Happy 10 months old Lauren

Giving a "kissy"

Happy 10 month birthday to my precious little girl!!!

What are you up to these days?

• You have really mastered crawling and pulling up on everything. No cruising around furniture yet, but you're close
• You figured out how to climb up the stairs like a big girl. You almost gave your momma a heart attack but she's okay now
• You give me "kisses" when I rock you to sleep. I ask for a "kissy" and you put your mouth to my cheek and give the sweetest open mouth kiss
• You love being tickled under your chin
• You love cheese and Yo Baby yogurt, thank goodness
• You were a trooper this month getting blood work done at the hospital and doctor's office. We're so proud of you
• You know who dada is and who mama is and say the right name to the right person
• Bath time is still your favorite part of the day. You will hold on to the tub and bang on the side to let us know you're ready for your bath
• You still sleep so well. You nap everyday from 10:30am-12:30pm, and 3:30-5:30pm and go to sleep from 7:30pm-7:30am, assuming we are home during these times
• You DO NOT sleep well on vacations. You can hear every little noise which is why you sleep in your quiet room at home, with the fan on, and music on, to drown out any outside noise
• Mommy and Daddy put your Baby Einstein stationary entertainer in the master bathroom to contain you while we get ready for the day. You figured out how to escape your boppy bouncer, even being buckled in. Sneaky girl....
• You have a social smile and will smile at anyone, as long as they smile first
• You are very hesitant in new groups still but it takes you no time to warm up
• You still love your puppy Belle. Every single morning, you drink your milk in the bed with mommy and when you see Belle in the bed, you crawl right to her and snuggle with her....not mommy :)

We love you sweet pea, punkin, love bug, cuddle bug, beautiful girl, princess girl, blonde hair, blue eyed beauty, lala.....

Love, Mommy & Daddy

Show us Your Life Friday - Wedding Showers

It's Show Us Your Life FRIDAY over at Kelly's blog. This week's theme is wedding showers.

Todd & I were so so honored to have my sweet cousins, Jan & Brandi, to throw us a huge wedding shower at their lake house. We were so humbled by how many family members attended....it was a large crowd to say the least!

My cousin's wife, Danielle, took all of these pictures. Check her out ELLA RUE PHOTOGRAPHY
Ring shots - good job Todd!
Beautiful drink station
View of family chatting and catching up - what we do best!
Opening presents. I just could not believe how many gifts we got. It was overwhelming :)
Todd, my grandma Vergie, and Todd's mom chatting by the lake
Food, yumo! My sweet cousins did not want anyone to help them with the food. It was unbelievable that they did this all alone. It was beautiful, incredibly yummy, and one of the best days Todd & I have ever had.

Lauren Medical Update

"Daddy, please take me to work!"

So I better update this blog for the couple of people that reads this :) I know the family will especially want to know what's going on. Back to the Pediatrician we went at 9:30am this morning. NOT FUN NOT FUN NOT FUN is basically how I/we felt about the experience. I LOVE our doctor and pediatrician but I can honestly say that I was dreading this appointment and what we would find out or what we would have to do.

We discussed what went on at the hospital and Lauren got weighed. She weighs a lousy 15 pounds still....seriously, eat child, eat!

It was decided that Lauren would need 5 tubes of blood drawn to check for inflammatory bowel disease. That was absolutely horrible, 100% horrible. I bawled like a baby as we had to pin her down and listen to her scream her little heart out. It ended up being too difficult to get the blood from her arm so they had to draw it all from her middle finger. Bless her heart.....I bet she was really wanting to show him her middle finger...HAHA

She screamed like any child would but it was like the screaming wouldn't stop. In reality, it wasn't too horribly long but it felt like an eternity. There's nothing like having to hold down your own child watching her in pain.

We also discussed her weight. While it's flattering that people think she's cute and small, she's too small. We looked at her growth chart and she's kind of hovered around the same weight. She has always been in the bottom percentiles but now she is just plain underweight. We were told that some kids eat 4 times as much as her. I feel like I try so hard to feed her constantly but what can you do when she turns her head and screams? It feels like a battle I can't win but we're trying......thank God for cheese. That tiny girl can down some cheese slices.

We go back next Thursday to discuss the results....stay tuned

Lauren can Wave!!!

My sweet girl is learning to wave Hi and Bye. It's still usually a funny, wild wave but it's so darn cute

My cousin's baby shower

My beautiful cousin, Stephanie, is having a baby GIRL in October!! Yay! In fact, if little sweet Savannah is a week late, she & Lauren will have the same birthday. We were so lucky in that we got to attend her shower, only for an hour, but that's better than nothing! It was on the same day as Brandi's wedding but we totally made it work.

Cousin photo - we missed you Kenna! L-R, Sister, Me and Lauren (9 months), Stephanie and Savannah, Tonya & Ashton (3 months), and Kerri.
Sister Sister, never knew how much I missed ya.....
Lindsay signing the guest book
My dad teaching Lauren to walk. She's only seen her grandpa like 4-5 times because he lives in Nebraska....I know, I know, move back to the south Dad!!

Poor Baby

We had a very interesting Sunday night. Lauren started to get sick while we were at Brandi and Parker's wedding. She had a fever that was over 101 which is rare for her and has never happened before. We drove back to Atlanta Sunday afternoon. We then decided to make the drive home to Chattanooga that evening. Our doctor's office was closed so we went to the hospital where they have an office that is not like the emergency room. It's literally an after hours peds office with your regular co pay. They are open every night 6-12. So off we went.....5 hours later, we got to come home.
This is hour 3 where we found out we were going to have to have tests run on Lauren
Hour 4, trying to sleep and take breaks between being poked

Hour 5, waiting for results

Going home at 2am, naked, wrapped in a blanket

Lauren is A-ok. Not to go into too many details but she was sick, with a fever, and has an abnormal growth in a private area. We go back to the doctor Thursday to talk about the possibility of a certain type of disease that is totally fine. She will be fine. I'm going to pick up an anti biotic and we're on our way to a great recovery!

Brandi & Parker's Wedding Weekend

What a wonderful weekend we had! Lauren & I drove to Atlanta Thursday night and then on Greenville Friday for my cousin's wonderful wedding weekend. Brandi and Parker were married Saturday at First Baptist Church in Easley and had a beautiful reception at the Poinsett Club in Greenville.

Mommies having a cocktail after the wedding and reception.
Todd was able to get the wedding off, yay! Here we are outside of the Poinsett Club.
Sister & I taking photos outside of the beautiful church.
Horrible lighting and totally should have changed some things on my camera but sweet pea and I were taking pictures at the rehearsal dinner, held at the Westin downtown
Awesome awesome cake at the rehearsal dinner. Perfect for Brandi and Parker. Parker was living in TN, he's from NC, but Brandi is from SC. Shown on the cake is interstate 40 that was traveled often during their long distance relationship
Pretty bride with sweet pea. Sorry for the horrible lighting.
Dadda and Lauren at th rehearsal at the church

My girls playing

Lauren laughing and playing with Belle this morning

Stair Climbing

Lauren climbed stairs for the first time today! I guess I shouldn't be too excited as it's dangerous but it's a big milestone. Todd & I will be getting more gates when we return home from South Carolina! I still had to document the big accomplishment!

View from the first set of stairs, before the turn up to the top
Tiny girl on a mission

What has Lauren been up to?

What have we been up to the past few days?

Grammy came in town to see sweet pea. This allowed Todd & I to go on a much needed date. We went and saw The Proposal (cute movie!) and shopped for a baby gift at Babies R Us, and went to the mall. How do we always end up at Babies R Us, even when Lauren isn't with us?!?!?!

My beautiful blonde hair, blue eyed girl and her Grammy
Lauren looks so old :(

My awesome friend Fathia came in town from Aruba! Yes, all the way from Aruba! We met at Kennesaw State, both psychology majors and had classes together. She was in town visiting relatives and friends in Atlanta so we met at the outlets in Calhoun for lunch and shopping. Sweet Fathia enjoyed seeing Lauren & bought her 3 new outfits at Gymboree for next summer.
Fathia & Lauren at Cracker Barrel. They don't have Cracker Barrel in Aruba, go figure, so I had to introduce her to some good home cookin.

Lauren enjoyed the rain one afternoon via the storm door. She was so excited & couldn't take her eyes off of the deck. Funny girl.

Another favorite activity is emptying the toy boxes. She likes to dig out her toys AND Belle's toys. I guess toys that have been in a dog's mouth is ok? Whatever

Show us your life Friday, vacations

Show us Your Life Friday! Jump on over to Kelly's Blog to see hundreds of fabulous vacation spots.

This week, I am featuring my favorite places to vacation in the United States. I have traveled quit a bit but I have to say that the US has some fabulous cities!

First stop: Fabulous NYC.
I do love New York City. We've been quite a few times as a family and the city never ceases to amaze me. I love it. I love the hustle and bustle (probably why I lived on Peachtree St in Atlanta), I love the fast pace, I love the accents, I love the food, the shopping, and everything else!
Dad at Dylan's candy car. He could soooo care less!

New favorite restaurant in the city. Go next time you're there. We've been 2-3 times now. YUMO! They have the best salmon dish.

Me, Mom, and sister in front of Serendipity. Did you know that they shut down for a while because of bugs?!?!?! EWWWW but they are now clean and open.

Stop Numero Dos: San Francisco, CA

I joined Team and Traning and ran, I mean walked/ran, the Nike Women's Half Marathon in Oct. of 2007. Let's get one thing straight, I DON'T RUN. I TRY to run but there's no way in the entire world I could run 13.2 miles. I highly recommend this "race." It was very easy to me because of how beautiful San Fran truly is.

Ahhh beautiful California After the race, we toured Alcatraz. Not sure how I even walked after 13.2 miles but I had so much energy

Another reason to run or walk this race....you get beautiful Tiffany necklaces given to you by men in tuxedos at the finish line

Stop Numero 3: ALASKA CRUISE on Princess Cruise Lines

I would take this cruise 500 times. I highly recommend Princess. After going on multiple cruises, on different ships, Princess tops them all. We toured Juneau, Ketchikan, a glacier, Skagway, Victoria, BC and Seattle. This was in September 2007.

Ghost tour in Victoria...LAME :) Not scary but fun

Yummy. This fish house is beautiful and sits right on the water

After a hike in Skagway, we rode a boat down a river. It was gorgeous!

Hiking in Skagway

Us in front of the Golden Princess

We rode 10 miles in Juneau

At the museum of flight in Seattle, trying to learn to fly Riding bikes in the rain in Juneau

Lauren gets stuck

This is a daily activity in our house....more like 100 times a day

Lauren finds the table behind the couch...hmmm interesting
Let's see if I can climb on top and get stuck. Then I scream MA MA MA MA because I can't get down

Swimming Video

New clothes, new blanket

I wanted to post this picture of Lauren and her new beautiful blanket that a crew coordinator from Dallas made. It is so cute with little airplanes and also has a matching pillow!
Lauren happy in one of her new Gymboree outfits. It was like $3...seriously :)

Little Swimmer Girl

Our little swimmer girl had her first day of Swim Lessons yesterday at the YMCA downtown Chattanooga. The first time Lauren ever got into a pool, she kicked and splashed & didn't want to leave so we knew this would be a hit. Todd & I are taking turns as to who gets to swim with Lauren.....this week was daddy's turn. :)

Daddy teaching Lauren to float on her back and kick like a big girl
Hi Mommy!
She found a little duck and would not take it out of her mouth so Mr. Duckie swam with her the whole time
She loved this little boogie board looking thing
Swimming wore this girl out. This is what she looked like when we got home. Todd literally scooped her out of her car seat and placed her in her crib.