Happy Thanksgiving

I hope everyone has a wonderful thanksgiving and gets to spend it with family and/or friends. Danny and I are heading to my parents for lunch and then to his parents for dinner. We will be little stuffed turkeys ourselves once the day is over.

I wanted to say how thankful I am for my husband and daughter. They mean the world to me. I'm thankful for our extended families and all that they do for us on a daily basis. I'm thankful that we have a home and have all the necessities in life (especially since so many right now are struggling). I'm thankful for the church and the meaning and direction it gives. I could keep going with a much larger list, but that hits some of the highlights.

Have a good one. And Ashlyn wanted to wish everyone happiness as well. So, here she is sending everyone her kisses.

ASHLYN'S 1ST BDAY (Belated Post)

Ashlyn's Birthday was last Thursday (I know I'm a week behind). She turned the big ONE. It is hard to believe that my little girl is getting so big. (Literally, on a side note, had her doc visit yesterday she is off the charts in height 100% plus and 75% weight. Maybe a future super model. :) )

Here are a couple pics of the birthday girl.

On her actual B-Day:

Enjoy the party we had for her on Saturday at out house:


In the beginning of the cake festivities:



In the end:



She at one point was using the cake as a drum. Icing flying everywhere. To get her clean I just unhooked the highchair and took it and her together into our bathtub for a good washdown.

We had some family and friends over for yummy sandwiches, potato salad, chips, fruit, etc. Ashlyn got some great gifts. I think almost all the toys make noise. But, that is ok since they all also have an off switch!!!

WOW-5 New Posts

Lots of happenings. If you want to read the saga in order, start with Vacation Part 1 and this scroll up. :) Hope every had a happy halloween and election day.

Beaver

I forgot to write in my vacation book below about Ashlyn's little act. I was putting up her 3-6 mths closes (which I needed to do for a while since she is in 12-18 mth clothes now) in her room and she kept crawling up on me. So, I threw her in her crib to stay contained while I finished. Next thing I know I hear this little scrape, scrape, scrape and look back and I see Ashlyn just gnawing away at the bed rail like a little beaver.

Observe the damage:





I tried to buy some guards for the rails but her crib rails are twice as wide as a standard rail and I can't find anything to fit.

What really is the kicker is this was the replacement foot board of the crib because the original one had a paint crack down the top of the rail and I was scared it was start chipping and pealing the paint. So, we just recently had gotten the replacement from the manufacturer. So, we now have an eaten railing and one with a paint chip almost 6-8 ins. long. O well. i guess some repainting will be in our future.

Vacation-Part 4 Uh Oh!!!

Saturday was nice relaxing day and then Saturday night came....

Ashlyn woke up with a fever and not feeling good. Then proceeded 1 vomiting and then 3 days of a yucky stomach flu. Sunday afternoon her fever spiked to 104.8 so off we went to the emergency room. I called my pediatrician first but they sent us off to the ER anyways. Luckily, the hospital we went to wasn't busy at all so we got right in. Of course all they gave us was some motrin and 2 hours of sitting there just waiting to make sure the fever started going down. I hate to see how much a little thimble of motrin will cost us. :0)

It was so sad to see her that way. She just kept wimpering like a little puppy. Here's our little one and her first official hospital band while sick--



And that ended our very eventful week of vacation. I hope my next vacation is more boring. :)

Vacation Part 3- Furniture and Halloween

Well, danny went back to work on Thursday and I was able to try to resume the rest of my vacation. Lots of erands. Fun visits to Target and Party Shop to prepare to Ashlyn's upcoming B-day bash. Eating with my parents and a trip to Ashley furniture to finally buy a new kitchen table. After 2 1/2 hours, the deal was made. We pick it up on Tuesday. I'll post before and after of my kitchen nook then.

One thing I learned, you can get a better deal if you shop at the end of the month. I was trying to decide which table to buy and was going to wait till the next day. But, since they wanted the sale in October, they gave me an additional $50 off ( on top of the $90 I am getting off for simply donating my old table to habitat for humanities). So, $140 off the price. I thought that was pretty great.

Then, we had to finally get ready for Halloween. Ashlyn was a little lady bug (thanks to my sister-n-law offering to let Sydney's old costume be used). see the pics below. We went over to my brother's house to go tric-or-treating with them. Danny, Brad, and Danny's brother Steve hung out at the house while Stacey, danny's mom, and I headed out with the girls. they both had such a good time. It was soooo fun to watch Sydney go say trick or treat at every door like a good little princess that she is.

Vacation Part 2- WORK EMERGENCY

Tuesday afternoon (after getting back) I had to call my boss because there was a little emergency at work. Yes, believe it our not, major fires can occur in the accounting world. Well, this one was such a doozy that I had to go into work on Wednesday to handle things. The biggest bummer was that my mom watched Ashlyn Tuesday night so that Danny I could could have some nice quiet time and actually get some good sleep. Well, with the work thing going on, I hardly slept at all and was up at 4am working. Then, I went into the office around 9am for the remainder of the day (around 5:30-6).

So, danny got to get his haircut and then he headed to pick up Ashlyn. He ended up going out to Cotton's BBQ with my parents and niece and hanging out at their house in the afternoon. Oh so eventful.

My job is so stressful sometimes. I'm thankful that I have been as successful as I have in my career. But, sometimes my colleagues and I talk about maybe it would be better working at Target. Definitely less stress. The whole work/life balance thing doesn't really work when your working 50-60 hrs a week.

Ok. enough about my vacation break.

Vacation-Part 1

Last week Danny and I were on vacation. We went to Savannah, GA for a couple nights. I had been there, but Danny never had. He loves anything history related, so we headed off. Of course, it wasn't till we got there did we realize we didn't bring the camera. So, no pics.

On our first day, we headed out to get in line to get a reservation at Paula Deen's restaurant- The Lady and Sons. They start setting up reservations at 9:30 each morning of that days lunch and dinner times. So, we setup a reservation for 12:15 and went on our way.

We then took a 90 min. tour of historic Savannah on one of those trolley buses. The weather was really nice, so it was fun to sit in the open air trolley and enjoy the tour. Savannah has some of the most beautiful homes. Most of the historic district is setup in squares, so you have a these little parks.

Then we headed to our yummy lunch reservation. The Lady and Sons is still in the same building it started out in. It's been expanded to 3 floors. We ate on the 3rd floor. You can order something specific or just get her buffet. Of course, we did the buffet. It had:

Fried chicken
Baked chicken
yams
mashed potatoes
mac and cheese
collar greens
butter beans
creamed corn
green beans
biscuit/hoe cakes
salad

Then, for dessert you can choose from peach cobbler, banana pudding, and some type of chocolate gooey cake. Danny got the peach cobbler and I got the banana pudding.

though everything was really good. I have to be honest. It just was like eating at my mom's house. She makes almost everything that was on the buffet, including the deserts. So, we told my mom she should start her own restaurant. she could make a killing.

We headed back to the hotel then to crash after the lunch. After a much needed nap, we went down to River Street and took nice walk. It reminded me of St George street in St. Augustine. Our take from that was some yummy original and chocolate pralines.

The night held a trip to a cool little pizza joint right across the street from our hotel and back for danny to watch Monday night football.

Tuesday brought us packing up and heading out. Before we left Savannah, we went to Ft. Jackson for a little tour. From my perspective, if you seen a fort before, you've seen this one. There are all pretty similar. But, danny really enjoyed it. He reads all the plaques and soaks it all in.

Then back to Jax we went.