12.22 and 12.23

(Sorry about the lack of pictures, I didn't do too well these two days picture wise!)

Monday 12.22 we met Liz, Kyle and Dad at the French Market Cafe for some gumbo and  beignets and split up to do some last minute shopping. We had a WONDERFUL home cooked country meal at Grandmother Marion's that night and opened up some gifts with Dad's side of the fam. GM gave all the grand kids this nifty saran wrap holder, but I didn't get a picture of it  :(  As soon as Liz and I saw them we started screaming and jumping up and down. 

Tuesday 12.23 we met Lizzy at the Red Brick for lunch and went to the Adam's annual Christmas party. It is always so much fun getting to catch up with people from Spring Hill! 

12.20 and 12.21

Dad, Kyle, Jeremy and Paddy high tailed it straight from the air port to Steel wood to do some quail hunting with Fred and Michael. Me, Lizzy, Mom and Luke went home to hang out until dinner time. Grandmother Marion (Luke's GREAT grandmother) came over to baby sit and we went out to meet the boys at Steel wood. The food was really good, but the company was even better! We LOVE the Roes. We were SO happy to finally be in Mobile! (Yep, mom's eyes are closed...Big shocker there, haha!)

Lukie went to the nursery at Spring Hill while the rest of us were at the church service. He went right in with out a wimper. He LOVES other kids. However, he did NOT enjoy the Santa at the Country Club! 

After church, we went to the Country Club Sunday brunch buffet with the Greats and Aunt Susan. 

After lunch, we went home and helped Mimi finish decorating her Christmas tree. We were all shocked at how much Luke left the ornaments alone. His favorite thing was wearing the jingle bells around his neck. Aunt Susan came over that night to keep Luke while we went to Ruth's Chris for dinner (yes, most of what we did centered around where we were getting our next meal!)

Christmas week Day by Day...12.19

Since we were gone for 10 days, the only way for me to get everything in is to take each day and do the major highlights. We thought that since we were going to be in Mobile for such a long time that we would be able to sit back an relax a little....WRONG! We started the week off running and never looked back. Now that we are home, I need another week to recuperate! 

Ok, so let's take a trip back in time to Friday the 19th. I will try to keep this story as short a possible....It started snowing at about 10am on the day we were supposed to leave. Our plane left at 3pm. No big deal it snows here all the time, right?....WRONG. By the time I left work at 12:00, there was already 4 inches on the ground. We packed up our little car with 3 pieces of luggage, 3 carry ons, a stroller, and a car seat, a 19th month old, and 3 adults and headed to La Guardia. NOPE, when we were half way there, I thought I should check the flight on my phone...CANCELLED......WHAT???  Yep, it was a HUGE snow storm and the roads were awful...NO FLIGHTS were going out today! SO, we turned around to head back home. Jeremy, Paddy and I were all on our phones and they were telling me that we couldn't leave until SUNDAY! NO WAY...long story short we ended up getting a flight out of Hartford, CT at 6am Saturday morning. Because we were going home, there was NO food in the house, so along with all the luggage, we head to Stop and Shop for a night's worth of supplies. We get home and check Hartford's weather and call our friends who live in West Hartford. They said that the roads were pretty bad, but we were welcome to stay with them so we would be closer to the air port for our EARLY flight the next morning. So RE-pack car, give the neighbors our groceries that we JUST bought, and head to CT. But wait.....there is a blizzard remember...at least 8-10 inches were on the ground already?....so, the drive that would normally take 1.5 hours took over 3! Get to Mark and Michelle's, put Luke to bed, sleep 3 hours, wake Luke up, head BACK to the air port, wait in the FREEZING cold at curbside check in because in door line was WAY to long, find out Paddy doesn't have a ticket and may have to stay in CT, leave Paddy in CRAZY long line after being skipped by a huge jerk (that's a whole other story in and of itself), get stopped at Security because infant in arms is not on ticket, BARELY get to the plane, frantically talk to the gate guy about brother who says there is NO WAY he will get on this flight, walk down plank to plane in tears to leave brother to wait in CT for who knows how long, turn around as the airplane doors are closing to see PADDY made it to the flight! RELIEF, EXCITEMENT, EXHAUSTION! WHEW! It makes me tired just writing about it, but we made it to Mobile by lunch time on Saturday!...Let the festivities BEGIN!...(more posts to come!)

Goodbye NY...Hello Mobile!

We are supposed to get 6-12 inches of snow tonight/ tomorrow just in time for us to be leaving to go home for the week! I hope and pray that our flight doesn't get too delayed and that we are still able to make it home tomorrow night. This is a shot of our backyard last February. Hopefully, we won't wake up to this tomorrow! I will be out of the blogging world for a week and a half and I am SO excited to be in Mobile for Christmas this year!!! I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas! 

Uncle Paddy!!!

Uncle Paddy has come to visit us for a few days before we all head down to Alabama on Friday! I have been so mesmerized by my cool uncle... I think he is just the greatest thing. He thinks I am pretty funny, too! I keep him laughing all day long with my silly faces, dancing, and my babbling.

We even got to go to the Bronx Zoo on Monday with Daddy. It was in the upper 60's and we practically had the Zoo to ourselves. I guess everyone else was out Christmas shopping!

This afternoon I got to play the wii! Uncle Paddy even let me do the controls for a while. It was fun until dinner time and I had to give up the controls. I cried and cried and cried. Mom said maybe no more wii for a while and even Uncle Paddy agreed after the fit I threw!

We were having a mid-morning snack of grapes. It is so much fun to stay in your pj's until after lunch!

But, this is was Uncle Paddy has been doing most of all.....napping on the couch! LOL

More Ringgold Presents....

Because we won't be seeing Mamaw, Papaw and Aunt Christy for Christmas this year, they sent us a HUGE box of gifts for Luke. Luke had a great time opening all of this gifts and he especially loved the lion flashlight and Elmo I-pod book. There were even some fun snoopy gifts, scrapbooking supplies, and ornaments for Jeremy and me. Mamaw, Papaw, and Christy were able to "be" there for the opening of the gifts thanks to the web cam. You can see Papaw and Christy  and Mamaw's shoulder on the computer. (Try not to look at the mess that is our desk.) Thank you SOOO much for all of our gifts. Y'all did too much as usual! We MUST do another video conference SOON!

Going away party....

Today at Grace Baptist (yes, we actually found a wonderful little Baptist church up in Chappaqua, NY, even though it took us months and months to find a church we liked), we had a going away party for the Halo's. It was pot luck and there are always so many new and fun dishes to try from other countries. The Halo's are the sweetest little Hungarian couple and have been with the church for years. Mrs. Halo was our pew buddy and sat next to us in church every week. Our little church is very multi-cultural and there is actually a very large Hungarian population  in the church We will miss the Halo's terribly and I hate that Luke was not smiling in the picture above, but this was toward the end of the day and he was needing a nap.

However, prior to the above picture, he stole the show in the other room. Luke LOVES other children and if he could be a big kid right now, he would. He runs and plays and TACKLES the big boys as if he were just as big as them and of course, they get a HUGE kick out of him!

Luke and the older boys played "run around the tables" chasing each other for a really long time. As you can tell, Luke was LOVING it!

Because Luke is so personable, you can tell that, even at 18 months, he really commands an audience. 

This is the nativity right outside the church.... Luke was so funny and kept pointing to baby Jesus's belly.

My first Christmas Gift this season!

On Saturday, my first gifts arrived in the mail from Ringgold, GA, where my Daddy's side of the family lives! This Christmas is going to be a blast because I can REALLY open all of my gifts this year. Mom and Dad were laughing because with even smallest piece of paper I made sure to put it in Mommy's hand.

Wow, an Elmo lap top! Sesame street is my favorite show to watch on TV and I love Elmo. I have even started to try and say his name. Thank you so much, Aunt Alyssa, Uncle Eddie, Madison, Jared, and Emily for my gift. I hope you like the presents that we sent as much as I like mine!

Now, I can work on my computer while Mommy works on hers!......BUT.......

The BEST thing about this gift was playing with the box and packaging after opening the gift. Isn't this always the way! :)

Surprise Shower!

Annie's mom, Titi Millie, Stephanie and I threw Annie a surprise baby shower on Saturday! It was great fun and especially so because it truly was a surprise! It was in Naugatuck, CT at her mom's house. 

It was an English tea complete with quiche, sandwiches, cookies, cake and tea! It was so much fun to give a party and celebrate this little baby girl to come. Dave and Annie are going to make wonderful parents and it is going to be great fun having them right next door! 

Annie got SO MANY nice things and a lot of their big stuff, like car seat, pack n play, stroller, and high chair. They, of course, got some really CUTE little girl clothes and necessities like diapers and baby shampoo, too.

No baby shower would be complete without the diaper changing game! Dave was the diaper changing champion and it's a good thing since baby Metcalfe will be here in just over 4 weeks!

It was so much fun to plan/thow/attend a baby shower for such a special friend! 

(P.S. There was no way I even thought about bringing Luke to the shower because all I would have been doing would have been running behind him trying to make sure he didn't break anything. I left him happily playing at home with Daddy!)

"Not Me" Tuesday!

I have seen this "not me" concept on a few of the blogs that I follow, so here is my attempt at a "not me" blog post:

I never let my 18 month old play with my car keys just to appease him while we are out shopping! He surely doesn't have any other toy that he could play with in the diaper bag backpack that I never keep with me when we are out on the town. And, I would ESPECIALLY NEVER let Luke play with the keys while I am strapping him into his car seat, because that would mean that he could lock and unlock the car doors at will, since he has learned how to punch all of the car key buttons (And his favorite button would NOT just happen to be the LOCK button either!)

 I would NOT have let Luke have the keys and shut his car door only to realize that my worst fear had happened! Surely, I didn't walk around to the drivers side door only to realize that I did not have my keys in my hand and ALL of the doors were locked. Nope, not me. I did not run over to Luke's door only to see a happy baby smiling back at me. I didn't spend 20 minutes trying to get an 18 month old to push the TOP button only to have him repeatedly push the LOCK button and finally proceed to throw the keys on the floor board of the car! Nope, not me. My husband surely wasn't an hour away in Ossining working and did not have to go by the house to get the spare set of keys... that would have been a nightmare. 

After, I knew that Jeremy was on his way my first instinct could NOT have been to call my mom who is thousands of miles away and could really do nothing but calm my fears and stay on the phone to commiserate with me. Surely I didn't have to wait out in the cold 45 degree weather for over an hour just staring at Luke wishing that I could rewind the exact moment of putting him in his car seat this afternoon. I probably didn't have my old camera in my bag that I hadn't put in the car yet and surely I didn't take a picture of this horrid event thinking that this will be a pretty good blog post/ scrapbooking page once I get over the whole shock of this....That would mean that I really have become one of those CRAZY scrapbookers that think that EVERY moment could be a potential scrapbook page! Nope, not me.

Luke was such a trooper and surely didn't cry real tears the last 15 minutes before Jeremy got there looking at me wondering why I was just letting him sit in the car all alone. Yep, this was not killing me at all! After Luke was rescued by Dad and got a quick hug from mom, surely Luke did NOT stop crying immediately and act like nothing had ever happened. That would have been too easy!

Nope this is NOT how we spent our afternoon and this is NOT the infamous picture of Luke locked inside our car...

Santa and Me

This may look like the picture perfect Santa picture, but this picture is totally deceptive. I may look like my happy self hamming it up for the camera, but it took a LONG while to get a good pose. I was clinging the Mommy for dear life and did NOT go straight to Santa. In fact, even with Mommy sitting next to him I wouldn't even sit on his lap. You can tell if you look closely that I am actually sitting on Mommy's lap and she is strategically placed just outside the picture frame. I looked over at Daddy who was standing by the camera and the lady got the money shot just in time. I am talking like a nano second after she clicked the camera, I was burying my head in my Mommy's shoulder. 

Dear Santa, 

 I hope that you were not TOO offended that I wanted nothing to do with you at the mall tonight. I didn't remember that I met you last year. I love Sesame Street, cars, and trucks. Hopefully, you will still come and visit me in a few weeks. Oh yeah...P.S. I will be in Mobile this year for Christmas and NOT in NY, just in case you are looking for me :) Sincerely, Luke

Thursday Mornings....

Where are Luke and Daddy?...... There they are!!!

We all LOVE Thursday mornings!!!....this is the only day of the week that NONE of us have anywhere to go! Tuesdays and Thursdays are the days Mommy gets to stay home ALL day and since Daddy has class from 1pm to 9:30pm, he doesn't go to work on Thursdays.... That means that we get all morning to sleep in (today I slept until 9am!), hang out, and PLAY! 

Our Charlie Brown Christmas Tree...

Yep, this is our sad little Charlie Brown Christmas Tree, but I LOVE it!!! Since we are leaving in just two and a half short weeks to head down to Mobile for the holidays, we decided to put up a small tree. I got a SUPER great deal on a set of two 4 foot PRE-lit trees (I got them 50% off and paid just $15.00 total- they came with the base and everything) and decided that this would have to do for this year. I usually have our tree up the night of Thanksgiving, but since we weren't putting up our regular tree I had to go out on Black Friday to get this small one. Putting up the Christmas tree is one of my favorite Christmas traditions! The reason I love it so is because of the ornaments....my mom and dad have ALWAYS collected ornaments from where ever they have traveled, so Jeremy and I have kept the tradition going. It is so much fun to re-live all of our adventures through our ornaments. I always save the newest ornaments for last, but this year the ONLY ornaments are the ones from this past year. Some of the adventures from this past year include: Boston, Lake Placid, Lake George, NYC (of course), New Orleans, Ross Bridge in Birmingham, the pumpkin Blaze, Mystic, CT, Plymouth (yes, as in the rock), China (no, we didn't go there, but Jeremy's sister and her husband did to bring Emily home), San Francisco (no, we didn't go there this year either, but our very favorite neighbors, Dave and Annie went for  three months and brought us an ornament when they returned--see how much fun this is?...there is a story behind each and every ornament on our tree), Magic Hat in Vermont, Cape Cod, and West Point. Oh, yes, and since our normal star was way too big for this little tree, we had to buy this RED one in honor of the Tide. 

Merry Christmas!

Luke's Favorite Book at the Moment

This is by far Luke's favorite book at the moment. He picks this book out above all others and he wants us to read it OVER and OVER and OVER again. He makes the sweetest face when he listens to us read it to him. The words are perfect for this Thanksgiving season:

Thank you for the food we eat.

Thank you for the world so sweet.

Thank you for the birds that sing.

Thank you, God, for everything.

Thank you for my family.

Thank you, God, for loving me.

For each and every child, I pray...

And thank you for this special day.

12-0!!!

WHOOOHOOOO!  Alabama beat Auburn 36-0 in their final game of the season!!! After 6 long years, we were finally able to beat Auburn (sorry any Auburn fans that read this blog), but this game was awesome! Luke loves to shake his shakers and yell at the TV just like his Momma and Daddy! He can even do the sign for touch down! It is so cute! Roll Tide Roll! Ramma Jamma, Yella Hamma!!!

Happy Thanksgiving 2008

It was a nice quiet Thanksgiving with just the three of us. I am so thankful for my family and friends both near and far and that we could spend this lazy Thanksgiving day at home. We had all the traditional fixin's including, cornbread dressing, turkey, green beans, my mom's sweet poatoes, my grandmother's cranberry relish, rolls, and gravy. (This was my first year making gravy that was edible, normally it is terrible. But, I think I finally figured it out!). This year Luke was actually able to enjoy all of the food and he LOVED the dressing, green beans,  and sweet potatoes (The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Haha. If that is all I had on my plate I would be a happy camper!)  After lunch, we all took the traditional Thanksgiving nap with football playing softly on the TV in the background. What a great day! 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

What Happened?

                           Man mommy, what was in that milk? (Just so everyone is aware, my silly husband put this post up late last night.)

Hay Stacks!

Hay Stacks Recipe

12 oz chocolate morsels

12 oz butterscotch morsels

~ 7-8 oz (a can and a half) chow mein noodles

6 oz cocktail peanuts

Heat morsels in microwave for 3.5 minutes at 60% power until melted. Stir until smooth. Stir in noodles and nuts. Drop by the teaspoon onto waxed paper. Thats It!!!

(Jess's notes: This recipe makes enough for an army, so be prepared to share with co-workers, neighbors, family, and friends because let me tell you, if you keep these all in the house it will be sad times when you go to put on your jeans :)  Also, I make my batch with two bags of butterscotch instead of half chocolate and half butterscotch. Even if you don't think you like butterscotch, you MUST try it this way. But, feel free to substitute any combination of morsels that your heart desires. )

(Another Side note: I don't know why but whenever I make these I think of my grandmother Betty. I don't know if it is because she is the last person I remember making these with, or because I remember that she always got the peanut buster parfait at Dairy Queen and this is made with peanuts? But for me, making hay stacks will always remind me of my Grandmother Betty!) 

Bad Hair Day!

The boo boo on my nose has almost healed! Look what Daddy did to my hair... Luckily it was only water and NOT hair gel!

Eating Crayons...

Is ANYONE going to stop me from eating this crayon???....

Help, I think these crayons have gone to my head!!!

The Little Drummer Boy!

Thanks to Mimi and Doc for my new Christmas outfit! (It's called the Little Drummer Boy set.) It fits great and I can't wait to wear it in my portrait pictures. Don't my new shoes go perfectly with it? 

Here is a shot of it without the jacket.

I would not be related to my Daddy or to Doc if I didn't stop to check myself out in my new digs! 

Alabama Football!

We spent last weekend in Birmingham so that we could go to our last Alabama football game in the box. Yes, it was kind of sad that we won't be in the box next year, but I am sure the Murphy's are on to bigger and better things. The box has been wonderful and we were especially glad to be in it for this game since it was a 6:45pm game and quite chilly! We got to Tuscaloosa super early so we could get some pictures around campus and since the box opened at 4:15, we headed straight over to see if we could get Luke in. (Side note: According to stadium rules, EVERY person MUST have a ticket! (even newborns, as silly as that is.) That being said, Luke has been to the box two previous times WITHOUT a ticket. The first time we really didn't know and the second time they let us in after a little bit of begging (I really don't know how we did it the second time, but, hey, it worked!) This time mom was all set to sit at the Tri-delta house until half time and then meet us so she could take Luke back to the hotel. However, I had the bright idea of trying just ONE MORE TIME to get him in without a ticket. We let Dad stroll him in and they let us through without so much as looking at Luke in the stroller. Whew, we were in....or were we???... I got stopped because of my huge camera bag and Dad, Luke and Liz scurried onto the elevator thinking that all was well. While Mom and I were fooling around with the camera, Dad had gotten stopped by the second ticket stampers who give you an arm band. They said that Luke HAD to have a ticket and that they couldn't believe that they had let us through downstairs. Long story short, since they had already gotten that far, they let us in. Yeah! Mom didn't have to camp out at the tri-delta house!  All was well!

No trip to T-town would be complete without going to see the "Bear" statue!

Getting a quick bite to eat at the Tri-delta house before heading to the stadium. Check out my brand new shoes that Mimi bought met! Am I stylin' or what?

I had a great time at the game. After getting a new Alabama hat and bundling up, I was happy to be on the front row cheering the team on with my Alabama shaker! But, my favorite thing was the Million Dollar Band... Our box is just to the left of where the band sits, so I had a great time clapping and dancing to the music.

WHOOO HOOOO......11-0! ROLL TIDE ROLL!!!