Steak and Picasso

For our anniversary on Friday, Josh took me to Shapley's for an early dinner. My last visit there was the night he proposed! We joked that it will probably be another 5 years before we go again. I hope not...it was outstanding and such a treat!

Then, much to my delight, we went to Easely Amused for "date night portraits." I've been to Easely Amused several times already and had seen this class and wanted us to go, but Josh never seemed too thrilled about that. Surprisingly, he signed us up on his own... We had a lot of fun and I thought these pictures were worth sharing...

"The reveal"

(you have to sit across from your date and you do not see each other's paintings until you are done... You are supposed to paint a Picasso-inspired portrait of your date)

Sweet Treats by Susan

Hurray!!! Susan started a blog! Click on the link I've added to my sidebar to check out her yummy creations!

Today marks...

5 years!

June 10, 2006

For Aunt Sue

Grady apparently has seen the light and decided that CAKE is YUMMY! For the past couple of months, we have gotten to sample lots of Susan's goodies as she has been baking away. She would bring over the most elaborate cakes and cupcakes and Grady would just look at them, but not eat them. For his birthday party, Susan made the CUTEST animal cupcakes.

Again, at the party, Grady wouldn't touch them. He played so hard at the museum that when he got home, he was starved. I gave him a left-over cupcake and he devoured it in three seconds. Guess that was all it took to realize that he does indeed like cake. ha. Now he will ASK me for cake.

Anyway, these pictures are for you, Susan. Thanks for making his cakes. They were beautiful! Hope these make you smile! :)

The calm before the storm...

Two Years Ago Today...

the sweetest little bundle of joy entered our lives and it has not been the same for one single moment! We are completely blessed beyond words and I thank God every day for bringing this little man into my life. My, but he has come a long way! The photo below shows how small he was the day we brought him home from the hospital. It's hard to remember holding something so small now that we lug around a huge little boy!

And today my man is TWO!

I told someone the other day that I see why people call it the "terrible twos." It's not really that they are terrible, but just curious. Much more so than the infant stages... Which makes them get into EVERYTHING, hence parents get frustrated and say they are terrible. I will remind myself of this repeatedly when I get frustrated over the next couple of years. ha. He is full of curiosity and I love that about him. Yes, it can be frustrating at times...like when you walk into his room and find that every single wipe in the baby-wipe container has been removed from the box and strewn all around the room. Or when you find that he has turned the garbage can upside down and dumped out all of the contents just to see what is in there. Or even perhaps when he tries to taste everything in sight...sponges, hair on a stuffed animal, carpet (yes, carpet), baby-wipes, soap, and so on...

But it's just a part of being two, I guess. And with all that curiosity comes lots and lots of laughs and smiles that I wouldn't trade anything for.

How sweet he is!
Happy Birthday, dear Grady!
You are a very loved little boy!

We celebrated Grady's birthday at none other than my favorite place...the MS Children's Museum. Unfortunately, I didn't get that many great pictures because he is so darn busy and all over the place. He never pauses for a good shot. But then again, every kid there was like that!

My family had a second little "family party" for him because my grandfather was unable to come to the birthday party at the museum. Plus, Jenny flew home from Idaho to be with us, so she wanted to steal a bit more time with Grady-man as well. So Aunt Sue made another cake and Grady got to blow out candles for a second time. Here's a video...

Cake

I have to brag on my sister, Susan... she has gotten into the hobby of baking and cake decorating and her stuff is just so cute! She is working on a website and when she finishes it, I will post it so you can see more, but here are just a few pictures that she has sent to me of some of the things that she has made in the last couple of months. She started as kind of a hobby, and through word of mouth at work, she's really kind of made it into a little business! She has an order or two every week! She is making Grady's birthday cupcakes and they are going to be SO cute! Can't wait!

Easter Egg cake

baby shower cake
and cupcakes for the same baby shower

a Nascar cake... ha!

graduation cake...

I think she had an order for a USM graduation cake right after she made this one. So now she needs to make a bulldog cake just because...

birthday sheet cake...Thomas the Train

Beach Trip, Take Two

We spent the last several days in Orange Beach, celebrating Memorial Day and relaxing! This trip was SO much better than the spring break trip that we took in March. For one, the weather as close to perfect as you can get. It was so warm, but there was a constant breeze blowing. Also, Grady really warmed up to the sand this time. He played and played! Pete taught him to build crab houses (and then they turned into alligator houses, frog houses, etc.) He was all about tearing down sand castles that we built for him. That's okay for now of course, because the whole point was to get him excited about playing in the sand. But the child is going to HAVE to have some "respect-the-sand-castle-creation" lectures soon! ha! He still isn't too wild about the water. I was just glad that we conquered the sand this trip, so we'll work on water when we go back in July. Susan, Jon, and Jenny...we REALLY missed you and wish you could have been with us!

Wolf Bay

We rode the ferris wheel at the Wharf

Ahhhh....the BEACH! (And please note...Grady is not sitting on a towel OR in his duck chair, but IN THE SAND!!!!!)

snack break...

Hey Pete, what kind of house are we going to build next?

Mom just thinks that I am going to learn to respect the sand castle creations... She's got another thing coming! I am the DESTRUCT-OR!

and my favorite picture of the trip:

Summer...it's almost official!

Ahhhh...the end of May. It's here! One more half-day of school and a teacher work day after that and I am officially on a break for summer! I'm so ready to get to hang out with Grady-man more. I am totally obsessed with the Children's Museum and Grady is loving it, too...so we plan to visit quite often this summer. We took him this morning for a couple of hours. He had a blast as usual. Wish they would have had a place like this when I was a kid! The last two visits, I either had a dead battery in my camera, or forgot the memory stick and was limited to my picture-taking. But I went prepared today, so I got lots of cute shots!

THE GEARS STATION

LEGOS
INTERACTIVE MAP OF JACKSON

STRONG MAN

WEIGHING CATFISH

ROCK QUARRY

BUILDING RAMPS

YEE-HAW!

We love the dancing room with all of the hats and mirrors and the big jukebox!

Zoo

A chilly trip to the Jackson Zoo... Who knew it could be so cold in mid-May??? (Obviously not us, as you notice we all wore shorts and tshirts and almost froze during our "picnic." ha!)
Grady seemed to be more interested in running around and climbing on things instead of looking at animals.

A baby giraffe was born at the zoo on May 3rd. Grady was fascinated with the giraffes. They were definitely his favorite animals of the day!

Sweet Story

In some ways, third grade has started to grow on me. There are still days that I miss kindergarten SO much and wish that I could go back, but there are things that I like about third grade that I couldn't do with younger kids. One in particular is read-alouds. I would read to my Kindergarten kids nonstop, but it was mostly silly rhyming stories and short little tales. Now I get to read stuff with so much more depth to my third graders. Especially the class I have this year...they are SUPER listeners and have grown to love reading as much as I do! We've read some great books this year. I wanted to share this one in case you haven't heard of it. If you like those classic dog-type stories like Where the Red Fern Grows (yep, read that one to my kids, too...I cried and they cried as well...) and My Dog Skip, then you will like this one, too. It's called Because of Winn Dixie. And it is SUCH a sweet book!
But if you are not a book lover like me and would rather watch a movie, then you are in luck because there IS a movie! My students watched it at school this week because we had finished the book. It is a cute, cute movie as well! Jeff Daniels is the dad and Dave Matthews also has a role in the movie. I am making Josh watch it soon! :)

All of this reminds me of being in fourth grade and having Mrs. Wilburn read aloud the best books to us! If any of my Yazoo friends are reading this, I'm sure you remember as well...she would read Willie Morris books to us and say the cuss words and we'd all freak out. Her reply was always the same... "I didn't say it, the BOOK said it!" And when she read Where the Red Fern Grows, we got such a kick out of the dogs' names (Ann and Dan...two of our classmates!).

So anyway, when I "grow up," I think I want to be a children's book author...

Random, I know... just my thoughts for the day.

But seriously, you should at least watch this sweet little movie! It's worth seeing whether you are a third grader or not!