wordless wednesday - missing my boy

my body may be in Georgia…

but my heart is in Oklahoma.

For the next two weeks, Jboy is staying with my parents in Oklahoma. I hate that they live so far away, and wish that they could spend more time with him, so I when they asked if he could spend some time there this summer, I was all for it.

We met up in Memphis yesterday to do “the swap”. Our hotel was right across the street from Graceland, and there were definitely some interesting characters in the area.

This morning, my parents went one way with Jboy, and we went the other. Alone. It was kind of weird. I know he’s going to have a great time.

Hopefully he won’t be too spoiled when he gets home.

The question now is, whatever will we do with 2 childless weeks? Chris will be working, so I’ll be alone during the day. I have a few things planned:

* visiting babies! I have three friends who’ve had babies in the last few weeks, so I’ll be making the rounds & soaking up all the baby goodness I can.

* pedicure! I have a gift certificate to 10Ten Nail Bar that I can’t wait to use!

* painting Jboy’s new room. I still haven’t picked out a color, but thanks to my bestie Rebecca’s suggestion, I think I’ll go with a khaki.

* start working on things for Jboy’s birthday party. It’s still three months away, but there’s no time like the present. Right?

Though I’ll enjoy the break, and the quiet, I’ll miss my boy. Have fun at Gaga & Papa’s baby!

one year ago today...

Jboy got his first "big" boo boo. Sidewalk + face = ouch.



Sweet boy. Doesn't he look so little in this picture?!

would you like to scrapbook?

I couldn't be more excited. One of my besties, Rebecca, is going to be sharing her gift of creativity with the world. Well, the world being the greater Atlanta area. But hey, you gotta start somewhere, right?

Starting July 27th, she's going to be teaching the core classes of "Scrapbook Design & You" at two local Michael's stores. Here's a little blurb from her blog about the classes:

SDU is a four week curriculum designed to teach the basics of scrapbooking including tools, photo organization, color theory, line, shape, writing techniques, and page enhancements.

Go check out her post about the classes and, if you're local... SIGN UP! You won't regret it!

he core classes of "Scrapbook Design & You" at two local Michael's stores beginning July 27th!

week in review

I’ve been meaning to post about the past week & just haven’t ever gotten around to it. So, here’s a little week in review:

Sunday
The 4th of July! Our church had a “Freedom Celebration” featuring the Voices of Lee from Lee University. They’re an acappella singing group and they were amazing!

After church, The Clavells and Rebecca came over for to grill burgers & hot dogs. They had all completed the Peachtree Road Race that morning! I was so proud of all of them.

My birthday was this week, and as in recent years, they took my favorite dessert, Rice Krispie Treats, and made a cake out of it. Each year they do something different, and I so look forward to it. This years was so cute!

After dinner & dessert we headed outside for some fireworks. (Yes, Jboy is wearing part of his fire fighter costume from Halloween.)
 
It was a great night!

Monday was Jboy’s first dentist visit.

Tuesday I don’t recall having anything going on. I’m pretty sure we just hung around the house all day.

Wednesday
My birthday! And my Dad’s. And my Uncle David’s! That morning, Jboy & I met Lisa and the girls for a movie & lunch. It was a great day! Chris’ parents gave me a gift card to 10Ten Nail Bar as my birthday gift. I love this place! They give the best. pedicures. ever! I can’t wait to make use of it.

Thursday we went swimming for the first (and hopefully not last) time this summer.

Friday
My friend Mae (with an “e” ;D) wanted to take me to lunch for my birthday, so we met her & her son, Nate, at Red Lobster. Yum-o! I had a hair appointment on that side of town at 5:30, so we decided to go to Imaginations at Play to kill some time, and enjoy the air conditioning. The boys had a great time playing and, as always, I loved getting the chance to chat with Mae.

Saturday
Yesterday was a great day! When I was in high school, I was very involved in my church youth group. The friends I made during this time are some of the most important in my life. As often happens, over time we’ve all moved on & around the country, and sadly don’t keep in touch as well as we’d like. Several months ago, we were able to get back in touch with our youth pastor and we started planning a reunion. Yesterday was the day! I’m going to do a separate post about that, so stay tuned!

Sunday (today) 
It’s been a pretty good day. Today was mine & Chris’ turn to volunteer in Jboy’s class at church. The past couple of times that we’ve been in his room, he’s been very clingy. Today they needed one of us to help in another room, so Chris made the switch. Jonathan had been kind of having a “Daddy day” today & was not at all pleased with this turn of events. He cried pretty much the entire rest of the time. I felt so bad, but there wasn’t really anything I could do. I couldn’t take him out & leave the teacher all alone with the rest of the kids but, at the same time, I felt like I couldn’t take Jboy to his daddy because that would be giving in to his tantrum. It was a long hour & a half. Jboy’s teacher and I talked about it today & we both agree that parents should help in a class other than their child’s. Hopefully next time our name comes up on the roster we can help in a different class. For Jboy’s sake… and ours.

Well, I think that just about covers the week. It was a good one!

what a difference…

a year makes! Last year, on the few occasions that we went swimming, Jboy was quite cautious in the water. As the summer went on he became more comfortable but, at first he would want to wear his “floaty bathing suit” AND sit in the float. It was quite a sight!

Today we went swimming for the first time this summer, and he was like a totally different kid! We were at the home of a friend of a friend, and the shallow end of their pool is shallow enough that the boys can touch the bottom. I wasn’t sure how Jboy would do, but once he saw his buddy, Porter, get in he was fine. He just walked around & played like he does it all the time or something!

 
I had him go underwater a couple of times and, at first, he didn’t like it. He started asking me to do it again (and again!), and the next thing I knew he was going under all by himself!

In this last one, can you tell his eyes are open?! He completely amazed me today. We’ve talked about putting him in swimming lessons, but have never gotten around to it. I think we’ll have to look into it more seriously now. He’s getting to be such a big boy!

I also took a little video so y’all could see how brave he’s being! (Please ignore my ridiculous sounding southern accent. Thankyouverymuch!)

In other summer news… I bought a new swimsuit this week. It’s been well over 5 years since I bought a swimsuit and, well, my body has changed quite a bit since then. I really wasn’t looking forward to shopping for one, but it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. The new tankini/halterkini’s that they have now are really nice, but, I never found one that made me feel comfortable. I finally settled on a cute swim dress from Avenue. They were having a 50% off sale, so that was a bonus. Here’s a picture of it:

I’m actually very pleased with it though, when I was in the water, I felt a little like Marilyn Monroe because the skirt kept floating up. Ha!

Hopefully we can spend some more time in the pool this summer. However, we’ll have to find better sunblock in the future. I lathered Jboy up twice and he STILL got burned. I, however, didn’t reapply and will live to regret it.

randomness

I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned in the past that one of the reasons I don’t post as often as I should could is that I sometimes feel like the only people reading are friends & family that I talk to on a regular basis. (Is that a huge run-on sentence, or what?) And since I talk to these people regularly, I often tell them the same things I’d be blogging about, therefore it feels sort of redundant. (To me, anyway.) But, I’ve had a bit of an epiphany… (an obvious one probably, but I’ve never claimed to be terribly quick)… I should be using this blog, not only to keep family members updated, but as kind of a scrapbook of our lives. I don’t want to forget the everyday stuff. I do actually scrapbook (occasionally), and do try to document some of the “everyday” moments, but there’s no way to do it all. Why am I saying all of this? Basically, I’m saying I’m going to start blogging more for “me”, which in turn may result in posting more often. Blah, blah, blah.

Anyhoo…. on to the good stuff.

We took another step in the journey of potty-training this weekend & removed all of the “little potties”. (Pottys?) Jboy would never use the big potty, and to be honest, I was getting tired of having to clean & rinse them out all the time. So… this weekend, the “Potty Fairy” came & took the little potties away to give to another little boy who needed them, since Jboy is such a big boy now & doesn’t need them anymore. I should have done this ages ago. He hasn’t had any problems at all with the switch. I can’t believe how grown up he is. The last step will be wearing undies at night to bed, but we’re not quite ready to do that yet. He wakes up dry most mornings, but occasionally he’s still wet. We’ll give it a little more time.

In other news… we bought the bedding for Jboy’s new “big boy” room yesterday.

Isn’t it cute!!! Jboy is going to spend a week at my parents’ house in Oklahoma in a couple of weeks and I hope to get the room painted while he’s gone. I’m having trouble deciding which color to paint the room. I like the two lighter colors of blue. Your thoughts & suggestions are welcome & very appreciated!

I had originally intended to put the bed in the corner of the room, up against the wall, but my mom brought up a very good point last night; making the bed will be a huge pain if it’s like that. So… now I’m looking at headboards. Here are a couple I found on Target’s website:

They’re basically the same, but I really like the style. The only other piece of furniture that I know for a fact will be in the room is this bookshelf from IKEA:

We’ll be using that instead of a dresser. These baskets (or something similar) will be used to put his undies, pjs, etc. in:

I’m really excited to get started on putting it all together. There are a few things I’ve found online that I want to use as decorations/accessories, but I think I’ll do a separate post about those.

So… stay tuned!

just going to the dentist

We’ve been reading this book to Jboy for several weeks in preparation for today… his first ever dentist visit.

I’ve been pretty apprehensive about it, as there have been times when we haven’t taken as good of care of Jboy’s teeth as we should have. Turns out I was right. :( More on that in a second.

Jboy did so well! He didn’t seem scared at all during his cleaning & the hygienist even talked about how brave he was being. Everyone in the office was wonderful & made sure I knew I could take as many pictures as I wanted. I took full advantage of that:

 
Waiting for the cleaning to start.


Such a brave boy!

Open wide!

Lookin’ good with my newly cleaned teeth!

A little unsure before the x-rays.
  
Big boy!

So, back to the bad news. Jonathan has 11 cavities! Ack!!! I was so embarrassed & felt like such a bad Mommy. I know it’s not true, but in that moment, I felt about 1/2 an inch tall.

Four of the cavities are really bad and need some major attention, so we’ll become well acquainted with the staff over the next few months. They’ll also become well acquainted with our pocketbook. Holy heck, Batman! Even with insurance it’s going to be like $1800 out of pocket.

Needless to say, we’ve learned our lesson & will be super diligent from here on out.