All About Me!!!

Last Wednesday I turned 31....yes, I am actually in my 30's now!  Even though I am aging at a quick rate, I have heard from numerous people that your 30's are the best years of your life.  The good thing about that is that I have had a great life thus far and so now I can look forward to it getting even better!  For my birthday, my sweet hubby, my brother and Brigit and my brother and sister in law, my mom, dad, mother and father in law, and my friends helped me celebrate for days and days! It started off Wednesday with presents, cards, free time and a birthday dinner with 15 of my closest friends.  Then Thursday I got a pedicure with Sarah and we had our parents over for the family birthday dinner.  On Friday Beau took me on a shopping spree AND rented a beautiful house in the mountains near Clemson for us, Collin, Brigit, Brent and Jess to stay.  Friday night Beau treated us to a wonderful dinner at Calhoun Corners and Saturday we all went to Clemson to pull for the tigers!  It was a perfect week and weekend.  Thanks to everyone for helping me celebrate!!!  Here are some pictures from the weekend.....

WE ARE FINALLY BACK!!!

I can't believe it has been a month since my last post!!!  We have been soooo busy, that I not taken many pictures and definitely did not have time to update my blog!  Let me start at the beginning....Henry's first birthday was wonderful....except the night in between the birthday parties, our new air conditioning unit (we had to replace the whole thing in our attic) started leaking through Henry's ceiling.  To make a long story short, the company who installed it along with the new insulation throughout the attic came back 4 or 5 times after that to fix more leaks.  Come to find out we had a pinhole leak in one of the tubes and it was spraying water all over the attic, our unit was put in crooked and the drip pan was leaning.  All in all that meant that we had a TON of water damage in our attic and the ceilings, and not just in the upstairs, but the downstairs as well.  The week before the wedding, we had our new insulation sucked out, mold testings, and 4 industrial size heaters in the upstairs of our house drying the ceilings at a fast rate.  That made it extremely hot in our house and it was unbearable to sleep here.  The next thing that happened was we had to hire movers, move out furniture in 5 of the 8 rooms in our house so all of the work could be done.  SO, we moved to the lake, which was beautiful, but far from home.  We had a nice "vacation," at the lake, but with 2 dogs, Beau, Henry and I it was a little much at the time.  We were told we could be out of the house for 3 weeks.  The good news was we were only out 2 weeks and our house is finally back to normal. 
We have been back home for about a week and a half and I have already hosted my fall Just Ducky Children's clothing show, we have had friends come over with their kids to play and we have had our girls fantasy football draft.  Now that we are done with everything, I can focus on getting my life organized again....and Clemson football!!! 
As far as Henry goes, he is growing and moving and really, really starting to talk.  Here is a list of the words sort of in order of him learning and using them:
truck, car, dada, go, uh oh, rock, hey, mama, shoe, cool, bye bye, poop, choo choo, pool, Lucy, up, copter, chip chip, what's that, ball, blankey (bacey), ruff, tree, a choo, tweet tweet, sit, doggies

That is all I can think of and have documented lately.  I know there are a few more, but I am proud of my little man.  He is starting to put 2 and 3 words together (mostly 2), but it is definitely a start!!!

Here are Carlisle and Henry eating dinner together at a group function....pretty cute!

We had a big group of kiddos here this weekend....TSOBP (Carlisle) and  DFB (Kate and Wright).  We tried to get a group shot, but everyone wanted to get down, so this is what we got....

Then we tried with just boys, and not so good again.....

Here is sweet Wright in the swing...he LOVED it and laughed the whole time!

My little monkey!

Kate, Alycia and Wright...only missing dad.

Carlisle liked sitting on top of the slide, watching Henry go down the slide, but was not sure of going down himself.  He looked very worried once he got to the bottom. 

Here is Kate trying out the slide.

How beautiful!  Look at those eyes, she is going to be a  heart breaker!

Then my little man waving at us....saying "heeeeey!"

OH, and one more thing....you have to check out Henry and Carlisle pushing each other in the wagon at Carlisle's house.  It was hilarious....just visit Carlisle's blog: The Story of Baby Pants!

A New Addition!!!

We are so excited to have a new addition to our family!!!  This past weekend Beau's brother, Brent, got married to my now sister in law, Jess.  They decided to get married overlooking a waterfall near Asheville, North Carolina at Chimney Rock Park.  It was absolutely breathtaking!  We hiked up the mountain and at the waterfall, Jess changed into her wedding dress.  Not only was the scenery beautiful, but Jess looked amazing in her dress!  We only had one minor issue at the top of the mountain....ie....the zipper came completely off, but Jess was a trooper and her mom and sister pinned her up and they got married!!!  It was probably unnerving to Jess, but she held it together, had a positive attitude and was just ready to be married.  You go girl!  I would have lost it! 

I mean, she looked beautiful!!!

           All ready to get marrried!                                Right after they said "I do!"

Beau's parents

Us...

Jess and Brent got married on Friday and had the reception on Saturday with all of their friends and family.  It was an outdoor reception and it was beautiful! 

All the groomsmen......

Unfortunately, my pictures of the bridesmaids were all blurry....so if anyone has a picture they can send me, let me know!

I thought this was cute.....

And then, the cutting of the cake....

And some dancing by Beau, his mom, his dad and his grandmother....the band was wonderful!

Lastly, Brent serenaded Jess, and then Jess threw the bouquet to her 14 year old cousin! 

We had a great weekend celebrating and look forward to many years to come!

Fun times!

This summer has been full of excitement, traveling (mostly to the beach) and learning.  We just got home from a large family trip to Galveston, Texas.  It was my mom's family and they are tons of fun!!!  If you recall, we went to Lake Lure last year and decided to go somewhere farther this year....so that meant Henry would ride on an airplane for the first time!  The airplane was definitely an event....we were supposed to leave on July 2nd at 2:45 and fly into Houston....well, the weather in Houston was awful and we were delayed and delayed again and delayed again!  We actually left the airport, came home and let Henry take a nap and went back....and were delayed again.  We did not end up leaving until 7:45 and did not get to Galveston until midnight.  It was a long day!  However, it was all worth it because we had a great time.  Henry loved the airplane.  He had no trouble adjusting, but wanted to run the up and down the isle.  That was the only problem we had.  On the way home he was excellent!  He watched Yo Gabba Gabba with the ipod ear phone in his ear for about 45 minutes, took a 45 minute nap and played for the rest of the time.  He was my angel!  I am sure I would have had a nervous breakdown if he had been horrible!

As of today, Henry has learned more than just the word truck.  We now have: go go, mama, dada, car, rock, bye bye, juice, wa wa, and go go truck.  I think that is it, but I may be missing some???

Here is the family picture we took this year.  Would you like me to name everyone?

From the back top: Nikki and North, Aunt Co and Uncle John, Brigit and Collin, Uncle Jim, Meagan and Bill, Aunt Betty, me and Beau, Lori and John and their kids Justin, Noah (Anna is in the front in the red tee)

Next row: Patty and Grampa, Anna in between them, my dad, mom and Henry

As usual, Henry wanted nothing to do with me because          The younger cousins dug a tremendous

my mom was there and gives him the world,  so                     hole in the sand and Henry LOVED it!!!  

this is what she did her entire vacation.....                               They were so good with Henry and he loved

                                                                                                   them!

Here he is sitting in the hole....ie. his baby pool!

Henry has also found a new love....the hose!  He was soooooo happy playing with the hose and Anna was happy to spray him with it!

Bill and Uncle Jim cheesing it up for the camera!  Just kidding boys!

Henry has also decided he loves the beach, thank goodness.  Here are he and my dad one evening when it was my dads turn to entertain!

My baby is starting to look like a little boy!

.....and then of course I had to have a photo shoot on the beach.  I tried to take some good pictures, but I am still learning how to use my new lens so a lot of them came out blurry.  These are the ones I loved that were clearer.