I honestly can't blame him though... he had rode in the car to Huntsville, sat in the chair / mine and Jamie's laps during the Sesame Street show, then rode in the stroller at the mall.  So he was antsy.  We hurried through dinner (so much so that Jamie left his credit card and we left one of the kid's straw cups and had to return to get them the next day.)  We made a stop at the Chocolate Crocodile to get everyone a treat and headed back to the hotel.  We all slipped into our PJ's and ate chocolate covered strawberries and oreo covered marshmellows in our "heavenly" Westin bed (seriously, that's what they are called and rightfully so!)  Now the tricky part was getting the kids to both go to sleep in a hotel room.  We had a portable crib brought up and actually wheeled Collier into the bathroom so he would fall asleep.  Jamie, Noah and I slept in the king bed.  Once Collier was asleep, we slowly wheeled him back into the room.  All was good.... until 10:30 when Noah woke up.  He does this periodically and he'll "wake" up breathing funny, kind of gasping for breath but his eyes are shut the whole time.  It's almost like he has a bad dream, but doesn't fully wake up.  Sometimes at home, I'll hear him do this so I'll go in his room and rock him gently to wake him up, which calms him down and the funny breathing stops, then he goes right back to sleep.  I've mentioned it to the doctor and she didn't think it was a big deal, either bad dreams or transitioning into a different sleep stage.  Anyways, he started doing this at 10:30 and I tried waking him up to calm him down but I guess he was confused because we weren't at home so he began crying, which of course, woke up Collier.  After 10 minutes of the both of them crying, I wheeled Collier and his little crib back into the bathroom.  He almost immediately calmed down so I just left him in there the rest of the night!  Once Collier quit crying, so did Noah and he finally drifted back to sleep.  The rest of the night was uneventful (other than Jamie being unable to go into the bathroom because of Collier being in there, so he had to pee in a cup!) and we all slept until 8:30 that morning.

The next morning we got up, fed and dressed, and did a little more shopping at Bridge Street.  I guess I should say I did some shopping.  Jamie and the boys were just along for the ride... but they were very patient with me.  A few hours later, we headed home.  Once we got home, the kids took LONG naps and Jamie and I enjoyed the quiet, alone time and watched a movie together.  We ordered sushi and enjoyed an evening relaxing at the house.  I'm glad we took some time out of the normal routine of things, to get away as a family... even if it was just an overnight trip to Huntsville.  I treasure times like these!  Its the small things that mean the most and I hope our boys always remember these little things that we can do together as a family!

Our Redneck Skybox

I left off a picture of the setup of Kenny's tailgate tents.  They have quite the spread, including a flat screen tv, grill, plenty of chairs to relax in and lots of food to enjoy!  Not everyone can tailgate in style like these 'rednecks' do...

Tiger Bait

This past weekend, Jamie and I were invited by some great friends of ours to go to the Alabama - LSU game in Tuscaloosa.  Yes, THE game of the century.  #1 vs. #2.  Needless to say, it was a BIG game and we were thrilled to be invited to go, especially since we didn't get to go to a single game last year (blame it on this very pregnant momma.)  Thanks to my parents for keeping the boys, we were able to go to Birmingham Friday evening and join Kenny and Shana for dinner at J. Alexander's to celebrate Kenny's upcoming birthday.  My goodness, how I have missed these two! I have always loved spending time with them because we all have such a great time together.  Jobs, distance (they live in Athens) and kids have prevented us from spending as much time together as we used to.  Following dinner, we headed back to Kenny's sister's house to finish up preparing our tailgating treats and to get ready for our early morning departure to T-town.

Jamie, Kenny and Kenny's sister Kim headed out EARLY at 6:30 for Tuscaloosa to get the tailgate ready and kindly allowed me and Shana to sleep in.  It was a 7pm game and there's no way I could've made it all day if we had to get up before the sun even rose to be in Tuscaloosa.  Shana and I made it there a little before noon. The guys and Kim had everything set up for the day with Kenny's DELICIOUS pork tenderloin simmering on the grill.  The quad was jam packed with people celebrating the impending show down between the two teams and the excitement was undeniable.  Of course, there was the usual mouthing off between rival fans, but it was all in good fun.  We even had a few LSU fans tailgating with us for the day.  An eclectic group of people, including a very foul-mouth Opthamologist that kept flirting with Jamie and Kenny and an air traffic controlman that introduced himself as Poat Chop, not Pork Chop, but POAT Chop .  Needless to say, he was quite the character!

Midway through the day, Shana and I made our way to the Strip for a little retail therapy.  We both found ourselves fighting the crowds in a local favorite, The Locker Room.  I found a cute long sleeve tshirt for Noah and one for myself, while Shana found shirts for herself and both of her boys.  Together, we bought 5 t-shirts all for the very inexpensive total $130 (yes, sarcasm intended.)  We were told about 4 different prices by the college kids that work the store so when we checked out, we were quite shocked at our totals.  For the discrepancies, the owner gave us each a Locker Room koozy.  Gee, thanks! 

A few hours later, it was almost game time, so we joined the mob of people heading towards the stadium.  The excitement was palpable.  I've been to alot of Bama games since my parents were season ticket holders for alot of my childhood, and Jamie and I used to be before Noah was born, but I've NEVER seen anything like it.  Fans of each teams were chanting cheers and taunting rival fans as they marched into Bryant Denny.  Quick funny story... I've been having some problems with my back (stenosis and pinched nerves) and since our seats were in the very top of the upper deck, I chose to ride the golf cart to the top.  Shana waited in line to ride with me, while the guys went on up.  Yes, I realize that makes me sound really old that I stood in line to take the golf cart, but I was afraid that my back would begin hurting on the walk up and I wouldn't be able to enjoy the game.  During the wait, we made friends with the guy in charge of letting people on and off the carts and begged him to get us on the next cart (They only had room for 16 and we were #17 and 18 in line and kick off was in 20 minutes).  When the carts came back down to load people on, we squeezed on the carts... we didn't break line in front of anyone, however 2 ladies that we supposed to ride this rounde, weren't able to get on the carts.  The reason was because an older man (who by the way, was wearing a flashing Scripted A hat... yes, flashing, as in blinking red christmas lights...i.e. tacky) and his wife, who weren't even in line, but happened to be walking up the ramp as the golf carts stopped to load up, JUMPED on the cart, completely breaking line!  Well, the guy in charge tried to blame US... umm, HECK NO.  Thankfully another lady defended us and pointed out the old man and his wife broke the line and that they should be the ones to get off the cart.  That man just sat there with his head tucked down trying to hide and wouldn't budge from his seat off the cart!  I was shocked that this old guy would do that and so I again, told the guy in charge that the old guy had broke and we weren't the ones at fault but the man in charge wouldn't say anything to them! (my guess is because they were older?)  Needless to say, Shana and I moved from our seats to allow the 2 ladies on the carts... thankfully another couple let Shana and I squeeze on the seat with them.  I was fired up.  Normally, I love old people and would NEVER be rude or disrespectful to one but these people's behavior was ridiculous.  After our almost-fight with the old folks, we made it to our seats and the "game of the century" started.  I'm fairly certain that you all know how it went... it was a good game to watch, a defensive battle and came down completely reliant on field goals.  We made mistakes that cost us, there were a few bad calls, and LSU came out on top in overtime 9 - 6.  Even though we lost, I still had a really, really good time. 

Following our disappointing loss, we headed back to the Quad and fired the grill back up. Earlier in the game, Shana had told me that me that one of her lifetime goals was to learn the Electric Slide... so to keep ourselves warm from the drastically cooler temperatures, we taught Shana the Electric Slide, as well as taught eachother a few others, such as the Thriller dance, the Tootsy Roll, and Shana's favorite, the Funky Chicken. :) Since they won't let cars into the Quad to load up tailgate equipment until 2 hours following the game, we had some time to kill.  Finally around 11pm we began breaking down the tailgate and packed everything up (all the while, foul-mouth, flirty opthamologist girl stood there wrapped in a blanket, smoked cigarettes (of course, cussing about some boyfriend drama) and watched us...free-loader).  Around 11:45pm, Shana and I got on the shuttle to head back to my car.  The guys didn't get the truck loaded up until around 1am, which is how long it took us just to get BACK to my car.  Traffic was terrible.  We didn't get OUT of Tuscaloosa until after 2am and made it back to Birmingham at 3:15am.  Our poor husbands were awake 22 hours.  It was a LONG day but thankfully, we gained an extra hour due to "falling" back.  Despite our loss, we still had a great time with our friends!  Needless to say, once we returned home on Sunday, we were exhausted and hit the bed by 8:15 and slept until 6:45 Monday morning.  I guess once you're in your 30's, it's much hard to recuperate from staying up past midnight!



Peace, Love & Frights of the Night

Jamie and I were invited to two different Halloween parties this past weekend.  We began the costume search several weeks prior but it's SO hard to find a woman's Halloween costume that isn't slutty!  After much deliberation, we finally settled on our choices.  The first party was a friend of Jamie's family, Joyce's annual Halloween party. She goes ALL OUT with tons of food, drinks and a band. But the best thing about her party every year is the decorations!  Seriously, it's a sight to see... every square inch of her house is decorated with spooky trinkets, creepy animatronic serial killers from all the horror movies, ghostly framed images hanging on the walls, and cob webs draped in all the corners.  The lights are dim throughout the house and you never know what you will jump out to scare you around each corner.  Each year, I'm more and more amazed at all the work she puts into the party.

We also attended another party at Erika and Sean Presley's house.  It was great seeing our friends decked out in their creative costume ideas.  We dined on deliciously gruesome desserts and enjoyed a little Witches Brew while dancing it up on the makeshift dance floor.

And without further adieu, our chosen costumes...

And here's Frankenstein and his bride, Derrick and my sister, Lindsay

Even though Jamie and I are substance-free hippies, it is somewhat appropriate to take a picture with Dwight, the guy dressed as a marijuana leaf

Just a snippet of the decorations in her den...

Nothing like waking up to all of this each morning

Me and the Zombie Hunter

I was so happy to be reunited with my long lost friend, Sarah Beth, or Punky Brewster