A brisk fall walk.

So, my mom decided to get the boys out for a brisk fall walk down to a park very close to their house. She took some cutie pictures, so I thought I'd also post these (even though it happened at the end of September and I'm technically blogging it in November. So sue me.)

Micah playing with books at Kay Kay's house. Yeah for books!

Micah is obviously really comfortable over at my parents' house.

He's laid back, kicked backed, and relaxed.

Ebin enjoys trying to feed him some mornings.

This is how Micah rolls.

Time to go for a walk, and apparently this was an "all smiles" day for Ebin.

Loaded up in the double jogging stroller, and Micah's sucking away at those two fingers.

Warm, snuggly, and toasty.

Apparently, sliding down causes some great static effects for Ebin!

Happy Fall, Y'all!

A weekend in Nashvegas. MiPhone pics.

If you live in Tennessee, you most assuredly call Nashville at some point in time "Nashvegas", and I have no idea why. And if you have never heard that phrase, you are obviously not from our state. :) Actually, Gatlinburg would be the better comparison to Vegas because it is a wedding Mecca of sorts in the Smokey Mountains. Anyway, after my uncle passed away last Sunday, we did some traveling for the funeral this weekend. I took Friday off of work (the rest of my family took off Thursday), and Mr. C took off Saturday. Confused yet?

Since my uncle lived in Georgia, the visitation was held in Georgia for those friends and family who lived nearby. The funeral and burial were held in Tennessee because a lot of the family is from Tennessee, he grew up in Tennessee, and he was buried with my grandparents (well right beside them) also in Tennessee. Most of my family took off Thursday and Friday to drive to Georgia for the funeral. It was a seven to eight hour drive, and I honestly don't have days off anymore. =/ I took them all to have my baby last year. So...Mr. C & I took off Friday to drive up to the Nashville area for the funeral. My sister took five hundred pics, and I am hoping to get a lot of those from her, and burn a CD. Until then, I thought I'd at least post (so I didn't get behind) something with a few phone pics I took.

After the funeral, we headed to my cousin Shelly's house for what turned out to be a celebration of my Uncle Johnny's life. It was kind of odd that we were so happy, and I'm not sure happy was the word. I know several people weren't happy. However, I do think that we enjoyed seeing family members we hadn't seen in ages and rejoicing in the fact that my uncle is in Heaven with Jesus. For my husband, it was the first time he met a whole, whole lot of people in my family. He was funny afterwards saying, "Now which one was..." about whoever I was talking about. It meant a lot to me to take him to the my mother's childhood town, and it meant a lot to see him meet my family.

My cousin Shelly posted some pictures from our Celebration of Uncle Johnny's life afterwards on facebook tonight. So I graciously stole a couple. I plan to steal some more pictures when I have time. I'm actually taking a small paper grading break to do these. I'll add some more later on.

Here's all the "original" cousins from my mom, my Uncle Barry, and my Uncle Johnny:

Bottom (LtoR): Keren, Rebecca Ann

Middle: Dale (my brother), me

Next to top: Jessica, Shelly

Top: Jennifer, Eddie

Here's my cousin Shelly, me, and Micah

This pic is from before when we left (out of order--sorry!) as Mommy was trying to watch her Bible study the night before. I'm doing a Jean Stockdale study through Bellevue's MOMS group. I attended MOMS while I was a stay at home mom during my nine months off. I loved it so much, I am doing it with her in spirit and watching podcasts from home. Micah wanted to learn about Jesus, too.

Ok, onto Saturday. Let me preface this picture by saying I'm not a "sleep in the bed with my child" kind of person. I am not going to comment on that on the internets, so do what you want. For us, it has just worked a whole lot better to not worry with the co-sleeping thing. This was our first time in a hotel room with the baby, and I forgot his socks. Yes, yes I did. Therefore, we had no socks. And I am a huge nut about germs and hotels. So when he got sick of his pack-n-play after he woke up, I dumped him in bed with his daddy while he drank his sippy cup. Then we just let him play in the bed for a while as we got ready for our outing with friends in Franklin, Tennessee.

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I took this picture, and Micah moved. I was so mad that Micah moved, but I can't get over the preciousness of it. So I'm posting it anyway. Micah was trying to wake up his Daddy, but then he kind of just went over there, sat by him, and curled up with his two fingers. Mr. C was just out of it, and I thought it was a really cute picture! :)

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We spent Saturday with Mr. C's college best friend (and roommate) who lives in the Nashville area. I'm not sure why I didn't take a picture of him holding Micah for the first time. So silly of me. In fact, the last time we saw Heath, Micah was two days away from being born. I was as big as a house. So he had fun playing with Micah. We basically ate lunch, walked around downtown Franklin for several hours, and I just let the boys play catch up. Mama was on baby duty, but it wasn't too bad walking through antique stores. I stayed with the "big boys" the whole time, and they were gracious to keep walking around Franklin so that Micah wouldn't get too restless. (If the stroller stopped, he was trying to climb out of it.)

On the way home, we stopped at a rest area mainly so Micah could get OUT. He'd been in a stroller or held for most of the weekend. The kid was ready to climb, crawl, and walk around. We had an enjoyable half hour or hour just watching precious play. And I snapped this picture. Oh, the cuteness is just too much!

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We were home by 7:30ish, when I fell out in the floor from exhaustion and started massive amounts of laundry. Sunday morning we went to my parents' church for the commissioning of friends from Union who are going to become missionaries in Asia starting in November or December. They got married after college, she was a sorority sister, and it was a sweet service to watch some longterm friends go off with their four kiddos to serve Christ abroad. They were on staff at my parents' church for many years, so my parents even got to know them.

My MOPS group meets on Sundays at our church, and I am in love with that. I basically don't miss all my mom stuff. That makes me so happy! I get to have fellowship with other moms, there is a month "moms night out", but I do miss the kids' day out stuff. Oh, well. At least I am not totally disconnected from other stay at home and working moms.

Of course, we showed up to church as a TORNADO SIREN was going off. Why, oh why, didn't I check the weather? Probably would have stayed home. So I had to get my little man out in the monsoon. It worked out ok, but the nursery workers were camped out in the middle hallway with lots and lots of small babies while we met in a random spot not too far from that to try to still have our MOPS meeting. Fun times! Then I headed home after MOPS in the monsoon b/c I was too tired to stay at church.

Hope you had a great weekend! Here's to TRYING to keep this site updated. It's a start.

Loss. Day 2.

So writing helps me think, and I should be doing a MILLION things right now. Laundry. Not done. Grading papers. Not done. Folding clothes. Um...not done.

My mind is a million miles away. Make that a million and one.

My precious, precious family who is in so much agony right now. My sweet Mama who has lost her brother. My sweet cousins who are grieving for their father. My aunt grieving for her best friend. The grandbabies who will miss their grandfather. Y'all, it just breaks my heart.

Instead, I started trying to think of silly things I remember about Uncle Johnny. Random memories from the inner recesses of my mind. How is it that childhood is so hard to remember all of a sudden? I'm only thirty-something, for goodness sake.

Anyway, this memory popped in my head. Uncle Johnny lost a part of his finger while he was fixing a lawnmower years and years ago. I remember my "baby" sister being very, very small. We were at my Granny's house having been greeted by her typical, "Howdee-doo! Gimme sum shu-gar!" earlier that evening. (You must understand I am from Tennessee. I have a very southern family. And proud of it, by the way.)

I remember Uncle Johnny watching my sister sucking her finger. He leaned over and said, "Keren, you see this?" (Picture him pointing to his half gone finger.) Her eyes big as anything nodded at him. "This is what happens when you suck your finger. I sucked mine so much, I sucked it clear off. See? You better stop sucking your finger!!" I'll never forget her face. Her eyes got even bigger around, and I'm not sure how much longer she sucked on her finger.

Loss.

I'm in the middle of this massive blog update, but instead of getting behind while I'm trying to get back ahead I decided to post.

This morning my Uncle Johnny passed away suddenly after complications from his diabetes. I've been in a bit of a state of shock all morning thinking so many things. I don't really think I've wrapped my mind around it. This is my mom's brother, but for the sake of the blog record for Micah I thought I'd tell the "real" story behind her "brothers."

When my mom (your grandmother KayKay, Micah) was very little, her mom suddenly became ill with liver cancer and passed away extremely quickly. Your KayKay was ten at the time, and her daddy (your great granddaddy John Roy) was very sick. So my mommy (your KayKay) and grandfather moved to Tennessee from Georgia to live with my grandmother's sister and brother-in-law. Basically, KayKay moved in with her aunt and uncle. KayKay's Aunt Bessie had two sons, Johnny & Barry. One son was older than KayKay, and one son was younger than KayKay. KayKay was raised with Johnny & Barry, her first cousins, who are in essence her brothers although she has no biological brothers. A few years later my "real" grandfather (John Roy) died, so my mom grew up with her aunt and uncle as her guardians. They became my "grandparents", and I was raised calling them Granny & Granddaddy.

Confused yet?

Well, the oldest of the three children, my Uncle Johnny, was the one who passed away this morning in Georgia. And although family can be spread all over the world, they are still your family. You still love them no matter what happens or how long it has been since you've seen them last. And I know that my mom is especially hurting this morning as are my cousins who have lost their daddy. In fact, my aunt is now in the hospital with chest pains induced from the shock and stress of this event.

In the end, we really don't have much of a choice. The Lord takes us home when He says so. I'm just thankful to know that Uncle Johnny went to be with Jesus today. That is some comfort, but it is still extremely painful for my family.

At some point this week, we'll be traveling for the funeral. I've cried a lot this morning. Memories flood back from my childhood and all the crazy fun things my uncle used to say and do to us. I mean, do with us. =)

But I'm sad. Just plain sad. My heart is heavy for my family. Death is just a hard thing to deal with, and it is hard to see some phases of life end so abruptly. At any rate, we'd really appreciate your prayers for our family this week as we deal with this event.

Breakfast and pulling up.

Most mornings I drop Micah off at Kay Kay's where she feeds him and Ebin breakfast.

Ebin clearly has breakfast personal space issues. =)

Around this time in September, Micah had started pulling up on everything, so my mom was taking pictures for me.

She has this perfectly sized kiddie table that he loves to pull up on.

This month, he also started "eating" his puffs by himself.

And yes, in the spirit of reusing bibs--I constantly use old holiday bibs during the wrong season.

Whoops! Oh, well!

Camping day.

Today was camping day at school after reading a super cute story Henry and Mudge.

To celebrate the day, our second graders dressed up for a camping afternoon activity.

So, I borrowed Mr. C's hunting clothes, dressed Micah in matching camo shorts, and I made a photo op. Eat your heart out, Girl Moms. Boy Mom can dress up to match our little men, too. =) (He was a little too into my mom's dogs walking around on the patio to actually look at the camera that well.)