April is almost gone!

And I've realized I've been such a slacker this month with my blog. Such is my blogging life; it seems to ebb and flow. ;-)

We had a nice trip to Chattanooga. Aiden had a blast going on the little train ride and climbing all over the engines and cars they had out. We went to the aquarium too and saw way too many fish. It was fun, but we tried to do the aquarium in only a couple hours, and that was just too many fish in too small of a time period. Aiden enjoyed it for the most part. We visited Lookout Mountain, which Aiden seemed to love for some reason, because we really didn't do anything there. I think he just liked saying "Lookout Mountain." And we spent a few days wandering around the battlefield at Chickamauga. I always knew there was a Civil War battle that occurred there, but I never really knew much about it at all. I enjoy history, and especially learning about it. I hope Aiden grows up with a love of history as well.

I had my first photo session of 2007 last Friday. It was with an adorable TINY little newborn. I had a lot of fun. It was fun to be taking pictures of someone other than Aiden for a change. I have another session this afternoon with a family of eight! It's actually two families that are doing this for one of the mothers for Mother's Day.

We've done really well with potty training. Aiden did fairly well on the trip, and ever since he has rarely had an accident. He sometimes is a little wet in the mornings, but that is just because I can't convince him to come out of his room on his own in the mornings to come get me to take him to the potty. We'll work on that. Oh, and pooping isn't going so hot. We're about 50% on successes with that. But, I'm really not complaining. I'm so proud of him doing so well with everything.

I must close and finish my internet rounds while I still have some coffee to drink. I'll also update the photoblog. If you check out my flickr site, you can see our pictures from the Chattanooga trip.

Happy Monday!

What a fun weekend!

I'm getting an early start to my Monday! I'm sipping some Orange Cappucino (YUM!!). It's been a while since I've had any. I've got my dishwasher running and I'm doing my blog entry for the day. My goal is to be super productive today and get a number of things done.

Our weekends normally always start on Friday, which is SUPER nice. The weekends are still always too short, but I guess they are never as short as the typical two day weekend would seem. Anyway, back to Friday... We all got out of bed a little late, probably around 8:30 or so, we ate breakfast and went to the YMCA that morning. Our only other plans for that day were coming back home, and maybe going out to the grocery store later, and Matt wanted to burn his big pile of sticks from the three trees he cut down last weekend.

We got home from the Y, piddled around for a bit, and then went back out. We made one grocery store stop, then walked through Walmart, then we went to the post office to mail a couple big envelopes, and THEN we headed down to Charlotte to look at some amps/receivers for our surround sound. Poor Matt... he is so torn on replacing our amp/receiver. The center channel doesn't work, and of course the warranty has run out, and of course you can't find anyone who will really work on the brand it is (NAD). We are the best at finding brands most people have never heard of... ever heard of a Venta Airwasher or a Bamix handmixer?? Well, if you haven't, WE HAVE BOTH OF THOSE. Usually, we enjoy using our uncommon brand stuff, but the amp is probably the only thing with which we've had issues.

Our first stop was lunch at Jason's Deli. I love eating there. Matt and I shared a taco salad, and Aiden had a pb&j with a fruit cup and some apple juice. The big kid food is a little expensive, but you get so much. And a meal for the little kids is only like $2, so I really can't complain. They did skimp on Aiden's fruit cup this time though. Aiden had fun with the free ice cream cone too. He put his mini muffin in the top of the cone and ate his muffin cone. He's such a nut!

So we get down to the Tweeter store and Matt takes some time looking at the different models he has in mind. In the meantime, Aiden and I are enjoying watching the HDTV's they have on display. Aiden especially liked the horse race! He also enjoyed watching the BASE jumpers diving off of cliffs. Everytime they jumped off, Aiden would say, "UH OH!!!!" I told him to NEVER do anything like that, at least while I was alive! Matt finished up and we walked out of the store empty handed.

We then ventured through the parking lot to Barnes&Noble (all of these stores are around the mall). I wanted to find a specific book on potty training that I've heard good things about. It's written by Mo Willems (he's written for Sesame Street and also has a ton of other children's books on etiquette, et al). Time to Pee comes with a chart and stickers, and while I could do all this by myself, I thought a NEW BOOK might be just one more tool in my toilet-training arsenal.

Alas, B&N did not have the book I wanted, but Aiden did get some playtime in with the Thomas trainset they had in the kids' section. Which gave us the NEXT idea of heading over to TRU (that's Toys 'R Us for all you non-parental types) to check out train sets and train tables. Though they didn't have what we thought we might be able to get there, that put a wild hair in our hineys for finally working on what we said we were doing for Aiden's Christmas present... a train table! Matt had planned on building the table himself, but after doing some online research, there are some nice tables out there that are reasonably priced, and buying a table takes much less time than building it himself... and Matt is stretched thin with his free time right now. So, we're buying some track sets off of ebay and we're going to find a table, and hopefully in a few weeks, we will surprise Aiden with his super late Christmas present. :o)

We finished up at TRU, headed over to Best Buy to look at their amps. Aiden and I sat on the floor and watched Jewel sing on the HDTV's while Matt shopped. Again, we walked out of the store empty handed. We then came home and made some yummy hamburgers and called it a night.

We got up Saturday, and quite honestly, right now I can't remember how the day started. Matt's intentions for Saturday was to do some more work outside. It was a cool cloudy day and Matt got a decent bit of work done. We decided to have lunch and then take a drive in the new-to-us Volvo, something we haven't done yet, up to the mountains since it was snowing up there. It was a fun drive and the snow in the mountains was beautiful! It really makes us miss our 'home.' We stopped at the original Mast General Store, shopped for a little while, and walked out with a bottle of Burt's Bees Baby Bee Buttermilk Lotion (if you haven't tried Burt's Bees products you should!), a 4-foot stick of beef jerky, a bottle of rootbeer for Matt, a bottle of Cheerwine for me (made with REAL SUGAR and not corn syrup... it makes all the difference!!), and some candy from the candy bins for Aiden. It was beginning to get dark, and it was getting close to suppertime, so we headed back down the mountain, stopped at Ruby Tuesday's for dinner and then came home.

Yesterday was a typical Sunday except we didn't head to Grandma's as she is in Florida for a reunion. It was incredibly windy here yesterday and it's cold this morning (19!). However, we might see 70's later in the week... unbelievable! My daffodils are now blooming too...

Happy Monday!

It's so nice to be home!

We had a great time in Florida. Aiden did lots of playing on the beach, and we enjoyed our relaxation while there. I did have some sort of virus on Christmas day and the day after, so those days I spent in bed, but luckily that bug didn't stay around too long.

While in Florida, we managed to make our usual lunch trip to The Columbia at St. Armand's. We ordered our usual 1905 Salad with the Original Cuban Sandwich. This time, we bought a cookbook from the restaurant, so now I can attempt to recreate the salad at home.

We also made a trip down to the Everglades. We stopped by Clyde Butcher's Gallery and picked up one of his books. His photographs are amazing. The next time we are in Florida, I want to stop by his Venice gallery and do the dark room tour. He does his own enlarging in his dark room. His enlargements are up to 5x9 FEET! HUGE photographs. I'd love to see how these prints are actually made.

Though it is nice to get away and have a change of scenery, it is so nice to be home. I miss my bed when we are away the most. There is nothing like being at home in your own bed. :)

Today, life gets back to normal. I go back to taking care of a few clients orders, and taking care of the house... we're still not settled back in from the trip and the holidays. Matt is back at work today. I have a pork roast I need to cook for dinner tonight. I need to get on the ball and decide how I'm going to prepare it.

Coffee is gone.. must close and get some more!

Off to Sunny Florida

We leave tomorrow to spend a week in Florida to celebrate the Christmas holiday. We have a few things planned, but mainly we are just going to relax and do a whole lot of nuthin!

Merry Christmas to everyone!

Greetings from Bluefield, WV

After a quick visit in Sevierville, TN to visit Matt's sister, we are now with Sonya and Ted (and Connor too!) in Bluefield. Yesterday was my 28th birthday and Sonya surprised us all with a cake for our birthdays as Sonya, Connor, Aiden, and myself all have a birthday in June. The cake also celebrated Father's Day for Matt and Ted. So far we are having a nice time. The boys are napping now so Matt and I are doing some catching up on the internet while we have a moment.

I hear a kiddo right now so I will close and go check to see which one it is. I will update again after we arrive in Newport. We leave bright and early tomorrow morning.

Until then!

It's been almost a week!

I can't believe it's been almost a week since I last updated my blog! I've been so busy with life that I haven't had the time to really sit down here and update like I should. I really don't have much time now, but I will hit the highlights of what has happened over the past week.

We went to Galen's track meet last Tuesday afternoon. He participated in the long jump, triple jump, and 1600k. I put pictures on my photoblog last week so you can see Galen in action there.

Saturday morning I had a photoshoot (rescheduled from last Sunday afternoon). I have yet to even see the pictures on the computer, but I will work on those this afternoon/evening. It was a mother and her almost 2 year old son I was doing pictures for; I think I got some cute shots of her and her little boy.

I came home after the shoot, ate lunch, then hopped in the car for a 3 hour ride to Raleigh for some bachelorette party fun! She had a lingerie shower Saturday evening and we then went out for drinks (of which I had none.. I'm not much of a fan of alcohol anymore) and fun. We went to this one bar that has a mechanical bull... Yes, she rode the mechanical bull, complete with her tiara and veil on her head. We ended our evening with a late night/early morning meal (about 3am!) at the Huddle House. We had a really fun time.

So, life gets back to normal again this Monday morning, at least for a couple weeks, until we travel for her wedding.

My washing machine is beeping at me, telling me to come put the laundry in the dryer, so I must close.

Happy Monday!

Back from the Beach

We made it back home yesterday afternoon. I've got pictures uploaded to the photoblog of our beach trip. Here's the link:
http://cats-photos.blogspot.com/2006/04/back-from-beach.html

The weather was too chilly and windy to really enjoy the beach, but we had a good time. Aiden finally decided he liked the pool (which was heated, by the way) right as we were needing to leave for lunch our last full day there. We went and played putt-putt after lunch that day and had a fun time. I LOVE putt-putt. We had an enjoyable trip back home without much frustration (other than looking for a pizza place in Lancaster, SC... there are no Pizza Hut's anywhere in that town.. we settled for Pizza Inn).

It's good to be home and settling back into the normal groove of things. I do have a photoshoot this morning.. I hope it goes well. I always get so nervous when I am purposely taking pictures of other people or their children!

Have a good Thursday!

Off to Myrtle

I am taking a break in the middle of my last minute packing to do this entry... Aiden and I are heading to the beach in the morning with my parents and my nephew. I'm excited to have the new camera and I can't wait to take pictures. We will be back sometime on Wednesday.

Now back to packing... there is SOOO much to take when you are packing for a toddler. They certainly are HIGH maintenance!

Busy Busy Busy!!

We've been a busy family the past few days. The new camera came on Wednesday, so of course that took up free time that I had, and I might add I procrastinated doing things I should not have, like packing for our overnight trip to Asheville on Thursday evening! I ended up getting everything packed and dinner on the table (which included a London Broil I might add!) by the time Matt made it home from work. We were able to leave our house around 6:30pm which was nice.

We stopped at the Best Buy in Asheville before going to Klay & Arianne's, so Matt could surprise me! He bought me a 2GB Sandisk Compact Flash Card for the new camera. It holds like a bazillion pictures! OK, really it holds between 500-600 depending on the compression on the image file. But anyway, WAAAAY better than the 124 I could get on the 256MB card for the old G2. It is NICE! I love my husband!!

All went well Thursday night, except for turning in rather late. Aiden really had no problems going to sleep in a strange place. We brought him to bed with us, and he went to sleep in a flash. After he had been snoozing for a while, I moved him into his pack 'n play. He only made one sound that night, and that was when the power jolted on for just a minute and the TV turned on. The next morning we learned that their had been a car accident on the road outside the apartments that had hit a power pole and blown a transformer! That was probably the culprit for our phantom TV menace!

Matt got the car to the shop Friday morning and my mom went to pick him up, then they swung by Klay's to get Aiden and me. We headed down to Greenville, SC to visit with my grandmother for her birthday. She turned 88 on Wednesday. We had a nice visit and ate lots of food and sampled her many birthday cakes!

When we made it back to Asheville, my mom dropped us off with the car, which was finished (and apparently the reason for the oil leak was found... a loose bolt.. go figure!). My mom returned to Brevard, and Matt, Aiden and I, went out to Asiana (a Chinese buffet in Asheville) with Klay and Arianne, and my brother and his son. We had an enjoyable meal and stuffed ourselves silly! We then hit the road and made our way home. We got in shortly after 10pm. LONG DAY!

Matt played lumberjack again this morning and cut down yet another tree! This feat brought out the spectators! This tree was actually leaning slightly over our house (luckily only over the garage!), so Matt cabled the tree to the BIG truck and put some tension on it to make sure it fell the right direction. A neighbor stayed in the truck to make sure tension remained on the cable as Matt notched the tree. He then began to make his back cut and our neighbor drove forward slowly as Matt continued to cut. The tree then fell exactly as we all hoped.. AWAY from the house. Thank you Lord for protecting our house and giving us the intelligence to land this tree where it needed to go!

So, Matt worked on cutting up the tree all afternoon, while I piddled around the house. Aiden napped for 3 1/2 hours today, but as soon as he woke up, we went to the park to meet up with a lady from Hickory Mommies, and of course her husband and son were included in the fun time at the park.

Tonight we turn our clocks forward. That means, according to Daylight Savings Time, it is 10pm! I should get off here and get settled down before going to bed for the night. Matt and I are going to veg out on the couch and watch some TV. I'll be sure to post NEW CAMERA pics as soon as possible.